Posted on 10/20/2013 7:09:59 PM PDT by Chode
BATH, ME -- After embarrassing troubles with its latest class of surface warships, the Navy is hoping for a winner from a new destroyer that's ready to go into the water. So far, construction of the first-in-class Zumwalt, the largest U.S. Navy destroyer ever built, is on time and on budget, something that's a rarity in new defense programs, officials said. And the Navy believes the ship's big gun, stealthy silhouette and advance features will make it a formidable package.
(Excerpt) Read more at abclocal.go.com ...
Do I understand correctly that they don’t have cruisers of any kind anymore?
The Ospreys of the United States Navy.
Expensive, Vulnerable and Useless.
How did all the other ships in the Navy stay afloat with the gov’t being shut down?
There is a new tiltrotor out there now. Bigger, I think.
http://www.avionics-intelligence.com/articles/2013/10/ge-bell-valor.html
I believe your are correct. Cruiser were just small battleships and just as unnecessary for modern warfare.
On time and under budget-pretty standard for Bath Ironworks.
The union/management apprentice training programs are very effective in training new skilled workers. Some of the apprentices can even earn an AA degree from a college in Maine.
The Navy bought the Osprey for the Marine Corp, too.
aka, the Super Monitor.
I was on the USS Jonas Ingram. This ship is nearly 200 feel longer and nearly twice as wide. It isn’t a destroyer. It’s a cruiser. It’s approaching the size of WWII carriers.
The Ticonderoga-class of guided-missile cruisers is a class of warships in the United States Navy, first ordered and authorized in the 1978 fiscal year. The class uses phased-array radar and was originally planned as a class of destroyers. However, the increased combat capability offered by the Aegis combat system and the AN/SPY-1 radar system was used to justify the change of the classification from DDG (guided missile destroyer) to CG (guided-missile cruiser) shortly before the keels were laid down for the Ticonderoga and the Yorktown.
-—snip-—
Possible early retirement
Due to Budget Control Act of 2011 requirements to cut the Defense Budget for FY2013 and subsequent years, plans are being considered to decommission some of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers.[8] For the U.S. Defense 2013 Budget Proposal, the U.S. Navy is to decommission seven cruisers early in fiscal years 2013 and 2014.[9]
Because of these retirements, the U.S. Navy is expected to fall short of its requirement for 94 missile defense cruisers and destroyers beginning in FY 2025 and continuing past the end of the 30-year planning period....
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ticonderoga-class_cruiser
It’s a heavy cruiser in all but name.
This littoral ship will probably be used against citizens attempting to smuggle their money out of the country by boat. Off shore bombardment of port cities in response to civil unrest is a potential use. Smuggling in Al Qaeda agents into the US is another possibility.
Did you see this at that site?
Enabling technologies: An open-source, two-seat aircraft
http://www.avionics-intelligence.com/articles/slideshow/2013/07/enabling-technologies-an-open-source-two-seat-aircraft.html
They should name it the “USS Obama”
(Americas Greatest Destroyer)
Cruisers and the new Zumwalt class DDG are not built for surface ship to surface ship warfare, although they are certainly capable of defeating virtually any surface ship in that kind of engagement. They are built for sea control, anti-air, and anti submarine warfare. And their prime reason for existing is protection and support or carrier battlegroups.
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