Double Down on the ZUMWALT Class

Toward a Maritime Dominance Destroyer

On occasion, my muse steers me in the direction of my professional interests, and I think deeply about important naval topics. Most of the time I find some other place to put them, but I worked myself into such a frenzy this weekend thinking about this topic that my adult onset ADHD would not permit me the time for the give and take of outside editing (much as it improves my writing). If you are looking for pithy observations of modern American life and politics, this will not be the essay for you.

ZUMWALT in the shipyard. Photo courtesy Huntington Ingalls Industries

First conceived of 30 years ago as part of the 1994 “SC-21 Family of Ships” “Mission Need Statement”, the ship known today as USS ZUMWALT (DDG 1000) has evolved dramatically, both in its likely missions and its reduced class size (32 were planned, three were acquired). Now undergoing a significant shipyard modification that includes installation of the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) capability, the nation and its Navy must resist the urge to consign these ships (hulls 1001 and 1002 are planned to receive the same upgrade) to a surface-based version of what the nation’s four guided missile submarines (SSGN) do. Rather, over time and with sufficient resourcing, these three ships can take on an important persistent maritime dominance role in the Western Pacific. A serious nation would make these resources available.

Original Concept

Conceived of during the heady days of the “Peace Dividend” and its cousin “Global Naval Dominance”, the 32 “land attack destroyers of the SC 21 plan were to be technological wonders. Combining an innovative, stealthy hull form with a powerful Advanced Gun System, the then-designated “DD-21” was to operate close to the shore and deliver precision naval fires to support (predominately) U.S. Marine Corps forces ashore. Further offshore would be a planned air dominance cruiser (CGX—which was eventually canceled) and operating even closer to shore than the DD-21 were to be the ships of the LCS class. This three-class approach reflected a coherent fleet design responsive to the security environment in which it was planned, one in which the U.S. had no real blue-water threat and American naval dominance was to be dedicated to the support of land operations. And then—as it always does—the security environment changed, rendering the sophisticated fleet design envisioned to address it (as opposed to a more generalized approach that had characterized earlier fleet designs) an expensive anachronism.

Anticipating the arrival of nearly three dozen DD-21’s, the Navy ended construction of the USS ARLEIGH BURKE (DDG 51) class destroyers, itself an expensive and disruptive decision, only to restart the line as the utility of a large, stealthy, destroyer designed for shore bombardment waned. Over the course of a decade from about 2005, the total DD-21 (then, DDG-1000) buy moved from 32, to 19, to seven, and eventually three hulls. Keep in mind, that the unit cost of ships allocates design and engineering costs across a number of hulls, until eventually those costs are nil. Because the design and engineering costs for a technologically advanced class of 32 ships was then spread over only three hulls, the unit cost of each ballooned to $4B, greatly in excess of planned costs.

The Fallacy of the Sunk Cost Fallacy

Our friends at Wikipedia describe the Sunk Cost Fallacy thusly:

People demonstrate "a greater tendency to continue an endeavor once an investment in money, effort, or time has been made".^[17][18] This is the sunk cost fallacy, and such behavior may be described as "throwing good money after bad",^[19][14] while refusing to succumb to what may be described as "cutting one's losses”.

There is a lot to digest in those few words, but as applied to the DDG 1000 Class, the sunk cost fallacy has caused some to believe that the Navy should walk away from the ZUMWALTs. Not only would doing so be a short-sighted mistake, it highlights the fallacy of the Sunk Cost Fallacy.

Whether one applies the sunk cost fallacy to continuing to invest in a project that is not returning dividends, or in a relationship that simply is not working, the basis for “sinking” the cost remains a personal or corporate choice. Company X decided to invest $150M in developing a Widget that never paid off. John Smith continued to devote his affections to a paramour who does not return them. Those who financed the decision to build and then stop building the DDG 1000 class—the American taxpayer—had virtually no direct input into the investment. They do not get to make choices about how their taxes are spent (beyond the ballot box), and they do not get to withhold their taxes for projects of which they do not approve. This very basic fact levies a far greater responsibility on government to ensure that utility is gained from its “investments”. It does not mean that it cannot walk away from them, or that taxpayers do not have a legitimate right to desire that the bleeding stop, but it does mean that such a decision must come only after all options are exhausted. Such a point is far from where we are on ZUMWALT.

Conventional Prompt Strike

The proximate reason for the USS ZUMWALT (DDG 1000) to be in the shipyard as this is written, is to support the removal of its rail gun system and replace that space with launchers that accommodate the large, hypersonic Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) weapon. The theory behind CPS is that of a conventional (non-nuclear) weapon servicing distant targets quickly.

This is an incredibly complex undertaking involving at least three main entities, all of which have to perform to schedule in order to meet the goal of testing the capability by the end of calendar year 2025. Roughly speaking, the Army is in charge of designing and acquiring the missiles, the Navy is in charge of designing and acquiring the launching system, and the shipyard must put it all together.

So important is this capability to the deterrence posture desired in the Western Pacific that it is being installed in essentially a “stand-alone” configuration, one in which the CPS system is only minimally integrated with existing ship systems. This decision appears to have been driven by cost, complexity, and the ever-present “Davidson Window”, all of which conspire to result in what will essentially be a surface version of the Navy’s guided missile submarines (SSGN), but with a more energetic and long-range weapon.

