Two More Puzzle Pieces for DDG-1000 Standard Missiles

Defense Daily does such a good job, and today we have one more example. From Monday's Defense Watch, which is available every week on in CHINFO Clips.

To Build Or Not To Build. The DDG-1000 2004 JROC-approved Operational Requirements Document clearly states, "DDX will establish local air superiority using the SM-2 family of Surface to Air Missiles." This capability is included in the requirements and design of the DDG-1000 today, a Raytheon spokesperson tells Defense Daily. Overall, at baseline configuration, the Zumwalt Dual Band Radar (DBR) has 37 percent better performance than a SPY-1 D in a blue water AAW environment and 50 percent better performance in a littoral environment, the spokesperson says. "Further, the Zumwalt radar suite is specifically designed for capability growth for the emerging BMD mission. This is achieved by simply 'fully populating' the array faces with additional electronics," the spokesperson adds. "The most affordable and quickest path to upgrade to even more superior AAW and BMD is via the completion of the DDG-1000 TSCE-based mission equipment. Our estimate is that it would be about one-quarter the cost of upgrading the DDG-51 system and would result in 200+ percent more capability for BMD."

...Standard Missiles. "As previously stated, Zumwalt mission equipment was designed to accommodate the SM-2 family of missiles and is therefore easily scalable to accommodate the SM-3 and SM-6," the spokesperson notes. "Traditionally, [the Navy] funds the ships-side of a weapon for the ship-side of the interface and missile-side of the weapon for the missile-side of the interface. Confusion arises when interface changes to the S-2 family of missiles are attributed to the ship-side." The missile interface changes required are known and "costed," the spokesperson adds. "The cost to modify the missile for Zumwalt is approximately four times less than redesigning the DDG-51 radar, C2 and significant HM&E modifications which are represented in the modernization budgets."

...Missile Integration. "The U.S. Navy-initiated technology study, TI-37, concluded in 2003/04 that the SM-6 could be integrated into the TSCE-based mission system at relatively low cost to either the ship system or the missile, due to the flexibility of the DDG-1000 open architecture," the spokesperson says. "In February 2008, a detailed technical paper was presented showing a clear path to the integration of the SM-3 missile into DDG-1000 with only minor changes due to the open architecture flexibility built into the DDG-1000. All of this data was delivered to the [Navy] in a non-proprietary form per the requirements of the DDG-1000 program."

Also check out August 2008 Seapower Magazine article BMD Boost. Second paragraph of the article.

A program to incorporate improved BMD into all of the DDG 51 guided-missile destroyers has been added to the established cruiser-destroyer modernization program.

This article was released before the July 31st hearing, just barely, meaning when the Navy suggested the new DDG 51s would be BMD capable just like the modernizations, they forgot to tell the rest of us the modernization program for the DDG-51s has changed and now includes BMD.

That July 31st hearing was such a mess, wouldn't it be nice if we could just get all the information in one place with clarity, instead of having to look everywhere to piece it all together.

One thing is clear, this blog is still struggling to talk about BMD based on the July 31st hearing in a way that is completely, 100% accurate. Everything to date has been discussion without all the information.