Here a new class of destroyers that left a local ship building yard for sea trial. Very impressive and how appropriate that it was today, Dec 7th, Pearl Harbor remembrance day. BIW-built Zumwalt destroyer begins sea trials - Central Maine
Wow! I think this is the only thread on here that even mentioned Pearl Harbor Day. More posts devoted for the loss of one life on Dec 8 though....
A sad eventuality of Franklin D. Roosevelt's speech after the attack saying... A date which will live in infamy. Good reminder Dave...
Cost over runs made them too expensive. These three will become proof-of -concept models so the design can be tweaked with an eye towards removing expensive features that do not work well and improving others that have a good bang for the buck. KaptJaq
Might be good to tweak em a little later... I read that the hull shape they chose is a well known "unstable" design as far as rolling goes. Hmmm... I wonder if it was a guvmint idea... but, I'm sure they have that all figured out...
Not if certain people get their way… But I fully agree!!!! I can never forget Dec 7th, My Daughters Birthday. And I was sent to Hudson river, Ground zero after the 9/11 on our CG Cutter, we had just pulled in from a patrol on the 10th
The military is making more of the LCS class ships that replace destroyers though. My company's hydraulics and pneumatics are at the heart of the LCS ships , well, the odd numbered ones at least. I know our systems that we built are is the USS Milwaukee, ( lcs#5) which was just commissioned last month. We're currently doing the hydraulics for LCS 15 and 17.
I have spent years at sea on 4 different ships. As a man who has worked on, helped design specific areas, and sailed on many vessels, that ship, USS Zumwalt could not take the sea a conventional design ship would handle. I understand the concept, radar avoidance, and the defense systems but that ship will spend more time under water than on top in bad weather. Then again, thats with most destroyers! This is just my opinion. Only time will tell, we just had a brief at my work with a two star and was explained about our new vessels hitting the waters, "sadly" due to the systems on board, it will cost three times more than the initial price of the ship to maintain them . To me, thats not a cost effective military but there is many more people who are "smarter" than me writing the checks!
WeldrDave , what's your take on the "freedom" class LCS that are being made? I understand that no new military vehicle will be simple like they used to be.
What "little" I do know of them I believe they will function as needed. Heres a dilemma that has faced ships through out the years as a welders look at things. Bi-metal construction, electrolysis, corrosion reduction on "all the systems". Not to get into a great discussion but as you most likely know, ships eat themselves apart with the more different metals and electrical systems that are on board. Not just electrolysis form dissimilar metals but also from stray voltage. The more electronic systems we have on a ship, we need more power, generators, fuel, etc… Yes, it makes a ship "very" capable, but can also weaken it as well. Think of your car, the cars from the 50's and 60's did and still do what the cars of today do, "drive and get you from point A to point B". Todays cars do that but you need to be a computer scientist to work on them, Hence my point. We need a basic ship that is capable, and we know how to do it. We just don't want to. I have worked on "many" USCG ships as well as sailed on my share and seen ships that were only a few years old needing yard time already. I can't speak about the LCS because I know very little, I only talk about what I have seen and worked on. I do agree that we need capable system ships, funny thing is most of the technology we are up against from other countries is 60's and 70's technology. Why do we need to keep re inventing the wheel. It goes back to a system we had on one ship I was on, The Phalanx gun. That was a very cool gun, "when it worked"… I seen it fired on a few occasions but then they had to work on it for days after! Sadly, nobody fixes things anymore. everyone has become parts changers. Anyway, I could go on and on, especially with diagnostics but people are working and staying employed, and thats good. Sadly more and more ships are going to the pasture every year and not being replaced.
Good read... "Sadly more and more ships are going to the pasture every year and not being replaced. " ... well Dave, if we can just stop hurting the feeeeeeelings of our enemies in the world, we won't need ships anyway... .... riiiiiight...
Well, I do know that the USS Milwaukee is lcs#5, and that there are many many more in the works. There will be at least 19 of them. So there's at least some replacement going on.
"LETS HOPE"! I'm not going to get political but, Where is that $$$ going to come from? You may think that, That money has already been appropriated for these ships well guess again! Contract or no contract! The services are kicking out several thousand men next year, this is factual. how are we going to fund ships and send these people to schools to learn the systems, put sailors on them, pay them, house them etc when we are 19 "trillion" dollars in debt. Hell, we just got a new backhoe on our base that took 5 years to find funding for… I'm in a wait and see mode.
