All 3 Navy Zumwalts now 'in the water' – how can a destroyer be stealthy?

Fox News ^ | 28 May 2019 | Kris Osborn

[Magnatron]

Eluding radar, quietly sailing into enemy territory and launching long-range precision attacks from less-detectable positions all begin to paint the picture of how a “stealthy” offensive surface destroyers could transform modern maritime warfare.

Can a massive surface destroyer, armed with Tomahawk missiles, deck-mounted guns, sensors, antennas and heat-generating onboard electrical power, truly be considered stealthy? Surely, tall, vertical masts, hull-mounted sensors and protruding antenna could never be a low-observable ship, yet performing these missions comprised the technical starting point from which engineers launched into building a first-of-its-kind stealth warship.

Stealth attributes are just one of a number of defining characteristics of the much-discussed Zumwalt class warships, perceived by many to represent the beginning of a transformational pivot into a new generation of warfare -- including laser weapons, artificial intelligence, expanded networking, advanced sonar and electric-drive.

All three high-tech Zumwalt destroyers are now “in the water,” Capt. Kevin Smith, Zumwalt-class Program Manager, said at the Navy League’s Sea, Air, Space Symposium. Smith detailed how each of the three new destroyers are at various stages of development. The first-in-class USS Zumwalt is preparing weapons on its way to final delivery later this year. The Zumwalt is now test-firing its weapons systems, completing an operational scenario transit through Alaska and Hawaii and advancing tactical training for the crew, as it prepares for its maiden deployment. The activation, which involves refining weapons, sensors and networks, is a vital step towards launching the destroyer for war.

“The crew has been learning a lot as far as combat activation, a lot at-sea and a lot at its home port in San Diego. The maturity of the computer system has come a long way and is now at a higher level of completion,” said Smith.

[ro_dreaming]

Ah... thanks.

[Spktyr]

Oh, it’s worse than that. When the retired Fighter Plane Mafia of the Air Force that moved to NASA noticed that there was a burgeoning private space industry in the 80s and 90s, they immediately moved to crush it through Fear, Uncertainty and Doubt to protect their precious (over budget, over time, underdelivered) Shuttle. NASA was determined to make sure that the only manned spacecraft used in the US would be the Shuttle and the only commercial launchers of note would be those of the big NASA contractors.

A lot of the former Apollo/Saturn engineers had disagreed with the Shuttle program and/or just moved on after their work on the Shuttle or other programs had been completed and they were stupidly let go. Many went into ventures intending to get cheaper and faster access to space - things that were a clear threat to NASA’s precious Shuttle program. NASA couldn’t have that, so they spent millions of dollars and much political capital to kill off government programs (example: DC-X) and purely private programs (example: Rotary Rocket) through getting them transferred to their aegis (and killing them off) or using FUD to scare off investors. So the brain trust that gave us Apollo and Saturn and the initial engineering of the Shuttle, that had moved on to other projects, all got run off and scattered by NASA. Ironically, it would be the Obama Administration’s re-purposing of NASA that finally broke their roadblock of private space companies. There were so many companies and engineers ruined by NASA in that time period...

While it’s not great for the country, I am greatly amused that NASA now has to go begging, hat in hand, to the private space industry they spent the last 30 years trying to kill off to lift their payloads.

[Pelham]

That would make a great article, if someone hasn’t already written up that story.

[Spktyr]

Several people already have, in the 90s and 2000s. NASA was directed to allow commercial space flight independent of itself in IIRC 2004 and they opened a commercial space flight liason office at that time, but it soon became clear that NASA’s definition of “commercial space flight” was pretty much just Boeing and Lockheed. That got knocked back relatively fast, but there was still institutional resistance to SpaceX and at the time Rocketplane Kistler among others - the usual deliberate bureaucratic slowdowns, etc. - but that finally ended in the Muslim Outreach era when it started being clear that it would be private spaceflight or no spaceflight for NASA.