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Is there a strategic purpose to large ships like this in an age of automated systems? Is there some way in which this is superior to several small ships?

dragontamer 5y ago
A DDG is a smaller ship. It is in fact, the smallest combat ship worth tracking in most Navies.
- greedo 5y ago
  Eh, no. Many navies have corvettes and frigates that are very lethal, and definitely something worth tracking. Modern DDGs are very large (the Arleigh Burke is 9k tons).
- ranger207 5y ago
  This was true in the past, but in many modern navies the destroyer is the _only_ class. Some fleets with a single class call their ships frigates instead, even if they're about the same size as comparable destroyers. In navies that do use destroyers and frigates, destroyers are larger than frigates.
greedo 5y ago
The chain of thought works like this: 1. Navies still rely on surface vessels for many roles/tasks. While subs are the most lethal killers afloat, there's a lot of roles they can't fulfill. 2. Surface vessels are hard to automate. The attempts to reduce staffing costs led to debacles like the LCS, and contributed to issues with the Ford CVN class. 3. Smaller surface vessels (as shown with the LCS) can't really stay on station as long, transit long distances as well, and deal with the same weather conditions. Additionally, they can't carry as many munitions, limiting their ability to fight. And some weapons simply won't fit on small ships (the hypersonic missiles mentioned in the article, as well as larger VLS based weapons). 4. While a greater number of small ships seems to increase your survivability, the lower capability of these small ships don't make the tradeoff worthwhile. 5. Studies have shown that larger ships (especially large carriers) are generally more effective dollar for dollar than smaller ships. I think this translates to surface combatants as well as carriers. 6. Automated surface combatants have issues if they're not "managed" by a controlling ship that has personnel that can do maintenance as well as deter people from screwing with them. Ships require continual maintenance, not just the electronics etc, but the ship itself. Otherwise you end up with rust buckets that don't last through their planned service life.
pvarangot 5y ago
Most of the systems on this ships are automated. It's "large" because it's filled with ordnance, fuel, emergency scape systems, rapid response smaller vehicles, etc...
kcb 5y ago
The Sensors and in the future weapons on these ships would not be feasible on a much smaller ship. This is why even a modern frigate is the size of a destroyer from a few decades ago. Also, the Zumwalt which is a larger ship overall has about half the crew of previous generation destroyers.
atdrummond 5y ago
Beyond what has already been replied to you, this article has a great summary of the recent news on the automated naval vessel front: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43874/pentagons-ghost-fleet-program-ends-its-four-unmanned-ships-will-be-transferred-to-the-navy https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43874/pentagons-ghost-...
ranger207 5y ago
The automation isn't there yet. The LCS class, among others, was designed with heavy automation for reduced crew size (as crew costs are the largest component of a ship's costs over its lifetime), but it turns out that they simple carry too few people to do all the maintenance required. In addition, there's also been concerns with damage control capabilities with smaller crew sizes. As to your second question, larger ships simply have better economies of scale. Larger generators, more missiles, bigger radars, etc. If you could quantify capability, larger ships have more capability points per dollar. (On the other hand, you sometimes don't need all that capability, and there's always more missions to be done, so a cheaper ship can be more cost effective even if it's less efficient.)
sofixa 5y ago
The concept of using a bunch of smaller ships against bigger ones is an old one ( the Jeune École, the Soviet "quantity has a quality of its own" ). It has some merits, and was used to limited success in some cases, but especially for power projection, which is the main mission of the US Navy, you can't beat big ships. Automation changes things to an extent, but it's way too early to talk about fully autonomous ships; any automation is just progressively automating various duties in order to have less crew members. And that's a process ongoing since the Cold War ( notably Soviet ships and especially submarines were far more automated than US equivalents, with much less crew for a similar vessel).

dragontamer 5y ago

A DDG is a smaller ship. It is in fact, the smallest combat ship worth tracking in most Navies.

greedo 5y ago
Eh, no. Many navies have corvettes and frigates that are very lethal, and definitely something worth tracking. Modern DDGs are very large (the Arleigh Burke is 9k tons).
ranger207 5y ago
This was true in the past, but in many modern navies the destroyer is the _only_ class. Some fleets with a single class call their ships frigates instead, even if they're about the same size as comparable destroyers. In navies that do use destroyers and frigates, destroyers are larger than frigates.

greedo 5y ago

The chain of thought works like this: 1. Navies still rely on surface vessels for many roles/tasks. While subs are the most lethal killers afloat, there's a lot of roles they can't fulfill. 2. Surface vessels are hard to automate. The attempts to reduce staffing costs led to debacles like the LCS, and contributed to issues with the Ford CVN class. 3. Smaller surface vessels (as shown with the LCS) can't really stay on station as long, transit long distances as well, and deal with the same weather conditions. Additionally, they can't carry as many munitions, limiting their ability to fight. And some weapons simply won't fit on small ships (the hypersonic missiles mentioned in the article, as well as larger VLS based weapons). 4. While a greater number of small ships seems to increase your survivability, the lower capability of these small ships don't make the tradeoff worthwhile. 5. Studies have shown that larger ships (especially large carriers) are generally more effective dollar for dollar than smaller ships. I think this translates to surface combatants as well as carriers. 6. Automated surface combatants have issues if they're not "managed" by a controlling ship that has personnel that can do maintenance as well as deter people from screwing with them. Ships require continual maintenance, not just the electronics etc, but the ship itself. Otherwise you end up with rust buckets that don't last through their planned service life.

pvarangot 5y ago

Most of the systems on this ships are automated. It's "large" because it's filled with ordnance, fuel, emergency scape systems, rapid response smaller vehicles, etc...

kcb 5y ago

The Sensors and in the future weapons on these ships would not be feasible on a much smaller ship. This is why even a modern frigate is the size of a destroyer from a few decades ago. Also, the Zumwalt which is a larger ship overall has about half the crew of previous generation destroyers.

atdrummond 5y ago

Beyond what has already been replied to you, this article has a great summary of the recent news on the automated naval vessel front: https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43874/pentagons-ghost-fleet-program-ends-its-four-unmanned-ships-will-be-transferred-to-the-navy https://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/43874/pentagons-ghost-...

ranger207 5y ago

The automation isn't there yet. The LCS class, among others, was designed with heavy automation for reduced crew size (as crew costs are the largest component of a ship's costs over its lifetime), but it turns out that they simple carry too few people to do all the maintenance required. In addition, there's also been concerns with damage control capabilities with smaller crew sizes. As to your second question, larger ships simply have better economies of scale. Larger generators, more missiles, bigger radars, etc. If you could quantify capability, larger ships have more capability points per dollar. (On the other hand, you sometimes don't need all that capability, and there's always more missions to be done, so a cheaper ship can be more cost effective even if it's less efficient.)

sofixa 5y ago

The concept of using a bunch of smaller ships against bigger ones is an old one ( the Jeune École, the Soviet "quantity has a quality of its own" ). It has some merits, and was used to limited success in some cases, but especially for power projection, which is the main mission of the US Navy, you can't beat big ships. Automation changes things to an extent, but it's way too early to talk about fully autonomous ships; any automation is just progressively automating various duties in order to have less crew members. And that's a process ongoing since the Cold War ( notably Soviet ships and especially submarines were far more automated than US equivalents, with much less crew for a similar vessel).