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Did the Navy ever figure out what the solution to the 155-millimeter Advanced Gun Systems ammo problem?

jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
Yeah. They're adapting the projectile developed by the railgun project to conventional powder guns. It'll end up being a much more affordable and practical approach. As far as whether they'll end up on the Zumwalts? Who knows. The lack of a missile defense system on the Zumwalts has more or less made them pointless beyond research/development testbeds. We're just going to build more Burkes and upgrade existing ones instead, which is more cost effective on the whole.
- jandrese 9y ago
  I'm guessing the whole "you can't get a radar lock on me to shoot in the first place" didn't work out for ballistic missile defense?
  - dingaling 9y ago
    Most BMD scenarios centre around protecting other assets, not the launch platform.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
    It's not a binary thing. But the main limit of the Zumwalts in missile defense is lacking the right radars and the combat management software. There's a kinda long history to all this, and it's a little muddled. My understanding of roughly what happened is originally a larger stealth cruiser design was going to handle missile defense, while the Zumwalts would handle strike. Then the cruiser project got canceled, so they started talking about adding the capabilities to the Zumwalts. That fell through when the development contract for the needed radar went to Raytheon (I don't fully understand why this killed it, seems to be something political?). What no one in the navy wants to say clearly and openly is: the Zumwalts, as well as the 2 LCS designs, are pretty much useless as built. They won't be used for more than training, development testing, and perhaps mine sweeping duties. Out of all 3 of those classes, the only fully capable ship anyone is talking about is a new, stretched version of the Freedom class LCS that tries to be a mini-frigate. And that's only getting talked about because foreign customers are interested. It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money.
    - Nimitz14 9y ago
      > It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money. I wouldn't be so negative. The money coming in allowed newbie engineers to get into the field and existing ones to get smarter and increase their skills. Not having such a project would lead to a vacuum in the knowledge required to do those sorts of projects (I don't believe the US has any other project of this sort underway). I'm sure they'll be able to learn from what went wrong to make the next project turn out better.
      - bllguo 9y ago
        come on. There's a silver lining, sure. But it's still a massive failure. It's not a comparison between no project and a disastrous project, it's one between disastrous and successful.
    - matt_the_bass 9y ago
      I don’t think such large metal hulled ships are used for mine clearing. Usually smaller, wood or composite hills are used.
  - dragonwriter 9y ago
    Missile (not just, or even primarily) defense by US destroyers is, yes, in part a, but also defense of other assets, both shore assets and other ships, notably carriers and/or amphibious assault ships. No one is expecting the Navy to have stealth carriers any time soon, even if naval stealth was reliable enough to obviate the need for missile defense.
    - jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
      > No one is expecting the Navy to have stealth carriers any time soon I watched a lecture by one of the decision makers in the Ford class carrier development program. They actually looked at a stealth carrier concept. You can shroud the deck and elevators with side walls that screen them from radars. But that creates huge problems with jet engines and acoustics, to the point that being on the deck even with ear protection would be very risky health wise. Also they'd be hideously expensive.
      - jandrese 9y ago
        Seems like acoustic tiles would not be an impossible technology if you're already lining the other side with radar absorbent materials. The bigger issue would be that for this to work you would have to make the entire carrier battle group stealthy, which would be beyond cost prohibitive.

Yeah. They're adapting the projectile developed by the railgun project to conventional powder guns. It'll end up being a much more affordable and practical approach. As far as whether they'll end up on the Zumwalts? Who knows. The lack of a missile defense system on the Zumwalts has more or less made them pointless beyond research/development testbeds. We're just going to build more Burkes and upgrade existing ones instead, which is more cost effective on the whole.

jandrese 9y ago
I'm guessing the whole "you can't get a radar lock on me to shoot in the first place" didn't work out for ballistic missile defense?
- dingaling 9y ago
  Most BMD scenarios centre around protecting other assets, not the launch platform.
- jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
  It's not a binary thing. But the main limit of the Zumwalts in missile defense is lacking the right radars and the combat management software. There's a kinda long history to all this, and it's a little muddled. My understanding of roughly what happened is originally a larger stealth cruiser design was going to handle missile defense, while the Zumwalts would handle strike. Then the cruiser project got canceled, so they started talking about adding the capabilities to the Zumwalts. That fell through when the development contract for the needed radar went to Raytheon (I don't fully understand why this killed it, seems to be something political?). What no one in the navy wants to say clearly and openly is: the Zumwalts, as well as the 2 LCS designs, are pretty much useless as built. They won't be used for more than training, development testing, and perhaps mine sweeping duties. Out of all 3 of those classes, the only fully capable ship anyone is talking about is a new, stretched version of the Freedom class LCS that tries to be a mini-frigate. And that's only getting talked about because foreign customers are interested. It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money.
  - Nimitz14 9y ago
    > It's an incredible waste of taxpayers money. I wouldn't be so negative. The money coming in allowed newbie engineers to get into the field and existing ones to get smarter and increase their skills. Not having such a project would lead to a vacuum in the knowledge required to do those sorts of projects (I don't believe the US has any other project of this sort underway). I'm sure they'll be able to learn from what went wrong to make the next project turn out better.
    - bllguo 9y ago
      come on. There's a silver lining, sure. But it's still a massive failure. It's not a comparison between no project and a disastrous project, it's one between disastrous and successful.
  - matt_the_bass 9y ago
    I don’t think such large metal hulled ships are used for mine clearing. Usually smaller, wood or composite hills are used.
- dragonwriter 9y ago
  Missile (not just, or even primarily) defense by US destroyers is, yes, in part a, but also defense of other assets, both shore assets and other ships, notably carriers and/or amphibious assault ships. No one is expecting the Navy to have stealth carriers any time soon, even if naval stealth was reliable enough to obviate the need for missile defense.
  - jasonwatkinspdx 9y ago
    > No one is expecting the Navy to have stealth carriers any time soon I watched a lecture by one of the decision makers in the Ford class carrier development program. They actually looked at a stealth carrier concept. You can shroud the deck and elevators with side walls that screen them from radars. But that creates huge problems with jet engines and acoustics, to the point that being on the deck even with ear protection would be very risky health wise. Also they'd be hideously expensive.
    - jandrese 9y ago
      Seems like acoustic tiles would not be an impossible technology if you're already lining the other side with radar absorbent materials. The bigger issue would be that for this to work you would have to make the entire carrier battle group stealthy, which would be beyond cost prohibitive.