Alright we have 3 zumwalt class destroyers what can we do with them

Current capabilities are hampered because main armament it's to forward mounted cannons have no ammunition be a use of two factors it did not have range it was advertised as having and it cost almost as much per shell as a tomahawk missile it was supposed to replace .
The ship produces way more electricity than it needs so wha t can we do with it because just it's verticle launch tubes are not enough.
Their has been talk of removing the guns and adding more vls tubes for antiship missiles or replacing turrets with convential cannon systems. The radar systems 2 have been downgraded because of cost so more advanced missile systems found on Raleigh Burke class and ticonderga class ships can not be used because they rely on aegis radar systems. There is also talk of making these vessels tests platforms for railgun systems and directed energy weapons I think that could be their test bed at only three vessels that is likely the best use i beleive 1 cannon mount and ammo storage could be used for a railgun and ammo storage and capcitor bank for thaht and maybe place a thel laser system in front cannon mount and another that comes out of rear deck for antiaircraft and antimissile defence to test these technologies and mature these systems for further deployment on future vessels.

a reply to: proteus33

how about removing the AGS and replacing it with a conventional 155? Nah that would actually work, and not line the pockets of contractors, while being cheap.


Also, i really want to know the reasoning why conventional ammunition can't be used. I see that line parroted everywhere, but nobody ever states the reason why it can't be used. Could somebody inform me?

And...why did we buy these ships with this screwed up technology in the first place? Who ordered them?

I guess this would be Obama era junk.

a reply to: proteus33

They are nice ship's but as we say over here in the UK a bit of a white elephant, as Dubiousatworst point's out they seem to have been a mean's to funnel money into private contractors pockets.

The technology in them is still state of the art of last generation stealth but they are too large and with the advent of ever more advanced radar systems including quantum radar technology's there stealth capability's may already be compromised but even so in almost ALL theaters they still offer a tactical advantage - especially if the full fleet had been built which it has not.

The VLS had some advantages BUT it also had some disadvantages and so was not really that much of a development in and of itself.

Now to my mind Stealth capability in today's world is a necessity, stealth ship's are a necessity as are more stealthy submarines for both attack and defensive roles.

Since the planned fleet is now cancelled these ship's now have most potential suitability as training and research vessel's, since there own stealth tech is now last generation - if still state of the art at that - they can also serve in development of ever more stealth bypassing technology's designed to detect stealth vessel's and also to continue to develop new method's to counter these anti stealth technology's and as such they still have an invaluable role in your arsenal and should not ever be simply mothballed - at least until the next generation of stealth ship and submersible's are in service in your naval forces.

But remember give them enough of there planned ordnance and these are highly capable vessel's that would have no rival in the world - which given the price tag you would expect.

I see your Obama coming in for some flak again, remember a project of the magnitude of these vessel's was probably planned long before his term in office and he only rubber stamped it when it was already under way so these are probably really clinton era or even Bush Jnr era projects but if the us does move faster than we do on these type of projects I may be wrong there.

I mean look over the other side of the pond to us and see how we have our own problem's.
en.wikipedia.org...
The first one ran aground because the crew made some error's and remember these are supposed to be the best submarines in the world, already out dated and probably with there secrets stolen of leaked to the likes of China - but maybe not we do have good security most of the time - I hope ha.

let's bomb China that should enrich everyone and keep bankers happy for a while

a reply to: proteus33

A railgun would be our first choice to combat agressive aliens.
Its hard to detect a chunck of metal before its to late

originally posted by: Spacespider
a reply to: proteus33

A railgun would be our first choice to combat agressive aliens.
Its hard to detect a chunck of metal before its to late

Its hard to detect an alien species thats apparently been visiting here since god knows when , before its too late

It is probably a dumb idea, but sounds like plenty of juice for 1 million Christmas light. Can light it up and hire it out to harbors during parties and other special events. Not sure how it will go with the fire works show. Will get a few dollars back, doubt it would break even with all of its running costs.

