Over the last fiscal year, the United States Navy shelled out more than $1.7 billion for development of the DDG 1000, the Navy’s next-generation destroyer, and in FY 2007 the Navy plans to spend an additional $3.3 billion, making the DDG 1000 the single largest procurement program in the Navy’s budget this year. What are the taxpayers getting for their money? Well, for starters the DDG 1000 is, in the words of Ed Geisler, vice president of Raytheon and DDG 1000 Program Manager, a “poster-child” for cost management. At a time when the Navy’s other major shipbuilding program, the LCS, has been temporarily suspended while the Navy examines the reason for major cost overruns, Geisler boasted that the DDG 1000 is currently on-schedule and a whopping 4 percent under-budget. The economics of the DDG 1000 aren’t nearly as exciting as the technology it promises to deliver, but at more than $3 billion a copy, many have questioned just how worthwhile an investment the ship is in comparison to its predecessor, the DDG 51 Arleigh Burke class destroyer, which is roughly half the price. Geisler was confident that the ship would live up to the hype. As Geisler explained, the initial investment in designing the DDG 1000 offers the hope of substantial savings in building and operating the ship. The ship’s automated systems, which Raytheon designed, will mean a reduction in crew numbers from 370 sailors for DDG 51 to a mere 143 for DDG 1000, including helicopter pilots and UAV operators. Over the 35-year life of the ship, that ought to save the Navy nearly half a billion dollars in personnel costs. Furthermore, the ship’s “open architecture” computing systems make this the Navy’s first “plug and play” vessel, which ought to offer significant savings for any upgrading of the ship’s systems. What really excites though is the DDG 1000’s promise of unparalleled combat capabilities. And like the Air Force, the Navy is going stealth. Geisler says of the ship, “the radar signature is in the single digits as a percentage when compared with the current class of destroyers.” That means that, to an enemy radar, “the 600 foot destroyer will look like a small fishing boat.” Raytheon has achieved this feat by eliminating right angles from the ship’s superstructure, which is also made from a composite of wood and plastic rather than steel to further reduce the ship’s signature. The advantage of a small radar signature is amplified by the ship’s advanced dual band radar, which Geisler says has been successfully tested and “performs better than any radar in service today.” The Navy claims that tests have show the radar to offer 15-times greater detection against sea-skimming targets, 20 percent greater firm-track range against all antiship cruise missiles (which improves survivability), a 10-times increase in maximum track capacity, and dramatic improvements of performance in jamming environments. The combination of the ability to see without being seen gives the DDG 1000 “the warfighter advantage” of being able to “shoot the archer.” Geisler says the DDG 1000 will be “able to detect a threat before they detect us…there isn’t a ship in the world that can do this.” The DDG 1000 has an ultra-quiet and extremely survivable hull design which has been successfully tested on scale models. The ship’s dual-band radar has also been successfully tested. And only last week Raytheon and BAE successfully tested the ship’s MK57 Vertical Launching System. And the DDG 1000’s Advanced Gun System (AGS), which has been touted as a solution to a critical gap in the Navy’s volume fire capability, will be able to fire 10 155mm Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) each minute. Using a rocket motor to boost the projectile’s range, the LRLAP will also use GPS guidance to increase accuracy by a substantial margin. DDG 1000 is supposed to be upgraded with an electromagnetic rail gun some time after 2016, which would represent a major advance in capability–more than tripling the range of the AGS. Raytheon is not the lead-contractor on that project, however, I wasn’t bowled over by Geisler’s enthusiasm for the new technology. He did say he was “optimistic” that the system’s technical problems could be overcome. The Navy is set to take delivery of two DDG 1000 destroyers in 2012, though how many more Zumwalt class ships will be ordered after that is anyone’s guess. Still, with Democratic Rep. Gene Taylor–whose district includes Northrop Grumman’s Pascagoula Shipyard where one of the DDG 1000s is being built–now holding the chair of the House Seapower and Expeditionary Forces Subcommittee, it seems likely that Congress will continue to fund what the Navy has described as the the centerpiece of its future surface combat fleet. Update: This post originally stated that “Defense Daily reported late last year that Raytheon’s AGS program has been plagued by inconsistent results. Said Admiral Michael Frick, ‘What [Raytheon hasn’t] been able to do to date is show that they can do it [hit the target] every time,’ though he qualified his remark by saying ‘That’s a reliability issue not capability issue.'” Frick was referring to the ERGM munition which the Navy does not plan to use on DDG 1000.
Conceptual drawing of the DDG 1000. Notice the absence of any antennas on the ship’s superstructure, as well as the inward-sloping “tumblehome” hull, which is more survivable than a traditional hull, and also reduces wave-induced movement, making the ship less easily detected by radar.
