klagldsf
Post subject: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Sun Dec 05, 2010 1:31 pm
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This still remains the best essay I have read on the project, and I'd like to request permission to either repost it here or if Stuart can do the honors himself.
It really should be mandatory reading for anyone even thinking of becoming a naval architect.
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Beastro
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 4:41 am
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Best to send a PM to him.
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Frank Underwood
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 8:38 am
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klagldsf wrote:
This still remains the best essay I have read on the project, and I'd like to request permission to either repost it here or if Stuart can do the honors himself.
It really should be mandatory reading for anyone even thinking of becoming a naval architect.
No problem; ggo ahead. I may ammend it slightly when up.
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Scott Brim
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Tue Dec 07, 2010 9:55 am
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I've shown Stuart's essay on DDG-1000 to friends who are naval reservists, both officers and senior enlisted.
Once the reality of the issues with DDG-1000 sinks in, a typical comment goes like this, "The Navy has any number of processes and procedures to get the job right in designing and building a warship. How could such a thing happen?"
My response has been, "Remember what the Car Guys, Al and Ray, on NPR's Car Talk once said: You can be ISO 9000 certified and still build a Yugo."
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Scott Brim
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Mon Dec 13, 2010 3:22 pm
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In August 2008 when it appeared DDG-1000 was on a pathway towards cancellation, the naval analyst Stuart Slade wrote up this informal critique of the DDG-1000 program for his audience on the stardestroyer.net website.
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STUART SLADE ON THE DDG-1000, AUGUST 2008:
At its simplest, nobody has any faith the ships will work; and if they do work, nobody quite knows what they will be working for.
DDG-1000 has been a screwed program right from the start. The people behind it broke every single rule of naval design and consciously did not discuss the ship or her basic theoretical precepts with anybody.
The ship was, you see, a break from the hidebound traditions of the past that tied the navy to obsolete ideas and prevented them from striding forward into the bright days of the future.
Those thirty words have doomed more naval programs than guns, torpedoes and missiles combined. Some of the hide-bound conservative ideas they discarded included floating, moving, shooting, steering etc.
The big problem was that they changed everything in one go. They wanted new weapons, new electronics, new machinery, new crew levels, new hull design. Everything was new, everything was a major break with past practice. Of course, it all ended in tears, there's no way it could have done anything else.
Examples. The ship is supposed to use a radical hull form to reduce its radar cross section. Great, only that hull form uses a wave-piercing bow and a tumblehome shape. Now, let’s look at this more closely. It’s a wave-piercing bow. That means it - uhhhh - pierces waves. In fact the water from the pierced wave floods over the deck, along the main deck, washes over the forward weaponry, hits the bridge and flows down the ship's side. Now, that water weighs quite a bit, several tens of tons in fact, and it is moving at the speed of the wave plus the speed of the ship.
That wave, when it hits the gun mount and bridge front is literally like driving into a brick wall at 60mph. The gun mount shield is made of fiberglass to reduce radar cross section. The wave also generates suction as it passes over the VLS system, sucks the doors open and floods the silos. The missiles don't like that. Spray is one thing (bad enough) but being immersed in several tons of water flowing down is quite another.
Then we have the problem of the water flowing over the deck. It is strong enough to sweep men off their feet. In fact, it’s so dangerous that ships that operate under such conditions have to use submarine rules - nobody on deck. But to work the ship, we need people on deck. Uhhh, problem here?
Now for tumblehome hull form. This means the ship's sides slope inwards from the waterline, not outwards like normal ships do. Now, we take a slice through the ship at the waterline. That's called the ship's waterplane. There's a thing called tons per inch immersion, the weight of water needed to sink the ship one inch. TPI is proportional to waterplane area. As the ship's waterplane area increases it requires more tons to make it sink an inch. As the waterplane decreases it requires fewer tons to make it sink per inch. Now, with a conventional flared hull, as the ship sinks in the water, its waterplane area increases, so it requires a steadily increasing rate of flooding to make the ship sink at a steady rate. If the rate of flooding does not increase, eventually the ship stops sinking. This cheers up the crew immensely.
However, with tumblehome, the waterplane area decreases as the ship sinks into the water. So, the ship will have a steadily-increasing rate of immersion at a steady rate of flooding. In short, for a steady rate of flooding, the ship sinks faster and faster. The ship will not stop sinking. This is immensely depressing.
