$7 BILLION?!!! What were they made out of? Gold? That's more than an aircraft carrier! No wonder it was cancelled.
Weird, and abrupt, development, considering just some months ago the navy had decided to give the project a go-ahead.
Some recent FR threads on the DD(X):
ping
ping.
Hasty decision: I'd have built the ships for only $6.5 billion each.
I recall thwn the DD21 (cancelled) was the newest thing in Destoryer concepts. Did the same thing as current destroyers but had a crew of 99 vs 390+ ov current destoyers.
Turned into a game of pile-on. Lets put this on it, we need this technology developed, make it do this. Enter the DD(X).
Going back to the original concept of crew reduction, due to newer, automated systmes is a money save and could pay for itself over time.
The one weapon I'd really like to have for dealing with most of the idiots we're going to need to deal with in the near term would be fully modernized and updated Iowa class battleships, made nuclear if possible. They have sabot rounds for those guns now with a hundred mile range and you're still talking about a thousand pound projectile hitting something.
Can't the US simply outsource its defense to China?
Every time I read about the cost of a new military weapons system/platform, I can't help but recall the HBO movie "The Pentagon Wars" that chronicled the development of the Bradley Fighting Vehicle and how it was converted into an overpriced piece of crap whose original mission was mutated by idiots at the Pentagon.
If you want to know how a $600 million ship becomes a $7 billion dollar ship, watch The Pentagon Wars. It will REALLY open your eyes.
Very interesting. Seems like the brass might have to rethink the new high tech ideas.
I still hold that techonology could be used to reduce crew size. Even damage control can be automated.
Existing ships could be retrofitted with this technology.
Kinda steep for something that can be wasted by one torpedo.
Come on - we all know this money was really spent on the deep water undersea bases and the A12 underwater saucers built with alien technology.
Another successful black program covered up by cost overrun accounting.
I mean, who could waste that much money, really.
Project Stingray - puppets doing the job people won't
With the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan now expected to have cost as much as $200 billion by the end of the fiscal year.
Can someone out-there in freeper land tell me where 200 billion dollars is going. The war we are fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan is basicly a Guerilla war in nature,There really are No force on for engagements like in WW2,Korea or Vietnam.We are not losing hundreads of Aircraft every year like in Vietnam or WW2 so where is this money going?
"DD(X) has been problematic from inception. Having gone through numerous iterations and name changes, it has apparently proven simply too hairy a new design at a time when blue water naval gunfire has suddenly found itself with little at which to shoot."
The Chicoms must be doing backflips over that one.
We're gonna miss those DDXs if we have to tangle with the PRC...
We won't win future wars based on technology alone. We need to have greater numbers than our enemies.
Smaller faster ships and fighters, that are easy to use and maintain, are the key. This way we can match the numbers that a China or India can produce.
Why build a destroyer that everyone can see when a Fast Attack can do the same mission unseen?
Surface ships have been 'liberalized'. the got what? 1 3" cannon anymore? They've been reduced to nothing more than floating intelligence gatherers.
Fast Attack ping!!!
USS Hammerhead (SSN 663)