What features on the Zumwalts will resurface again on designs

>>33131118

>I expect stealth shaping would be downplayed

It's fucking everywhere now.

Hopfully not the superstructure, it looks fucking disgusting.

Hull shape will definitely stick.

>>33131155
I'm a big proponent of stealth, don't get me wrong, and would dearly love it if we had continued pumping out Zumwalt hulls in the guise of CG(X). The problem right now is budget.

>>33131118
Same Mk. 41 VLS packed with the same overpriced Tomahawk missiles... gotta make sure our oligopolistic defense contractors get as much money as possible with a bare minimum of innovation, of course. God forbid we actually develop a more affordable cruise missile to topple tinpot dictatorships with...

>>33131291
name a cheaper cruise missile made in the USA

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>>33131243

Stealth shaping doesn't result in a more expensive ship. It's basically mandatory now.

>>33131482
There is none, that's his point. He says they should develope a cheaper one.

>>33131482
All the low-cost missile programs got cancelled because the Pentagon belongs to Raytheon, Boeing, Lockmart et al. You don't need a $1.5 million cold-war era nuclear delivery platform to kill ragheads when a glorified V-1 with a simple GPS package would get the job done for 5% of the cost, but.... nah.

>>33131118
VLS cells going into ship periphery rather than central cells will definitely get into the next gen design. It's just far too useful in terms of cell size, ship volume and damage control/combat damage resistance.

>>33132044
So kinda like those old soviet destroyers with AShM launchers bolted to every available surface?

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>>33132206
No. Pic related.

Instead of all the VLS cells being packed into two big blocks in the middle of the ship like the Tico or Burkes, the VLS cells are lined up along the periphery of the hull. That means several things:
>better, more efficient use of hull volume vis a vis working spaces like engineering, etc as your VLS blocks aren't in the way
>larger cells are easier to work into a design without having to redesign engineering and sensors processing hardware
>a single well-placed missile/shell hit can't knock out half your VLS battery and possible blow your entire ship in half with secondary explosions; instead, you lose 3, maybe 5 cells and any secondary explosions are directed outward, away from the keel, living spaces and engineering
>hits on the peripheral VLS cells, with clever engineering, can act as additional armor and blowout protection for crew spaces
>eventually it will make sense to install different length VLS cells to maximize the design (for instance, quad packed ESSMs don't require a strike length VLS cell, so their cells can be inserted where full size VLS cells won't fit)

This against the drawbacks:
>slightly less efficient in total hull volume, so slightly smaller total VLS magazine size
>much more required redundant, DC accessible control wiring required
>cell reloading is slightly more complicated as the process has to move around a lot more
>any single hit is much more likely to damage/destroy a VLS cell, though any single hit which does destroy one doesn't take out half your battery like a traditional design

It's a no brainer. Peripheral VLS setups get you better combat damage survivability, fewer potential casualties, reduced chance of single-hit ship loss, more design flexibility and better overall post-damage combat capability. Plus, in Zumwalt's case with the larger VLS cells, potential for larger, faster, longer-ranged missiles.

>>33132206
This >>33132365
It's like the new naval equivalent of reactive armor, except the reactive armor panels are your own armament.

>>33132365
Interesting, thanks for the info. When someone lays it down like that I wonder why that wasn't done earlier, as you said, sounds like a no brainer.

>>33132809
It makes a hell of a lot more sense with a tumblehome hull. With a traditional flare-bow design, there's some wasted space and your VLS tubes get canted out at 15 or so degrees, so it's a little more complicated overall.

Also, the main fear with VLS armament early on was a golden BB mission killing or outright sinking the entire ship. Think magazine fire or explosion, only worse because now you've also got toxic rocket fuel in the mix. So their first solution was to bury the cells together in the center of the ship to protect it as much as possible from damage, just like you would a magazine.

However, with the comparatively light (by WWI-WWII ship design/magazine placement standards) armor of modern warships plus the destructive power of modern AShMs, this is a less than completely effective plan. It took a minute for them to cozy up to the idea of removing the magazine explosion risk all together and even getting some secondary use out of them as added protection by splitting up all the cells and running them around the outside of the ship.

