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It would have been cancelled outright, but for all of those pesky contracts.
So three will be built, the Navy will have a chance to compare them to the overloaded flight III Burkes, and perhaps the Navy will change course again?
I haven't exactly been keeping track of the other DDG-1000 thread, but at the very least the Zumwalts should prove to be a practical technology demonstrator? Platforms like the Sea Shadow are one thing, but the Zumwalts almost seem to be like the F-117 in terms of technology demonstration. It's a real-world application of advances in technology.
Ingalls has completed ZUMWALT's helo hangar. WLOX TV news story (with photos and video).
"The lighter weight of the carbon composite structure enables the ship to travel faster. It also produces a smaller radar profile, making it less likely to be spotted by an enemy." Source WLOX-TV website.
Didn't the discussion about the radar signature for the Zumwalts conclude with the accepted announcement that a DD the size of a CL is difficult to hide? Countermeasures to address the carbon composite construction is a great advancement, but DDG's keep getting larger...
So three will be built, the Navy will have a chance to compare them to the overloaded flight III Burkes, and perhaps the Navy will change course again?
They are talking about using a 14 foot aperature variant of AMDR on the Arleigh Burke flight III. The claim is that going larger would require a major redesign (as if the A-B flight III isn't already going to be a major redesign).
All else held equal, sensitivity of radar scales with the cube of the diameter of the aperature. So a 21 foot aperature has 3.375x (+10.57dB) increase in sensitivity as compared a 14 foot aperature.
His "About me" on his facebook says "Working with Orbs, light beings to heal the planet". I suspect he was on some substance that could have made a rowboat look like a DDG-1000. Either that or he doesn't know the first thing about what a naval vessel looks like and assumed a run-of-the-mill Arleigh Burke was the new destroyer.
He has since retracted the claim...it looks like after somebody educated him.
“He was the most prodigious personification of all human inferiorities. He was an utterly incapable, unadapted, irresponsible, psychopathic personality, full of empty, infantile fantasies, but cursed with the keen intuition of a rat or a guttersnipe. He represented the shadow, the inferior part of everybody’s personality, in an overwhelming degree, and this was another reason why they fell for him.”
As the first DDG-1000 Zumwalt-class destroyer moves close to completion, U.S.Navy interest is rising and the cost of the ship appears to be dropping.
In recent blogs and official releases, the Navy brass has continued to tout the benefits of its new, most futuristic warship, with the composite deckhouse making its trek via barge from the Gulf of Mexico to Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine, where the ship is being assembled. At the same time, the Navy is pushing hard to bring down the cost for the Zumwalt ships, with the first one estimated to cost a bit more than $3 billion.
“The Navy is still driving to get the cost for the third ship down to just over $2 billion,” says Bill Marcley, DDG-1000 program manager and vice president of Total Ship Mission Systems for Raytheon Integrated Systems, one of the Zumwalt’s prime contractors. "The current range is between $2.1 billion and $2.4 billion, he says."
“All three destroyers are meeting major construction and testing milestones to reach completion prior to arriving in their homeport of San Diego,” says a recent blog praising the progress of the Zumwalt program posted by Rear Adm. Thomas Rowden, director for the Navy’s Surface Warfare Division. “Zumwalt is more than 70 percent complete,” Rowden notes. “Christening and commissioning are set for fiscal [20]13 and [20]15. Following developmental and operational testing, DDG-1000 will IOC [initial operational capability] in fiscal [20]16. DDG-1001 Michael Monsoor, the second Zumwalt, is more than 30% complete," he says, "with a sail-away set for fiscal 2017."
Fabrication of DDG-1002 Lyndon B. Johnson began April 4. All eyes are now on the first ship.
“We’re getting excited about getting ready to start activation activities of this ship later this year or early next year,” Marcley says. “Our real next big milestone is when we start putting power to the ship later this year."
Bath is working through the schedule with the Navy right now. The schedule will depend greatly on when the deckhouse arrives at Bath later this year.
"At the same time," Marcley says, "Raytheon is completing development and production on other components and software for the ships, as well as negotiating with the Navy to complete work for the three-ship class."
Raytheon has submitted its proposal for ship class completion of hardware.
"The Navy," he says, "has nearly completed its cost evaluation and the company expects to start negotiations in November."
The company then has a major software review in December with the Navy, although Marcley says there should be no surprises.
“The Navy sits in on our weekly software status reviews.” He says, “We’re really looking forward to getting through negotiations with the Navy to get ship three. Bath is already working on ship three and we’d like to get going and get our equipment there before they close up some of the spaces.”
If it's $2 billion, we might as well buy a few more while we just do a clean sheet design for the next DDG/CG instead of tooling around with the Arleigh Burke Flight III.
(Nov. 6, 2012) The deckhouse for the future USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) sits on a barge at Norfolk Naval Station after being diverted due to weather during transit from Huntington Ingalls Industries' Gulfport Facility in Mississippi to General Dynamics-Bath Iron Works shipyard in Maine. The DDG 1000-class destroyer is designed for sustained operations in the littorals and a land attack, and will provide independent forward presence and deterrence, support special operations forces, and operate as an integral part of joint and combined expeditionary focus. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist 3rd Class Zachary S. Welch/Released)
The story below included the same pictures as above, sourced from the USN.
No, the strange-looking blockhouse structure is not yet a ship — but wait a few years, it’ll be back with a proper hull under it.
The appearance of the future USS ZUMWALT (DDG 1000) will be unlike any other ship in service, and the 600-foot-long destroyer is starting to come together at the General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shipyard in Bath, Maine.
The biggest component of the ship built elsewhere is the composite structure deckhouse, fabricated in Gulfport, Miss., by Huntington Ingalls and delivered to the U.S. Navy on Oct. 9. The 900-ton structure was loaded on a barge for transport to Maine.
The trip was interrupted this week as a nor’easter started brewing off the mid-Atlantic coast, and the tow put in to Norfolk, Va., Monday, Nov. 5 to wait out the storm. These Navy photos were taken the morning of Nov. 6, at the Norfolk Naval Base, where the ship is expected to stay for five to seven days, until the weather clears.
The photos provide an unprecedented look at the DDG 1000′s unique superstructure, loaded with embedded radars and other sensors. In keeping with the ship’s stealth-oriented design, the engine uptakes are completely inside the structure and vent out the top, and no masts will be fitted.
After the superstructure is installed, the ZUMWALT is expected to be launched next summer and delivered in fiscal 2014.
Two more ship of the class are under construction at Bath, the MICHAEL MONSOUR (DDG 1001) and LYNDON B. JOHNSON (DDG 1002).
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