Posted on 01/26/2023 5:29:07 PM PST by BenLurkin
Northrop Grumman is pitching a way to free up space and weight on existing ships for additions like lasers and microwave weapons.
The company provides the prime power equipment for the SPY-6 radar and the SEWIP Block 3 electronic warfare system, both of which will be built into the Flight III destroyers and backfit onto Flight IIA destroyers.
Rather than build two separate prime power systems, each controlling one weapon system, Northrop Grumman has created a Multifunction Prime Power System...
Northrop has estimated it would cut the cost of the power system by 20% on both the existing Flight IIA ships and the new Flight III ships.
For the IIA destroyers, it is expected to reduce the size and weight of the power system by 20%, while on the new Flight IIIs it would create a 50% reduction in size and weight...
The key to this Multifunction Prime Power System, according to Power and Control Systems unit chief engineer Matt Superczynski, is that the system takes incoming power and sends it as needed to the radar, the electronic warfare system, new plug-ins like a laser weapon, or a battery.
When the ship needs to use a lot of power in a short time, such as repeated laser pulses, it can pull power from the battery, too, and not affect the performance of the radar, for example.
(Excerpt) Read more at finance.yahoo.com ...
A more compact nuclear reactor should be developed and put on most combat vessels bigger than a PT boat.
Mebbe nothin. But doesn't sound appetizing on the face.. Just sayin'.. d;^)
DDGs?
Targets for us boat sailors. ;-)
This goes in the category of duh.
They are taking independent systems and creating a single point of failure. Stupid!
I’m no engineer, but that was kin of my first thought as well.
They’re also fixing something that isn;t broken so to speak.
All I can figure is the Navy is in a hurry to deploy energy weapons — which suggests to me that they are a lot further developed than I’ve heard of.
Well, when your biggest fear is losing your ship/aircraft/command, then you best not leave the harbor/airfield/country...
Seriously, military service is dangerous but if they need a lot of power without having to carry a ton of fuel then nuclear is the way to go. It works for our subs and carriers.
Who dares wins.
—SAS
The US Navy commissioned 9 nuclear powered cruisers. CGN41 USS Arkansas was last to be commissioned, in 1980. CGN37 USS South Carolina was last to be decommisioned, in 1999.
They are and they aren’t. There are some jammer/blinder/deflector defensive lasers already deployed in the fleet. Offensive weapons, not so much - but railguns require quite a lot of power to fire and those are pretty close to a production reality. The Chinese have been observed to be testing a railgun at sea by third party nationals, for example - they’re ahead of us there. Railguns are likely going to be the next ‘big gun’ in naval matters.
The problem is that even the latest generation submarine reactors are just too big to stick on a Burke. The Zumwalts are big enough to mount one, but we only built three. And then wasted a bunch more money on the LCS.
Current deployed/openly testing US laser weapons:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AN/SEQ-3_Laser_Weapon_System
https://www.nationaldefensemagazine.org/articles/2022/10/19/navy-destroyer-adds-helios-laser-to-arsenal
Oh, also, the Navy cancelled several promising fusion reactor programs at the behest of the Democrats.
Yeah, that was all due to the global Left trying to a. Scare us off of nuclear power due to the environment and b. Promote the Soviet Union by being against any developing any advanced weapons technology on our end.
We’re all beginning to see nowadays that nuclear is probably the greenest power source. But the same people that did the Soviet Union’s propaganda work now do it for China.
Still, we’ve come a long way since 1970’s technology.
Smaller but more powerful reactors can be made.
No doubt.
Let’s get back to work on this. Nuclear is the ultimate green energy.
Imagine a crash development of a thorium reactor.
Not going to be seaborne any time soon. The minimum masses needed for a thorium reactor to work make it rather impractical. Good for land power generation, though.
Flight III Arleigh Burke destroyer (DDG)
Length 509.5 ft, Beam,66 ft, displacement 9700 tons
Virginia class cruiser (CGN)
Length 585ft, Beam 63ft, displacement 9472 tons
Virginia class submarine (SSN)
Length 377 ft, beam 34ft, displacement 7800 tons
1) And the Burkes are destroyers??? LOL!
2) The Virginia class CGN were built in the 1980s.
3) I get that there are a whole lot of design differences between the two surface ship classes, but they’re of comparable size. A nuclear powered 10,000ish ton surface warship is possible. Whether it’s desirable is a separate question.
4) Virginia class subs were much smaller than Virginia class cruisers.
Are dirtbags. I'm a big fan of nuclear power generally. Not a fan of RBMK reactors ...
The problem is that with the Burkes, we’ve continued to cram more and more and more stuff into their hulls. While there has obviously been size creep in classes (the Zumwalts are physically longer, wider and taller than some battleships that fought in WW2), that still doesn’t mean that there’s room to stick a reactor and power generation system into an existing destroyer class.
I don’t disagree that you can make a 10,000 ton nuclear surface combatant. I am just saying that it would have to either be a completely new design or a massive redesign of the Burke - the latter of which would be rather pointless as the Burke design is getting very long in the tooth and is absolutely inferior to newer designs like the British Type 45s (post engine/cooling fixes).
Agree ... I think “completely new design” is the only way to go. The Enterprise, and then the Nimitz class CVNs were designed from the keel up to be nukes. Same with SSN and SSBN subs, and with the 2 or 3 classes of CGNs. And to be fair, the Virginia class cruisers (CGN) were built in a totally different (and much less electronic) time. If we’re going to do CGNs again, trying to force-feed a reactor into a Burke or Ticonderoga hull would be madness.
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