We Need a Plan-B for the Battleship

I have not come to praise the new battleship, but to propose an option to bury it if needed

As I said on Monday, I can argue both sides of the battleship debate. I think it is time to flesh that out a bit.

If you didn’t read Monday’s post linked above, follow the link and catch up. I’ll reference a few items there that I don’t think I need to repeat here. Additionally, this post is really a follow-up to the earlier one, or at least that is my intention at the start.

At the moment, I’m going to do my best to put my emotions and biases I outlined Monday to the side for a bit, and look at it with as cold of an eye as I can.

If you are really on team battleship, there are some critical vulnerabilities from the start that you need to accept.

1. The Trump Class: this is the foundational error of what by all logic and tradition should be called the Defiant Class. At the start, this automatically makes 38% of the American public and their elected representatives dislike the entire project. In the greater Washington, DC metropolitan area, where our ruling class lives, 75% of voters supported Harris in the 2024 election. Calling a class of warship that will need bipartisan support, in both the Executive and Legislative branches of government through the length of the program, this poisons the program from the start. For an unnecessarily large percentage, you cannot even begin to argue the merits of the program, their ears and minds are closed to it. I’m not sure how you mitigate that unforced error at the start.

2. Program and Technology Risk: This is a radically new hull design. This will be the largest displacement non-carrier surface ship we will have built in decades. Every new surface warship designed by the US Navy since the end of the Cold War has been a failure. We have not changed the bureaucracy, process, or procedures that were used to create these failures in any meaningful way—and yet we will try again to leverage that failed system to create a monumental warship class.

3. Designing Warships Around PPT Weapons: Will Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) be the Non-Line-of-Sight (NLOS) missile of A-12 Avenger? Hey, CPS is further along than NLOS was ever…but each LCS ship’s NLOS void is a warning about expecting the magic weapon to appear. The BBG renderings have a railgun at the bow. We don’t have an operational railgun ready for sea.

If you honestly dig into those top-three critical vulnerabilities to even get to the point of cutting steel (note I didn’t even include industrial capacity. This list could easily be double), you don’t get too far until you realize that you need a Plan-B.

As I see it, the best-selling points for BBG remain.

1. We need CPS at sea, forward, in number. No, it isn’t simply because it uses the Salamander-approved cold-launch system. Zumwalt won’t do it, and you cannot just put these things anywhere. You have to appreciate the scale of this weapon system.

   

   The CPS (12 missile) capable Virginia Block V and VI SSNs are years away from being commissioned…and at a very slow rate. Fun note about the Block V and VI, they are almost as long as an Ohio class SSBN.

   

2. Our Arleigh Burke DDG that are Captain Commands and designed to take over the Air Warfare Commander role our decommissioned Ticonderoga CGs had, are not fit for purpose. We are “making it happen” as we always do, but these ships are not designed to support an afloat staff, nor do they have the VLS cells they need. (min 128 like the Ticos).

If the Defiant class BBG winds up displacing water or not, these two baseline requirements remain. So, if we don’t get BBG, then what is Plan-B?

We only have one option—another PPT-thick warship class—the DDG(X).

Note the caveats at the bottom, but we have to work with what we have to work with.

Let’s define a few more terms. If CPS numbers are so important…which they are…then we need to know what is behind each VLS hatch.

The “launch tubes” you see in the Zumwalt pictures further up-post, are the Advanced Payload Module (APM). APM holds three CPS “all up round” and canister (4 AUR-C x 3 APM = 12 CPS armed ships…at $40/50 million a missile, give you $600 million of America’s affection coming your way with a full salvo). My understanding is that is the round container

OK, the “12 Large Missile Launcher Cells” in the blue text of the DDG(X) slide, could those be the Growth-VLS (GVLS)? Are they the square object on the CPS slide between the AUR and the AUR-C?

If it is, then we are talking about 12 CPS per modified DDG(X) that replaces 32 of the 96 VLS cells. I’ve looked for more information on the Destroyer Payload Module (DPM) but nothing more than “additional capability.” OK, fine.

Well, that is an up-sell system that will take an already ludicrously large destroyer and would turn it into a cruiser.

"The Navy has indicated that the initial [DDG(X)] design now prescribes a displacement of 14,500 tons—1,000 tons more than the design under the [FY]2024 [30-year shipbuilding] plan and 4,800 tons [about 49.5%] more than a DDG-51."

How many more tons on top of that 14,500 is it? It gets up pretty close to Japan’s planned 20,000-ton lady, their Aegis system equipped vessels (ASEV).

I’m sorry, but that is a cruiser with 128 VLS cells. Yes, yes, yes…that is their smarter answer to ballistic missile defense than Aegis Ashore, but that is, my friends, what CG(X) was supposed to be. I just want to get nakid and roll in it.

Wait, let’s not get distracted by coveting thy neighbor’s cruiser, we’re looking for Plan-B to BBG. Focus.

So, we have your baseline DDG(X). Let’s call that Flight I a DDG that takes over the mission set of the Arleigh Burke DDG (PBUH).

The Navy has envisaged the DDG(X) as a ship with (1) DDG-51 Flight III Aegis combat system elements; (2) more growth margin than the DDG-51 Flight III design, meaning more space, weight-carrying capacity, electrical power, and cooling capacity (aka SWAP-C) for accepting additional or higher-power equipment and weapons (including directed-energy weapons) over the ship's service life; (3) an integrated power system (IPS); (4) reduced vulnerability due to reduced infrared, acoustic, and underwater electromagnetic signatures; (5) increased cruising range and time on station; and (6) increased weapon capacity.

Without the BBG in play, we still need to fill the requirements of the BBG.

I can already see requirements for three different flights of DDG(X).

Flight II would be a CAG. Yes, a guided missile attack cruiser.

• Baseline Flight I with the addition of the DPM and substituting the 32 VLS forward for 12 CPS in what I assume will be G-VLS…unless, as I have heard rumored, you have to remove the 5” gun forward in order to have your CPS configured like in the Zumwalts with the 4 APM. If you can put 4 APM or 12 G-VLS in the DPM, then that still leaves you, what, 64 MK-41 VLS aft for SM-2/3/6, ASROC, etc? Rumor has it you can pack multiple PAC-3 missiles in the G-VLS as well, so mix and match? Sounds fun either way. Also, sorry about all the acronyms, but as a recidivist staff weenie, this is my happy place.

Flight III would be your Air Warfare Commander CVN escort. It’s a CG.

• Baseline Flight I with the DPM full of G-VLS loaded with PAC-3 missiles, and expanded square footage to support afloat staff.

In Sal’s world, in a fit of pique, I’d mandate that we build all three flights in parallel in three different yards.

If, as we swag’d Monday, you can buy a bit more than three DDG(X) for each BBG…and let’s say 2.5 CG and CAG for each BBG…then you have a very solid Plan-B.

If you really want to seal the deal, bring in the conversation about the intangible advantages of not so much “Distributed Lethality” but “Distributed Risk.”

Most of the nightmares that come with the concentrated risk of the Arsenal Ship concept, are there with the BBG as well.

Ponder. I can still be sold either way.