USN Burke Class - News, Reports, Data, etc.

Great pictures of the USS John Finn, which was launched at Huntington Ingalls in Mississippi. This is the first of the Flight IIA restart program that will eventually lead to the Flight II ships.

Here you see the USS John Finn, DDG-113, being launched at Huntington Ingalls yards in Mississippi. where they also build the San Antonio Class LPDs. A building LPD can be seen in the background;



And here are a couple of more pictures of her:





DDG 114 is under construction at Ingalls. DDG-115 is under construction at Bath, as is DDG-116 I believe. The keel of DDG-117 was just authenticated at Ingalls.

Here's DDG-115 at Bath in between the two Zumwalt currently being built there.



Lots of Burkes being built now.

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Naval Today said:

The US Navy will christen its newest guided-missile destroyer Rafael Peralta, Saturday, Oct. 31, during a ceremony at General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Bath, Maine.

The future USS Rafael Peralta, designated DDG 115, honors Marine Corps Sgt. Rafael Peralta. He was posthumously awarded the Navy Cross for actions during combat operations in Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Peralta is credited with saving the lives of fellow Marines during the second battle of Fallujah in 2004.

Rafael Peralta is the third of 14 ships currently under contract for the DDG 51 program.

The 9,200 ton Rafael Peralta is being built by General Dynamics Bath Iron Works. The ship is 509 feet in length, has a waterline beam of 59 feet, and a navigational draft of 31 feet. Four gas turbine engines will power the ship to speeds in excess of 30 knots.

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When commissioned, this will be the 65th Burke Class DDG.

Eleven more ships are under contract (which gets us into the first three Flight IIIs). But after that, another fifteen Flight IIIs are planned:

US Navy Burke class destroyer performing a Harpoon live fire exercise:

The flt III will actually be extremely capable vessels and I would say for fleet air defense will have no rival. Yes her hull is a 30 yr old design and I think the flt III is probably about as much as you can squeeze from that design... But don't let that ship fool you. Like I've mentioned in my previous post, while externally she may look like similar to other Burkes the flt III will be essentially new ships with more power and new capabilities not found in the others. Everything will be centered around a new combat system and the an/spy6.

kwaigonegin said:

The flt III will actually be extremely capable vessels and I would say for fleet air defense will have no rival.

I think the flt III is probably about as much as you can squeeze from that design... But don't let that ship fool you.

Burkes the flt III will be essentially new ships with more power and new capabilities not found in the others. Everything will be centered around a new combat system and the an/spy6.

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The biggest issues I have with the Flight IIIs is that they are:

1) Because of space limitations they will not have the command spaces in them like they have in the Ticos for those vessels to operate up and down the chain as the true fleet defense coordinators/CE vessels.

2) They just cannot accommodate the full capability/range of the new technologies.

Having said that, as a Burke AEGIS vessel hey are gong to be the top of the line and pennacle achievement for that hull.

She will have better power, better radar, and the new, most complete and full versions of an/aspy which will make her a super-AEGIS ship.

Want to add something here while we're on topic.. Since're we're the foremost forum in defense (chest thumping) let's not call AMDR AMDR anymore. It's now officially called an/spy6 slated for the flt III Burkes.
It'll have both x,s band and a new radar controller.
According to Raytheon sales pukes, it's supposedly 30x better than spy1D which would make it by far the most sensitive and advanced radar of any naval ship when flt III Burkes are commissioned.

kwaigonegin said:

Want to add something here while we're on topic.. Since're we're the foremost forum in defense (chest thumping) let's not call AMDR AMDR anymore. It's now officially called an/spy6 slated for the flt III Burkes.
It'll have both x,s band and a new radar controller.
According to Raytheon sales pukes, it's supposedly 30x better than spy1D which would make it by far the most sensitive and advanced radar of any naval ship when flt III Burkes are commissioned.

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Yes... this is what they say on their site:



AMDR Advantages

• Scalable to suit any size aperture or mission requirement
• Over 30 times more sensitive than AN/SPY-1D(V)
• Can simultaneously handle over 30 times the targets than AN/SPY-1D(V) to counter large and complex raids
• Adaptive digital beamforming and radar signal/data processing functionality is reprogrammable to adapt to new missions or emerging threats

I'm not super sure about what they mean by "30 times more sensitive" and "30 times the targets" compared to SPY-1D(V) -- is that for an equivalently sized SPY-6 compared to SPY-1, or for a 14 ft SPY-6 intended for Flight III Burke or do they mean an even bigger SPY-6 array... because Raytheon seems somewhat vague on that matter, while also emphasizing the scalable nature of SPY-6.

Bltizo said:

Yes... this is what they say on their site:

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AMDR Advantages

• Scalable to suit any size aperture or mission requirement
• Over 30 times more sensitive than AN/SPY-1D(V)
• Can simultaneously handle over 30 times the targets than AN/SPY-1D(V) to counter large and complex raids
• Adaptive digital beamforming and radar signal/data processing functionality is reprogrammable to adapt to new missions or emerging threats

I'm not super sure about what they mean by "30 times more sensitive" and "30 times the targets" compared to SPY-1D(V) -- is that for an equivalently sized SPY-6 compared to SPY-1, or for a 14 ft SPY-6 intended for Flight III Burke or do they mean an even bigger SPY-6 array... because Raytheon seems somewhat vague on that matter, while also emphasizing the scalable nature of SPY-6.

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It's sales talk. My guess is the 14 FT one that will go on the Burkes. It's also much heavier because unlike the spy1 the spy 6's weight is on the array itself which would which would alter the cog of the flt III but they plan on mitigating that by making the hull heavier with thicker walls etc. Like I said b4 the flt III are essentially almost a new class of ships.

kwaigonegin said:

It's sales talk. My guess is the 14 FT one that will go on the Burkes. It's also much heavier because unlike the spy1 the spy 6's weight is on the array itself which would which would alter the cog of the flt III but they plan on mitigating that by making the hull heavier with thicker walls etc. Like I said b4 the flt III are essentially almost a new class of ships.

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Yes it is sales talk, it's just interesting to ask whether they actually are talking about a 14 foot array.... because none of their PR info actually directly mentions a 14 foot array. They do say that 9 2'x2'x2'RMAs are as powerful as a single SPY-1 array, but there's no info as to how many RMAs are part of a standard 14 foot SPY-6 array.
Of course, maths tells us that a 14 foot array in an even octagon means it can potentially have 37 RMAs, which would be slightly over four times that of the 9 RMAs equal to a single SPY-1 array......

The only bit of "real" info regarding the 14ft SPY-6 intended for Flight III Burke, is in Raytheon's promotional video, they say a 37 RMA SPY-6 (aka a 14 ft SPY-6) can "see a target half the size at twice the range" compared to a SPY-1 array, which is an increase of 15 decibels in radar sensitivity.

Does SPY-1 array + 15 dB increase in sensitivity = 30 times more sensitive?


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I also wouldn't call the Burke Flight III a "new ship" -- not in the same way that the Spruance to Tico was a new ship, IMO. It's a substantial upgrade, but it's overhauling existing systems with a new generation of similar systems, rather than installing a new type of subsystem to replace existing systems.

Bltizo said:

Does SPY-1 array + 15 dB increase in sensitivity = 30 times more sensitive?

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A bit of quick arithmetic later, and an increase of 15dB does equate to about 30 times greater sensitivity. So a 14ft SPY-6 is 30 times more sensitive than a 12ft SPY-1, nice to clear that up.

In that case, I wonder how other AESAs of similar band and similar size measure up to each other -- say, an array of SAMPSON, Type 346 and Type 346A and SPY-6.