The Navy’s newest missile destroyer, the sleek and stealthy USS Zumwalt, cost over $4 billion— and according to a new report, the munitions for its large gun system are pretty pricey too: $800,000 a pop. That makes them expensive enough that the Navy wants to find a different projectile for the guns, the report said.
The Navy touted the Zumwalt as its “most technologically advanced warship” when it was commissioned in mid-October, and besides its stealthy radar signature, the powerful ship is also notable for being able to operate with a very small crew of only 147.
But the issue is with the price tag of a munition called the Long Range Land-Attack Projectile (LRLAP), that could reportedly cost $800,000 or more each, according to Defense News. Those high-tech weapons are designed to be shot out of the ship’s Advanced Gun System; Lockheed Martin says they are “the most accurate and longest-range guided projectile in U.S. Navy history.” They can reach over 73 miles, according to the aerospace and defense company.
The problem, Defense News said, was that since fewer of the Zumwalt-class ships will be built than originally expected— the final number will be just three— the issue became the cost of each projectile.
“We were going to buy thousands of these rounds,” a Navy source told Defense News. “But quantities of ships killed the affordable round.”
A spokesman said that the Navy is looking at other solutions for the projectile needs of the [Zumwalt class warships] . . .
My solution: Don't fire any LRLAP rounds against a hostile target. Just use an unarmed drone to drop a courteous note onto the target area. "If you cease and desist your hostile actions for 30 days, the U.S. Navy will deposit $100,000 into a Swiss bank account for you. At the end of every calendar year thereafter, that passes without any hostile actions on your part, another $100,000 will be deposited into your Swiss bank account."
My solution: Don't fire any LRLAP rounds against a hostile target. Just use an unarmed drone to drop a courteous note onto the target area. "If you cease and desist your hostile actions for 30 days, the U.S. Navy will deposit $100,000 into a Swiss bank account for you. At the end of every calendar year thereafter, that passes without any hostile actions on your part, another $100,000 will be deposited into your Swiss bank account."
Just sayin'
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**** me! That is epic right there. Pay your enemy submission money? Ha!
isn't that the one we built here in Maine? If so it shoots missiles, not bullets. And it has a rail gun to protect itself from assault, I wonder how much a sidewinder missile costs?
AIM-9 Sidewinder unit cost
US$603,817 (AIM-9X Blk II FY15)
AIM-9 Sidewinder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
My solution: Don't fire any LRLAP rounds against a hostile target. Just use an unarmed drone to drop a courteous note onto the target area. "If you cease and desist your hostile actions for 30 days, the U.S. Navy will deposit $100,000 into a Swiss bank account for you. At the end of every calendar year thereafter, that passes without any hostile actions on your part, another $100,000 will be deposited into your Swiss bank account."
My solution: Don't fire any LRLAP rounds against a hostile target. Just use an unarmed drone to drop a courteous note onto the target area. "If you cease and desist your hostile actions for 30 days, the U.S. Navy will deposit $100,000 into a Swiss bank account for you. At the end of every calendar year thereafter, that passes without any hostile actions on your part, another $100,000 will be deposited into your Swiss bank account."
Just sayin'
I would have to add to that. I'd lower the amount of total payouts to 10 years and
If any refuse the offer kill ten of their associates every 30 days for a year whilst lowering the offer 10% each time until you just have to kill the original target. When I say associates I mean anyone that they happen to be seen with. Shouldn't take too long to make people shun them like the plague.
So you're in favor of paying ransom to hostile who threaten to do evil things against us. I'll bet you approve of the money that BHO paid the Iranians to release our hostages too. Genius! Not!
I don't understand why we are spending so much on projectiles We just need to make some huge ass scatter guns and pepper their ass Shoot old crushed junk cars at them
So you're in favor of paying ransom to hostile who threaten to do evil things against us. I'll bet you approve of the money that BHO paid the Iranians to release our hostages too. Genius! Not!
Not always.
Not on big stuff. Not on public stuff. Never admit to it. Always deny it.
