No. of Recommendations: 5
Forget the Felon/moron. Our Navy has had many developmental failures, even as we retire older vessels. This is leaving gaps in our Naval operational capabilities. Even if Harris had won, this would still be the case. So, forget that stuff.
It's pretty clear that someone had this on the drawing board (i.e. the
Defiant). It appears, at first glance, to have most or all of the requirements for a US Navy vessel. The below article speculates that it may have been a modification of the DDG-51 concept. Unlike the FREMM, which required modifications to bring it up to Navy specs (whether or not those specs make sense is another subject). I posted a deep-dive video on the failures of US naval procurement/development as it relates to the FREMM/Constellation, and the Zumwalt. Anyone really interested can geek-out over that (it's a very good video).
Here is another article on the vessel. An analysis by CSIS. Not to brag, but it brought up some of the points I mentioned earlier in another thread, and a few that didn't occur to me.
https://www.csis.org/analysis/golden-fleets-battle...They project we won't see the first ship until the 2030s, at best. So, they aren't ready to start "cutting steel" just yet.
The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a future destroyer of 14,500 tons would cost $4.4 billion or $300,000 per ton. That would imply a battleship cost of about $9.1 billion, allowing for some economies of scale. Lead ships are typically 50 percent more expensive than the average, so BBG 1 would likely cost $13.5 billion, about as much as an aircraft carrier.That's a problem. We need several ships, and we need them yesterday. The BBG will be 4x the size of a current DDG, and cost three times as much as the 14.5K ton "future destroyer" mentioned (and Arleigh-Burke is only about 9K+ tons, so "future destroyer" is 50% larger than that).
The administration has rightly highlighted the need to build more ships, and the 2026 reconciliation bill adds $29.2 billion to do that. However, a BBG class is extremely high risk. When the full cost and schedule become known, the program will almost certainly be canceled. However, that may be after spending several years and several billion dollars.Build the DDGs. We get more of them for less, and more dispersed fires (i.e. decentralization, which is tactically advantageous). That's the gap that needs to be filled as the Arleigh-Burkes are being stretched to fill those gaps (and will be increasingly unable to do so). I think it unlikely we'll get more than one or two (if that) of the BBGs. And we'll lose a lot of time pursuing that with very little to show for it. I vote for the 14.5K ton DDG. Makes the most sense.
Meanwhile, the Chinese have deployed their Type-055 destroyers, that appear to be very capable and modern.
(BTW, I've been on both the
Missouri and the
Iowa. They are seriously cool if you're even remotely interested in naval vessels and history. Highly recommended. You can even see where a kamikaze struck
Missouri, and created a relatively small dent in the top edge of the hull. The armor is like nothing you've ever seen...in some places, a couple of
feet thick.)
