U.S. Navy can't fire its new gun....

[MakeeLearn]

The US Navy can't fire its awesome new gun that can hit a target more than 70 miles away because the rounds are costing the service nearly a million bucks a piece.


http://www.businessinsider.com/navy-lrl ... ds-2016-11

[Ranger33]

This is like the ultimate version of that quote from Eisenhower on the military-industrial-complex. We could spend a million dollars bettering the lives of Americans, or we could blow something up. I'm willing to bet "blow something up" wins the race.

[Curtis Lemay]

ORIGINAL: Ranger33

This is like the ultimate version of that quote from Eisenhower on the military-industrial-complex. We could spend a million dollars bettering the lives of Americans, or we could blow something up. I'm willing to bet "blow something up" wins the race.

I think being alive and free betters my life.

[Dorb]

... which comes with the price of blowing things up.(on the other side)

[Ranger33]

My point wasn't that we shouldn't spend money to have a military to keep America safe, or be afraid to use our weapons, etc. My point was that the Navy has built a ship and gun combination that is so exorbitantly expensive that they decided to scrap the whole project after sinking billions of dollars into it. They've built three of these ships which now cannot even use their primary weapon [8|]. How many billions of dollars were spent here and what do we have to show for it? Three super duper destroyers that can't do anything useful. My point is that this is the MIC in action. Weapons of war being built for the sake of building weapons of war, instead of something else, when we already have a navy that could defeat every other navy in the world put together.

The quote I was talking about, for reference, from the well known pacifist (that's sarcasm) Dwight D. Eisenhower:

"Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities. It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population. It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway. We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat. We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people. This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road the world has been taking. This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron."

[Agathosdaimon]

of course having a good military with the best tech is vital in this world we find ourselves in but something has obviously gone wrong somewhere if you have weapons that a too expensive to use....this being said, is a million dollar round really that much in comparison to what is spent on the weapons for aircraft and the trillion dollar costs of the F-35 which is still not ready and they are still asking for another 500 million for it last i read.

The million dollar round example is not what though i would think of being the most illustrative example of the military industrial complex , rather the other cases where deserts are just being filled with tanks that no one even ordered ad will probably never be used, but just keep getting made because industry seems to not have a decelerate or sleep mode. At least with the 70 mile range gun actually being place on ships in service, it could act as a deterrent and you could justify it somewhat in keeping the ship a safe distance away

[MakeeLearn]

It goes beyond the money. What is else is this type of thinking applied to?

[Capt. Harlock]

It goes beyond the money. What is else is this type of thinking applied to?

"In the arts of peace Man is a bungler. I have seen his cotton factories and the like, with machinery that a greedy dog could have invented if it had wanted money instead of food. I know his clumsy typewriters and bungling locomotives and tedious bicycles: they are toys compared to the Maxim gun, the submarine torpedo boat. There is nothing in Man's industrial machinery but his greed and sloth: his heart is in his weapons."

--George Bernard Shaw, Man and Superman

[Poopyhead]

I was assigned to a Pershing Missile unit. We couldn't fire our missiles either, because even erecting the missile on its launcher was an act of war. The military has a thing called simulation where you can train your wartime mission to perfection and only use live ammo against live targets.

Men are capable of great courage in the pursuit of war. Great men are capable of such courage even in the pursuit of peace.

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: Poopyhead

I was assigned to a Pershing Missile unit. We couldn't fire our missiles either, because even erecting the missile on its launcher was an act of war. The military has a thing called simulation where you can train your wartime mission to perfection and only use live ammo against live targets.

Men are capable of great courage in the pursuit of war. Great men are capable of such courage even in the pursuit of peace.

I know there is a difference between training and live fires. But this came as a surprise to them. Along with having to reduce the number of ships from 32 to 3.

Looks like there is a planning flaw somewhere. Too smart for their own good?

And what other non-money surprises await?

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn
having to reduce the number of ships from 32 to 3. Looks like there is a planning flaw somewhere.

Maybe they did not expect they would be running out of money? I assume of course this is not (and never was) a scam, a glorious Ponzi scheme

[MakeeLearn]

ORIGINAL: TulliusDetritus

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn
having to reduce the number of ships from 32 to 3. Looks like there is a planning flaw somewhere.

Maybe they did not expect they would be running out of money? I assume of course this is not (and never was) a scam, a glorious Ponzi scheme

True and at this point of economies, money is at the point of being a nonissue. Trillions and trillions of debt. And now you no longer even have to actually print it, just type a number into a computer.

Priorities misplaced in our military..... some statements could get this thread locked.


Vietnam... when the Navy took guns off their Phantoms because they thought the progress of missiles had changed everything.

[TulliusDetritus]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn
And now you no longer even have to actually print it, just type a number into a computer.

The Boss-in-Chief-Admiral should have an ATM installed in his office. This should fix the problem.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: MakeeLearn


The US Navy can't fire its awesome new gun that can hit a target more than 70 miles away because the rounds are costing the service nearly a million bucks a piece.

Does either ISIS or al-Q have a navy worth shooting at?

[Gilmer]

If you think of it another way - if you know the guns work, why do you have to fire them a lot? We know nuclear weapons work, so we don't really have to test them anymore.

[decaro]

ORIGINAL: H Gilmer

If you think of it another way - if you know the guns work, why do you have to fire them a lot? We know nuclear weapons work, so we don't really have to test them anymore.

Apparently they're not firing them at all. So much for gunnery practice!

Was this expensive stealth destroyer -- which had to be towed back to port during sea trials -- built to fire conventional or nuclear munitions? If only the latter, this ship cannot defend against Iranian swift boats in the Persian Gulf and other more conventional third world threats.

[bobarossa]

ORIGINAL: Joe D.

ORIGINAL: H Gilmer

If you think of it another way - if you know the guns work, why do you have to fire them a lot? We know nuclear weapons work, so we don't really have to test them anymore.

Apparently they're not firing them at all. So much for gunnery practice!

Was this expensive stealth destroyer -- which had to be towed back to port during sea trials -- built to fire conventional or nuclear munitions? If only the latter, this ship cannot defend against Iranian swift boats in the Persian Gulf and other more conventional third world threats.

The munitions are guided so I don't think gunnery practice is helpful. Simulations of target selection would be useful. Not sure if they are self-guided or rely on firing ship input after launch. Also, the projectile in question is for land-attack missions. Anyone know if there are sea-attack munitions for this gun or does the ship have a different gun for that?

edit: to answer my own question, I found a graphic that says it has 2x57mm close-in guns as well as space reserved for "anti-terrorism". Also has 80 vertical launch tubes. The wikipedia article on the shell implies it is GPS guided with inertial backup. The Navy only purchased 90 shells for testing before canceling the project. I got the impression from the original article that they had bought 2000.

[Challerain]

Was this expensive stealth destroyer -- which had to be towed back to port during sea trials

It didn't actually break down during sea trials. A fault was found in the propulsion system while in Norfolk. The ship actually has redundant systems so it could still work with the fault that was found, but they repaired it while in dock


The rounds are expensive because of economies of scale. Cutting the number of ships from 36 to 3 and therefore cutting the number of shells being bought is going to increase the cost.

There are other shells out that that can be fired from the gun. The Navy just needs to pick one.