Shipbucket

1. Your OP specifically says it can fire SM2.

2. The stated loadout even without SM2 is equivalent to a lot of European first-line warships. They don't cost $350m. FREMM for instance has almost the same specification and costs $750m each.

3. Lasers are non-existent tech that isn't going to be cheaper than a 1980s fire control system.

So since you're going to be spending so much to fill such a nebulously defined role I do not see the advantage over building more Arleigh Burkes; fewer will be available but the USN already has more modern escorts than every other navy combined and they can be used in all range of missions.

AAW just isn't a "second line" mission. It doesn't happen unless there's a real war going on, and is responsible for most of the cost of modern warships.

I just want to point out one thing lad, when You became an expert on nonexisting weapons? I'm must say that I'm an expert on macro cannons and long-range lance weaponry on Exorcist class Grand Cruiser. Why ? because it is nonexistent weapon on nonexistent ships in nonexistent universe. That's why klagldsf is the same expert as you.

_________________

Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

Read the thread, that requirement was removed. You will not is not included in the weapons envelopes provided.
Even if it is $750m that is still far less than half the cost of a Burke that costs $1.8M. That’s BEFORE the restart, hulls starting at 113 will have to factor in those costs.

The Absalon also has a similar load out and is $250m, there is a lot at play here.
They already are in some instances. LaWS for instance is far cheaper than the Phalanx mount it is proposed to fitted to (Plus you still get the Phalanx).
If that’s your justification why not just decommission them until we resemble a European Navy in numbers? The USN is not a European Navy and has different and more missions and our standard is to be better at them. The fact is we are conducting all those missions right and don't have enough Burkes, and we are accomplishing them by using those Burkes inefficiently.
The only mission that happens outside of war is MIO. And yes AAW can be a secondary mission area. Many platforms are not dedicated AAW platforms but still hsave robust AAW weapons load outs (the FFG7, for instance, was primarily an ASW platform). Just like many non ASW dedicated platforms still have ASW weapons.

AAW, just like any threat, can be scaled to meet expected threats. Defending a fleet from China is not the same thing as defending it from Iran. If you build your entire fleet around defending against China and you spend most of your time not defending against China you are wasting money, especially if combat against that high end peer competitor is a very off chance (it is). Do you still prepare for it? Sure. Do you bend every asset you have and design decision you make against that single threat? Nope, or rather you shouldn't.

In a perfect world we could have DDGs on every street corner, but I am sure you are aware that the Navy is in a pretty big budget crises at the moment and it only looks to get worse. Currently we are dealing with:

-Our end strength was just revised to 300.

-DDG1000 has been truncated to 3 ships from 32.

LCS is a gold plated boondoggle that cost $637m and $704m respectively, or in other words almost three times the cost of a single Absalon with ridiculously less capability. Its original cost was supposed ot be $220m! And even at that original cost it is ridiculously expensive for what you get (again compare it to Absalon).

- FFG7s will be entirely retired by 2019 do to wear. We can't keep them even if we wanted to.

- DDG51s are currently being run into the ground and we can not afford to maintain them. In fact, we ARE NOT maintaining them. We are kitbashing together the deploying ones by cannibalizing the returning ones. The long term viability of this should be obvious to anyone.

- DDG51 production will not meet even the reduced end strenght goals by 2025, and is completely off the rails by the end of the 30 year building cycle.

- DDG51 Flight III is ballooning out of control in cost. Its cost was estimated at $2.2B a piece when the program began, it’s estimated to be upwards of $3B now. Per vessel. Let me remind you the $3B mark is what got the DDG1000 cancelled and then truncated to three units.

- We are drawing down personnel, and with all those sailors on DDGs supprting mission areas not being used essentially sitting idol, its unnecessary straining the force. In addition to that the Navy consistantly grossly underestimates the crews needed for its new vessel classes. The LCS is using its mission bays to house extra berthing and converting its original berthings from 2 to three man bunks (and paying for it too mind you). The problem is the Navy shaped its force to provide for those ridiculously reduced and unrealistic crew requirements.

Does any of the above speak to an environment where we can have only vessels designed to be world beating in AAW, ASW, ASuW, Strike and MIO but only used to do AAW? Or ASW? or ASuW? Or MIO?

