[SCFalken]

Eeeexcellent....

http://www.strategyp...s/20071224.aspx

Quote

U.S. Mandates Nuclear Battleships

December 24, 2007: The U.S. Navy has been ordered, by Congress, to use nuclear power in its new class of cruisers (the CG-21s). That should not be a problem, as the CG-21 is currently planned to be about 14,000 tons. But depending on the size of the nuclear power plant for the cruiser (one based on those used for nuclear subs, or the larger ones found in nuclear aircraft carriers), the CGN-21 might be a more conventional, 25,000 ton, design. The new destroyer (DD-21) has a stealthy superstructure, and is as big as a battleship, at least a battleship of a century ago, The new 14,000 tons design, is 600 feet long and 79 feet wide. A crew of 150 sailors will operate a variety of weapons, including two 155mm guns, two 40mm automatic cannon for close in defense, 80 Vertical Launch Tubes (containing either anti-ship, cruise or anti-aircraft missiles), six torpedo tubes, a helicopter and three helicopter UAVs. The CGN-21 would drop one of the 155mm guns and the torpedo tubes, but carry more vertical cells for missiles (especially anti-ballistic missile missiles).

A century ago, a Mississippi class battleship displaced 14,400 tons, was 382 feet long and 77 feet wide. A crew of 800 operated a variety of weapons, including four 12 inch, eight 8 inch, eight 7 inch twelve 3 inch, twelve 47mm and four 37mm guns, plus four 7.62mm machine-guns. There were also four torpedo tubes. The Mississippi had a top speed of 31 kilometers an hour, versus 54 for DD-21. But the Mississippi had one thing DD-21 lacked, armor. Along the side there was a belt of 9 inch armor, and the main turrets had 12 inch thick armor. The Mississippi had radio, but the DD-21 has radio, GPS, sonar, radar and electronic warfare equipment.

Adjusted for inflation, the century old Mississippi class ships cost about half a billion dollars (adjusted for inflation). The new CGN-21 cruisers will cost about $3 billion each, thus possessing the price, and size, if not the name, of a battleship.

Falken

[sunday]

Only 80 missile tubes? That's the same complement as the one in the Zumwalt class.

Looks like the only difference between CG-21 and DDG-1000 would be the nuke propulsion

[dpapp2]

sunday, on Wed 26 Dec 2007 1512, said:

Only 80 missile tubes? That's the same complement as the one in the Zumwalt class.

Looks like the only difference between CG-21 and DDG-1000 would be the nuke propulsion

Read that paragraph again, those figures are about the DDG-1000.

[sunday]

dpapp2, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 0038, said:

Read that paragraph again, those figures are about the DDG-1000.

Yep. my fault.

[JOE BRENNAN]

That's the pet project of a couple of Congressmen who sneaked it into a conference report. I doubt it will happen. The estimated cost impact is $1bil per ship, very hard to justify when naval shipbuilding is already melting down from runaway costs. It also exacerbates one of the underlying problems, lack of competition, only Northrop Grumman's Newport News yard could build those ships, without the Navy underwriting a General Dynamics investment to build nuclear surface ships, not just nuclear subs and conventional surface ships as now. With non-nuclear you have sort of competition between NG and GD, though of course it can't be winner take all, or there's no competition next time, so it's not true all out competition. When the last, also operationally questionable IMO, nuclear escorts were built there was more competition. As some supposed answer to energy problems it doesn't make sense, too long to pay back $1bil in any price situation that wouldn't have wrecked the economy in the meantime*, naval oil consumption is a very small % of the total, it's not like the situation of Japan or Italy in WWII. Supposedly addressing overall energy issues via military consumption doesn't make sense in general. There's a real operational advantage to nuclear in propulsion in subs, carriers maybe, escorts it's just not there given the overall cost and competition situation.

*say a 100,000 shp warship operates at 25% power on average 5000 hours/yr, .5 lb/hp-hr, pretty realistic. That's 28,000 tons of distillate, around $22mil/yr at today's prices. The price would have to triple to pay back $1bil at 5% interest over 30 yrs, the far outer edge of a marginal investment, and that ignores the extra operational costs of nuclear. But what happens to the whole economy at those prices over those 30 years? Nuclear can make sense costwise at 100's mW size and civilian cost scales, maybe, proponents still want govt subsidies to build, but not at two reactors per 100 mW scale with govt procurement and monopoly pricing (yeah, I know there have been very objective recent studies by the Navy's nuclear propulsion office saying otherwise :lol: )

Joe

This post has been edited by JOE BRENNAN: 26 December 2007 - 2142 PM

[FITZ]

SCFalken, on Wed 26 Dec 2007 2230, said:

Eeeexcellent....

http://www.strategyp...s/20071224.aspx
Falken

I guess my first reaction would be to look at the source - Strategypage.

