A new guided missile destroyer class is taking shaping.
The warship of this class named DDG(X) will slowly replace the Ticonderoga-class
guided missile cruisers and older Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers.
The U.S. Navy has established a new program office to oversee the development.
The office will manage DDG(X)’s “design,
technical data package development, construction, testing, fleet introduction and sustainment plans.
As per reports, the goal is to order the
first ship in 2028, with an aim to have it into service by 2032.
In this video Defense Updates analyzes why the new DDG(X) warship of the US Navy
will be the most advanced destroyer in the world? Let's get into the details.
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DDG(X) will likely start with the SPY-6 AMDR that is Air and Missile Defense Radar.
The new radar is designed to help ships track missile and aircraft threats
at farther ranges while maintaining resilience to noise and other forms of interference.
It is estimated to have a 15 dBi improvement compared to the previous generation
AN/SPY-1 radar, or capable of detecting targets half the size at twice the distance.
So, roughly it is 4 times more powerful. This enables the radar to create a very
holistic view of the surrounding, providing an unprecedented situational awareness.
Stealthy design is mostly attributed to warplanes. But Zumwalt-class
brought the stealth to a major warship. This knowledge will be implemented in DDG(X).
The warships of this class will have significantly reduced radar cross-section.
DDG(X) will most likely have all-electric propulsion.
The platform's next-generation integrated power system
will apply lessons the Navy has gleaned from the Ford-class carrier, Zumwalt-class destroyer,
and Columbia-class submarine programs, according to a NAVSEA official.
The electric propulsion system has many advantages. The system eliminates the need for the
driveshaft and many other heavyweight components. This not only enables easier maintenance but
also reduces the acoustic signature of the warship making it harder to detect by sonars.
The Mk. 41 Vertical Launch System silos in Ticonderoga class & Arleigh Burke-class destroyers
can accommodate a lot of weapons.
These can be configured with the combination of several types of
weapons like SM 6 for anti-air warfare & Anti-ship role, Tomahawk for land attack,
VL-ASROC for anti-submarine operations, ESSM for the anti-missile role to name a few but cant
accommodate weapons that need larger space like U.S. Navy’s new hypersonic missiles.
Hypersonic missiles have the speed of ballistic missiles & maneuverability of cruise missiles
and are almost invulnerable to the current air defense system.
The DDG(X) will have large silos capable of carrying
current weapons packages as well as new weapons including hypersonic missiles.
Also, Since the Ticonderoga class, with its 122 silos will be decommissioned,
it is likely that DDG(X) will have more than 100 of these silos.
The U.S Navy is already arming more destroyers with the non-lethal Optical Dazzling Interdictor,
Navy (ODIN) system and a stronger laser, the High Energy Laser and Integrated
Optical-dazzler and Surveillance (HELIOS) is also being deployed.
In the future, more powerful laser weapons will be installed and they will require more energy.
Lasers have some very important advantages. The speed of light enables them to hit
their targets almost instantaneously. Laser weapons also don’t need to carry ammunition
like traditional systems and hence they will be able to take out a much larger
number of threats constrained only by the power supply limit of the platform.
This is pretty significant since the warship will not run out of ammunition
when encountering a large number of incoming threats.
The integrated all-electric power system in DDG(X) will provide legroom for laser weapons.
Carey Filling, who leads NAVSEA’s Surface Ship Design and Systems Engineering directorate,
said at a conference earlier this year that DDG(X) will feature “range
and miserly fuel consumption, so we are looking at various plants that optimize that because what
we’re trying to optimize is time on station. We want that ship to be able to stay forward,
stay on station and be able to deliver ordnance on target. That’s one of the
things right now that limits us on DDGs, they don’t have the legs of the previous cruisers.
So we’re heavily focused on that, and making sure that that ship has the ability to stay on station”
While there is no update on the numbers the US
Navy wants to achieve when it comes to range and endurance,
it can be safely assumed that these will be significantly higher compared to current warships.
DDG(X) will use extensive automation.
For example, the vessels of this class will likely have an automated cargo handling system.
This concept has already been executed in Ford-class supercarrier
and the DDG(X) will see the implementation of the same principles though on a smaller scale.
The automation reduces the crew complement that is required to run the ship and increases efficiency.
This will reduce operational costs and enable accommodation for more goods
and weapons in the warship and enable DDG(X) to punch much above its weight.