The Navy Is Changing Its Plans for its Dumbed-Down Zumwalts and Their Ammoless Guns

The Drive ^ | DECEMBER 5, 2017 | JOSEPH TREVITHICK

[TalonDJ]

Make it automatically avoid freighters and it will still be a huge upgrade, even without ammo.

[Redleg Duke]

As a retired, systems architect, this whole fiasco smells of the basic failure to analyze the operational environment and needs before determining a solution.

The Navy is in love with technology, as is the entire DoD. These ships were to be stealthy, and crammed with to-be-developed, silver bullets.

The problem is, they are unable to deliver said magic ship and now they are looking for a problem to fit this solution!

The Navy needs to do a serious and objective operational analysis of their environment. Determine their missions, and what they need to accomplish these missions, and then see what they have, and determine what they need. Throwing technology and money at problem is wasteful.

[socalgop]

I was going to say - this still isn’t as stupid as the LCS. Which says more about the LCS than the Zumwalt.

[Hardastarboard]

LBJ - the butcher of Vietnam. Just the guy to have a ship named after him.

[TalonDJ]

At least the F-35 is armed. Finally. Just recently.

[TalonDJ]

Dude. Some of those articles are YEARS old.

Wanna see the bug list in a commercial airliner? You know, the ones that fall out of the sky ever day? NO wait they don’t... and yeah, long bug lists, trust me.

[TalonDJ]

“The F-35 is the best attack and interdiction aircraft in the world.”

The pilots love it. But hey, what would they know compared to leftist journalists getting paid to write provocative articles.

[glorgau]

The Navy brass was jealous of the Air Force’s F-35 rathole and felt compelled to have their own money pit never ending project.

[rlmorel]

I believe that as well, and as things progress, the bugs will be worked out and the utilization of the platform is optimized towards its strengths.

I remember what holy hell was raised the the M-1 Abrams was in development, and we heard much of the same criticisms (too expensive, not enough range, too fragile, couldn’t operate in the desert, etc) and it turned out to be one of the best (if not the best) main battle tanks in the world.

And the criticism of the Abrams wasn’t coming from just a few quarters, it was coming from ALL quarters.

I do understand the criticisms of the F-35, but it is a pretty amazing plane as we learn how to use it.

As for the Zumwalt, it is ugly as sin and far too expensive, but these ships should be viewed as test bed platforms, IMO. They are only going to make two, and maybe three, but I wouldn’t count on it.

[rlmorel]

Now that made me laugh, but I hate myself for laughing.

[2CAVTrooper]

Ya know, before denigrating someone like Michael Monsoor, you might want to read the citation for his Medal of Honor.

http://www.navy.mil/ah_online/moh/monsoor.html

[Forward the Light Brigade]

A Destroyer named LBJ? Presidents should be used for carriers—Medal of honor winners for destroyers—thats good. Whats with the lack of guns? It reminds me of the airforce not putting guns on our fighters in Vietnam War. We paid a price when Migs with cannon took out some of our planes (Remember Col Tomb—the North Vietnamese Ace?—He flew a tiger striped Mig 17—came in close with cannon to dogfight).

[rlmorel]

A major component to using new technology like the F-35 is learning how to use the tool.

A common error with a radical new tool of any kind is to attempt to use it as the old tool was used, and the new tool is often thrown down in disgust and either ignored or used in ways that don’t suit it.

I see it done all the time, and I have even done so myself.

But it is a critical aspect and has been largely ignored by many of the critics who think the plane should be able to dogfight like a F-16 and dive on a target, line up, pickle the bomb and pull away.

They have found with the F-35 that, as they understand the platform and develop tactics, its operational testing performance has dramatically improved.

Few would argue it doesn’t have problems, but...nearly every single new system does...and they are always more expensive too.

Just my 2 cents...

[fireman15]

It is hard to believe this monstrosity is real. It looks like something out of the cone head movie. Is there any point in trying to make a huge surface ship more “stealthy”. A submarine obviously could benefit from detection evading technologies, but a huge surface ship??? What a waste of billions and billions of tax payer dollars. The Navy should be ashamed.

[rlmorel]

Keep in mind that also was a case of misusing technology on our part as well. We figured a plane with two J-79s in it could simply power its way through nearly any combat situation, and that wasn’t the case at all.

We had to re-learn how to fly jet aircraft and be far more strict in tactics and energy management.

And we DID have to learn that the absence of a gun, in the face of missiles that still were not reliable, was a severe handicap.

[rlmorel]

I must admit, I felt much the same way as you do.

But I read a book called “Skunkworks” about the development of stealth technology in the mid-late Seventies.

In it, once they figured out the concept for stealth in an aircraft, they realized stealth was completely scale-able.

If they followed the same concepts in the construction of an aircraft carrier or other naval vessel, they could make it nearly as absolutely stealthy as a stealth fighter. Not make it’s radar cross section decrease by the same amount...actually MAKE the RCS the SAME as a stealth fighter! It sounds completely absurd, but that is what Ben Rich (who took over for Kelly Johnson, a legend at the SkunkWorks) explicitly said in his book.

It was shocking to him as well.

[rlmorel]

There are a lot of things the Navy has to be ashamed of in 2017 (with the collisions and breakdowns in training and leadership) but I wouldn’t put these ships at the top of the list. These are technology platforms, IMO.

[rlmorel]

I see these on occasion up in Maine when I drive by, and all I can say is, from my perspective of function will often follow form (pilots like to say if it looks good, it will fly good) I can see how a ship that homely can perform well. It is pretty ugly.

And I love beautiful warships.

I tried some photoshop on one, and thought it made it look much more attractive...:)

I did this because I was having a Freeper discussion with one of our British cousins across the pond who was discouraged at the visual unattractiveness and wimpiness of their newer Type-45 vessels, and this cheered him up...so I did it for the Zumwalt which is even homlier (below is the Type-45 which visually looks FAR more warlike in the dazzle scheme):

These are simply for fun, not to be taken seriously, but...they DO look better IMO...:)

[rlmorel]

Dang. I hope I didn’t kill your thread. Looks like people just dropped off...well, I guess we will have more with other weapons systems...:)

[Fred Hayek]

Perfumed princes and PowerPoint warriors.