Hat Tip to Elements of Power Blog.
Yeah Baby!
That is one great looking ship!
I don't know how it'll handle rough weather....but it definitely has the right look. Add to all that those beautiful 155mm cannons sitting on its deck and amphibious assault will be back in vogue.
The Navy reminds me of the big sister with lots of cash trying to take care of its little brother. In this case, the Marine Corps asked for more naval guns and the Navy is coming through. See the entire photo essay here.
Yeah Baby!
That is one great looking ship!
I don't know how it'll handle rough weather....but it definitely has the right look. Add to all that those beautiful 155mm cannons sitting on its deck and amphibious assault will be back in vogue.
The Navy reminds me of the big sister with lots of cash trying to take care of its little brother. In this case, the Marine Corps asked for more naval guns and the Navy is coming through. See the entire photo essay here.
Be cool if they find a way to chain HIMARS to the aviation deck.
ReplyDeleteeveryone wants HIMARS at sea but i'd love to see ATACMS put into some type of VLS system to be used aboard ship. artillery, long range excalibur type artillery can handle anything HIMARS can (well except for mechanized attacks) so what we need is something really long range with a large warhead.
ReplyDeleteATACMS won't fit existing MK41 VLS cell. MK57 VLS onboard DDG1000 can accept missile rounds up to 25 inches in diameter. Another incentive to do so. A navalized ATACMS aka NTACMS was considered by US Navy in the late 1990's.
ReplyDeleteDDG1000 looks like those ironclad battleships from 19th century. This type of body design may have stability issue on the high sea riding big waves.
ReplyDeleteOn her shape , projected performance at sea, stability:
ReplyDelete1. There was a class of several dozen so-called ‘whaleback’ cargo-carrier type built in the late 1800s with apparently quite successful hydrodynamic properties in routine commercial service.
See http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Whaleback
Great Lakes freighter ‘Meteor’ (120m x 14m) was commercially active for 73 years and is now preserved.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS_Meteor_(1896)
One of these ‘Whale-backs’ was the first American steamship to circumnavigate the globe.
2. USN did build a scale-model of DDG-1000, called the Advanced Electric Ship Demonstrator (AESD). The craft measures 133 feet in length and began its test-article career November 30th 2005 on Lake Pend Oreille in northern Idaho. That lake can produce ‘scale’-waves to severely test her unusual shape.
3. As folks familiar with slender very shallow sailing ocean-crossing mono-hulls know, you’ll be just fine on say 39′x8′x18″ (and no additional deeper ‘ballast-fin’) – IF you have ‘high shoulders’ to progressively lean on at extreme angles of wind or weave-induced heel. East and West trans-Atlantic crossings have been done ‘routinely’ on such proportions.
Assuming DDG-1000′s solid-block superstructure is designed to absorb this, she’d likely begin to stop moving at 80-degrees of heel as the very significant buoyancy of that structure begins to be immersed.
And of course she is not exactly shallow-draft with much of heavy bulk way low – and not too much aerodynamic drag from that unified superstructure either.
I look forward to videos of her at full speed in medium-height swells…
I see another problem according to the tumblehome designed hull. The bow is designed to go through the waves. So the waves will roll over the deck, guns and hit the frontal superstructure.
ReplyDeletehttp://youtu.be/4Nxeav0ivhM
The bridge is less than 40 feet above water line.
I don't understand why Solomon is excited by the prospect of DDG-1000 class ships with only two guns providing naval gun support, when a dedicated arsenal ship would do a much better job at a fraction of the cost, especially a ship with tons of rocket launchers on deck. Imagine a dedicated arsenel ship with 20 MLRS firing all 400 rockets at once. Now that's the kind of naval gun support that the marines would die for.
ReplyDeletehow are rockets cheaper than artillery shells? what are you going to volley fire 400 rockets at once at? how would you rearm all those VLS cells.
DeleteSolomon
DeleteRockets are cheaper by the fact that they destroy enemy defense positions faster and allow more of blue forces to land alive. And I am not talking about VLS launched rockets, but MLRS rocket launchers like HIMARS or Katyusha types mounted onboard a cheap warship.
Anyhow, this is the kind of enemy that the Marines are likely to face with if they are landing in an operation that would require DDG-1000 to provide firepower support. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kYhrxYjnjd4
dude, you're acting like we're doing Iwo Jima again. that's not the case. if you're talking about forcible entry then we're going to have Super Hornets, cruise missiles, naval guns all firing at targets. the idea to lash HIMARS on a deck and fire them is simply insane in my mind.
Deleteplus its more expensive. have you even bothered to look at the 155 being mounted on the DDG? have you ever witnessed artillery do a time on target fire mission?
this setup will do just fine. more than fine. i fully expect the Chinese to steal and copy the design, its just that good.
Solomon
DeleteIt is Iwo Jima redux when Futenma marines are ordered to land in North Korean nuclear weapons depot and steal their nukes. This is the most likely place where the Futenma Marines are called into action. And they are landing on a beach with 10,000 incoming enemy rockets and artillary shells, so in a way this is worse than Iwo Jima.
a raid into N. Korea to recover nukes? first that ain't a Marine Corps mission. at best we'd be perimeter security for SOCOM and outer security at that. Rangers, and SF would be leading the way on that type of thing. second, why would you even need USMC anyway? the US Army has an entire division allocated to the defense of S. Korea and they would have a say, plus no one in his right mind would try forcible entry with the N. Koreans well known HUGE number of artillery batteries still in play. Marines might land but the North wouldn't go after them, they'd go after Seoul.
