Risky business

Ships being constructed
Untested designs present risks.


Risky business
By Christopher P. Cavas - Staff writer
Posted : Saturday Mar 1, 2008 7:40:11 EST

Like no other military service in history, the Navy is betting a very large — and expensive — chunk of its future fleet on untested technologies and unprecedented practices. Large destroyers built to a hull design no one has ever ridden. Aircraft carriers launching planes by a method yet to send a single aircraft aloft. Littoral combat ships operated in ways new to any navy.

The projects have been in the works for years: more than a decade for the DDG 1000 destroyer, about that long for the CVN 78 carrier and about five years for the LCS.

But now all three projects are at something of a nexus: After years of existing only as promises and PowerPoint presentations, all three projects are about to turn into real ships. The service is about to begin building the destroyers, construction has just begun on the first of the new carriers, and the first LCS will take to sea in a few months.

That the Navy is depending on so many untried designs at once is epic. And these new ships do not represent modest leaps: The Zumwalt-class destroyer in particular is one of the most technologically advanced ships ever built, combining at least 10 major new technologies into one 15,000-ton package.

To reduce risk, the Navy often has introduced new technologies in small steps. The first nuclear-powered warship, the Nautilus, added a nuclear reactor to an otherwise conventional hull design. The first Aegis combat systems rode on a 1970s destroyer design. The Navy’s first vertical-launch systems for missiles replaced external launchers on the sixth ship of the Ticonderoga-class cruisers.


Rest of article at: http://www.navytimes.com/news/2008/03/navy_shiptech_080303w/



uhc comment: Where to start? Hmmmm. The DDG 1000 costs somewhere between $3,300,000,000 and $5,000,000,000. The LCS program has not been going well either.
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