Swaying an enemy is an effective art that requires total control after they are purchased. Once an enemy sells their loyalty reward it or destroy it. Never purchase anything less than there very soul and then extinguish it for any disloyalty real or perceived.
It is all in the art of war. That makes it ok.
quote
Originally posted by Jake_Dragon:
I don't understand why we are spending so much on projectiles We just need to make some huge ass scatter guns and pepper their ass Shoot old crushed junk cars at them
[This message has been edited by pokeyfiero (edited 11-12-2016).]
That is the problem with building whole new system. The cost of R&D is factored into each unit. When the number of units are reduced, the cost per unit goes up. The same thing is true for everything else such as prescription drugs, cars, electronics, etc. This is what happened to the infamous B-2, the F-22 and it is happening to the F-35 too.
There is a black humor joke that goes, one day the cost of the latest fighter plane will be so high that the US will only be able to afford one. The Air force will have it in the morning, the Navy in the afternoon and the Marines only get to fly it one day on a leap year.
Personally, I think they need to build aircraft and ships in two tiers. Tier 1 would be the with all the high tech gadgets and whatnot. Tier 2 would be stripped down to a low tech version, with no stealth, no advanced electronics, communications or anything else that has a big price tag. Tier 2 would be equivalent to our generation 3 jets like the F-15, F-16, F-14. The two tiers would have as much interchangeable parts as possible to reduce costs. That would be a way to keep the high tech weapons for the opening days of a war to take out key targets while keeping a lot of lower tech weapons for continued operations and to keep costs down.
isn't that the one we built here in Maine? If so it shoots missiles, not bullets. And it has a rail gun to protect itself from assault, I wonder how much a sidewinder missile costs?
AIM-9 Sidewinder unit cost
US$603,817 (AIM-9X Blk II FY15)
AIM-9 Sidewinder - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
en.wikipedia.org/wiki/AIM-9_Sidewinder
Just....no. The number of US Navy ships with an operational rail gun for self defense = Zero. The number of US Navy ships with an operational rail gun for offensive operations=zero. And unless something spectacular design and development wise has happened in the last 8 months, the number of US Navy ships with a prototype railgun for testing=zero.
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Dave Majumdar January 11, 2016 TweetShareShare Printer-friendly version While the U.S. Navy had announced last year that it would take a prototype railgun to sea onboard the expeditionary fast transport USNS Trenton (JHSV-5) in 2016, the service may have to scupper those plans.
If the Navy does take the railgun out to sea on a fast transport, it will be in 2017 at the earliest. In lieu of testing the prototype rail gun in an at-sea environment, the Navy might instead proceed directly to developing an operational weapon system.
“It’s not definitely off but it’s not definitely going ahead,” Rear Adm. Peter Fanta, the Navy’s director of surface warfare, told Defense News during a Dec. 30 interview.
“Primarily because it will slow the engineering work that I have to do to get that power transference that I need to get multiple repeatable shots that I can now install in a ship. And I would frankly rather have an operational unit faster than have to take the nine months to a year it will take to set up the demo and install the systems, take the one operational [railgun] unit I have, put it on a ship, take it to sea, do a dozen shots, turn around, take it off, reinstall it into a test bed.”
Fanta said that he believes that an operational railgun is feasible within the next five years. Indeed, the Navy hopes to replace one of the 155mm gun turrets onboard the third and final Zumwalt-class destroyer Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002) with a rail gun.[/b] “I don’t know if I can get there from the engineering status yet. But that’s what we continue to look at,” Fanta told Defense News.
I'm also not sure what a Sidewinder--air to air missile (airplane launched---against an airplane target) --has to do with Zumwalt. Zumwalt uses a derivitaive of the old Sea Sparrow missile for self defense and it's called RIM-162 ESSM .
Zumwalt's gun is a 155mm howitzer with a water cooled barrel that fires a special rocket powered projectile. There are 2 of these on each Zummie class destroyers.