Until someone has the idea and the light bulb goes off, it's completely counter-intuitive. I mean, how could putting the ship's magazine on the OUTSIDE of the ship possibly make the ship more resistant to combat damage and more combat effective in case of a serious hit? It seems preposterous by all traditional ship design lights, until you say wait a minute...

>>33132966
But wasn't the damage potential of heavy AShMs known for a long time? I mean you don't need to be that much of an expert to get the idea that a 4 ton missile going at mach 2 will enter at one side of the ship and leave as debris on the other one. As soon as that's clear the gears should be set in motion as having all your armament on one pile in the middle becomes a huge liability.


As you see I have little to no idea about naval warfare, so another question: were there ever toxic fuels used for VLS armament? I'd have thought when VLS became a thing we already left the age of IRFNA/UDMH or whatnot and made it to solid propellants.

>>33133123
>But wasn't the damage potential of heavy AShMs known for a long time?
Well, sure. This is one of those example cases of institutional inertia. Sort of like how long it took the aircraft carrier, iron hull ship construction, steam power and super frigates like the Constitution to catch on and be fully embraced. Thing is, we've been building our ship magazines as far under the waterline and as close to centerline as we can for several hundred years now, really since the birth of naval artillery. Bury the big, bad boom as deep as you can where there's not as much can get to it, see? Even an AShM would have to get very lucky, lodge in the middle of the ship and start an uncontrollable fire to explode a traditional below-waterline magazine.

What changed with VLS is the necessity for the tube mouth to open directly into unobstructed sky. So now your magazine's above the waterline for the most part. That's scary as fuck. What do we do when the prospect of combat damage scares us? Put the big, bad boom all together, bury it in the design as much as possible, try to armor it against anything but a direct hit, design as much blowout protection as you can and hope no one gets lucky.

This makes perfect sense from an incremental design standpoint. You've got a problem, you try to mitigate it as much as possible. However, at this point they're still thinking of the VLS as a battery, a single magazine, or a single weapons system. They've not quite fully assimilated, in a design sense, the possibilities when you've got a weapons system that is COMPLETELY modular - any single unit of it works just as effectively on its own as the whole battery, and can be remote from the rest of the battery with a small penalty.

That's where the light bulb starts going off. Having a tumblehome hull to try it in only made everything much easier to execute.

CONT

>>33133123
>>33133393
Other conceptual barriers they had to overcome to really get that light bulb moment:
>exposing your primary air defense and long range attack armament to the highest damage risk is a pretty big design no-no and counter-intuitive until you weigh that risk against losing the entire battery at once or the whole ship
>doubling up your armament as both weapon and passive defense (or even reactive armor like >>33132413 points out) is pretty much brand new conceptually, and also brilliant, as you use your biggest catastrophic damage risk and single-hit ship kill risk, which then channels all that OH SHIT into protecting your ship and crew instead

>were there ever toxic fuels used for VLS armament? I'd have thought when VLS became a thing we already left the age of IRFNA/UDMH or whatnot and made it to solid propellants.
All VLS has been solid propellant. I'm not strong on the rocket fuel chemistry side of the question, but I would have to assume several hundred tons of burning solid propellant wouldn't be good for anyone's breathing. Maybe you can educate me in this?

Either way, the ship is completely fucked if an entire 64-cell VLS battery goes up. Even with good blowout protection, the heat generated would cause massive, catastrophic damage. And that's before the warheads cook off.

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>>33131118
Stop with the stealth meme and get your fleet up to over 300 ships again
Those Chinese will swarm your pacific fleet
https://youtu.be/doLYaqpZVC0

>>33133461
The USN is still building ships at a faster rate than the Chinese.

>>33133500
USN is scattered around the world
Chinese are more concerned about the SCS

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>>33133588
0.05

>>33133588
The US also has the ECS and SCS surrounded with air and naval bases. Not to mention heavy advantages in C4SIR capabilities, including sonar sensor networks, satellite hardware and operational EW and recon platforms. That's before we even get into the heavy force multiplier advantage the USN enjoys in operational platforms, from CATOBAR carriers to SSN/SSGN fleet size and technology at every level.

If you little shits want to make a ruckus, we'll be happy to oblige. In all truth, no one will be particularly happy with the results of such a fight, but I can guaran-damn-tee you that China will be a hell of a lot less happy than the US.

