The NEW Arleigh Burkes...

[Mary, Proud Mom of Nick]

YourNavy 

New Burkes 

add muscle, 

not bulk Same size crew will see more automation, latest technology


By Philip Ewing 

[e-mail]
Although the Navy’s next two iterations of its workhorse destroyer will combine the best features of the DDG’s long pedigree, the ships will proba bly sail with crews of about the same size as today’s, suggesting that the shrinking of crews, at least for destroyers, has leveled off.

Capt. Pete Lyle, who oversees destroyer construction for Naval Sea Systems Command, said that unlike other new Navy ships designed from scratch for fewer sailors, such as the littoral combat ships, the newer Arleigh Burke class destroyers will continue to need a base crew of about 250 sailors plus a helicopter detach ment of about 35. That’s because the new ships will inherit a stable, but older, design that can’t be changed too much to delete people. “I’ve already got a mature pro gram. My house is already built and my wife wants a new base ment? K ind of hard to do that,” Lyle said. 

Single watchstander 

But even with that standard crew size, engineers are aiming for new systems and automation to make it possible to have just a single enlist ed sailor stand watch on the bridge and in central control, monitoring the power plant. That feature will appear even earlier than in the restarted ships, the first of which is the as-yet-unnamed DDG 113.

“On the legacy destroyers, I am doing that on 111 and 112,” Lyle said. “On the bridge, I’m still going [to] have the hardware and the architecture in place to make that a single enlisted watchstander capability. Down in central [con trol], I am still very much working towards that single watchstander. I’ve got additional cameras, I’ve got computing power, I have addi tional sensors … I’m starting to introduce that on 111 and 112. But I really am going toward the goal of doing that on 113.” Overall, the restarted Burkes will “smell and look a lot like a Flight IIA,” Lyle said, plus they’ll be built from scratch with ballistic missile defense capability, rather than adding it later, as has been the case for earlier ships. And for the first time since the Flight II ships, DDGs 113 and forward will get towed-array sonar. The ships will arrive from the shipyard with out their towed arrays, but the Navy will add them after delivery.

Although Flight I and II destroy ers were equipped with towed arrays and Harpoon missiles, Navy engineers deleted both from the Flight IIA series, which start ed with DDG 79, Oscar Austin, and will end with Michael Mur phy, DDG 112. The restart ships will not get Harpoon.

They will incorporate the latest points from both new destroyers and older ships that have been upgraded as part of the destroyer modernization, Lyle said: DDG 113 will have the latest Aegis combat systems; carry the newest SPY 1D(v) radar; and accommodate the latest anti-submarine helicopter upgrade — the Light Airborne Multipurpose System, or LAMPS, mark 3 block 2. 

Bigger, better radar 

Program officials are less certain about the series of destroyers that will begin with DDG 122, Lyle said — what the Navy has called the Flight III variant. They’re studying just how much bigger its hull can get and what kind of advanced new equipment it could carry. One defi nite early requirement is that the ships accommodate the more pow erful Air and Missile Defense Radar, originally intended for the now-canceled CG(X) cruiser.

For Lyle, that means his two top design priorities are more power and more cooling — as in, the large chillers that regulate the temperature of a large radar array 

— above anything else. That will mean more or bigger generators onboard, to up the amount of juice the ship can generate.

Another known quantity is the ship’s gun, which will be the same 5-inch weapon now installed on the bows of late-model Burkes. Although NavSea has studied giv ing new Burkes one of the 155mm guns that DDG 1000 will carry, Lyle said officials aren’t planning to try to shoehorn that weapon into the design. Generally, the ship hasn’t been tasked with the same requirement for Marine Corps fire support as the DDG 1000.

But the restarted destroyers will likely be able to handle a new, extended-range 5-inch shell, if the Navy decides to try again at build ing one. Top Navy and Marine

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NAVY 

Above, the destroyers Momsen, left, Shoup and Sterett cruise in formation behind the destroyer Halsey on May 7.

Left, the Flight III destroyer will feature the same 5-inch weapon now on the bows of late-model Arleigh Burkes, such as this one aboard Pinckney.

[Cheryl James]

My son Travis is FC on deployment. He is aboard one of the new Burkes he wrote "Changing the world 5 inches at a time # ~!!ing terrorists!" He LOVES that Deck Gun.He's thouroughly impressed with it's capabilities and accuracy.