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from the may-return-home-under-its-own-power-one-day dept.
El Reg reports:
The US Navy's most advanced ship yet, the $4.4bn stealth destroyer USS Zumwalt, has had to be ignominiously towed through the Panama Canal after its engines failed yet again.
While cruising down the intercontinental waterway, the crew spotted water leaking from two of the four bearings that link the destroyer's advanced electric engines to its propeller drive shafts. Both engines locked up shortly afterwards, and the ship hit the side of the canal, causing some cosmetic damage.
[...] Repairs are expected to take at least ten days and may mean the ship doesn't get into its home port until next year.
This is the latest in a long litany of failures for the USS Zumwalt that have raised questions over the efficacy of the new class of ships. Originally the US planned a fleet of 32 of the advanced destroyers, but the eye-watering cost of the craft has since seen that cut to just three vessels.
[...] It's natural to get teething problems with a new design, particularly something as revolutionary as the USS Zumwalt. But the Navy has already decided to revert to an older class of destroyer for its fleet upgrade. It seems someone on the general staff actually read Arthur C Clarke's warning tale Superiority .
Previously: USS Zumwalt Breaks Down During Sea Trials
[Ed note. Superiority, linked above, is a science fiction classic; well worth reading.]
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday November 28 2016, @02:01PM
things like the F35 and the Zumwalt are how the military learns what works and what doesn't.
That's a big problem that's going to require a new way to look at military procurement soon enough.
From "the old days" right up to today, the first models off the assembly line were pieces of junk that failed and were unreliable. Its OK to manufacture 20 POS-tier B17 or Sherman tanks or M16 if the assembly line was gearing up to make 100x as many once the bugs were worked out.
Now we shut down the line either when the bugs are worked out, or before! The last B17 off the assembly line kicked the ass of the first one, so my grandfather said, more or less. The problem is the last Z off the assembly line is quite possibly the first one, and we're never going to get to produce the ass kicking completely debugged Z series. We most certainly could produce a Z class ship that accomplishes everything promised if we get to make 30 of them. But we are not, so they're never going to work.
Eventually the military will figure this out and its going to be an interesting culture shock when we plan to build 500 tanks instead of 10000 or three aircraft carriers instead of fifteen. It won't necessarily be cheaper but the bar will be much lower. The bar being lower probably doesn't matter in the long run because the entire surface fleet will be sunk about 5 minutes after we start a war with a real naval power which makes things weirder yet.