The most expensive surface combatant ever built was stealthily plunged into the waters of the Kennebec River yesterday, without honors, ceremony or much in the way of photography. The one photo I can find anywhere of the launch of the $4 billion warship is this turd from the AP:
Dynamic isn't it?
The link above is to an Australian news service; the only news organization in the world that devoted a spec of coverage to the unusual incident on the rock bound coast of Maine. Nobody else was interested, not even the United States Navy. Why would they be? This stealthy 15,600 ton displacement ship, armed with 2 cannons, is the wave of the future of naval combat. Honestly, there's been more drama and fanfare over an unexpected turd in a swimming pool then the launch of this poor ship.
This is what warships of almost 14,000 ton displacement looked like 70 years ago:
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| USS ALBANY and her hideously expensive guns |
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| USS CANBERRA and her hideously expensive guns + a surface to air missile system |
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| Surface to Air Missile fired from USS CANBERRA |
The USS Zumwalt will have enormous computers and command and control systems programmed by the same folks bringing us healthcare.gov and will have far fewer men and women embarked so it will save money. And THAT's the important thing. You don't save money building warships sans significant weapons for cheap you know.
4 comments:
I see what ya did there. (insert [another] smiley-face thingie here)
Our friend Christopher has the real pictures up on facebook just now. I looked all night for good ones of the ship and the one I posted was the single solitary picture of the ship anywhere near the water. I may have to update this one although, in honesty, they cannot do but justice to the ship which truly was designed around nothing at all except bureaucratium, the densest material on the planet.
"Enormous" computers and command & Control Sys needed to control EXACTLY WHAT wpns sys? As Daffy Duck would say: "HA HA. It is to Laff1"
Unfortunately it's more like IT IS TO WEEP!
We have here a ship that cannot stand in the line of battle against any threat more dangerous than a Somali pirate and frankly, I'm not sure about the outcome of that encounter. It has a gun that almost literally cannot be fired at its maximum effective range because there is no way to verify that the range is clear because it is so far away that the impact area cannot be seen without having an aircraft overhead. I have no idea why they always imagine that one needs to bring a bigger computer to the fight. I always figured some weapons would be nice to have.
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