OT: DDG Zumwalt....$1,000,000 per shell

[Rusty1961]

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... lt-warship


"In late 2016, the Navy admitted it couldn’t afford to spend $600 million per vessel to arm just three ships with a full ammo load. The service cancelled its planned first batch of 2,000 shells, and also suspended a $250 million effort to modify the AGSs to be compatible with different, cheaper rounds"


Laughable. Can't even afford the ammo for the ship.

[Lokasenna]

Yes, and?

State of the art stuff is expensive. What's your point?

[BullwinkleMogami]

Hi, If 1,000,000 per load out was what was required to win we would spend 1,000,000 per load out. We would spend whatever was required to win. In peace time we have to justify spending and perhaps 600,000 is too much. In peace time. Let the ammo be expended in war and the cost does not matter. There is a vast difference in justifying cost in peacetime compare to war time.

[Treetop64]

Big difference between pinching pennies for loadouts on experimental platforms in peacetime, and shovelling aboard all that's needed in war.
You can afford to be cheap and picky when no one's shooting at you.

[FlyByKnight]

Meh, the source is a division of Vice. They've got their preferred goals and "slant" when it comes to reporting these things.

[Klahn]

The original cost per round was supposed to be $35,000. It shot up after the Navy cancelled almost all of the Zumwalts. The original plan was for a class of 32 ships. The final procurement was 3. The cost of the ships themselves has shot up to $7.5 billion each.

Because the guns on the Zumwalt are not usable, it's basically an 80 cell VLS platform with 1 helo and no other capabilities. For comparison, an Arleigh Burke with 96 VLS cells, 2 helos, a 5" gun, CIWS, and torpedoes costs about $1.8 billion fully armed and outfitted.

[joey]

I am shocked; I guess I should not be. But three ships without guns or defensive weapons.... Well at least I have yet another topic to discuss in my college classes.

[John 3rd]

Totally depressing and slightly funny...

[Klahn]

It's an odd duck. It's a stealth ship that was designed for fire support of landing forces. The Navy pointed at the Zumwalt (an evolution of the DD-21 project) as the ship that would replace the Iowa class BBs in that role. In adddition, they planned for a long range munition for the 5" gun on Arleigh Burke class DDGs. That program was also cancelled. A gunfire support ship seems an odd choice for a stealth ship anyway as it can't do it's mission very far from shore. It would be mixed in with a busy array of amphibious warships, landing support ships, and their escorts, which aren't stealthy at all. In fact, the Navy seems to have agreed that the stealthiness of the ship isn't a useful feature. They have ordered a steel deckhouse instead of the stealthy composite deckhouse for the last ship being built in an effort to lower costs. I'm pretty sure at this point that the Navy would love to have every dollar back that was invested in this program.

Interesting tidbit: The first commanding officer of USS Zumwalt was named James Kirk.

[Barb]

It tends to boil down into a costs (as all things do):
Few multi-purpose ships are costly, but easier to man. But as there are few of them the readiness had to be kept up as much as possible. On the other hand each ship/component cost much more just because there are few of them. Bad thing here is multi-purpose usually do not excel in any single role
Many single-purpose ships could be obtained at the same price, but will require considerable manpower. On the other hand, maintenance can be slower, and components are much cheaper as there are lot of them. Bad thing here is that single-purpose tends to be not so good at any other mission.

Similar to the F-35 vs F-16/18. The requirements for the "state-of-the-art" are so upped that it simply drives the costs and development time sky-high with hope it will decrease long-term costs. On the other hand acquiring "not-so-good" things will probably result in lower buying cost, but higher maintenance/upkeep cost to keep it competitive.

To add more fun the the whole thing, the financial institutions (states included) usually got money allocated in two different packages: "Operational Expenses" (or OPEX) and "Capital Expenses" (CAPEX).
In the military this would mean approximately:
OPEX - fuel, manpower costs, building maintenance, paint, ammo expended on exercises, general maintenance (ship painting, plane maintenance, ..) etc.
CAPEX - major modernization programs, obtaining new equipment, obtaining new buildings, land, etc.

And here is the "cherry-on-the-cake": THESE TWO ARE USUALLY NOT INTERCHANGEABLE! And institutions (states/military included) are closely watched for their OPEX/CAPEX. High OPEX is not something what you want to see in budget considerations

[Lokasenna]

And it's worth noting that manpower in the modern military is not cheap. Which is a good thing, for several reasons - the highly qualified people the military needs to man the high tech "stuff" find other industries just as or more attractive.