I don't want to be speaking past you though, so what do you think a lower cost frigate sized combatant should look like. Keep in mind starting in 2019 (right now really, the FFG7s are jokes) the only options the USN has to address any threat is either a DDG (or more expensive CG) or the LCS. What would your intermediate design between them look like in armament?
I am not demanding someone change their drawing based on personal fiat, which is the difference. The point was he is no more an expert than me and there is no way to prove either one demonstrable wrong on specific technical issues (firing arc would not be one of these he is wrong), so when we disagree on something it should be possible to agree to disagree amicably without declaring someones whole project being declared “ugly,” “idiotic,” or “stupid.”
I very much hope klagldsf draws a future 2022 vintage frigate design with lasers incorporating every design decision he was attempting to shove down my throat. I hope you do to. We are on the cusp of a new weapons revolution every bit as transformative as the introduction of steam propulsion, carrier born aircraft or guided missile weapons . Did vessels end up looking like they did before after a decade of those inovations? Did people claim such changes were “ugle,” “stupid,” and “idiotic” then? How many people were 100% correct of even close in predicting what ship design would look like when those innovations became common place?

The only thing left I'm going to say is that for all your big talk about designing "realistically," I'm going to offer the same advice I offer to everybody: draw real ships (and perhaps study them) then we'll talk. I swear, it's like half these people come in here and talk about how awesome a Naval Engineer they are and it's clear they've never seen a picture of an actual seagoing vessel in their life.

Also, bow guns were useful in WWII because 1.) they weren't automated complex weapon systems, but rather simple and robust and 2.) often mounted on ships with enough freeboard (like the Alaska) where wave action wasn't a problem and 3.) they simply needed so many guns it go to the point where they didn't care if one wasn't placed optimally (plus bow positions gave good cross-range fire particularly against kamikazies but that's beside the point)

Well I see you gnaw into that bow mount idea like hungry wolf in deer. Also I see your think that this type of weapon mounts is the biggest revolution in naval warfare since steam engine and missiles. And God's know why nobody build before ship with that kind of mount, they must be blind for all the great possibilities this place have. But enough jokes, don't you think that you may have something like target fixation ? We rly have some gifted men here, sailors and future shipbuilders but no one support your theory. We have some old saying "If 5 men say that your are drunk, go to bed"

In my opinion that bow mount idea is unduly optimistic, something from anime not practicable. But you can chase that wild dream of yours, nobody will stop you. There is always something we call "concrete head", you have that kind of head in term of this mount.

_________________

Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!

I would also like to add that 99% of these bow mounts were removed after the war, first of all because they got too wet and second because there were better places for them.

_________________
Drawings are credited with J.Scholtens
I ask of you to prove me wrong. Not say I am wrong, but prove it, because then I will have learned something new.
Shipbucket Wiki admin

So I went back and redid my drawing illustrating firing arcs, this time annotated so hopefully you'll finally get what should've been obvious:



Also, since you directly questioned whether or not I posted my own drawings:



Yes, I did draw this. Read the credits - that's what they're there for.

If you question whether or not a drawing is mine again, I will disregard any moderator warning because nothing pisses me off more

Take a Gearing (the most manly of destroyers) and put a RAM launcher and Mk.46 torpedo tube on it. There you're done.

Maybe upgrade some radars or w/e while you're at it.