With the amount of money each of these cost they should let every United States citizen waterski behind them for 20 minutes.

a reply to: proteus33

Step1
Multi level drone application added to control underwater-air-cosmic drone systems. Allowing for multiple response per interest from sea/air/space. So if sea home interest are being lost air can back up. If air lost cosmic back up. And if local cosmic home interest lost deeper space application response... Extra onboard electricity can power artificial intelligence system per craft. Keeping each craft in contact with it's sea, air space or deeper space drone systems. Active groups resemble drone swarm. Per craft. Z-destroyers mounted with laser energy pulse Cannon that can reach into space if Z- destroyers align in polar arrays allowing energy sync up of cannons to make single beam from three.
Step2
If aggressive et with more powerful tech onboard. Somehow must aquire their ship
Cosmic home interest attachment/tracker reads onboard data artificial intelligence learning alien technology relaying all data to sea, air and local or deeper space interest for responding...
Step3
Artificial intelligence aquires alien crafts...
Cosmic skynet active. Awaits further commands for aquired alien crafts to send back and respond or land at home.

a reply to: LABTECH767

The reason they had guns in first place was to have a cheaper alternative than a million dollar tomahawk cruise missile but the rocket assist gun ammo fell short of its desired range of 115 miles it actually only went about 70 or 80 miles inland and each shell cost almost as much as a tomahawk which has a range of over 1200 miles and can land a warhead with in a few yards of your target . Now imagine this ship holds 500 rounds of ammo for its 2 guns that's 400 million dollars just in cannon ammo!
The reason I understand that it can not use regular ammo in cannons is because it relied on special ammo that could course correct it self instead of relying on cannons for targeting.. also regular 5 inch turret would defeat the purpose of the stealth shape of cannon mount.

Like I said I think it would be best to use these ships as weapon testbed and maybe as a back up to seal tea,s as they could deploy off side as ship passed target beach then it could go into a support roll by acting as a fire support vessel and helicopter support.

a reply to: proteus33

Also if you put on a thel turret or two if you got within 15 miles of a port and could see it's fuel depot for its ships could a thel light it up? I mean it's a powerful laser and a large fuel tank at a fuel farm would cause serious chaos if it exploded and there would be next to no warning what had happened.

a reply to: proteus33

Here's a good article on the ship.

nationalinterest.org...

Looks like the final role for this ship will be to kill other ships in areas that other ships can't operate. Thanks to it's stealthy profile.

a reply to: AugustusMasonicus

I think someone should start a petition

originally posted by: dashen
I think someone should start a petition

It's second on my list after the Death Star petition.

a reply to: proteus33

We should cut our loses. Use the equipment onboard to upgrade a battleship.

We don't have a shore bombardment ship. We need that.

We should have built a fricking battleship.

This little destroyer is not a pocket battleship. Its an expensive retirement package for arms dealers.

Build a battleship. End of story. One that can take heavy damage and keep fighting.

Everything we have tries to hide from enemies. Stealth delusional nonsense. Why not build stealth soldiers and stealth bullets too? FFS.

What do we have that actually kills as part of its primary design focus?

Egos have no place in national defense. Shiney stealth computers with fins are retarded.

Build a ship around a big gun. Win.

a reply to: tadaman

This was going to be the shore bombardment ship. The LRLAP was going to allow them to hit targets well inland, since they could get closer than a Burke to launch them, but 2,000 rounds for the three ships would have run almost $2B. That's the price of a Burke ship just for the ammunition. They had been looking at replacing it with Excalibur, which had a reduced range (30 miles as opposed to 60), but that idea didn't go anywhere.

These will be demo hulls for lasers, rail guns, and other stuff.

a reply to: dubiousatworst

The gun that was going to be used was basically a 155 with extended range ammunition. Standard ammunition reduces it to the same as a standard 5" gun on any other ship. The Zumwalt was supposed to be a bombardment ship, capable of sneaking in close and hitting targets well inland, something that we can't do now without using missiles, which are slow and vulnerable to being shot down. There's no advantage to a standard 155.