man overbored
Junior Member
The Zumwalt do not replace any current class. The 60 something Burke's replace the old FFG-7 and the Charles F. Adams class and some of the Spruance class too. The Zumwalts are there for surface bombardment to support the Marines. That is what the 155 mm guns are for. If anything they replace the Iowa class. They are also the prototype of a completely new architecture. These are very advanced electric drive ships with enormous electrical generation capability. Future weapons like railguns and lazers all require far more electrical current than conventionally propelled ships can hope to generate. In a few years when rail guns and lazers are readied for service, these ships will be the first to ship them, other classes simply do not produce enough power for these weapons. This is the next revolution in naval warfare.
Missing in this discussion is how the VLS tubes are arranged along the sides of the vessel. This is called PVLS for perimeter VLS. The Navy took a lesson from Army tank design. Modern tanks place the ammo in a bustle at the back of the turret where a direct hit blows the lid off the bustle and destroys the ammo but protects the crew. With PVLS, the tubes are arranged around the outside of the hull in groups of four with space between the hull and the tube and some innovative composite armor applied to them. The idea is a missile hit will take out four VLS tubes but leave the ship otherwise undamaged. No repeats of the USS Stark or HMS Sheffield. Full scale PVLS assemblies in a Zumwalt style hull section have been live fire tested with live ordinance in the VLS tubes apparently with success. The actual results of course are not for public dissemination. This new PVLS will accomodate larger missiles than the current Mk-41 VLS, so things like certain Army bombardment missile systems could end up going to sea in support of the Marines.
Missing in this discussion is how the VLS tubes are arranged along the sides of the vessel. This is called PVLS for perimeter VLS. The Navy took a lesson from Army tank design. Modern tanks place the ammo in a bustle at the back of the turret where a direct hit blows the lid off the bustle and destroys the ammo but protects the crew. With PVLS, the tubes are arranged around the outside of the hull in groups of four with space between the hull and the tube and some innovative composite armor applied to them. The idea is a missile hit will take out four VLS tubes but leave the ship otherwise undamaged. No repeats of the USS Stark or HMS Sheffield. Full scale PVLS assemblies in a Zumwalt style hull section have been live fire tested with live ordinance in the VLS tubes apparently with success. The actual results of course are not for public dissemination. This new PVLS will accomodate larger missiles than the current Mk-41 VLS, so things like certain Army bombardment missile systems could end up going to sea in support of the Marines.
I'm sorry, I just cannot help smiling. It's genesis goes back to WWII. The last three heavy cruisers the US or anyone else ever built, the Des Moines class, had fully automatic eight inch guns. Each barrel could be fired at ten rounds per minute. The class carried three triple turrets like previous US heavy cruiser classes, but the automation made the turrets fully fifty percent heavier than previous versions. These guns required semi-fixed ammo rather than the separate shell and individual silk bags of gun powder that were manually lifted into previous cruiser guns. In use this new gun proved supremely reliable. In Vietnam service only the New Jersey was considered a superior fire support ship.