_________________
USN components, camouflage colors, & reference links (World War II only)

That’s what they said about the flint lock Who is laughing now!
This is a long reply so sorry, but you obviously put thought into your post to me so I did the same. Agreed on all counts. The HELLADS, however, is designed to be mounted in a single B1-B weapons bay, so there really is no question whether or not a ship mounted version of such weapons could be mounted in even a corvette. They can.
I think the MLD foot print is highly optimistic for my purposes. The FFLX as it stands has a 52’Lx17’Hx1’7W (the width is approximate as the hull is not drawn and will taper in the forward part of the compartment), which honestly is enough space to park a few tanks. It’s bigger than the VLS.
This bulk of the supporting equipment, and the weight of the batteries as ace pointed out, is one of the reasons I don’t think mounting it as high in the super structure. If you separate the mount and equipment too much you are inviting problems even if it doesn’t use an optical chain. The durability of the system is an assumption based solely on the fact that it is new and high tech. This does not follow automatically and honestly none of the literature I have read (including the link you posted) mentions any sort of assumed problems with fragility. The LaWS is again being proposed for mounting on a CIWIS, right next to a 3000 round per minute Gatling gun! Two things regarding this
1.) The laser weapons proposed have far fewer moving parts in the mount than legacy gun based CIWIS systems. No belt feeds. No ejected shell casings. No rotating barrels. No missiles. All of this mechanical movement increases complexity and any of it can be jammed (and in the case of Phalanx very often does).
2.) Both gun and missile based CIWIS have to absorb and compensate for violent vibration and recoil from things like 20mm rounds going off at high speed or whole missiles being launched from the mount. In the case of a missile based system like RAM its not so important as it just has to be pointed in the general direction and let the missile do the rest. In the case of a gun based CIWIS it had to not only handle that explosive force and mechanical barrel and feed belt movement without breaking outright, it has to be able to remain stable and still mechanically track targets miles out with less than an inch of shift in line of fire AT THE TARGET, that means millimeters of movement at the mount.
Honestly both those above are far more daunting challenges to overcome than either increased low speed movement at the bow due to normal pitch and roll (which any mount anywhere would have to deal with to some degree as well) or what can only be described as infrequent wave action.
The design does carry 2 SeaRAM, though the new builds after the Lancer introduction will shed their forward SeaRAM to save cost.
As to optical chain weapons I have put a lot of thought into how to mount these and it is quite the challenge. I would very much like to hear your thoughts on this. Some of my thoughts.
1.) The firing arcs of these weapons are rather small because they are too large to be turreted and you can only change the beam direction so much when it leaves the weapon via reflection. The stationary emitter might be able to achieve at max arc of 180 degrees but I would imagine 100-120 degrees is more realistic.
2.) The length of the optical chain takes up a lot of space. This is not a big deal in a large aircraft mounted weapon because they are generally used for niche missions and not expected to do anything else. The ballistic missile defense version had a plane at high altitude (which greatly increases beam strength do to less atmosphere, particles, etc.) and far away looking towards a known threat axis. Even a reduced firing arc covers a lot of space at 100km away, and can let a single weapon cover a large fixed geographic area like say North Korea. Ships have to deal with the horizon and they are not dealing with niche roles, and maneuvering to engage fast approaching air targets all the time is not viable especially in any saturation situation.
Here is was my initial idea for a DDLX before I switched gears to the FFLX trying to address the size and rigid positioning requirements of a large optical chain laser:

Four systems positioned internal to the superstructure on the 01 Level , each covering a corner. Restrictions on how far you can bend the beam lead to a cone of arc of about 130 degrees or so which leads to some blind spots close into the ship. Most importantly though the ship has no coverage directly overtop and for a wide area around the ship at higher altitudes. A less powerful laser or maybe a secondary missile system can cover this.
Because there is no restriction on fitting the entire laser into a turret you can get a lot more powerful. Because of this I assumed you could only fire any two at once. This setup only works, however, if you have enough systems to provide enough arc to cover a significant amount of the sky. I went with a turreted laser in the FFLX because it doesn’t have enough space or power to fit so many weapons onboard and fire them.

Honestly there is no location that does not encounter this problem unless you mount it on the top of the mast or otherwise so high it has no obstruction what so ever as they were able to do with the SPY arrays. I would posit that this was easy to do with the SPY arrays because they integrated them into a vertical surface for one, and secondly because they have four of them so there is no need to worry about any ones visibility arc outside of the 160-170 degrees needed to cover their quarter. As it is the aft two arrays still have restricted arcs aft due to the stacks, while the forward arrays actually have quite a bit of overlap in the forward arcs (and side arcs with the aft arrays)
The issue of masking due to movement is fundamentally different when you are limited to one weapon attempting to cover as much arc as possible. Solutions that remove upwards of 180 degrees of arc so that you can avoid the momentary infrequent loss of 10s or degrees of arc are not optimal. 1.) The FFLX’s bow mount is 12 meters above the water line, normal or even moderate storm waves are not going to impact it. Humidify at 12 meters is the same as any other point on a superstructure this size. I carrier might notice a change, a DDG or FFG is not.
2.) Spray in normal conditions is going to affect anything on the weather deck or anything several levels above it the same. The fact is most sea spray comes from the waves parting along the bow, sliding up against the hull and then getting picked up by the wind and pushed over the lower bow deck closer to the superstructure. The waves on the FFLX will actually break BEHIND the mount in the first place, then the mount is protected by the flare of the upper bow structure. Simply put, water breaks around the bow, not over it, and then travels along the hull and sometimes over it depending on the wind. All of this happens aft of the pointy end.
3.) Every weapon has to be navalized and that means surviving sea salt and wind gusts and myriad other things. If the Phalanx can somewhat survive it there is no special reason a laser weapon couldn’t.
4.) The notional Burke laser is not mounted where it is due to sea spray, though if you have a source that says otherwise I would be open to seeing it. I suspect the real reason it is located where it is entirely different and I will address that below. If 50’ off target sounds acceptable to you then I suggest you never attempt the NGFS course! (its not acceptable to them).
This was discussed earlier regarding the CIWIS and withstanding the violence of thousands of 20mm rounds going off in rapid succession. That is far more violent than any normal wave would be.
As to blue water and green water? That happens (rarely), there is nothing that can be done about that. As you said it very rarely takes out deck guns, but we still have deck guns.
Here is an illustration of the three USN ships:

The smaller wave is the max expected in the North Atlantic including two large storms for the next seven days.
http://www.stormsurfing.com/cgi/display ... tla_height
28‘, which it would be unheard of for a frigate or destroyer to be in for the USN. We would go around it.
The second is a 50’ swell which is generally the max you will see during a normal hurricane if you are lucky. Or in other words any mariner with any skill or sense will never see such waves, nowhere close. Either that or you are a crazy Norwegian.
Most importantly though is how we can expect the waves to affect these ships. The first graphic column is the shape of the bow at the frame of the weapon. The second is a profile of the bow. The forward mount of all of these are within about a meter of each other in height.
The primary difference between the LCS/Zumwalt and the FFLX is that the first two have tapering hulls and tapering bows. In the case of the Zumwalt its entire bow is tapered. In the case of the LCS it is so thin its going to slice right through a wave due to the shape and lack of beam and the Zumwalt will do the same due to no flare. The point is neither hulls offer significant resistance to a wave and it will roll right over it the entire length of bow. Both the AGS and the Mk57 on each are sitting ducks for destructive weather according to many of you here.
Now let’s look at the FFLX. First off the angle of the bow and the weapon placement mean that the wave will break on the bow after it has already passed the weapon. Second, the bow is flared out along the entire forward part of the bow meaning not only will the hull offer significant resistance and absorb energy from the wave, it will physically deflect it away from and down the hull. This is the reason bows are shaped like this conventionally in the first place.
So in summary, waves of the destructive nature speculated on in this thread are rare. Very rare. And the hull of the FFLX is better at dealing with them and protecting its most forward mount than multiple state of the art warship designs that have those weapons aft of the FFLX mount. The point is not to suggest those designs are flawed (though some here would have to if they are going to be consistent), but rather they are or will work just fine. If it works for them, it will work for the FFLX I think putting it near the point of least ship motion, which is actually far lower in the ship than on top of the hanger bay but it is around that frame, is a good idea. It’s a good idea for any weapon system though.
No, being intimately familiar with the inner workings of a DDG51 I put forward that it is entirely due to space. As you said you need a good size area to fit even the current model MDL. Where in the bow can you fit that on a Burke? In place of the anchors and windlass, where do they go then? Further back and you run into the gun and VLS. On top of the Bridge? It’s pretty crowded up there already and forget about having room for of the support equipment until you are below the array rooms and even then you are now inside officer country, then CSMC, then Combat… On top of the stacks? Those are pretty much solid with mixing rooms and intakes, no luck there. Maybe amid ships but then you have no CONREP station and you block off the port and starboard passageways not to mention reduced arc, you would need one each side taking up even more space. The flight deck is obviously out.
Pretty much the only place that you could put it is either on top of one of the hanger bays and sacrifice it to house the equipment or relace one of the CIWIS mounts that the weapon is designed to replace anyway. The forward one still probably doesn’t work because the space below it for the normal Phalanx equipment barely fits there as it is. The aft mount is better because you have the normal Phalanx space and can probably still use up one of the hanger bays as they are close by. Maybe you can use CSER3 but what do you do with all the gear already in there? Maybe use up the aft officer berthing, but then where do they go?
The point is the MDL is often depicted where it is because it’s the only place it can go just taking into account deck space. Even that might not work so well once you peel that deck back.
Honestly the only way we will ever see any laser on a Burke that is not designed to replace and fit into a current weapon’s system space is if it shows up on the Flight III. They are already close to three billion a piece though.