Rail gun "may" be deployed on #3 Zumwalt class destroyers (USS LBJ) if that ship ever gets complete, but that won't be until 2018 and then, only if the design and development proceeds successfully on the railgun.
Click to show
[This message has been edited by maryjane (edited 11-13-2016).]
I'm also not sure what a Sidewinder--air to air missile (airplane launched---against an airplane target) --has to do with Zumwalt. Zumwalt uses a derivitaive of the old Sea Sparrow missile for self defense and it's called RIM-162 ESSM .
Zumwalt's gun is a 155mm howitzer with a water cooled barrel that fires a special rocket powered projectile. There are 2 of these on each Zummie class destroyers.
Rail gun "may" be deployed on #3 Zumwalt class destroyers (USS LBJ) if that ship ever gets complete, but that won't be until 2018 and then, only if the design and development proceeds successfully on the railgun.
Click to show
Don what I was trying to say is no wonder the country is broke, we spend all that money on rockets and superior fire power for the first gulf war and all these other wars and at the cost of those missiles and the amount we used we love war here in the US, it keeps our rich people rich. Not to mention we don't know for sure about those rail guns, you don't really believe the government is going to tell us the truth about our weapon's or their real costs per round. want to invest in a company that will always make a profit, invest in any of our war machine companies. Raytheon, for example.
Seems like a perfect kind of gun for the navy. it's not like it's something they can mount on a jeep or a tank, but the navy has big ships that have lots of room and power to power them. And we don't get to hear about all the systems on our military war machine. matter of fact most of what we get is just BS from the military. Like there is no area 51 how many decades did they tell us it just BS ? our government doesn't tell us what they are doing and our military doesn't tell us even more.
I believe the Zumwalt or WTF ever it was we built here in Maine also had a fire inside while we were building it. or maybe it was another ship we were building. http://www.pressherald.com/...-testing_2011-05-26/
The fire was on Spruance-- A DDG. There are only 2 US Navy ships with the electrical generating capacity/ability to power a rail gun. Zumwalt and the test vessel USNS Trenton. No rail gun has been installed for test or any other real fire purpose on any US Naval vessel. The only firings have been at the Dahlgren test center (on land) .
If you saw a video of a railgun being fired from a ship, it as a computer generated video and not real life.
There is a black humor joke that goes, one day the cost of the latest fighter plane will be so high that the US will only be able to afford one. The Air force will have it in the morning, the Navy in the afternoon and the Marines only get to fly it one day on a leap year.
In 1981, defense analyst (and later CEO of Martin Marietta) Norman Augustine, after studying the increase in unit military aircraft costs from 1940 to 1980, formulated his "First Law of Impending Doom:"
quote
"In the year 2054, the entire defense budget will purchase just one tactical aircraft. This aircraft will have to be shared by the Air Force and Navy three and one-half days per week, except for leap year, when it will be made available to the Marines for the extra day.
Such pessimism is not without precedent. Back in the 1920s president Calvin Coolidge, frustrated over an Army Signal Corps request for more than $25,000 to purchase a squadron of about a dozen airplanes, famously asked, "Why can't we buy just one aeroplane and let the aviators take turns flying it?"
[This message has been edited by Marvin McInnis (edited 11-14-2016).]
I guess they didn't use a Mazda-designed propulsion system, because there was no Zum-Zum-Zum when the USS Zumwalt tried to transit the Panama Canal.
A U.S. Navy guided-missile destroyer suffered a mechanical problem while crossing the Panama Canal and is undergoing repairs at a Panamanian facility, the U.S. Embassy in the Central American nation said Wednesday.
The USS Zumwalt--at a cost of $4.4 billion, the most expensive destroyer in the American fleet--experienced a loss of propulsion Monday night as it transited the canal and was towed to the former U.S. Naval Station [Dennis..?] Rodman, located at the Pacific entrance.
Rodman now belongs to the Panamanian aero-naval service.
The Zumwalt was en route from Norfolk, Virginia, to San Diego at the time of the incident.
