Easy solution…
On time and under budget
The attached article, with the comments, is enlightening. Two points stick out to me from the comments: 1) 1 BBG = 3 DDG’s in cost/manning/weapons. [Better coverage with 3 instead of 1] 2) This should be nuke powered.
The LCS showed us how complicated the GT/diesel power-plant is.
NAVSEA, IMHO is incapable of design. The FFX & DDGX programs are failures, and the LCS too. There has to be a way to get modern weapons into a platform that is “hardened” against a soft-kill. A Glass-cockpit wheelhouse [Fitzgerald & McCain] is not going to survive a $100,000 drone shot with a small warhead.
Any skimmer can be sunk by a sub - so the argument of getting sunk is a given; but we don’t stop building skimmers. . .
As far as ASM’s, I wonder if the current hypersonic crop are capable of defeating 15” armor of the WW2 BB’s. All the DDG’s are “thin-skinned”, so penetration is “easy”. I’d anticipate that BB levels of armor would make ASM’s less of a threat. [The BB debate will continue - heck, YAMATO was sunk - but it took, according to various accounts, 11 torpedo’s & a butt-load of bombs]
Orange man bad!
You mentioned RNAS Culdrose so I’m guessing you were in the Seaking.
… once upon a time, a long way north…
Truth (must be a sundodger?)
Johnny K must be excited.
Funny, because NAVSEA didn’t design LCS, nor did NAVSEA design FFG-62. DDGX hadn’t made it to DD&C before getting re-named to BBG(X), so time will tell what happens with that program. However:
https://www.twz.com/sea/trump-class-battleship-construction-wont-begin-until-2030s
“Naval Sea Systems Command (NAVSEA) intends to contract on a sole source basis with General Dynamics Bath Irons [sic] Works Corporation (BIW) and Huntington Ingalls Industries-Ingalls Shipbuilding (HII Ingalls) for BBG(X) guided missile battleship design, engineering, and design analysis requirements. This includes shipbuilder engineering and design analysis necessary to produce BBG(X) design products in support of Navy-led design for BBG(X), including Preliminary Design (PD) and Contract Design (CD),” one of the notices says. “BIW and HII Ingalls will assist the Government design team in maturing a total ship design through a rigorous systems engineering process, including, but not limited to, preplanned reviews such as System Functional Review (SFR) and Preliminary Design Review (PDR). The estimated period of performance for these efforts is 72 months.”
In addition, NAVSEA “intends to contract on a sole source basis with Leidos Gibbs & Cox for surface combatant ship design engineering (SC SDE) efforts to support future Navy surface combatants. As part of these efforts, Leidos Gibbs & Cox will primarily execute design activity in support of Preliminary Design (PD), Contract Design (CD), and other design efforts needed to support the BBG(X) guided missile battleship program,” per the other notice. “As the SC SDE contractor, Leidos Gibbs & Cox will serve as an extension of the Government’s ship design team, delivering specialized expertise in early-stage design analysis and requirements definition. This early design phase support is crucial for ensuring the feasibility, affordability, and performance of the ship design prior to detail design and construction. The estimated period of performance for this contract is 72 months.”
Guess what? That’s not too different from “back in the day.” In fact, if you go read “Ships For Victory,” you’ll find paragraphs dedicated to the issues with Gibbs & Cox producing inadequate and incomplete drawings for the WWII shipbuilding program that is so commonly reminisced about.
The industry lobby groups, fans of offshoring industry and managed decline, and small-government types have spent the last 40 years destroying the Navy’s ability to perform in-house design and construction, then use NAVSEA as the boogeyman. People believe the narrative that NAVSEA kept changing the FFG-62 design until the program collapsed, in spite of the evidence to the contrary.
As for the BBG(X) propulsion, at this point, we don’t know whether the GT/Diesel powerplant is a CODAG system, or IEP like DDG-1000 where the prime movers are just generators, or just an indication of the options under consideration. Personally, I’d like to see LWNP nuclear gas turbines make it off the drawing board.
Doug
Doug, appreciate the post. [and enjoyed your previous one comparing the Constellation FIG with OHP FFG]. Truly enlightening. I’ll have to get into Ships for Victory! Clearly you are close to the industry.
Recognizing the FFG was an Italian design, wasn’t NAVSEA “lead” on the continuing design mods causing delays/cost increases? That’s what I gathered from my open-source reading; the Navy kept changing the design & the shipyards were having problems keeping up with the changes.
And now, because of you, I have to spend all of Xmas learning WTF a LWNP NGT is on google. . . LOL
Merry one to you!
Not a bubble-head. Just a misspent youth on FRAM’s in the early 70’s! DBF, unless there were two cans, or one with a helo. MK 46’s would ruin the boat’s day & the helo was gonna need “an alternative place to land” after the battle. LOL
I remember Mk46’s (“cobra loose!”), also 44’s and StingRays 
44’s and the Wasp were the advanced weaponry in my era.
That’s bigly but I think it should be biglier.
Source: https://www.facebook.com/photo/?fbid=1614293533074713&set=g.2260897687265618
Given the recent success of relatively small and cheap naval drones, let alone actual submarines, these things would be just big giant hard-to-miss targets.
The old saying about how modern missiles can’t hurt a WW II battleship is because none of them are in use. If they were, someone would put bigger warheads on the missiles.
Virtually impossible to miss. Aircraft carriers too. These large capital ships are good for projecting power abroad, as long as there’s nothing around that knows how to kill it.
Even back in WW II battleships worked under friendly air cover or got sunk.
Everything is a target today and weapon accuracy is such that they all pretty much hit. That doesn’t mean surface ships are obsolete.
And don’t get hung up on the “battleship” terminology. The term came from sailing ship days where the most powerful ships could take their place in the “line of battle” hence battleships. They changed with the times.
Every warship classification has been defeated at sea by something else but that doesn’t condemn that sort of warship to the obsolete list. They adapt. They all sink, even submarines.
The essence of a battleship was survivable firepower principally against other battleships of the era. The survivability depended on armour protection, speed, compartmented integrity, redundancy etc. The firepower was big guns.
New large ships can carry more reloads and a variety of offensive and defensive systems both kinetic and electronic and be designed for enhanced survivability. New technologies will be available we can’t yet imagine. The Zumwalt class was a venture into the future and, America having the wherewithall to set a new concept into being, should be a leader in such areas and be capable of accepting the odd failure on the way.
I commend the conviction to produce new warships with the best weapons, systems and survivability. We need navies. You need navies.
So the new plan is to build Aaarrrlleeiiigghhh Buuurrrkkkeees? Is that what the AI generated? With the primary 5” gun armament in wing turrets, which we already knew was a dumb idea when we started building our very first dreadnoughts in 1906? And with the rail gun we canceled! Awesome. It’s gonna be great. Like the world has never seen (because everybody else knows better).