The new $7.5 billion DDG-1000 destroyer, USS Zumwalt, expected to be delivered by Bath Iron Works sometime in 2016, is incredibly high tech and innovative. It features advanced weapons and propulsion systems as well as an inward sloping hull with a ram bow to make it more stealthy to radar. The only area of controversy is whether it will be seaworthy.
As reported by Defense News: “Nothing like the Zumwalt has ever been built. The 14,500-ton ship’s flat, inward-sloping sides and superstructure rise in pyramidal fashion in a form called tumblehome. Its long, angular “wave-piercing” bow lacks the rising, flared profile of most ships, and is intended to slice through waves as much as ride over them…”
“At least eight current and former officers, naval engineers and architects and naval analysts interviewed for this article expressed concerns about the ship’s stability. Ken Brower, a civilian naval architect with decades of naval experience was even more blunt: “It will capsize in a following sea at the wrong speed if a wave at an appropriate wavelength hits it at an appropriate angle … Brower explained: “The trouble is that as a ship pitches and heaves at sea, if you have tumblehome instead of flare, you have no righting energy to make the ship come back up. On the DDG 1000, with the waves coming at you from behind, when a ship pitches down, it can lose transverse stability as the stern comes out of the water – and basically roll over.”
The inward slope of the hull, referred to as tumblehome, significantly reduces the reserve buoyancy of the design, making them less stable in a seaway. Similar designs dating from the early part of the 20th century were particularly susceptible to capsizing after even minor battle damage.
The Navy continues to be confident in the seaworthiness of the design. They have built a series of models of the ship including a 150-foot, 1/4 scale steel hull which they tested for stability.
The real tests will come when USS Zumwalt is put through her paces on sea-trials, which are expected to be held in December.
Read about this a few weeks ago before major media ran with it.
There is a good chance this ship would not be completed, possibly scrapped.
Ok, here’s the article or one similar to what I read earlier.
Navy consideration of scrapping third ship of Zumwalt-class …
Sep 15, 2015 – The issue revolves around the Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer, … Related: Navy’s newest destroyers evolve to fill traditional battleship roles … The ship has value as a technology development laboratory — albeit an expensive one. … The XPedite7672 is a secure, high-performance, 3U VPX-REDI, single …
http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2015/09/zumwalt-class-destroyer.html
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Interesting info, Phil.
Grinding on my favorite topic:
The Zumwalt requires only 140 officers and enlisted, while the Navy’s much smaller Arleigh Burke-class destroyers destroyer requires 323.
Until the Zumwalt has holes in it, at which point the ghostly, absent 153 may be missed.
I agree, Doug. The very idea of “Automated Damage Control” strikes me as crazy. Giving the crew as many tools for damage control is a good thing. Removing crew and relying on systems which may themselves be damaged to handle damage control is bizarre.