USS Zumwalt - Are they worth it?
- Thread starter Greebo
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Is it worth it.. Most likely, yeah.
It's easy to say that money should be spent elsewhere, but ultimately speaking it's not that practical. The money spent on the technology also helps to keep university/research labs afloat and the money will eventually trickle it's way down into society, even if it's as basic as people spending more in the shops!
It's easy to say that money should be spent elsewhere, but ultimately speaking it's not that practical. The money spent on the technology also helps to keep university/research labs afloat and the money will eventually trickle it's way down into society, even if it's as basic as people spending more in the shops!
Caporegime
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Is it just me or does it look like the results of the worlds biggest ever origami session.
When I was in the US in August, I saw 2 of these being fitted out in the New England area. Total surprise as I came over a road bridge and there they were, in the naval docks being worked on. Incredible looking things, but only 3 I believe gong to be made due to costs?
The real irony is the stupidly expensive armament was designed because the US Navy has a requirement to supply Naval Gunfire Support to troops operating significant distances ashore. This role was fulfilled by the Iowa class battleships of second world war vintage right up to the first gulf war, they had the one thing you can't do without if you want a conventional gun to fire heavy projectiles long distances ie size. The US navy decided to decommission all the Iowa class battleships and transfer gunfire support to these smaller ships but they needed some very fancy guns and shells to give them the ability to deliver the weight of fire at the correct range add in the stealth requirements and you have a ship so expensive even America can't afford it!
Would have been much much cheaper to keep a couple of Iowa's in active reserve for time of need!
Would have been much much cheaper to keep a couple of Iowa's in active reserve for time of need!
Just wait until Captain James Kirk gets a promotion.... to command the USS Enterprise!
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-80)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Enterprise_(CVN-80)
Soldato
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I'm sure the technology will get recycled into more cost effective vessels but it does seem daft to spend all that R+D and then not build enough of them to get a reasonable unit cost. We did the same with the Dauntless Class destroyers and we'll do it again with whatever we build next. The yanks Independence and Freedom class littoral combat ships are a similar story I think of low runs pushing up costs.edit: My mistake they're making 13 of each.
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Soldato
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So this thing don't even have the railguns ? wow for $800k a shot I though it might of done
^ Yep, we've already reduced the number of planned Type 26 frigates from 13 to 8. Our new carriers are going to be the flagships for some very small task forces in future. So we'll be in the same boat - I'll get my coat
As an aside that will leave us with 6 destroyers and 8 frigates, plus a small number of Type 31s. To put that in perspective we sent 8 destroyers and 15 frigates to the Falklands in 1982, and still had enough left for home defence and most of our NATO commitments.
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$1.8Tn is the air frame life cost (40+ years). $500M over that period is tiny in comparison so I'm not really sure what you're point is there. Overall life time cost forecasts for the JSF have actually decreased, and will continue to do so (LRIP9 lot price is ~4.5% lower for example)
When thinking about cost/schedule increases people need to consider just how complex these things have gotten now.
The JSF programme was always going to be the largest single acquisition defence project in history. It involves numerous partner nations working under agreements that are the first of their kind. All of the technologies are brand new, even the materials and bolts at the lowest level.
Small estimating errors by the sub-tier suppliers compound all the way up to the top, which when combined with unforeseen technical issues and unclear/changing requirements on such a large/complex project give you the current situation. We've all seen these things happen on small projects, now try and scale that up to $2Tn!
The variances on big number projects are always going to be, by definition, big. 1% of $2Tn is massive, especially if considered out of context
Doing things at the forefront of technology and innovation has never been cheap. But for some reason the JSF gets an unjustified amount of bad press for it.
Soldato
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This is the thing with big expensive ships, one cheap missile will sink this ship. The ship has defences and stealth to protect it, but it only takes one for it to visit the bottom of the sea.
But ships like that must be built to push the technology tree along the path of time. Just as mobile phones used to be brick size and ugly they have now become slim and good looking.
The next ships after this will be cheaper and better since lessons was learned from building these.
But ships like that must be built to push the technology tree along the path of time. Just as mobile phones used to be brick size and ugly they have now become slim and good looking.
The next ships after this will be cheaper and better since lessons was learned from building these.
I don't know the details of exactly how useful stealth is, but I do know they wouldn't spend billions or even trillions on it if there wasn't a serious advantage
This is the US we're talking about, they literally fund anything the military wants regardless of viability.
The problem is that priorities change, its all drones now so the funding moved to that (which isnt a stupid thing).
It's not just the US though, every major military power has invested into stealth technology for their ships and planes. From what I've read it's not about whether a plane or ship is detectable or not detectable, it effects the range from which they can be detected, what bands of the EM spectrum they're detectable in, and how easy it is to get a missile lock on them. It's not just a case of making them look smaller on radar.
The Chinese "Carrier Killer" is actually ripped off US technology, America will have developed plans to ensure their Carriers survive in the outbreak of a conflict with China. Chinese Subs are probably a greater concern.
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