The problem is the damage goes much further than that. As a ship with a conventional flared hull rolls, the increasing waterplane area gives her added buoyancy on the side that is submerging and gives her a moment that pushes upwards, back against the roll. That stabilizes her and she returns to an even keel. With a tumblehome hull, as the ship rolls, the decreasing waterplane area reduces buoyancy on the side that's going down, giving a moment that pushes downwards in the same direction as a roll. This destabilizes her so she rolls faster and faster until she goes over.
Having dealt with the hull design, we now move to the machinery. The DDG-1000 is supposed to have minimally-manned machinery spaces. This will save manpower etc. etc. etc. There's a problem, all of that automation doesn't work. It’s troublesome, unreliable, extremely expensive and it needs somebody to watch it and make sure it does it's job. In fact, its useless. It gets worse. The purpose of a crew on a warship is not to make it go around and do things. Its to try and patch the holes and put out the fires when other warships do things to it. Repairing damage cannot be automated (did I tell you that DDG-1000 was supposed to have automated damage control systems? Ah, forgot that but it doesn't matter, they didn't work either.) So, having designed a hull that sinks if somebody looks at it crosswise, we now remove the people who were supposed to try and stop it sinking.
Now we come to the electronics. Great idea here. Put all the antennas into a single structure and we can cut RCS. That causes a problem called electronic interference. The systems all shut each other down. And they did. Very efficiently. The radar suite on DDG-1000 was the world's first self-jamming missile system. Oh, they took down the comms and gunnery fire control as well.
Did I also mention that the flow noise from the wave-piercing bow was enough to prevent the sonar working? That was an easy problem to solve. Remove the sonar. Anyway easy way to solve the interference problems, use multi-functional antennas. That sounds good. One day, when they get them working, I'll let you know. MFAs are pretty good when used in their place, but NOT for operating mutually incompatible systems.
The gun. Ah yes, the gun. It fires shells, 155mm ones. Guided shells whose electronics can withstand 40,000G. The acceleration in the gun barrel is 100,000G. Oops. Problems.
Then we come to the missiles. They're in new silos, all along the deck edge. Can anybody see the problems with that? Like moment and rolling inertia? The designers couldn't, which proves they know slightly less about the maritime environment than the deer currently eating the bushes outside my office window.
Now, all these problems are occurring at once and the fact that everything in the ship is new means that one can't be fixed until the rest are.
And that is why DDG-1000 got cancelled.
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NOTE: Later in the summer of 2008, the Navy reversed course a second time and decided to construct three DDG-1000s, assuring that the program would survive even if truncated at just three hulls.
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p620346
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Sat Aug 04, 2012 10:26 pm
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I seem to remember reading, possibly in Conway's Navies in the Nuclear Age, that when first commissioned. due to incompatible computer speeds and word lengths, USS Texas (CGN-39) was for all practical purposes non-operatioal for over a year.
When I was in the USN in the early 1960s, there was a government requirement to purchase computers from all of the US manufactures (IBM and the 7 dwarfs) which resulted in a number of compatibility problems. Honeywell used 3/4-in magnetic tape while IBM used 1/2-in, fortunately almost everyone used standard 80 column IBM cards, although Remington used their own smaller sized cards with round rather than rectangular holes.
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Poohbah
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Mon Aug 06, 2012 4:40 pm
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p620346 wrote:
I seem to remember reading, possibly in Conway's Navies in the Nuclear Age, that when first commissioned. due to incompatible computer speeds and word lengths, USS Texas (CGN-39) was for all practical purposes non-operatioal for over a year.
When I was in the USN in the early 1960s, there was a government requirement to purchase computers from all of the US manufactures (IBM and the 7 dwarfs) which resulted in a number of compatibility problems. Honeywell used 3/4-in magnetic tape while IBM used 1/2-in, fortunately almost everyone used standard 80 column IBM cards, although Remington used their own smaller sized cards with round rather than rectangular holes.
One big issue is that weapons systems are the province of NAVSEA, and C4ISR systems are the province of SPAWAR.
NAVSEA simply doesn't understand those compu-doohickeys.
What ends up happening is that SPAWAR winds up doing the weapons system engineering work that NAVSEA didn't want to do, usually in response to fleet CASREPs.
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OSCSSW
Post subject: How does Stu's zumwalt article hold up today?PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 9:53 am
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Seems to me most of his concerns are still unsolved.
Am I wrong?
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drunknsubmrnr
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 1:09 pm
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I drove by BIW a month ago...that ship is huge. The modules are like buildings.
