Congratulations are in order for the U.S. Navy. They are proving once again that their long range ship building planning is irrelevant and unaffordable and more of a danger to taxpayers than an enemy fleet.
The con-artists had to call the Zumwalt dumbassery a "destroyer" to get the idea past Congress, even if the Zumwalt is closer in size to the Graf Spee.
Cost each? Around $6.6B. Do these people even know what a billion dollars look like? Do they understand combat effectiveness vs. the money spent?
Somehow, battleship admirals came back from the 1980's to haunt us; got promoted way beyond their ability, and hung the taxpayer with this albatross that takes funds away from useful defense communities.
And I wonder which U.S. submarine will get the first periscope-photo of this pig to display in the wardroom?
I wonder which under $1B submarine, hypersonic missile or mine will disable or sink this kind of too-many-eggs-in-one-basket stupidity?
Why? Because the Navy can't even keep a safe air umbrella over the ships it has starting oh, late this decade if not sooner. The Navy is well on its way to an obsolete carrier air wing.
But even if we could protect the Zumwalt, it has no value to any sane naval strategy.
How about another photo just as damning? That of a Zumwalt in the background while one of its boats goes to inspect a ship in pirate waters? A task better done by affordable frigates of which the Navy refuses to acknowledge.
Like some other weapons, the Zumwalt is too expensive to own and operate (what a waste of crew) for non-anti-access threats, and is too vulnerable for anti-access scenarios for the amount of resources shovelled into it. Ships are lost in wars. This one is way too expensive to put in harms way.
For every Zumwalt, we could probably have 7-9 no-frills Frigates.
Like other areas of the DOD, I hold Navy ship planning in contempt. They are wasting our money for little return in combat value.
9 comments:
I think you're missing the point Eric. Ship building is about jobs. The bigger the cost and longer duration of the project, the more jobs can be created in many important congressional districts.
It's the economy stupid.
Regardless, todays acquisition and planning chiefs should take a look at how things were done, scrutinized and justified back in the early 1900s when still able to build a great sea-going Navy.
There is job worth to be had building 60,70,80 frigates.
I agree, lots of frigates with lots of VLS and close in weapons systems.
Should buy and split license-build Turkish or Spanish designed Frigates if buying lighter class surface combatants.
The US simply cannot build a cost-effective light surface combatant with any real modern fire power.
No-frills is ok as part of the mix, but at some point additional frills is a justified capability for a light surface combatant as it could do virtually every mission almost as good, as a destroyer class albeit cheaper.
4x frill-loaded and reduced RCS corvette-frigates of foreign design would be a fair trade for one Zumwalt.
USN could out-source a clean-sheet next-gen Destroyer joint-venture design and development with Spain, Turkey and or South Korea. (even if USN was sole customer)
Eric I concur with your frigate comment in general terms (ie maximizing the product return on investment and budget appropriated) and was only being sarcastic above, as you probably know.
Amen Eric.
Cost containment on defense spending is out of control. The US is going to get another credit rating downgrade, which will lead to one outcome...sequestration. When that happens, all the out of control, overly expensive programs like the F35 and others will be gone.
Has anyone ever seriously considered that these "Battleship Admirals/Generals" might actually be moles working for the Chinese?
After all what better way to defeat a potential enemy than economically without a shot being fired. It's four birds with one stone, send the US broke (and control thee US economy for many years to come through massive loans that need to be repaid, a la what the US did with Europe and the UK post WWII), remove manufacturing competition, neuter their military capability through over spending again in much the same way that the US did the same thing to the USSR, and lastly through this action deliver the Chinese the regional sphere of influence they covert.
Because if some of these people are not working for the other side then the only other explanation is they are deranged.
Wow, I understand the issue with any surface warship other than a carrier costing this much BUT, if you're this critical of an armed and armored warship that will have tremendous capabilities, where do you draw the line when we're actually building the LCS? At least the Zumwalt can perform missions from low end to high end. All the LCS can do is "keep it's distance and survive" to quote Secretary Work... I enjoy a lot of your writings but I can't understand anyone that can criticize the DDG-1000 when we're also building a force of LCS's at a 1/2 billion a pop without any bloody mission packages...
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