Arleigh Burke Class destroyers

[Karl Heidenreich]

First I must thank Bgile because of his angry answer to an unfair remark of mine about the USS Cole. I stated, wrongly, that it was a weak and worthless ship. Because of Bgile´s answer I began to research about the ship and even to build a 1/350 model of it in order to understand the vessel.
Bgile is right, it´s not a weak ship.
She is clasified as a guided missile destroyer but she is almost a cruiser in size and displacement (+, - 9,000 tons). A WWII destroyer is half it´s size. And it´s quite heavily armed vessel for nowaday standards being her main weapon system the Vertical Launch Missiles (the disposition of this launch system is the reason why we don´t see any heavy armament on her silohuete apart of the 5" gun). I´m still wondering if these shipwreck missiles are more or less powerfull than the 15", 16" or 18" AP shells of WWII.
But her main strenght is the Aegis phased radar array capable of track and engage multiple targets at the same time, even aerial and surface threats simultaneously.
Which I found was that her predeccesor, the Spruance Class Destroyer, was in their origin the weak ship. As big as a the Arleigh Burke Class it didn´t have half the offensive power needed. The USN recalled the ships in order to upgrade them specially against aerial attack.
Still, there is a question. What can be expected in a duel of a SSN vs. and Arleigh Burke Class DDG?

Thanks to Bgile.

Best regards.

[Karl Heidenreich]

One more thing. I still miss the heavy armour of WWII capital ships. With 150,000+ hp I don´t see why don´t spend a little bit in guarding the vitals of the ship the old way...

[Bgile]

One more thing. I still miss the heavy armour of WWII capital ships. With 150,000+ hp I don´t see why don´t spend a little bit in guarding the vitals of the ship the old way...

Actually, they do. There is armor covering important areas. It's different from WWII armor, but there is armor.

A major difference between these ships and the Spruance class is the Burkes are all steel construction. Very little aluminum is used, even in the superstructure. In photos they look kind of squashed and ugly, especially when taken from ahead. When you acutually seen them they are lean and mean looking. If one is tied up alongside a Spruance, the Burke is seen to be much lower profile and of course it has the angled superstructure to reduce radar signature. I really like the bridge layout ... you can look directly aft and the visibility is essentially 360 degrees, even inside. For service in the middle east they often mount 25mm chain guns in the waist; the same weapons as in the Bradley AFV. I suspect some 50 cal mgs also as that is fairly typical for ships going there because of the small boat threat.

I think they are really good ships, and the fact that Cole didn't sink impressed me. Of course individual ships in a class vary a lot depending on leadership. I'm a bit concerned that maintenance may have lacked a bit with all the money going to the very high operational tempo.

[lwd]

...I´m still wondering if these shipwreck missiles are more or less powerfull than the 15", 16" or 18" AP shells of WWII....

Well according to:
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/ ... s-n-19.htm
The Shipwreck has a 750 KG warhead. For comparison the US 16" AP round carried about 20kg of explosive and the HE round 70. The Japanese Type 93 Mod 3 torpedo (the Long Lance) had a warhead just slightly larger at 780 kg. It won't penetrate as far but it will make a very big bang. I've heard that some of the earlier Soviet missiles carried 2,000 lb shaped charge warhead which will cut through just about any armor ever used.

Here's the navweapons page on Soviet anti ship missiles:
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WMRUS_ASHmis.htm
Unfortunatly not much detail on warheads.

Here's a good page with basic data on Soviet and Russian missles:
http://www.wonderland.org.nz/rnss.htm

This one explains the Soviet and NATO naming systems for Soviet missiles.
http://www.aerospaceweb.org/question/we ... 0180.shtml

[lwd]

Also note that most WWII DDs were around 2,000 tons.

[Bgile]

The weak link in these long range Soviet missiles is acquisition of the target. They used the Bear D aircraft with a long range radar, and I believe that and the Backfire were the main rationale behind the F-14 and it's Phoenix missile. The idea was to have a mach 2+ fighter with a 120+ mile range mach 3.5 missile and the ability for each fighter to target up to six of them simultaneously.

Of course now we don't have that capability. One problem with the Phoenix is that an F-14 could launch with six of them but could only trap with four. Often you saw F-14's with two sidewinders, two sparrows, and two Phoenix.

[Karl Heidenreich]

Funny, this thread appear without BBCode.

Bgile:

"A major difference between these ships and the Spruance class is the Burkes are all steel construction. Very little aluminum is used, even in the superstructure. In photos they look kind of squashed and ugly, especially when taken from ahead. When you acutually seen them they are lean and mean looking. If one is tied up alongside a Spruance, the Burke is seen to be much lower profile and of course it has the angled superstructure to reduce radar signature. I really like the bridge layout ... you can look directly aft and the visibility is essentially 360 degrees, even inside. For service in the middle east they often mount 25mm chain guns in the waist; the same weapons as in the Bradley AFV. I suspect some 50 cal mgs also as that is fairly typical for ships going there because of the small boat threat."

I agree with you. The complete steel construction is a great deal compared with earlier designs. The aluminum performed poor at the Falkland/Malvinas war in 1982. I believe some RN losses could be atributed to this design approach.

About the Arleigh Burke´s looks I must say that the 1/350 model is great. The ship is low, has a massive bridge supestructure that looks powerful and mean and it seems stealth as the F-117, very menacing. With only one mast it is very much better than the earlier Spruance.

As a matter of fact the only floating vessel more cool than this is the Kirov (not including CV, CVN, SSN, SSBN).

Best regards.

[Karl Heidenreich]

lwd,

Thanks for the links. But I must say that the AP or HE shells of WWII we have the sheer weight of the shells themselves that help to bring the enemy ship structures to hell.

What would happened to a brand new DDG as Arleigh Burke if hit by an Iowa´s 16" AP shell? And, on the other hand, what damage can we expect to an Iowa from a Harpoon launched by this DDG? Or a Kirov´s one?

Best regards.

[lwd]

Well the US 16" HE shell weighed in at ~860kg not a whole lot more than the explosive charge of the shipwreck. The AP shell was heavier at ~1,200kg but I suspect the shipwreck would weigh more than that at least for most of it's flight profile.

Harpoon is a much smaller missile. Most ships won't want to eat one but most bigger ones will probably not be in danger of sinking after only a single hit.

If I was to be on an Arleigh Burke that was hit by one of these I'd rank them (worst one to get hit with to merely bad to get hit with) in the following order: Shipwreck, 16" HC, 16" AP. If one's lucky the latter creats a 16" entry hole and a slightly larger exit hole with some splinter damage. The blast due to the others would be really ugly.

[Bgile]

With respect to Karl's earlier question about Burke vs SSN ... I think the SSN still has a big advantage, but of course I've been out of the technology loop for some time. Submarines are very hard to detect. They don't reflect active sonar very well due to the special material coating their hull, and passively many of them are very quiet. The very small ones produced by European countries are especially hard to detect ... the US recently "rented" one complete with crew so we could practice ASW with it.

So to recap, from what I know from reading the Navy Times and my prior experience I think the submarine still has the edge.