>>33133644
As long as Chinese soldiers aren't throwing grenades they'll do aight

>>33133644
Unfortunately, a number of Asian nations that previously preferred our presence as a check on China are now looking at the current resident of the Oval office and are finding that they may have made a mistake.

>>33133746
The beautiful thing about a presidential term is that it only lasts 4 years in the US. China, which is to say the CCP, will still be there. And those fuckers haven't substantially changed in quite some time.

While Trump's foreign policy is and will be a dumpster fire on a hijacked airliner, at least it doesn't represent the ongoing will of the American people.

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>>33132413
Not really. It's more like ammo compartment isolation with blowoff panels.

Older ships had the magazine in the middle, like a T-72. It's still protected by the same armor as the rest of the ship(/tank), but if something manages to get through and light the magazine, it blows the ship(/tank) apart from the inside.

An Abrams, on the other hand, keeps the ammo in a separate compartment in the back of the turret. It's not that well-protected but if it does get hit and cook off, all the heat and pressure is allowed to escape up and out through the blowoff panels, while the crew and engine remain protected from the mayhem within their own isolated compartments.

>>33133746
>nations that previously preferred our presence as a check on China are now looking at the current resident of the Oval office and are finding that they may have made a mistake.

I think you're thinking of the previous resident of the Oval office TBQHFamalam.

>>33134897
Shh, they still think Trump is a puppet of Russia.

>>33134897
>I think you're thinking of the previous resident of the Oval office TBQHFamalam.
I used to think Obama was shit at diplomacy.
After watching Trump stick his dick into every possible diplomatic light socket in like a single month in office, I realize how much worse Obama could have been.

>>33134298

This is why electrically ignited propellant needs to be a thing.

>>33131118
You're missing the whole point of the zumwalts. They are tech test beds, we can't really know what features will be passed on until they have been in use for a while.
The power system is not so much a new feature as it is a standard evolution, one that is pretty much required for the future, and so shall be present in some or the other form in the future, whether for railguns or something else.

Funnily enough the stealth shaping is one thing that is almost guaranteed to be passed on, as it is effective with standard materials (to a degree) and costs no more, maybe even less, than building a classic shaped hull.

Don't think of the zumwalts as an outlier, think of them as a monkey that evolved opposable thumbs, and it just has to screw enough other monkeys to pass down its cool new thumbs and stuff

>>33134944
At worst Obama was mediocre at diplomacy, and being sandwiched between Dubya and Trump only makes him look like a modern Kissinger.

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>>33133500

Nope.

http://nationalinterest.org/blog/the-buzz/report-china-could-have-351-navy-ships-bigger-america-navy-18940

>>33135353
That is more of a result of how both navies count ships, the USN doesn't count small patrol ships as a deployable ship. The PLAN have lots of sub chasers and corvettes that bump up their numbers. It is a result of the doctrines of both navies. USN needs big, high capability, high seas ships that can kick the enemy's door in from the other side of the globe, PLAN needs lots of coastal patrol ships to bully nearby nations.

>>33135353
>Keyword: Could

Read the article. It doesn't even substantiate that claim by comparing the number of warships built with current fleets.

>>33131118
>What features on the Zumwalts will resurface again on designs for future surface combatants?
$4 billions price tag.

>>33134953
The 120mm rounds in the M1 are electrically fired. In fact, there's a cute backup which is a crank the gunner can turn to charge a capacitor and fire the round in case of a loss of power.

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>>33134979

>You're missing the whole point of the zumwalts. They are tech test beds

Why do people say this? They were never intended to be mere "test beds."

>>33135877
>>33135877
Yeah because the same people that buy from the lowest bidder are willing to spend so many billions stuffing a new and untested ship with so many new and untested pieces of tech

>>33135951

The only destroyers the US ever built as test beds were the Mitscher-class.

>>33135951

You're retarded beyond belief since you'd deny information that can be found so easily. The Zumwalts were supposed to be a class of 32, followed possibly by a cruiser variant for the Tico replacement.

The Zumwalts were not conceived as testbeds, neither was the technology untested. Produced to mass scale before? No, but that's different to untested.