Nuff said.

[Ken Estes]

Also, the notion that SSN plants suffice for surface warships has seldom been realized. The more numerous auxiliaries, need for powering electronics arrays, etc. have been persistent undoings of the idea, unless these ships will also have the speed of USS Mississippi.

[dpapp2]

I googled for it and came up with the following, apparently it did happen. However, one can see it as a security measure, were the navy decide on a nuclear plant, see my emphasis in bold.

http://www.govexec.c...07/121707g1.htm

Quote

House and Senate lawmakers are requiring the Navy to power its future classes of cruisers with nuclear reactors, unless the service decides that doing so isn't "in the national interest." This somewhat muddled provision is contained in the recently released fiscal 2008 defense authorization bill.

The provision states that all new ship classes of submarines, aircraft carriers and cruisers should be built with nuclear power plants. Since the Navy's plans for submarines and carriers already include nuclear propulsion, the provision would most directly affect the service's next-generation cruiser, designated CG(X). If nuclear powered, the service's designation for the ship would be CGN(X).

The Navy plans to award the contract for the lead ship of the CG(X) class of cruisers in 2011, at an estimated cost of $3.2 billion, and 18 more by 2023.Because of the long lead times needed to order nuclear components, procurement funds for the proposed cruiser's nuclear power plant would have to be included in the 2009 budget, currently being drafted by the Defense Department.

But if the Navy prefers to equip its future cruisers with conventional power, it does have an out. The measure states that with the budget request for the CG(X), the Defense secretary can submit a notification that "inclusion of an integrated nuclear power system is not in the national interest."

Navy officials told Congress that equipping the service's future cruisers with nuclear power, instead of conventional oil burning power plants, would increase the price of a ship by $600 million to $700 million.

The Navy also must report on the provision's potential impact on shipbuilders and whether additional yards must be certified to build nuclear-powered ships. Only two yards are certified to build nuclear-powered ships: Northrop Grumman Newport News, of Newport News, Va., and General Dynamics electric boat division of Groton, Conn. The two yards have built every nuclear-powered Navy vessel since 1969.

The Navy also has stated that due to the huge power demands of a cruiser's anti-ballistic missile radar and the rising cost of oil and gas, nuclear power might be more appropriate, according to a recent Congressional Research Service report.

The House bill contained the nuclear power provision, and is strongly favored by House Armed Services Committee, seapower subcommittee chairman Gene Taylor, D-Miss., and ranking member Roscoe Bartlett, R-Md. The Senate version of the bill did not express a view.

[BansheeOne]

Quote

U.S. Mandates Nuclear Battleships

But will they have 16" guns? :lol:

FITZ, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 0418, said:

I guess my first reaction would be to look at the source - Strategypage.

Well, I spotted at least one factual (40 mm guns?) and one editorial error on first reading.

[Jim Martin]

BansheeOne, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 0749, said:

But will they have 16" guns? :lol:
Well, I spotted at least one factual (40 mm guns?) and one editorial error on first reading.

I had merely presumed that they were planning a new 40mm CIWS for the new class of ship.


Also, while they only cite increased power demands from sensors, everyone's talking about upgrades to directed-energy weapons at some point. Mightn't it be a good idea to have nuclear power from which to draw when you start firing lasers at the bad guys?

[BansheeOne]

Jim Martin, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 1154, said:

I had merely presumed that they were planning a new 40mm CIWS for the new class of ship.

AFAIK it's still the 57 mm Bofors for DDG-21, which is what the paragraph is referring to.

[Argus]

BansheeOne, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 2227, said:

AFAIK it's still the 57 mm Bofors for DDG-21, which is what the paragraph is referring to.

Yeah its pretty common muck up - well as often as Bofors gets mentioned <Crowded/busy copy room> "Hay Jack, what caliber is a Bofors again?"

shane

[FITZ]

Argus, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 1244, said:

Yeah its pretty common muck up - well as often as Bofors gets mentioned <Crowded/busy copy room> "Hay Jack, what caliber is a Bofors again?"

shane

United Defense (now BAE) at one time offered a choice of either gun for DD(X) with the 57mm presumably being chosen since it was also going in LCS and the new Coast Guard cutters. So associating the 40mm with DD-1000 isn't wrong, just horribly out of date and ill-informed. The 57mm will not be used as a CIWS by the way. The 57mm is intended primarily for surface fire and will not have a fire control system suited for the engagement of missiles or fast aicraft. Pitty.

