New US Navy Cruiser Slips Three Years So Navy Will Buy More Destroyers

The Large Surface Combatant program will replace the Ticonderoga-class cruiser and the DDG-51s but the start date for new ships has slipped from 2023 to 2026 or later.

The US Navy wants new cruisers to host an air defense commander staff within the carrier strike group and for more large weapons, and to hold a very large radar.

In 2006, the RAND corporation found that from 1965-2005 the US Navy had 7-11% annual inflation for its ships and this inflation rate was higher than the inflation for US college tuition and US healthcare. This was before the Zumwalt destroyers (aka DDX) came in at $7.5 billion each compared to the previous destroyer at $1-2 billion each. Only 3 Zumwalts will be built and they have loads of technical and operational problems.

SAN DIEGO (Dec. 8, 2016) The guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) arrives at its new homeport in San Diego. Zumwalt, the Navy’s most technologically advanced surface ship, will now begin installation of combat systems, testing and evaluation and operation integration with the fleet. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Emiline L. M. Senn/Released)

The Navy procurement has been badly broken for decades but it has become a farce in the last 15 years. It is also a tragedy for the American taxpayer.

The US Navy wanted to include Zumwalt destroyer features in the large surface combatant ship. This desire for advanced technology that has proven very costly in the past will drive up costs and delay the program. The US Navy wants a bigger and badder version of the Zumwalt and this is already causing years of delays.

While we wait the Navy will buy more of the thirty-year old design of the Arleigh Burke destroyers.

SOURCES- Rand, USNI
Written By Brian Wang. Nextbigfuture.com

35 thoughts on “New US Navy Cruiser Slips Three Years So Navy Will Buy More Destroyers”

  1. American fascism at work, combine contractors so government insiders control the procurement process and if law enforcement gets wind of the corruption it is buried because the contractor is too big to fail.

  2. Maybe the Navy should look at the old light battle ship, Heavy Cruiser & Light Cruiser hull design’s from WII, Korea & Vietnam era. This would give them the size need for new weapons systems, radars and sonar systems. This size would also help to deploy newer types of combat drones, Helicopters and possibly Vertical takeoff aircraft to help protect carrier battle groups. Especially in the future if the Navy goes with smaller carrier battle groups. These light battle ships, Heavy Cruisers and Light Cruiser hull designs made these ships very fast compared to the larger battle wagons of that era. Just my opionion, Sometimes older good be better!

  3. A Democrat.

    Democrats are the historical party of slavery, segregation, the KKK, and lynchings.

    At the start of the Civil War in 1860, not one Republican in the entire USA owned a slave.

    Only Democrats from both the North and the South started the Civil War.

    Only Democrats owned slaves.
    Only Democrats started the KKK.
    Only Democrats lynched blacks.
    Only Democrats voted for and implement the Jim Crow segregationist laws.

    Democrats continue to divide the nation by using racism, identity politics, and the demonization of any opposition.

    Democrats are the racists, but they blame Republicans and conservatives for their very own bigotry.

  4. surface ships are what you need to attack other countries. Our carriers need escorts, otherwise they are defenseless against a concerted attack.

  5. It would be great if that were true. In fact, until a couple of years ago, that was true at least to a degree. Unfortunately, it is no longer the case. The type 55 destroyer can see further with much better radars. Its vertical launch cells are bigger, so it can accommodate bigger missiles. What is more, being a new platform, it has far more potential for upgrades. If ship born rail guns are production ready, the Ticos and Burkes will not be able to host them. Only the type 55 and maybe the Zumwalt. But the Zumwalt had the distinction of being so expensive that they stop building them after three ships.

    In time, hypersonic missiles, Integrated Electric Propulsion and rail guns are going to be part of the type 55. In all three of these areas, the Chinese has a big lead on us. By 2026 or 2030 if this slipping continues, the Burkes are going to be completely outclassed. Due to its dated design, there is no hope of having any of these techs install into them aside from the fact that we will be a long ways off from a production ready rail gun. A brand new design will have to be created, tested, and so on. It would have to go through similar birthing pain as our Ford class carriers. What is more, do to the lost of our civilian shipping industry, the capacity to ramp up is not there and it would likely cost three times the type 55. Just as a reference, it cost about $2 billion for Arleigh Burke flight III. The type 55, including R & D, is 6 billion yuan, or less than $1 billion.

  6. It’s pretty clear he means Arabs.

    Wiki: “The terminology is now largely obsolete outside linguistics.”

