September 08, 2005
Tom Clancy Drool-Fest
Over at the Weekly Standard, Michael Goldfarb describes the specs of the Navy's next-generation destroyer, the DD(X).
Two word: Cooo. El.
UPDATE: Here's the Navy's page on it.
And here is Raytheon's page (the company building it).
And here's a conceptual pic:
Wicked.
My dad served on a DD back in the day, so I take an interest in developments in them.
The weird thing is, from a purely aesthetic POV, this thing manages to look ultra-modern AND like an old Great white Fleet ship at the same time.
Posted by: Brian B at September 8, 2005 10:34 AMIt's got guns? I thought we had gone over to guided missiles for everything.
Reading the PDF on their site -- which is cool --
"Two 155 mm automated gun systems, firing rocket assisted Long-Range Land Attack Projectiles, will support U.S.Marine and joint expeditionary
forces with continuous precision gunfire up to 83 nautical miles inland. The gun system is equivalent to two USMC M198 towed artillery batteries (12 155mm howitzers)."
Man, that just rocks. 83 miles inland.
Last time I checked, 155mm still only came out to about 5 or 6 inches. Compare that to the 16 inches of the old BB's or even the 10-inch guns on old cruisers and it's nothing.
Still, the rate of fire is screamin'.
Posted by: Brian B at September 8, 2005 11:19 AMThey rebuilt the Merrimac!
Posted by: Pixy Misa at September 8, 2005 10:05 PMLooks more like the Maine or the Oregon or the Olympia to me.
Posted by: Brian B at September 9, 2005 10:16 AM