Deletebut even excusing your scenario, you're still left with the issue of supporting fires and the type that is currently available. we have cruise missile subs each carrying 144 of them (and we have a total of 4), Burkes all carry cruise missiles and 5 in guns, aircraft carriers, land based fighters, our own artillery and now big naval guns.
we don't need himars on ships. we're covered.
Solomon
Delete"U.S. commander reveals true purpose of troops in Okinawa is to remove N. Korea's nukes
The commander of U.S. Marine Corps troops in Asia has recently revealed to Japanese defense officials that the true purpose of stationing Marines in Okinawa is to remove North Korea of its nuclear weapons if its regime collapses, sources close to the government say."
"The commander kept silent for a while, and then revealed that Marine Corps troops in Okinawa are actually there to counter the threat of North Korea, according to one of Japanese attendees. Pointing out that there is more chance that Kim Jong Il's regime will collapse than a military conflict breaking out between North and South Korea, Stalder explained that the most important mission of Marines in Okinawa in such an emergency situation is to promptly rid North Korea of its nuclear weapons."
http://groups.yahoo.com/neo/groups/communist_news/conversations/topics/10851
dude! don't believe that! its complete BULLSHIT! US Marines are neither equipped or trained to do a recovery of that type.
DeleteMarines are a general purpose force. if you're talking about raiding a nuclear facility, weapons storage depot with nuclear weapons etc, then you're talking about 1000% SOCOM mission. that's a Ranger Regiment mission. i'm talking the entire Regiment. you might have SF or SEALs but Marines would be so far down the pecking order they wouldn't even get listed as part of the order of battle.
tell me you really didn't believe that yahoo groups nonsense!
Also it is debatable at best if an M30 rounds is cheaper than LRLAP round. An M30 round runs ~100k. An LRLAP round should be cheaper. Not to mention that an LRLAP round actually out ranged an M30 and pretty much any other not IRBM system out there. MGM-168 ATACMS does out range AGS but has a significant cost in the range of Tomahawks and JASSM-ER.
DeleteThe only ATACMS advantage over Tomahawk/JASSM-ER is time of flight, range and payload are both less. I included JASSM-ER because if LRASM gets picked up by the Navy, then then the step to procure and support VLS launched JASSM-ER is pretty much a fait accompli, since the only difference between JASSM-ER and LRASM is in their guidance systems.
HIMARS is half an MLRS, with ammo and mechanisms already part of USMC logistics.
DeleteAnd once we know how to make HIMARS 'seaworthy', doing the same to the very mature MLRS system is not much of a reach.
You sure could slide 2x 12-tube MLRS (possibly 3) into a LCU-F for (very) Inshore Fire Support, from just outside of tank-gun, mortar, shoulder-launched etc.-range. At least 6 reloads likely. Plus a few ATACMS for selected purposes way up-country.
Constantly moving about with a 22'x10' section facing the shore, she'd be quite hard to hit in return.
Or insert one module with 2x 203mm (Ex-USA M110) stabilized barrels. If 155mm out of the best current arti-system (PzH-2000) can do 30nm per rocket-assisted projectile, using a 203mm bore should offer certain advantages throwing 'cheap' rounds until the barrel's rifling is done.
M-110 is 39-cal. Going up to 52-cal and then 62-cal should really open things up a fair bit.
To hammer the adversary, using one (or five or 'x') 'cheap' LCU-F that are hard to hit versus one DDG-1000 too close in the Littorals for the CO's comfort makes for interesting tactical and even strategic analytics.
Which leaves the question when LCU-F might take structural damage from that sequence of serious recoil pulses. But via lap-top when should be able to exactly match that shock with electromagnetic 'shock-absorbers' in addition to conventional springs, elastomers, etc. She should have enough diesel-electric power to (roughly) stabilize the hull, and then the barrels with appropriate precision. A fine but comparatively modest engineering challenge versus upgrading DDG-51 guns or doing DDG-1000.
Which would leave one or multiple LCU-Fs offering a very versatile mix of 2x 203mm and 1x 12-tube MLRS.
When was the last time USMC commandos were supported by 8" barrels ?
Solomon
Delete> Marines are a general purpose force. if you're talking about raiding a nuclear facility, weapons storage depot with nuclear weapons etc, then you're talking about 1000% SOCOM mission. that's a Ranger Regiment mission.
A raid on North Korean nuclear weapon storage guided by purhaps a couple of elite brigades is way beyond the scope of a SOCOM type mission. Not only do the raiders must surpress at least 10K North Korean defenders, they also must bring a couple dozen V-22s and CH-53s to airlift the nuclear weapons out of North Korea. This is not the kind of mission that could be handled by a couple hundred SOCOM troops and requires a full scale invasion and landing just to make the way for the raiders to reach the depot.
> tell me you really didn't believe that yahoo groups nonsense!
The news source was Mainichi newspaper, whose link was removed so I linked a copy of that article.
Yes, there were several confirmations of Futenma marine's primary role being the raid on North Korean nuclear weapons depot.
That mission is reserved for a nuclear bunker buster armed B-2 or a BUFF.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteAs found on THINK DEFENCE, on DDG-1000, check this out:
ReplyDeletehttp://www.phisicalpsience.com/public/Tumblehome_Hull_DDG-1000/Tumblehome_Hull_DDG-1000.html
Aye! Give me a fast ship for I intend to go in harm's way.
ReplyDeleteI will never forget a trip to Portsmouth Va. and that first glimpse of a Forrestal class CV sitting in a dry dock.
Shipyard workers appeared as ants as they moved about the behemoth.