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The analogy seems poor. Qing's warships are just good on paper, but the men in charge of them lack actual real-world experiences wielding them effectively. Wh

The analogy seems poor. Qing's warships are just good on paper, but the men in charge of them lack actual real-world experiences wielding them effectively. While F35 Zumwalt Ford are all products driven by US military's real-world experiences, guided by their requirements, and addresses real issues. And I have no doubt that these weapons can be used effectively in their designated use cases. Their failure is that the engineering work did not finish quick enough to land their impact in appropriate time frame.

meric 9y ago
Prompted by the November 22, 2016, break-down of Zumwalt in the Panama Canal with both propellers seized, Mike Fredenburg analyzed the program for the National Review and concluded that the ship's problems "are emblematic of a defense procurement system that is rapidly losing its ability to meet our national security needs."[93] After detailing problems relating to the skyrocketing costs, lack of accountability, unrealistic goals, a flawed concept of operations, the perils of designing a warship around stealth, as well as the failure of the Advanced Gun System, Fredenburg concludes: The Zumwalt is an unmitigated disaster. Clearly it is not a good fit as a frontline warship. With its guns neutered, its role as a primary anti-submarine-warfare asset in question, its anti-air-warfare capabilities inferior to those of our current workhorse, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and its stealth not nearly as advantageous as advertised, the Zumwalt seems to be a ship without a mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer
- Boothroid 9y ago
  Would make a nice super yacht though, all those fancy angles.
cameldrv 9y ago
The analogy seems perfect. http://www.defensenews.com/articles/new-warships-big-guns-have-no-bullets http://www.defensenews.com/articles/new-warships-big-guns-ha... Even down to the serious opioid problem we are having.
killjoywashere 9y ago
The F35 was a Lockheed bureaucratic coup: they got buy in from the Marine Corps, which has very little organic technical prowess compared to the Air Force and Navy, by pitching the VSTOL version up front. Once they had buy-in from the Marines, DoD released a short-fused competition announcement, which gave the Boeing team very little lead time to produce a competent competitive airframe, the X-32, which looks like an obese guppy (1). As for airworthiness, it should be noted Lockheed has no, no commercial airframe business. Boeing's commercial business exceeds all military programs in production scale. Observers of the competition generally agreed (1) Boeing could have produced better airframes given a more reasonable timeframe, (2) separate airframes (as Boeing proposed and eventually happened in the F35 anyway) would provide better performance per dollar. As for the Zumwalt, I'll just leave Robert Work's paper (2) as an exercise for the reader. The Ford is too big to say much of anything about "the Ford". Carriers are huge investments. On investment scale, it's equivalent to building a city from scratch. If you haven't been on one, you probably can't wrap your head around the scale of the thing. Nuclear reactors, an airport, 5-6000 people, enough munitions to level a small city. And it's own flotilla of warships. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program (2) http://awin.aviationweek.com/Portals/AWeek/Ares/work%20white%20paper.PDF http://awin.aviationweek.com/Portals/AWeek/Ares/work%20white...

meric 9y ago

Prompted by the November 22, 2016, break-down of Zumwalt in the Panama Canal with both propellers seized, Mike Fredenburg analyzed the program for the National Review and concluded that the ship's problems "are emblematic of a defense procurement system that is rapidly losing its ability to meet our national security needs."[93] After detailing problems relating to the skyrocketing costs, lack of accountability, unrealistic goals, a flawed concept of operations, the perils of designing a warship around stealth, as well as the failure of the Advanced Gun System, Fredenburg concludes: The Zumwalt is an unmitigated disaster. Clearly it is not a good fit as a frontline warship. With its guns neutered, its role as a primary anti-submarine-warfare asset in question, its anti-air-warfare capabilities inferior to those of our current workhorse, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and its stealth not nearly as advantageous as advertised, the Zumwalt seems to be a ship without a mission. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zumwalt-class_destroyer

Boothroid 9y ago
Would make a nice super yacht though, all those fancy angles.

cameldrv 9y ago

The analogy seems perfect. http://www.defensenews.com/articles/new-warships-big-guns-have-no-bullets http://www.defensenews.com/articles/new-warships-big-guns-ha... Even down to the serious opioid problem we are having.

killjoywashere 9y ago

The F35 was a Lockheed bureaucratic coup: they got buy in from the Marine Corps, which has very little organic technical prowess compared to the Air Force and Navy, by pitching the VSTOL version up front. Once they had buy-in from the Marines, DoD released a short-fused competition announcement, which gave the Boeing team very little lead time to produce a competent competitive airframe, the X-32, which looks like an obese guppy (1). As for airworthiness, it should be noted Lockheed has no, no commercial airframe business. Boeing's commercial business exceeds all military programs in production scale. Observers of the competition generally agreed (1) Boeing could have produced better airframes given a more reasonable timeframe, (2) separate airframes (as Boeing proposed and eventually happened in the F35 anyway) would provide better performance per dollar. As for the Zumwalt, I'll just leave Robert Work's paper (2) as an exercise for the reader. The Ford is too big to say much of anything about "the Ford". Carriers are huge investments. On investment scale, it's equivalent to building a city from scratch. If you haven't been on one, you probably can't wrap your head around the scale of the thing. Nuclear reactors, an airport, 5-6000 people, enough munitions to level a small city. And it's own flotilla of warships. (1) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Joint_Strike_Fighter_program (2) http://awin.aviationweek.com/Portals/AWeek/Ares/work%20white%20paper.PDF http://awin.aviationweek.com/Portals/AWeek/Ares/work%20white...