    So, he’s using an out of date term like ‘colored’ or ‘oriental’.

  7. Is ‘software engineering’ actually engineering? Sometimes it seems like ‘other’. I can think of many examples where writing software/firmware IS engineering (recent example Boeing MCAS); mathematically intense things like 3D rendering seem like engineering to me as they implement physics. On the other hand, I don’t think that writing bank software for transactions or social media apps or candycrush, etc., qualifies to be called engineering. So ‘software engineering’ is a strange in-between….. more like ‘computer science’. Yeah, that fits better, and is still a Bachelor of Science.

    As far as Elon’s ‘advantage’ leveraging his software development methods to build rockets… that sounds like a typical head down in the keypad programmer musk fluffer comment. What the guy has leveraged is hundreds of engineers that used to work for NASA and the defense industry. What the guy has leveraged is just enough government investment to keep operations afloat while somehow keeping the government at a distance. Keeping the company private certainly helps. Also, the fact that SpaceX has no government mission besides sending a grocery cart to the ISS helps.

  8. Aircraft can quite easily enageg surface task forces with overwhelming saturation missile attacks (and sophisticated smaller attacks). The limit is really only in missile stocks since even a carrier TF with multiple carriers would be hard-pressed to get enough fighters on station to fend off a large (100+ aircraft with decent countermeasures to AMRAAM) strike package.

    AEGIS in particular is quite poor against air attack well done because of the de facto line of sight limitation of radars. AEW like Hawkeye are easy targets and might be killed with LO fighters like J-20 with long-range AAM before the main strike.

    A CVBG can -regardless of size – not kill a single attacking air platform if the latter stays under the radar horizon and no aerial radar provides targeting info for SM-6 or ESSM Blk II.

    Moreover, AShMs can be launched en masse from beyond SM-6 range. AShMs can also be launched by subs.

    In the end, the USN CVBGs better minimise their persistence within PLAAF/PLAN strike range. That’s difficult to pull off because of underwhelming aircraft combat mission radii.

  9. Because the U.S.Navy is a land attack navy first and foremost. Its primary job is to bomb foreign countries.

    You need cruise missile platforms (such as DDG) and carriers (which need DDG for air and submarine defence) for this.

  10. So now it isn’t “white”, it’s only “white, or East Asians”

    Anymore aspects of your theory you want to walk back?

  11. Does your theory explain what might happen to China if they “slip down” to being only 80% white?

    Oh, wait…. they are already 95% non-white.

    Err… your theory has a basic problem.

  12. They did not replace anyone. These were already part of the USSR.
    Talent and such is not the problem. They graduate a lot more engineers than the US does and many of our graduates are not ours. They are foreign students many of which return home.

    And Iran a small country in comparison with the US graduates nearly as many engineers as the US: 233,695 vs our 237,826. Russia is close to double that 454,436.

    https://www.worldatlas.com/articles/countries-with-the-most-engineering-graduates.html

    Iran actually does a lot to insure good nutrition in pregnancy and early years, and that is paying off. Uzbekistan too appears to be making quite a few young geniuses. Certainly pulling its own weight.

    Do a search for the top 100 players 18 years old and younger. You get:
    3 Armenians
    2 Australians (imports from Turkey and Russia)
    1 Austrian
    1 Azerbaijani
    1 Canadian (imported from Azerbaijan)
    7 Chinese
    1 Croatian
    2 Cubans
    1 Czech
    2 Danes
    1 Egyptian
    3 Germans
    2 Greeks
    3 Hungarians
    14 Indians
    6 Iranians (just one less than the Chinese)
    2 Italians
    1 Lithuanian
    1 Malaysian
    5 Dutch
    1 Norwegian
    2 Peruvians
    2 Poles
    1 Romanian
    11 Russians
    4 Serbians
    2 Spaniards
    3 Ukrainians
    9 Americans
    5 Uzbekistanis
    1 Vietnamese

    https://2700chess.com/all-fide-players

    Not a lot of East Asian players because they often play their own versions of Chess or they play Go or both. Chess has not made many inroads in Africa yet. Though scrabble is becoming popular https://www.wespa.org/aardvark/cgi-bin/rating.cgi

  13. As a software engineer, I think the military is basically at odds with modern software development practices. They want to plan everything out, they want to measure everything in terms of “lines of code”, they want everything to be top secret, no open source, no external parts, everything in-house. They want to re-use old standards and systems that are 30 years old. I think it’s a fundamental flaw in the way they think about engineering in general and the inefficiency likely impacts to mechanical, electrical, etc. All development. Software is “liberated” so-to-speak and I think software is a front-runner for efficient engineering practices. If the military wants to know how to build advanced technology they should talk to Elon Musk because he’s managed to apply his software development methods to everything else and build advanced rockets successfully.

