155mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP
Posted on 11/07/2016 5:47:10 PM PST by sukhoi-30mki
Just three weeks after commissioning the USS Zumwalt, the U.S. Navy has admitted it is canceling ammunition specially developed for the ship's high-tech gun systems because the rounds are too expensive. . The guns, tailor made for the destroyer, will be unable to fire until the Navy chooses a cheaper replacement round.
The Zumwalt-class destroyers were conceived in the late 1990s as the first of a new generation of stealthy warships. The radar signature of the 610 foot long warship is that of a 50-foot fishing boat, making the Zumwalts great for getting in close to an enemy coastline and then using the 155-millimeter Advanced Gun Systems mounted on the front of the hull. The guns were designed to fire the advanced Long Range Land Attack Projectile, a GPS guided shell with a range of 60 miles.
The result would have been a destroyer that could rain shells down on enemy targets incredible accuracy, clearing a path for U.S. Marines as they advance inland. Alternately, they could strike targets such as terrorist training camps, military bases, and other static targets. Each Advanced Gun System is fed by a magazine containing 600 rounds of the ammunition, making it capable destroying hundreds of targets at a rate of up to ten per minute.
Here's how the Advanced Gun System was supposed to work.
Now the U.S. Navy is admitting that the LRLAP round is too expensive to actually purchase, leaving the nearly $4 billion dollar destroyer's guns high and dry.
According to Defense News, the LRLAP round costs $800,000—or more—each, making the rounds prohibitively expensive. The Navy blames the rise in cost on the fact that the Zumwalt class went from a planned 32 ships to just 3, drastically cutting the number of LRLAP rounds it was going to purchase.
A May report by US Naval Institute News estimated each LRLAP round to cost between $400,000 to $700,000. For context, the smaller Mk. 45 5-inch gun, standard on Navy destroyers and cruisers, fires an unguided round with a range of 21 miles. Each round costs between $1,600 and $2,200.
The LRLAP round was developed by Lockheed Martin. In 2001, the director of Lockheed's guided projectiles division claimed the LRLAP would cost "less than $50,000 each." Even factoring in inflation, the rounds have ended up costing nearly twelve times as much.
According to Defense News, the U.S. Navy is considering alternatives to LRLAP. One alternative is the Excalibur GPS-guided artillery round. First developed for Army howitzers, contractor BAE Systems has come up with a naval version that can hit targets out to 26 miles. Excalibur costs about $68,000 each—which coincidentally is the same as Lockheed Martin's 2001 estimate for the LRLAP, adjusted for inflation.
Another option is to get rid of the Advanced Gun System entirely and go with railguns. The Navy has been planning to build the third Zumwalt-class destroyer, USS Lyndon B. Johnson, with railguns—provided the technology was mature enough. It may just be worthwhile to send the first ship back to the shipyard to be refitted with railguns, and delay the second ship so it can be fitted with railguns from the get-go.
A third option would be to get rid of the guns and devote their space to missiles. The Zumwalt-class was developed during a period when the U.S. Navy didn't face the prospect of fighting other navies on the high seas. In a search to remain relevant, the Navy developed the Advanced Gun System, which has zero capability to target other ships. In the nearly two decades since the Zumwalt class was proposed, the Chinese and Russian Navies have undergone a period of expansion, and their respective governments have grown more aggressive.
The Zumwalt-class destroyers have only 80 vertical launch missile silos, the least of any U.S. Navy destroyer or cruiser class. Under the missiles-only alternative, the Zumwalts could swap both guns for even more silos. These silos could house SM-6 long range anti-air missiles, Evolved Sea Sparrow short range anti-air missiles, Tomahawk cruise missiles, and the new Long Range Anti-Ship Missile. Replacing the AGS with a field of silos could give the Zumwalts up to 200 missile spaces, more than any other ship in the Western world.
According to USNI News, the U.S. Navy wouldn't talk about LRLAP costs as late as last May. The Navy has known it wasn't getting 32 Zumwalt-class destroyers since 2008—the better part of a decade. Why it has taken this long to announce it would not be buying ammunition for a $22.5 billion dollar weapon system—which was specifically developed to use that ammunition—is a mystery.
What is the plan for the next two ships?
When you send an $800,000 round to destroy a $20 mud hut, you’ve already lost. It would be way cheaper to take the enemy out for a fancy dinner, get them drunk on champagne, then push them in front of a bus.
But, we need a six inch gun that can hit a target at 26 miles.
Really.
We need that.
155mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP
It's a 155 round for crying out loud!
On the bright side, it's still (slightly) cheaper than a cruise missile....
Evidently, the stupid from Obama is contagious.
Whose smart idea was this?
I don’t see the need for such a high tech gun. If you need pinpoint accuracy, maybe they could develop a cheaper smaller cruise missile.
Hat Tip to Lockheed Martin ..
Now I see why it’s worth 240 bucks a share.
Didn’t FBI dude work with them?
Oh, they'll never figure that out. /s
but they can afford $26.00 A GALLON BIOFUEL!!!
In the 1970s, the USAF was facing a similar (though much cheaper problem) with depleted uranium rounds for the GAU-8 gun on the A-10. The service was willing to pay up to $80 a round, and each jet has a max load of more than 2,000 for the 30mm, tank-busting gun.
An Air Force Colonel named Bob Dilger thought that was ridiculous. He tried a different approach (and broke most of the contracting rules in the process). Dilger approached Aerojet and Honeywell, the two firms vying for the 30mm ammo contract. Dilger told them that whoever submitted the lowest, guaranteed bid would receive the entire A-10 ammo contract for the next fiscal year.
The power of capitalism and competition. The two contractors kept slashing costs to get the contract and at one point, they were producing ammo for $8-10 a round, roughly 10% of the original Air Force estimate.
They will never get unit costs that low for the Zumwalt’s deck gun, but the current price is absurd. A little creativity is in order.
Well said
What does a 16” HE Naval Rifle Slug, and associated powder bags, cost?
Well, we’ve got a gun that won’t shoot, but at least the Navy allows dudes to wear dresses.
“According to Defense News, the LRLAP round costs $800,000...
Roughly what I’m paying for .22LR ammo at the moment... :-)”
I will be glad to furnish you some .22LR for half that price.
A couple billion, because we can’t make them any more. Have to start production from scratch. Then we have to rebuild a ship to fire them.
$30k a round for 16” shell. Three of those - close enough ought to do fine.
Well, if they’d developed it properly, it could have been hell on wheels against other ships as well as ground targets as well as possibly against many air targets. Instead, the dev program was run by morons - morons who deleted the gun’s ability to fire regular 155mm rounds.
Or they could have already gone with railguns. But the Navy canceled the (very minimal) funding for researching WB series of fusion reactors needed to power the railguns (since nuclear fission is a no-no now) so they could do diversity and integration and now this is where we’re at.
What currently ready-to-deploy asset do you propose to fire them from? We can’t make any more guns and we decommissioned the last two of our battleships in the 2000s and sold them off. The US Navy no longer has any battleships or indeed any capability to fire 16” shells. Not in active service, not in the reserves, not in the mothball fleet.
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