Is new destroyer a marvel or floating boondoggle?

[unhappycamper]

http://www.bostonglobe.com/news/nation/2015/09/29/zumwalt-ddg-navy-destroyer-billed-technological-marvel-cautionary-tale-for-american-taxpayers/V5QM928fb5NeOXR58e58VN/story.html



$5,600,000,000 - more than what a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier usta cost

Is new destroyer a marvel or floating boondoggle?
By Christopher Rowland Globe Staff
September 30, 2015

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The 600-foot Zumwalt — picture an Aztec pyramid welded atop a machete blade — is an infinitely more elaborate and costly ship, a futuristic showcase crammed with electronic innovations. But it, too, appears destined to fall well short of its promise.



~snip~

Now, the first of the three ships is 97 percent complete at Maine’s storied Bath Iron Works shipyard and nearly ready for sea trials, even as debate continues over what role it might play for the Navy.

~snip~

Powerful critics such as Senator John McCain, the Arizona Republican who chairs the chamber’s Armed Services Committee, point to the new destroyer as a prime example of Pentagon mismanagement that demands an overhaul in the military’s weapons-purchasing operations.

McCain compared the state-of-the-art vessel to the new Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, which is beset by cost overruns, and the Army’s ill-fated Future Combat System, which was canceled in 2009 after billions of dollars were spent.

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The Navy accepted the $14,000,000,000 USS Gerald R Ford with only 20% of the ship left to finish. They hope to have it complete in 2016 or 2017.

A Global Force For Good, my ass.

[yeoman6987]

1. They are needed but budgets should be kept what was

Originally requested. For some reason many countries are building their militarists right now. We need to maintain ours. But when the military says they don't need something. The congress has been forcing them to take it. That needs to change.

[Ghost Dog]

2. This vessel will easily broach and capsize.

refs:

... Ken Brower, a civilian naval architect with decades of naval experience was even more blunt: “It will capsize in a following sea at the wrong speed if a wave at an appropriate wavelength hits it at an appropriate angle”…

… Brower explained: “The trouble is that as a ship pitches and heaves at sea, if you have tumblehome instead of flare, you have no righting energy to make the ship come back up. On the DDG 1000, with the waves coming at you from behind, when a ship pitches down, it can lose transverse stability as the stern comes out of the water – and basically roll over.”

These concerns have existed for a decade, but the US Navy continues to express confidence in the stealth-enhancing design based on their modeling and testing to date. A 1/20 scale, 30-foot scale model has been taken it up through Sea States 8-9 [hurricane-force seas and winds], based on the standard US Navy requirement for stability in ships is a 100-knot wind and using a model of 1969’s Category 5 Hurricane Camille. A 150-foot, 1/4 scale steel hull has also been built and tested for stability, and the arm’s-length US Naval Technical Authority has determined the Zumwalt’s design to be safe... - http://www.defenseindustrydaily.com/defense-news-will-ddg1000-destroyers-be-unstable-03203/

... There have been persistent concerns about how stable the tumblehome design is in any sort of rough seas—in fact, one of the concerns about the design is that it could capsize if it is hit by a large wave from the wrong angle. “This is an area that the Navy is taking seriously,” one naval architect familiar with the design told The Daily Beast.

The Navy declined requests for interviews—and would not directly address the issue. However, slides presented by the Naval Sea Systems Command in April show that the service has not yet completed certifying the hull for stability. The Navy recently upgraded a maneuvering and sea-keeping lab facility in Carderock, Md., where the ship’s design is being tested. “This is a high priority for that facility,” the architect said.

There might be reason for concern. A 2007 engineering paper presented at the 9th International Ship Stability Workshop in Hamburg, Germany, shows that tumblehome designs are more prone to capsizing especially went the ship is hit from behind. “The number of capsizes for the most- probable sea state 8 [30 to 46 ft waves] conditions increased drastically for the tumblehome topside for following, stern-quartering, beam and head seas,” the report reads. “The capsize risk for the tumblehome geometry had a greater increase for small increases in KG [center of gravity] than the flared topside geometry.”... - http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/10/22/can-the-navy-s-12-billion-stealth-destroyer-stay-afloat.html

See images here: http://www.phisicalpsience.com/public/Tumblehome_Hull_DDG-1000/Tumblehome_Hull_DDG-1000.html

[MisterP]

3. the production art from the new Star Wars looks AWESOME