This post has been edited by FITZ: 27 December 2007 - 0943 AM

[Arminius]

SCFalken, on Wed 26 Dec 2007 2330, said:

Eeeexcellent....

http://www.strategyp...s/20071224.aspx
Falken

QUOTE
U.S. Mandates Nuclear Battleships

December 24, 2007: ...

A century ago, a Mississippi class battleship displaced 14,400 tons, was 382 feet long and 77 feet wide. A crew of 800 operated a variety of weapons, including four 12 inch, eight 8 inch, eight 7 inch twelve 3 inch, twelve 47mm and four 37mm guns, plus four 7.62mm machine-guns. There were also four torpedo tubes. The Mississippi had a top speed of 31 kilometers an hour, versus 54 for DD-21. But the Mississippi had one thing DD-21 lacked, armor. Along the side there was a belt of 9 inch armor, and the main turrets had 12 inch thick armor. The Mississippi had radio, but the DD-21 has radio, GPS, sonar, radar and electronic warfare equipment.

Adjusted for inflation, the century old Mississippi class ships cost about half a billion dollars (adjusted for inflation). The new CGN-21 cruisers will cost about $3 billion each, thus possessing the price, and size, if not the name, of a battleship.



Falken

Oooh - you cheated! If you compare the new CGN to a PRE - Dreadnought, it will of course be superior!

Please, use a real Dreadnought for Comparison, you´ll be shocked!

;-)))

Honestly: will any Missile from the new DDs or CGN´s be able to penetrate Dreadnought´s 11" Armour belt? ( from Memory )

H

[Ken Estes]

Arminius, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 1856, said:

QUOTE


Honestly: will any Missile from the new DDs or CGN´s be able to penetrate Dreadnought´s 11" Armour belt? ( from Memory )

H

Yes, but by going over it...think Roma, 1943.....

[Gunguy]

Joe did a great job explaining why nuclear will not happen. The Navy can't get a combat ship built at the moment. :o Great post Joe!

[gewing]

FITZ, on Thu 27 Dec 2007 0641, said:

United Defense (now BAE) at one time offered a choice of either gun for DD(X) with the 57mm presumably being chosen since it was also going in LCS and the new Coast Guard cutters. So associating the 40mm with DD-1000 isn't wrong, just horribly out of date and ill-informed. The 57mm will not be used as a CIWS by the way. The 57mm is intended primarily for surface fire and will not have a fire control system suited for the engagement of missiles or fast aicraft. Pitty.

Are you certain the 57mm will not have point defense roles?

I am pretty sure I have seen statements that it will.

I could, of course, be mistaken.

[FITZ]

gewing, on Fri 28 Dec 2007 2128, said:

Are you certain the 57mm will not have point defense roles?

I am pretty sure I have seen statements that it will.

I could, of course, be mistaken.

The lack of a fire control system suitable for such employment pretty much answers that one. The 57mm Mk 110 is to be employed the same way the 25mm Bushmasters are today on navy ships - against small surface targets. I certainly can think of a lot of people that have assumed these guns would have an air-defense/anti-missile role but the proof is in the details.

[Lampshade111]

FITZ, on Mon 31 Dec 2007 0639, said:

The lack of a fire control system suitable for such employment pretty much answers that one. The 57mm Mk 110 is to be employed the same way the 25mm Bushmasters are today on navy ships - against small surface targets. I certainly can think of a lot of people that have assumed these guns would have an air-defense/anti-missile role but the proof is in the details.

Where was it stated it won't have such a fire control system? I swore I read about it being used in the short range AA role as well.

[A2Keltainen]

Lampshade111, on Tue 1 Jan 2008 2125, said:

I swore I read about it being used in the short range AA role as well.

I also remember reading that, and more specifically, that the 57 mm gun was chosen for its capability to both engage and destroy incoming missiles at longer ranges than the usual gun based CIWS. This capability was desired since it's generally bad for your ship to get several thousand kg:s of metal parts and rocket fuel crashing into it at Mach 3 after your small calibre CIWS failed to destroy/stop the missile in time after hitting it at a relatively short distance.