“If planes are so good, why did nobody put them on ships before!” –USN Admiralty circa 1918
1.) Prior to the adoption of very bulky missile based AAW weapons air defense artillery was a common sight on the bows on many US warships. I am sure this was a combination of putting weapons wherever the hell you could fit them during the war, and also due to their excellent field of fire from those positions. An example has already been posted.
2.) When anti aircraft artillery was replaced in favor of missile systems, those systems were enormous. In fact most ships had to be purpose built around those systems like a battleship around its turrets. Even today VLS largely occupies the same space as a turret would have in 1950. Guided missiles made any advantage from bow placement minimal, and VLS made it nonexistent. You can put a turreted launcher nearly anywhere and its missile will provide you dozens of degrees of extra arc, and the VLS is a 360 weapon regardless of where you put it. Now that we are dealing with direct fire weapons again, however…
3.) Bolt on weapon systems beyond CSWs are relatively new. Phalanx is sort of bolt on but not really. RRAM was first fielded in 1992 but has only seen widespread use in the last decade. However, these are all CIWIS or missiles with some sort of guidance. If you are going to be optimizing weapons arcs you give them to your unguided direct fire main weapon first. For ships even today that means deck gun, and while these are getting smaller they still have multiple decks of equipment below them. If you have a laser, especially a powerful one it is now your main direct fire weapon and takes precedence over your deck gun in most cases. And it just happens to be light enough for a bow mount.
4.) Stabilization is an issue, and providing that for direct fire weapons was a tall and bulky order until the 80s. It’s not anymore, and with a laser weapon dealing with minimal self generated forces it is even less so for it than a legacy weapon.
5.) So now we do have several bolt on minimal deck penetrations weapons. Which vessels currently in service were not already designed with their bows clobbered with large and bulky installed gear? The CG47? The DDG51? The FFG7? Now that we are seeing new classes coming out what did we end up with? LCS2 with its 57mm right on the bow, exposed to the elements far more than any drawing I have made yet doing just fine.
I don’t know much about illuminators so I can’t tell you. What I said about not blocking your primary gun system in favor of none primary weapon system applies here as well. I would also imagine that it is helpful to have an illuminator positioned so that it has relatively the same arc as the air search radar that feeds it targets. Not sure.

What is your relevant real world experience again? I am just curious. Purely on a ship bucket professional level.
1.) Agreed, bow guns were removed once the Navy transitioned to larger and more complex (but not particularly automated by today’s standards) weapons systems. Talos and Terrier and the like are gigantic space hogs and obviously won’t fit in a bow. Not to mention explosive magazine probably aren’t such a good idea in such an exposed position. Lucky VLS has reduced these size requirements somewhat but not enough to let them return to their old positions.

2.) The Alaska has a freeboard at the bow of 11m being generous using Colosseum’s drawing. Just some advice but you do a lot of guessing on this sort of stuff, without telling anyone you are guessing. Maybe some actual measurements in the future? BTW, the FFLX has 11m of freeboard at the bow as well, to save you some time.

3.) You indicate above that you believe automation is a reason to remove weapons from the bow. I would agree with to a point. Auto loaders and the like are heavy bits of gear. Then again, people and their work spaces are quite bulky too. In any case modern weapons like RAM or my fictional Lancer and pretty much all real energy weapons projects don't have bulky machinery like autoloaders so in their case the primary affect of automation is to remove people from their mounts and all the space and creature comforts they require to work, making them superior for bow mounting than any WWII weapon in that regard.
I see you moved your mast back. Convenient. Where are your stacks? Do your stacks correspond with a sane engine configuration? I can’t tell. Where are your comms? What length is this hull? What is the beam? How much superstructure do you have there?

Anyone can make a random stick drawing and make it say whatever they want if it’s not linked to an actual drawing that takes into account the reality of a ship. I could make the same drawing and just extend the bow out 500m and viola! It’s like you are just slapping things onto a hull without any thought about what goes with said weapons. Sound familiar?

But of note you deleted the superior arc of the bow weapon over the bridge weapon in your new drawing. Why. Are you admitting now that your original drawing showed inferior arc for you bridge placement?
I also noted a comment about the uselessness of a weapon being able to shoot under the bow. Who exactly stated the wanted or found useful a weapon that can shoot under the bow?

As I said before I am very interested in your idea about a mast top mount. I look forward to seeing this idea fleshed out in one of your drawings, especially what you will do with the supporting equipment. This is a sincere statement.
But not a future design? Using lasers? Do you have one, as you seem to be speaking form experience and I would love to see your interpretation of an energy weapon frigate. I assume only someone who has spend many years contemplating and drawing such vessels would consider themselves such an authority on said weapons. I wish to draw from your well of experience.

I am glad to see your work and that is a good looking ship. Lots of detais. Which parts of it are yours?
I can see how having an internet drawings authorship questioned could be infuriating, probably just as infuriating as having someone question your decade of service to their country that happens to be directly relevant to the board and discussion at hand. Surely those are equivalent?