  14. I think people grossly overestimate what a torpedo is capable of. The USN has had highly effective soft-kill systems for torpedoes for over 30 years now. The soft-kill systems were seen by the Soviets as likely being so effective that they decided to develop wake-following torpedos. The USN has since developed a hard-kill system. Torpedo defense is actually much easier than missile defense especially when operating in a “blue water” environment.

    Surface combatants aren’t going away anytime soon.

  15. It’s cost do much because the Navy wants capability that’s hasn’t been invented yet they need to build ships with already proven tech with a mix of new tech to save cost instead of trying to reinenvent everything

  16. As a depot-level acquisitions support employee, I completely agree- as this relates to smaller purchases. When we receive a bundle of money to spend in a limited amount of time, we need to go with an 8A minority-owned contractor or risk losing the funding.
    Larger projects still can be sole-source justified, but these are planned years in advance.
    Sometimes the problem is finding companies willing to bid on a defense contract since they are such a pita.

  17. You sound like a scared little snowflake. 🙁

    Btw, I glad your’re afraid. Minorities have been afraid in the country for hundreds of years, because of people like you. Glad your getting a taste of what it feels like to be insignificant!

  18. Yep sure think that. Yet planes still fear ships and subs still fear getting found by a sub hunter.

    BTW if your going to mention stealth the navy can use the stupidly powerful radars they have to detect the B-2 so…

  19. Did anybody notice what is happening with Russian military latterly. It is in complete shambles.  Explosions on military bases happening nonstop for the last few weeks, explosions with radioactive leak during testing of their dumb radioactive cruise missile, ship docks thinking, secret sub “Losharic” fires while underwater, etc..  It is fun to observe the final years of Russia project.

  20. If you work for a defense contractor that actually might be the case. I’ve heard Defense Contracting referred to as welfare for engineers.

  21. I’m guessing we’ll still need some surface ships regardless how advanced the weapons are that they face. Of course, the implication is that more and more of their weapons will have to be simply defensive in nature.

  22. I very much enjoy having my hard earned tax dollars spent lining the pockets of the military industrial complex.

  23. We have plenty of overseas allies that make very good combat ships. Maybe these US contractors need more competition. If Japan builds a good 6th generation fighter, we should buy it. Same for their AIP subs, they’d be fine for the South China Sea and littoral waters. If we have bidding worldwide to build the same design/specs or even their own ship designs maybe we will see some cost competitive ships get built in record time. If nothing else we will slim out the cost+ herd contractors in the US.

  24. People in Pentagon procurement can retire early on full pensions and then get high paying jobs with those guys so they don’t have much incentive to rock the boat.

  25. Why would anyone invest in surface ships? Today the navies of the world look up in terror because of what planes can do. They also look down with terror at what submarines and long range torpedo’s can do.

  26. Real stupid to let all the contractors merge. You want them competing against each other. Big contracts should not exist. You want to get two or more contractors making the same thing or interchangeable. They get to make more if they are making them faster and cheaper. You go slow or can’t meet quality fast enough, the other guy makes more and gets more money. No one wins the contract outright even after they have proven themselves. You catch them colluding, big fine, and all board members are dismissed, do time, and never work for any company contracting for the Fed. And the companies get broken up.
    We need 20 contractors capable of doing anything. 3 or 4? Profoundly stupid. Really, it is politician self-interest. AKA pork.

    All new navy ships should be made of stainless steel. You need much less maintenance. And maintenance is very costly. They are constantly putting $300-$500 a gallon epoxy paint on the things.

  27. I was briefly the chief engineering officer for USN subcontractor. We purchased off-the-shelf units from another US supplier, added some packaging and doubled the price selling to a USN required (false front, and they they KNEW it) “minority” supplier who did nothing other than double the price again to the subsystems subcontractor, who doubled the price and sold them to the systems subcontractor, who doubled the price and sold them to the prime contractor shipyards, who doubled the price and sold them to the US Navy. The entire US defense industry is based on this theft through multi-level contracts scam.

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