>>33131118

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RK5WOXZknk0

>>33131118
long range gun artillery
low RCS features
VLS cell placement
Sonar arrays
Electric errything

>>33133403
The problem with storable liquid propellants isn't only that the combustion products are more toxic. The propellant itself is really nasty. In case of incomplete combustion (so always when the rocket blows up) you have fuming nitric acid, and worse, hydrazine everywhere. So not only do you now have to deal with a high temperature chemical fire but also with volatile, corrosive, incredibly toxic liquids with high steam pressure going everywhere.

That doesn't happen with solid propellants. If they get hit they just nicely burn up completly in place. Complete, stoichiometric combustion as intended, so no unburnt propellant making things hard.

This wasn't really a problem for heavy ICBMs sitting in temperature controlled silos but for all other weapon systems no one wanted to deal with it. If you're interested in the history of propellant research i can recommend John D. Clarks "Ignition!". Hard to get a physical copy nowadays but the pdfs are easy enough to find. Probably the funniest chemistry book out there, and friendly enough for people without higher education in chemistry to read. The guy worked at the naval air rocket test station in new jersey from the early 50s to the late 60s and was part of the developement path we took from the earliers fuels to what we use today.

>>33132365
>DC accessible control wiring required

Not necessarily. All that's required is modular connection points at each end. If your wiring gets damaged, run a new harness. Plug it in at each end, and you're ready to go. Similar to the system of emergency power risers and connections that ships already have.

Once you run the emergency control wiring harness, Repair 8 can take their time fixing, testing, and restoring the damaged circuits.

>>33131834
mo it will not

and i am just angry enough on your stupidity that i will shed some light on your "idea"

first of all is what are you proposing - a simple cruise missile with lets say pulse jet cos why not (forgetting that its rather unreliable way of propulsion), one way of navigation and targeting - costumer grade gps and dumb payload with simple impact fuse

alright fair enough this should defiantly be cheap and do the job right?

No, wrong and fuck you

first of all we are running into problem of designing new system, adopting it to existing launch platforms, testing entire system (from delivery methods to navy ship, maintenance to final phase when weapon goes boom) training personal, adapting doctrine over entire navy and training everyone outside navy that will be involved with said system

versus just either using missile you have in stockpile or buying some
well this still should be cheaper eh? well lets go on

second military grade electronics there is a reason they are expensive - a fucking cruise missile is damn expected to sit for 20 years fuck knows where maybe in damp, cold or hot, dusty (or mix of those) environment and work with little to no maintenance

than it has to survive hot launch from vls, fly in extreme hot, cold, hail, thunder storm maybe suffer a bird hit and still hits its target and detonate fuck maybe even if target is behind 1 m of reinforced concreed

now can you try leaving your iphone over night outside maybe with little cold and dampness what results will be?

you know what maybe our missile doesn't need all that but lets continue

reliability of said system:
so what happens if your one way of navigation fails? are you aware how much press love every little slip military makes ?

what if your cruise missile hits hospital next to your target ? what happens then?

cont

>>33136856
what if it just fails to hit target that intelligence and other assets were tracking for years now, spend fuck knows how much on that while all its left was one precise discreet hit. that sure will be cheap eh ?

you are proposing inherently unreadable, inaccurate system for a dirty war where mishaps are unthinkable and cost dearly

but wait thats not all

unversatile, extremely niche role minded system - is already bad thing to have and is avoided unless its fits some extremely important role
while this cruise missile would be fine for aircraft, what would happen if tico with full complement of brown remover mk lll on brown removing mission its immediately called for bs that china stirred up, when your weapon shit its self after encountering jamming?

crippling your navy sure is cheap
hey why not just shoot all higher officers cos they are to expensive, why not deactivate all the nukes cos they sure are damn expensive

i was about to write more, entire section themed what happens if something goes wrong over all steps but i dont give a fuck anymore

>>33131243

Practically every modern ship design has a stealthy design.

You seem to think that only the Zumwalt does.

>>33137065
There is a difference between trying to lower RCS and be low RCS.

>>33137104

OK.

>>33137123
As long as you understand which catagory 'practically every modern ship' falls into we are good.

>>33136856

Are you okay, anon? Not trolling.