Were the taxpayers to have purchased a lesser platform than the DDG1000, this mission and use alone would justify the expense of CPS installation. But the taxpayers did not purchase a lesser platform, it purchased a large, stealthy, electrically driven marvel with a huge flight deck and hangar, and a large boat bay, not to mention electrical power well beyond that available in any other destroyer. If this ship spends its service life ferrying around conventional deterrence weapons while trying to evade localization, the taxpayers investment will be terribly sub-optimized. We can do better. We probably cannot do better within existing resources, as there are many important claimants on available funds. But as both ends of Pennsylvania Avenue wake to the growing threat posed by China, additional resources must be applied to recouping the promise of this ship.

The Maritime Dominance Destroyer

Three forward deployed (west of the International Date Line) DDG 1000’s would enable the Navy to posture one of these ships nearly continuously in the Western Pacific. As I’ve written before, “forward presence” is not a mission, it is an operating posture designed to support desired missions. There are a series of important missions that an upgraded DDG 1000 could perform over and above the limited (though important) CPS deterrence patrol. In order to perform those missions, additional industrial work (over and above that programmed already for the CPS installation) will be necessary. Specifically, the Navy should move forward with its ZUMWALT Enterprise Upgrade Solution, or ZEUS.

In a 2022 Navy “Sources Sought” solicitation, the following specifics were mentioned:

A.) Several assumptions and constraints of the ZEUS concept should be taken into account for any responses, including:

AN/SPY-3 radar would be replaced with the AN/SPY-6(v)3

Total Ship Computing Environment infrastructure (TSCEi), which includes core data processing and ship-wide network infrastructure, will be modernized prior ZEUS to support infrastructure as a service (IaaS) and would not be part of the scope of the upgrade. Additionally ship control, integrated communications, and other select functions not associated with the combat system will remain in TSCE.

Primary mission of the DDG 1000 class remains Surface Strike

Radar cross section requirements remain

Topside design impacts should be minimized

Minimal manning concept remains; minimize impacts to manning

B.) Potential elements being considered in the upgrade include, but are not limited to:

Combat system computer program

Common displays

CEC

SEWIP

IFF

SQQ-89

MK 41 VLS (internal electronics)

In other words, scoop out the existing combat system and radar and integrate a version of the Navy’s AEGIS Combat System into the existing computing environment while also installing a version of the SPY-6 radar—in order to make what are currently three “unicorns” into platforms that are more like the fleet with which they will operate. In the process, the ship will perform the following missions more effectively:

Surface Strike. By integrating into the group of ships migrating to an Integrated Combat System, DDG1000 would be able to fully participate in the networked battle management and information exchange environment that underpins Distributed Maritime Operations (i.e coordinated strikes with TLAM and SM6 with other firing units).

Land Attack. In addition to the aforementioned benefits of CPS, DDG1000 would be able to participate in coordinated strikes ashore with TLAM variants and SM6.

Intelligence, Surveillance, Reconnaissance, and Targeting (ISRT). This is perhaps the most exciting enabled role for the DDG1000, making use of the ship’s massive flight deck and hangar, and a boat bay able to accommodate two 11 meter ribs heel to toe. Essentially, the ship could become a Unmanned Vehicle mothership, operating numerous medium-altitude long-endurance UAV’s to provide organic situational awareness, along with the ability to launch, sustain, and recover unmanned surface and subsurface vehicles.

Integrated Air and Missile Defense (IAMD). As we’ve seen in the Red Sea over the past year, the AEGIS weapon system is an incredibly capable IAMD system. By installing a variant in DDG1000 and replacing its existing SPY-3 radar with a SPY-6 variant, the ship could become a more effective IAMD platform. Additionally, as we’ve seen the expenditure of ordnance in the Red Sea and the cost mismatch it presents vs. cheaper targets, there is no platform more suited to house directed energy weapons, to include lasers and high-powered microwave systems.

Conclusion

I’ve written and talked about turning the ZUMWALT Class into a Maritime Dominance Destroyer for ten years (I came across a paper this weekend that I submitted to the Navy in 2014 that is not far from what I suggest in this essay). This vision of a large, powerful, networked ship—bristling with weapons AND stealthy enough to be difficult to target--routinely operating in the South China Sea with other Navy platforms including unmanned, strikes me as an attainable capability. I would not attempt to achieve any of this additional capability at the cost of risk to the existing planned overhauls. No delay in fielding CPS is worthwhile at this point. But if engineers and naval architects are able to feather in some of this work during these first three yard periods, it should be considered. More importantly, the Navy should commit to a more extensive concept of operation for these platforms, one that drives desired capability. Then it should resource a ten-year plan that results in three proper Maritime Dominance Destroyers capable of not only buttressing a conventional deterrence posture, but also providing C2 over a large chuck of ocean to a variety of other naval capabilities.

This would not be cheap, and I realize there is not a lot of money to be had. But as I wrote earlier, as the environment continues to heat up with China, additional resources will become available. Some of that ought to be devoted to achieving the promise of these enormously capable ships.