Also, new ship designs (of which a LCS of this size and modularity is really a first) always cost much more than any successors. It's the cost of R&D, basically. It's not so much that it's "a stealth ship that was designed for fire support of landing forces", it's that it was designed for fire support of landing forces, while also being something of a stealth ship, while also being something of a destroyer, while also being a missile platform, etc.

[Rusty1961]

https://news.usni.org/2018/07/11/second ... sea-trials

Okay, the ship was designed around a gun that doesn't work or is too expensive to use and now the engine designed is flawed.

What is it about these new weapon systems?

[FlyByKnight]

It's just another symptom of the modern-day obsession with flashy and fancy technology, obvious problems be damned.

What is it about these new weapon systems?

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: CharlieVane

It's just another symptom of the modern-day obsession with flashy and fancy technology, obvious problems be damned.

What is it about these new weapon systems?

If that ship is one of the new stealth ones, chances are they were trying out new tech in turbine engines to make them quieter too. Such failures during initial deployment seem to be par for the course in rolling out new technology, but usually they find a solution and end up with something impressive. USAF and NASA had lots of rocket failures developing the first IRBMs and ICBMs, but that led to quite reliable systems for the Mercury, Gemini and Apollo programs.

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: CharlieVane

Meh, the source is a division of Vice. They've got their preferred goals and "slant" when it comes to reporting these things.

Agreed...how is USNI press for credibility?

https://news.usni.org/2018/01/11/no-new ... g-industry

[Rusty1961]

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

And it's worth noting that manpower in the modern military is not cheap. Which is a good thing, for several reasons - the highly qualified people the military needs to man the high tech "stuff" find other industries just as or more attractive.

.

Agreed, training and equipping isn't cheap. Perhaps if we spent even more we could defeat the Taliban?

[BBfanboy]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

ORIGINAL: Lokasenna

And it's worth noting that manpower in the modern military is not cheap. Which is a good thing, for several reasons - the highly qualified people the military needs to man the high tech "stuff" find other industries just as or more attractive.

.

Agreed, training and equipping isn't cheap. Perhaps if we spent even more we could defeat the Taliban?

Defeating people with a different ideology in a country that they live in and we don't is a cultural and political battle, not a military one.
First we need the patience to say "This might take two or three generations - 30-50 years.
Second, don't attack the people, attack the ignorance that their overlords feed them so that they will actually question the underlying assumptions.
Third, show them how a world with more freedom works - a concept they currently find threatening because of the absolutism they have been fed since birth.

Access to the Internet and Cell Phones comes to mind as a place to start this revolution in enlightenment. In the meantime, we must stop any actions that appear to be an attack on their religion and culture - they must decide to do that themselves.

[Big B]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

https://motherboard.vice.com/en_us/arti ... lt-warship


"In late 2016, the Navy admitted it couldn’t afford to spend $600 million per vessel to arm just three ships with a full ammo load. The service cancelled its planned first batch of 2,000 shells, and also suspended a $250 million effort to modify the AGSs to be compatible with different, cheaper rounds"


Laughable. Can't even afford the ammo for the ship.

The obvious question is - "Will each shell do at least 0ne Million Dollars worth of damage?" If not, someone needs to look at this again and rethink it.

[Treetop64]

ORIGINAL: Rusty1961

What is it about these new weapon systems?

It's that it's new.

Also, in the case of the DDG 1000s it's radical and innovative. And developed in (relative) peacetime, by a nation that can afford to take on such experiments. Snags are inevitable, more so for complex and unconventional new designs such as the DDG 1000, F35, etc.

Finally, unlike in generations past, today we have multiple outlets of a hyperactive 24-hour news cycle, hell-bent on clicks, views, and ratings. The slightest potential story will result in maximum exposure, and presented so that it's emotionally provocative. Anything to make the story more interesting. Objectivity, or even truth be damned.

[Big B]

It's amazing how many people would give the military a blank cheque - because it's the military.
When the cannon was invented in the middle ages, they fired - rocks. Now ideally diamonds would be much better at breaking down stone walls, but they are expensive. Today - we want to shoot diamonds.

The entire thing is ridiculous.