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[7DollarHagane]

On the one hand, launching a ship with no ammunition is laughable.

On the other hand, least that saves some tax payers money.

Think if all the people that could get life saving treatment, food and homes based on outfitting just one war ship.....

One round is someone set for life if they were half way decent with money

Well, they didn't build the thing expecting to spend nearly a million on each round.

Sometimes shit happens in giant projects that look watertight and like a totally great idea when they start.

 

[Thelonelykoopa]

With ammunition that expensive no point in loading it up on it till its necessary and Naval battles don't happen too often.

 

[eyeball_kid]

Yes but the impression people seem to have is that it's now just a big empty gun that leaves the ship defenseless. It isn't, it can still fuck some shit up if need be.

In what modern battle situation would we actually need unguided ammo main guns like that though? I mean we might as well take some WW2 battleships out of mothballs in that case. At least they'd survive an RPG attack.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

Is there literally any point to this thing? We can't enter any major conflicts because of MAD. Drones and HA-air seem like a cheaper/better approach for counter terrorism.

When is this ever going to be used?

Theoretically this was supposed to provide cheaper precision ground support for operations taking place somewhat close to the shore compared to cruise missiles. But with the loss of economies of scale that's no longer viable.

Also there's a range of conflicts that "could" take place at some point. There are plenty of states that aren't equipped with nuclear weapons that could at some point in the future (shelf life of warships can be in the 40 year+ range) end up at war with America. Low RCS warship with precision strike capability sounds good, but obviously there are deficiencies in other areas that have caused issues.

In what modern battle situation would we actually need unguided ammo main guns like that though? I mean we might as well take some WW2 battleships out of mothballs in that case. At least they'd survive an RPG attack.

RPGs have a range of about 700m on the most sophisticated models available only to the Russian federation (and their proxies potentially). A conventional 6" naval gun from WWII has an effective range of about 18,000m. You don't have to be within spitting distance of the shore to provide naval fire support. The problem is not so much that an RPG could "theoretically" (with a lucky hit or something) disable the ship. The gamble in the design phase was that the difficulty targeting it because of low RCS would protect it either through a failure of the enemy to detect it, or through difficulties with their weapons acquiring a targeting solution before the Zumwalt class vessel could fire an anti-surface missile or a precision shell at the hostile.

 

[eyeball_kid]

RPGs have a range of about 700m on the most sophisticated models available only to the Russian federation (and their proxies potentially). A conventional 6" naval gun from WWII has an effective range of about 18,000m. You don't have to be within spitting distance of the shore to provide naval fire support. The problem is not so much that an RPG could "theoretically" (with a lucky hit or something) disable the ship. The gamble in the design phase was that the difficulty targeting it because of low RCS would protect it either through a failure of the enemy to detect it, or through difficulties with their weapons acquiring a targeting solution before the Zumwalt class vessel could fire an anti-surface missile or a precision shell at the hostile.

I see. I guess I misunderstood the purpose of the ship, and assumed it was built for a potential conflict with China's navy and other near-shore operations. Still, in a conflict where the enemy zergs the U.S. with fast-moving attack boats such as China has, the Zumwalt would seem to need protection.

I suppose there would also be some added risk when in port, as in the USS Cole bombing.

 

[ThoseDeafMutes]

I see. I guess I misunderstood the purpose of the ship, and assumed it was built for a potential conflict with China's navy and other near-shore operations. Still, in a conflict where the enemy zergs the U.S. with fast-moving attack boats such as China has, the Zumwalt would seem to need protection.

I suppose there would also be some added risk when in port, as in the USS Cole bombing.

I believe the thinking was that if the ship is in range of the enemy and is detected it's probably dead anyway - similar thinking to the Leo 1 tank which sacrificed armor for speed on the grounds that the designers believed no protection would be sufficient for countering enemy tank guns so why bother. But there are definitely cases where this makes the Zumwalt vulnerable, you highlight terrorist attacks and fast attack boats. There's probably more.

I think conceptually the idea could work, but it's a very expensive gamble.

 

[Valkyr Junkie]

Yes but the impression people seem to have is that it's now just a big empty gun that leaves the ship defenseless. It isn't, it can still fuck some shit up if need be.

Incorrect. The LRLAP rounds are the only ones developed for the guns. There are no cheap/dumb shells for it.

 

[curls]

What about the ones in space?

What about them?