The U Navy’s newest warship, the DDG (Littotal defense vessel) was recently cancelled. This ship was to be a high-tech warship, able to operate in shallow coastal waters, and incorporating all-electric propulsion, rail guns, stealth/antiradar systems. Recently, the program was cancelled-was this because of the enormous cost (over $1 billion/ship)? I heard that the real reason was that Chinese espionage had compromised virtully every system used on this ship-to the point that deploying it would have been useless. The FBI caught a ring in California (including several design engineers for Raytheon and subcontractors) who had shipped blueprints of every major DDG system to China.
Is this true?
I have no information on this, but it doesn’t sound likely. It is my understanding that the main reason for keeping R&D and designs secret is that you don’t want to give the other side a free boost. In other words, the concern about such espionage would be that the other side would be able to incorporate these new technologies into their designs. Once the information has leaked the damage is done. Why should we not incorporate the latest designs into our ships if the other side was going to do the same? As for countering the ship, well yes that is a factor, but I doubt the military counts on secrecy to protect the ship forever. It would shift the cost-benefit ratio, but that is all. As for the cost-benefit ratio, the 1 billion/ship is just the point where the program was canceled. Not only was the ship no longer worth the cost, but it was going to consume the entire shipbuilding budget. Regardless of espionage, that alone was enough to sink the program.
I have talked to engineers on that program, and even for a Navy warship program this one was badly run. The Navy kept changing and adding requirements and expecting the cost to remain the same. It didn’t. Perhaps espionage had a role in damaging the program, but the cost-overruns by themselves were sufficient to the do the job.
Ralph,
Do you have a link?
I’m asking because “DDG” is pretty much US Navy parlance for “Guided missile destroyer”, and I can’t make much sense out of your post, at least as phrased in the subject line.
DDG:
http://www.navy.mil/navydata/fact_display.asp?cid=4200&tid=900&ct=4
Are you talking about the Littoral Combat Ship, per the below link?
Considering all the current and forseeable conflicts the US might get into dont involve a stronger Navy, this might just be everyday military cost-cutting. The DDG-1000 is a 2.7 BILLION dollar ship, built with unproven tech to fight a US-like adversary. From WashPo:
“A lot of these weapon systems that are big-ticket items now have no purpose,” said William Hartung, director of the Arms and Security Initiative at the New America Foundation, a Washington think tank. “The Taliban doesn’t have an air force. China and Russia are at least a generation behind us. So at a time when we’re talking about developing unmanned aerial vehicles and want to increase our special forces, we ought to be making a clean sweep of these systems that were built during the Cold War.”
–
On top of that it was a pretty controversial (read: pork) that even the Pentagon didnt love but the congresscritters in the back pocket of the military contracters loved for the jobs and money it would bring to their states. 2.7 BILLION for each. Thats crazy talk. An F-22 is 140 million.
There has been quite a bit of press coverage about why the DDG 1000 was canceled, and it boils down to this: when all was said and done, the DDG 1000 had operations near shore (e.g., naval bombardment to support amphibious landings) as a major part of its mission, and the next generation cruiser was supposed to specialize in missile defense.
As time dragged on, it became clear that the DDG 1000 was inadequately prepared to counter next-generation missile threats. If the thing couldn’t get close to the shore (like within 100 miles, if the railgun ever were to work), what’s the point of building it? A Chinese ballistic anti-ship missile is reputed to be the major threat that caused the Navy to reconsider.
http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?i=3657972
There were other issues, such as the lingering concerns about the design of the hull (a tumblehome design), which some critics maintain would not work well in high seas, possibly leading to the ship capsizing. There was also considerable concern about the cost of the first two ships exceeding $3.3 billion, by a substantial amount. A 2009 cost estimate by DOD (not the Navy) pegged the price of the first ships at close to $6 billion. That’s about half the cost of a carrier, or the cost of three submarines. And finally, it is proving very difficult to build a railgun that lasts more than a couple of shots, though the railgun wasn’t supposed to be put on the ship for many years yet. All of this is covered in Wikipedia.
speaking as a non-expert I would have thought that this does not make a good combination with a $1BN+ price tag.
IMO, anything planned to operate regularly within bumping range of rocks, beaches, mines, floating trees and junk, etc. PLUS everything the enemy can throw at it, ought to be cheap enough that a mishap is not a national disaster - otherwise it will never get to leave port.
To be clear, “close to shore” means something like 5 to 20 miles with current naval gun technology, and something around 100 miles with future technology.
There is another kind of ship now being built, the littoral combat ship, which is much smaller, faster, and lightly armed compared to a destroyer. Those are supposed to go catch pirates and stuff like that, and cost around $450 million each. But surprise, surprise, they’re over budget, too.