
Here is how half the story gets told.
Syring said the ships’ design has seen only one significant change in the past year: In the spring, the Navy deleted the Volume Search Radar from the ship’s Dual Band Radar during the program review triggered by the Nunn-McCurdy process.It annoys me how the official Navy line in any shipbuilding program named DDG-1000 must be confusing and cast doubt on the product. Basically what Chris is doing in this article is reporting the absolute truth based on what Jim Syring is saying. Look, there was a time about 2 years ago where Capt Syring was doing everything possible to tout the DDG-1000 - before ADM Roughead decided to move his cubicle to Siberia while he CNO worked with Congress to truncate the DDG-1000 program. While in cubicle Siberia, Jim Syring was a team player and fell off the press map, and by doing so the DDG-1000 was able to be characterized as whatever the Navy wanted it to be - which ultimately means it had to be a significantly worse capability and enormously more expensive option than a DDG-51. Depending upon how much it costs to restart the DDG-51 line, the DDG-1000 could actually end up neither.
Although the radar works, Syring said, “producibility problems” with the radome material protecting the S-band radar persisted, and the Navy’s 2008 decision to base future missile defense on the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer and its Aegis weapon system eliminated the needed growth path for the VSR on the Zumwalts.
Raytheon’s X-band multifunction radar, the other half of the DBR, will meet all of the ship’s requirement capabilities, Syring said.
But that isn't the point. What the article tries to do is push more of the official Navy FUD, this time discussing the cancellation of the VSR from the DDG-1000. The reason cited for the VSR cancellation is the program review triggered by the Nunn-McCurdy process led to the radar being dropped. It isn't the real reason, just the excuse for the change. Someone could misread this article and believe there is some problem with the radar, that Lockheed Martin is run by morons, or that there is some integration problem being covered up... but those aren't the reasons either.
The real reason the Navy is dropping the VSR on DDG-1000 is because the Navy intends to put the same AMDR on the DDG-1000 that is being planned for the Block III DDG-51s, because the timeline works out. The thing is the Navy can't actually say this because there is no official AMDR program yet and the DDG-1000 isn't supposed to be a ballistic missile defense ship - remember? This story in Navy Times is what it is because when it comes to US Navy shipbuilding, the Navy under CNO Roughead is never completely honest with the American people about what the Navy is doing.
Sorry if the truth hurts.
The DDG-1000s are going to end up being really fantastic ships that don't serve very long in the fleet because they will ultimately be seen by some future CNO as too expensive to maintain (as the Seawolf class is proving today). While the program doesn't have significant cost growth yet, I suspect it eventually will. I also suspect the final cost growth of the DDG-1000 will be significantly below most peoples expectations of a very high number, and the capability will ultimately be significantly higher than the expectations set by the Navy to date of a ship lacking in any capability. In other words, these ships will exceed expectations, and that won't change the fact that building only 3 was the right move in the current fiscal environment. With that said, even today, I would still support building 4 of these ships because I still believe if we wanted them to be - the DDG-1000 class could be the Iowa class of 21st century.
Because the Zumwalt class will represent a significant power projection capability and because they will have smaller crews than other large surface combatants, the Zumwalt class represents the desired characteristics of a major surface vessel alternative to an aircraft carrier for the kind of power projection, presence, partnership, and deterrence missions the US Navy will be conducting well into the 21st century in the Pacific and Indian Ocean theaters.
I believe there might be an important strategic calculation ignored in the DDG-1000 discussion - at the end of the day countries like the Philippines and Vietnam want major US Navy assets to visit their countries, but those same countries do not want lots of sailors visiting - and no surface platform on the US Navy chalkboard better represents this necessary set of characteristics desired by potential Pacific partner nations than the DDG-1000.
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