Posted on 04/12/2012 9:12:12 PM PDT by sukhoi-30mki
The $7 billion dollar warship being built to maintain American naval supremacy over China in the 21st Century
One of the largest, most expensive and advanced warships ever commissioned for the U.S Navy is taking shape at Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine.
Named the U.S.S Zumwalt, the $7 billion guided-missile destroyer is at the cutting edge of technology and now deemed vital for defence following President Obama's Asia-Pacific pivot.
Featuring a radical wave-piercing hull known as a 'tumblehome', the odd looking ship incorporates stealth technology that makes the 600-foot, 14,500 ton warship seem like a fishing vessel to enemy radar.
An artist rendering of the USS Zumwalt class destroyer which will be one of the more heavily armed and expensive ships in the U.S Navy
Fitted with diagonally launching missile tubes as opposed to traditional vertical tubes and carrying deck-guns that fire rocket propelled warheads 100 miles, the Zumwalt will be a formidable beast.
Even though it is the largest destroyer the U.S Navy has built in years it will have half the crew because of the extensive automation of systems on the ship.
With 32 ships originally envisioned for the class, that was lowered after a government review to 24, then to seven and eventually shot down to just three.
One of the reasons for this is the prohibitive cost of the Zumwalt class.
On paper each of the powerful vessels costs $3.8 billion a piece, but with research and development costs thrown in the full bill is nearer to $7 billion.
The 600-foot-long ships are so large and complicated to build that General Dynamics, who
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
The insane overrating of this crappy nation China has been going on for longtime....
That’s about 20 or so feet longer than a Tico, but it’s still a DDG, eh?
Seven billion dollars better NOT be a DDG. It better be a BBNG or something like that!
Darn thing better be Super Dreadnaught!
Bath is definitely blue collar Maine.
Or simply look for a fishing boat that is throwing off more electronic emissions through it's radar searches than a third of Singapore. Once that X-band ESA starts throwing off juice it will be quite difficult to pass that off as some sun-and-salt scarred fisherman's skiff trying to nab some tuna.
Now, back in 2007 the following was said during a congress discussion on the development of a new cruiser based on the stealthy Zummwalt hull: 'The anti-missile cruiser also wouldn’t require the high level of stealth provided by the Zumwalt’s tumblehome hull, analysts said, since the ship would be radiating its radars to search for missiles. Returning to a more conventional, flared-bow hull form would free designers from worries about overloading the untried tumblehome hull.'
So, since the Zummy has a pretty nice X-band radar, and using the radar means that it would be detected (this is not some small aircraft radar that can use LPI), and looking at what was said, does this mean the Zummy will not be using any active sensors and depending only on passive and/or third party sensors, switching it's big @$$ radar only when necessary? And if that's the case, does it mean if something (say an actual fishing boat with a Klub missile hidden in it that is in a fleet of other fishing boats 30 miles away from the Zummy) would have a chance, no matter how small, of taking out a billion dollar boat?
Rhetoric question, but it does seem that the whole 'stealthy' aspect that makes it seem like some innocent fishing boat does not make sense if it is radiating like a freakin' Death-Star.
RR gas turbines burning what? Jet fuel? A giant step backwards, in my opinion.
“....cutting edge of technology....?” Running two gas turbines to generate power? How do you disguise THAT noise and make it “sound like a small fishing boat?” Sounds more like a crock, to me.
The Zummwalts are almost as heavy as battleships from a century ago, or heavy cruisers from World War 2.
well, the USS Texas from 1914 displaced 27000 tons, while the Zumwalt class should be about 14000 tons.
Looks a bit tippy Jeef
The Pentagon awarded a fixed-price contract to General Dynamics to build these three destroyers, replacing a cost-plus-fee contract that had been awarded to Northrop Grumman. The first DDG-1000 destroyer is slated to cost $3.5 billion (and it is well over 60% complete) see my DDG 1000 Site and watch the video there of the second large section being rolled out and mated up to the first at the bottom of the picturesb.
The second vessel is to cost $2.5 billion, and the third near $2 billion.
Originally both the 1st and second vessel were estimated to come in at 3.5 billion each which would have made the 7 billion.
In my US MILITARY BUILDUP PROPOSAL. I propose that with a strong economic turnaround, we should go ahead and build eight of these.
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