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OSCSSW
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Sat Aug 03, 2013 2:38 pm
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drunknsubmrnr wrote:
I drove by BIW a month ago...that ship is huge. The modules are like buildings.
How are you settling in?
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drunknsubmrnr
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Sun Aug 04, 2013 9:35 am
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Very well thanks!
Driving in NYC is a bit different from Boston. The only speeds are fast and faster, and turn signals appear to be a sign of weakness. If you just cut off the most expensive car around they'll let you in.
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Scott Brim
Post subject: Re: How does Stu's zumwalt article hold up today?PostPosted: Wed Aug 14, 2013 11:27 pm
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OSCSSW wrote:
Seems to me most of his concerns are still unsolved. Am I wrong?
I've made a promise to Greg Lof from warships1 and Commander Salamander that if the DDG-1000's hullform proves to have no real issues in higher sea states and/or if more Zumwalts are ordered beyond the three now on the books, I will have to buy him dinner at his favorite restaurant in Portland, OR. Only time will tell if I have to pay up.
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Scott Brim
Post subject: Re: How does Stu's zumwalt article hold up today?PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 6:51 pm
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Scott Brim wrote:
OSCSSW wrote:
Seems to me most of his concerns are still unsolved. Am I wrong?
I've made a promise to Greg Lof from warships1 and Commander Salamander that if the DDG-1000's hullform proves to have no real issues in higher sea states and/or if more Zumwalts are ordered beyond the three now on the books, I will have to buy him dinner at his favorite restaurant in Portland, OR. Only time will tell if I have to pay up.
From the "Phisical Psience" website comes this critique of the DDG-1000 hullform:
US NAVY - DDG 1000 - Zumwalt Class Destroyer, Tumblehome Hull
The Phisical Psience web site was established in 2011 by the experimental physicist Park McGraw, who is apparently a US Navy veteran.
He recounts his own experiences in trying to operate and maintain complex electronic systems aboard warships operating in higher sea states.
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Poohbah
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 7:19 pm
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BTW, the PCO for the Zumwalt is (drumroll)...
Captain James Kirk.
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ByronC
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 7:52 pm
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Poohbah wrote:
BTW, the PCO for the Zumwalt is (drumroll)...
Captain James Kirk.
Are you serious? That's like General Tibbets commanding the B-29 unit in TSW, except it's not a joke. If only he was an aviator...
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jemhouston
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Mon Oct 21, 2013 8:04 pm
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ByronC wrote:
Poohbah wrote:
BTW, the PCO for the Zumwalt is (drumroll)...
Captain James Kirk.
Are you serious? That's like General Tibbets commanding the B-29 unit in TSW, except it's not a joke. If only he was an aviator...
He's James A. Kirk http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ddg10 ... /Bio1.aspx
So many things going through my mind.
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fnord
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Tue Oct 22, 2013 2:39 am
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Imagine all the guff he's copped, especially when he got promoted to captain. No mention of whether he served on Enterprise, though.
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Belushi TD
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 11:27 am
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jemhouston wrote:
He's James A. Kirk http://www.public.navy.mil/surfor/ddg10 ... /Bio1.aspx
So many things going through my mind.
So does this mean his 17xgreat grandson will be James T. Kirk?
That gives us, at 3 generations a century, over 500 years before we have really spiffy interstellar flight.
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The Bushranger
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Wed Oct 23, 2013 12:46 pm
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Belushi TD wrote:
So does this mean his 17xgreat grandson will be James T. Kirk?
That gives us, at 3 generations a century, over 500 years before we have really spiffy interstellar flight.
I dunno, there's always the Archers...
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Scott Brim
Post subject: Re: Permission to repost Stuart's DDG-1000/Zumwalt essay?PostPosted: Sun Dec 22, 2013 11:23 am
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The first DDG-1000 is in the water now, and people who have stood next to it at its fitting dock report that it is One Truly Impressive Chunk of Metal.
From looking at the pictures of it in the water, my first impression is how completely the deckhouse dominates the ship's visual impact.
What happens next with this ship?
Its sea-keeping abilities in its initial sea trials will be the most closely watched facet of the ship's performance, as will be the performance of the ship's extensive automation features.
After the first year of DDG-1000 sea trials, if we see a pair of outrigger ammas being welded to the hull, and pallets full of hammocks being brought aboard, then we will know that at least some portion of the Zumwalt critic's various opinionations were justified.
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