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Zumwalt

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James Holmes has a good article on the DDG-1000 over at the National Interest:

And that’s the last major reason I see why the Zumwalt is relatively uncontroversial. No one expects perfection from a fleet experiment. Indeed, its reason for being is to be imperfect. Such testbeds vet new concepts, exposing flaws in ideas that look great on paper but may not work in practice. There’s precedent, furthermore, for constructing an expensive three-ship class and feeding the lessons learned into successors that are potent but don’t break the bank. Built two decades ago, the SSN-21 Seawolf submarines helped give rise to the Virginia-class attack boats, the newest mainstay of the silent service. Like the Zumwalts, the SSN-21s saw their numbers curtailed for cost reasons. Despite the brouhaha over their expense, however, they performed admirably as test platforms for new technologies and operational practices. And by all accounts, they render yeoman service as combat vessels to this day.

That’s not a bad paradigm. If the DDG-1000s meet the Seawolf standard—informing the design of future surface combatants through their successes and setbacks, while supplying the fleet with much-needed firepower in coastal zones—they will have justified their expense. Simple, straightforward and clean: now there’s a convincing message.

Read the rest for a longer description of what the ship can do and of its history. Very interesting stuff.

 

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