re: Most Expensive Destroyer in Naval History Breaks Down

Is that the one with the rail gun?

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It'd be worth $4.4B if it was actually capable of delivering the promises that were supposedly designed into this project

Currently its electronics cannot support ABM or AA missile tracking/guidance.

It's power/propulsion system was slapped in when the originally designed PPM could not meet spec. The current form produces 10% of the power of the originally designed PPM

This thing is a pig and would have been a topline albatross if it weren't for the headline grabbing F-35 overshadowing it.

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The sad part is the fact that the simple arse boats we used in WWII (for propulsion and steering) could still be in use today. But the move is to make everything electronic and complicated (so the designer and builder can get higher prices).

I understand that the weapons systems etc need to be advanced (complicated), but the most important thing is the ability to maneuver. A ship dead in the water is a sitting duck.

The ships in WWII were built so they could be repaired out in the ocean. How many stories were there of ships being attacked and damaged by the enemy and shortly thereafter repairing themselves and re-entering the action. We would be well advised to use these simple, designed for extreme conditions and reliability over the stupid arse way of having a capacitor, circuit board or fuse fail and the ship stops working...

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Navy suffered an engineering problem in the Panama Canal and had to be towed to port.

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So...it's almost as crappy as the San Antonio class ships built in New Orleans.

Not sure why so many people are shitting on the Zumwalt class. It was poorly made at Bath, that's not the Navy's fault.

These ships will likely be in service for 30+ years. They're the first "stealth" ships in the navy's inventory and while they were over budget and they under delivered, what isn't in the military? This class will be built upon and will likely be rail gun-equipped by the end of this decade.

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"extraordinary machine of peace and security."

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What an odd description for a beast like this.

Go back into history as far as you want and find a development in the military that over-delivered and was under budget. It very very rarely happens.

Even then, inefficiency in the military doesn't compare to government waste in the least.

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These ships will likely be in service for 30+ years. They're the first "stealth" ships in the navy's inventory and while they were over budget and they under delivered, what isn't in the military? This class will be built upon and will likely be rail gun-equipped by the end of this decade.

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The cost per ship of the Zumwalt class is $4.4B but balloons to $7B when you include the cost of designing/testing the new tech

The DDG-1000 class was supposed to replace Arleigh Burke DDG's

Current cost of Arleigh Burke DDG: $1.78B
Current cost of Zumwalt DDG: $4.4B

So at nearly TWICE the cost, we are getting a ship delivered with HALF the capability of its predecessor.

I'd say that is precisely why people are shitting on it

The Arleigh Burke class has been in service for decades. It's cost has gone down while capabilities have gone up over the years.

It's not even comparable. One is a finished product and the other just rolled off the assembly line.

This is a ship, not a gun, not a boot, not an anchor. They don't come out being extraordinary. It'll be awhile before the Zumwalt reaches its peak, just like everything else.

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These ships will likely be in service for 30+ years.

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All 3 of them.

Looks a lot like the Swedish Visby-Class Corvette. Similar radar-reducing technology and similar problems with the R&D (although the budget wasn't nearly what this destroyer was). Overrun deadlines and budget, ultimately left with a product that delivers a fraction of what was promised.

LINK

As it stands now, it appears that Russia is also actively developing a Frigate (LINK with similar technology.