The Navy's newest destroyer brings stealth to the high seas--and may mark the return of the gun to naval combat.
by Michael Goldfarb, The Weekly Standard
Emphasis added; EFL'd to get to the good part; go read the whole thing.
. . . The Navy's next-generation destroyer, the DD(X), will be armed with a battery of two 155mm Advance Gun Systems that will offer a spectacular improvement over its predecessors in range, accuracy, and rate of fire. The DD(X) may, in fact, portend the reemergence of the gun as the primary weapon of the fleet. . . . At the dawn of the 21st century, the Navy's primary antisurface gun battery consists of one 5-inch gun with a range of 13 nautical miles. But if the Navy sticks to its schedule, by 2012 two DD(X) ships will be operational, each armed with a battery of two 155mm (6.1-inch) Advanced Gun Systems with a range of no less than 68 miles. . . .
Critics of the AGS point out that accuracy of fire may be less important than the volume of fire when softening up onshore targets for an amphibious assault, but because the DD(X) can be replenished while at sea (and while firing), she will be able to fire at least one gun continuously for an indefinite amount of time. In addition, each gun will be capable of putting up to eight rounds on a target simultaneously. To achieve this effect, shells will be fired in rapid succession at different trajectories. In conjunction with the counter-battery capability of the dual band radar, any enemy troops who fire on U.S. forces will have only minutes before the 2 guns of DD(X) can return fire with devastating accuracy: Tests have shown the guns accurate to within two meters at a range of 68 nautical miles. . . .
All of the technologies discussed so far have already been successfully tested, but the DD(X) is also designed to allow for the rapid deployment of technologies still in the pipeline. The Navy hopes to fit these ships with an electromagnetic rail gun by 2020. The rail gun would be capable of firing a guided projectile up to 267 nautical miles, which would put all of North Korea into range from either coast of that peninsula (or, to take another theoretical example, allow the Navy to bombard Paris from the English Channel). . . .
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