The Zumwalt class is a shadow of what it was originally envisioned to be.

[Onkel Neal]

Looks like the US Navy is having trouble with their budget. Cannot fully fund the advanced weapons systems. No surprise, even a prosperous nation like USA must have some limits on how much they can spend for weapons and systems that will most likely never be used in anger. Look out, Iran, we need some fresh reasons to level up over here

http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/26531/navys-first-stealthy-zumwalt-class-destroyer-photographed-with-30mm-guns-fitted

We also have to stress that all of these cost reduction measures have a cumulative impact on the Zumwalt's ability to wage war and where they can do it. In fact, maybe the persistent degradation of the vessel's low observable design is a good metaphor as any for its overall combat capability. Each small change may not be damning in itself, but they add up over time to the point that one really has to ask what did the Navy buy here after spending tens of billions of dollars on the program? And most importantly, after spending all that money developing and building these ships, is spending a comparatively tiny amount more to get these vessels to perform as they were originally envisioned to really not worth it?

[Jimbuna]

Originally Posted by Onkel Neal

Look out, Iran, we need some fresh reasons to level up over here

I should imagine Israel is eagerly chomping at the bit

[Mr Quatro]

It is a little unsettling with long range cannon shells costing 700,000 dollars each

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

It is a little unsettling with long range cannon shells costing 700,000 dollars each

Here it is I just read it a couple of weeks ago: https://www.businessinsider.com/navy...rounds-2016-11

Just a couple weeks after the Navy commissioned its most advanced warship, the USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000), the service says it won't be buying any more of the guided precision munitions the ship's Advanced Gun Systems uses, called the Long Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP).

The 155mm round is "the most accurate and longest-range guided projectile" in Navy history, according to Lockheed Martin. It's also one of the most expensive, with the price of each round costing roughly $800,000 to $1 million, for a total cost of around $2 billion if the service purchased its planned buy of 2,000 rounds, Sam LaGrone of USNI reported.

[Mike Abberton]

The story seems to be true, but that picture is of an LCS, not a Zumwalt.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by Mike Abberton

The story seems to be true, but that picture is of an LCS, not a Zumwalt.

Neal was just testing you Mike

Contact admin for your cookie

[Platapus]

If a single round costs about $1,000,000 each, what is the probability that we would be able to inflict $1,000,000 of damage with that one round?

The Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) has a 11kg bursting charge and an estimated CEP of 50 meters with a range of 154km

That is not a lot of boomage considering that you lose about 50% of your blast force in rupturing the hard case.

For comparison, a TLAM (Tomahawk) costs about the same per round as the LRLAP but with the TLAM you get 450kg of boomage with 80m CEP and a range of 1300-2500km depending on the model.

[Skybird]

Cruise Missiles can be shot down, artillery rounds - still - not. Or am I mistaken already?



However. The costs of these modern hitech toys are insane, and they are unlikely to be set up against an equal enemy. Because seeing them getting lost or seriously damages simply is hard to afford.



I never hid my sympathy for having less advanced toys and gadgets, but in much greater numbers and with a massive price discount. The Zumwalt was a design philosophy that I did not like since I red the first article about it somewhere. I saw the numbers and just laughed, thinking: you really think it will stay this "cheap"?


And then, it is the ugliest ship I have ever seen. It deserves to run aground and sink while leaving port, that ugly it is.


Does anyone think the Sowjets used "inferior" SABOT ammunition in their tanks, based on steel instead of Tungsten or Uranium, because they did not know how to handle these altenrtaive ammunitions? They did it because they had to supply such a huge tank force and havign to cover such a long border. Just the latest ammunition available, but due to ther hgiher cost in dratsically redcued qntities,. would not have run well with their military needs. Steel penetrators were not as expensive as Western ones. And still they could crack the Western tanks of their time, the Leopard-1 and early Leopard-2s, the early Abrams and Chieftains and M60s.



And I still rem,ember the words of some british fighte rpilot from the cold war era, whose book I once have redm, who said he had douzbts until the time he wrote the book that the superior tehcnology of the Western air forces and their maiontenance advanatges could really compensate for the much higher numbers of Warsaw Pact aircraft being able to get thrown up against Nato.



All this best-of-the-best-technology-only is all nice and well- but only as long as its price does not limit the number of platforms you can afford to a degree that you can no longer sustain losses or take on operaitosn with risks involved. An armed force that is unable to digest losses and cannot sustain these, already is a defeated force. The idea of having a war against an enemy on same eye level and having that war clean and surgical and without losses and without him striking back, is hilarious. Its like with a boxer. Its all nice and well if a boxer can swing and hit- but what really decides it is whether he can stand up again after gettign sent down, and can digest blows he takes and is not immedioately out of breath when the opponent drums on his chest two or three times.



I do not like this enormous, immense technological sensitivity in modern forces. And I wonder what their vlaue is anyway when I see Afghan farmers and shepards delivering two superpowers with superior weaponry two strategic defeats within two generations only. Mind you, the Sowjets lost Afghanistan, and the US and the west lost it too. We have messed up that place, but we have achieved nothing, have not reached the objectives, have not defeated and sent away forever the enemy. After almost forty years of war that is a bit thin and no result that really impresses. Even more so since it even did not stop Afghjansitan to be the world's biggest drug-raising farmhouse.


To fight such an enemy, you need not state of the art technology, but overwhelming numbers that can be maintained for a damn long time.

[Onkel Neal]

Originally Posted by Mr Quatro

Neal was just testing you Mike

Contact admin for your cookie

Haha, nice, well, it was one of the pics from the article. Good catch!

Originally Posted by Platapus

If a single round costs about $1,000,000 each, what is the probability that we would be able to inflict $1,000,000 of damage with that one round?


For comparison, a TLAM (Tomahawk) costs about the same per round as the LRLAP but with the TLAM you get 450kg of boomage with 80m CEP and a range of 1300-2500km depending on the model.

That's a really clever way of analyzing it. Maybe, the $1,000,000 single round is worth it if it can prevent the enemy from returning fire and causing $1,000,000 damage to ownship? Heck, if the enemy manages to hit the magazine with all the $1,000,000 rounds, game over, we're broke