It has been said that history has a way of repeating itself, of periodically reproducing essentially duplicate sets of conditions. This is amply substantiated in a quotation from Sir Winston Churchill’s The Gathering Storm:
Destroyers were our most urgent need, and also our worst feature. . . . Naturally, the Navy liked to have vessels capable of riding out the Atlantic swell and large enough to carry all the modern improvements in gunnery and especially antiaircraft defense. It is evident that ... a point is soon reached where one is no longer building a destroyer but a small cruiser. . . . The destroyer is the chief weapon against the U-boat, but as it grows ever larger . . . the line is passed where the hunter becomes the hunted.
The foregoing opinions were formed by Sir Winston some 25 years ago, yet they portray a true picture of the destroyer situation as it exists in the U. S. Navy at present.
Prior to the middle of the 20th century, it was feasible, and frequently economically wise, to invest many years in testing and evaluating a new ship design prior to commencing large scale production. Such is no longer the case.
Today, we are confronted by myriad, rapidly changing, technological problems of ship design. At the same time, we are moving into an era which promises a virtual revolution in the demands placed upon our ships. Perhaps the most serious problem before us today is that of foreseeing long-range, future requirements and then embarking upon the most practical course toward attaining these requirements.
This problem of future requirements exists to a major degree in the area of destroyer new construction. With over 75 per cent of our destroyers approaching block obsolescence, forestalled only briefly by the FRAM program, and with the cost of new destroyers spiralling ever upward, we may soon find ourselves committed to a destroyer force composed of a few very expensive destroyers instead of a large number of more economical ships.
Unlike the easily understood problem of block obsolescence, the problem of the upward spiral of destroyer cost stems from less clearly evident sources. Labor and raw material costs have risen, to be sure, as have the costs of electronics systems and weapons systems. Yet none of these factors, alone or in combination, account for today’s unreasonably high cost of new destroyers. The one factor which really skyrockets the price of destroyers is our continuing quest for an all- things-to-all-people craft. This senseless search for the perfect destroyer—the USS Utopia—could emasculate the Navy’s destroyer force.
Since the close of World War II, we have been obsessed by the concept of the perfect destroyer—a destroyer equipped for, and capable of, accomplishing any destroyer mission, including antisubmarine warfare, antiair warfare, support of amphibious operations, escort of convoy, surface raiding, or even the picking up of astronauts. Our search for this perfect destroyer has taken us far off our course.
We have attempted to keep up with the development of new devices by installing each promising new piece of equipment in our destroyers. This process from the first resulted in crowding the ships to the point where there just was not any more room for the radars, sonars, computers, display systems, guided missiles, torpedoes, guns, and drone helicopters, with their support facilities.
When it became clear that all this equipment simply could not be fitted into a 2,000- ton destroyer, planners had to decide whether to limit the amount and variety of equipment and restrict these destroyers to specific missions and tasks, or to increase destroyer size in order to make the installation of all available equipment possible. As can be seen by a look at the variety of “destroyer-type” ships today, the latter alternative was adopted.
The choice of an enlarged destroyer, of course, obviated the necessity of making the complicated, though necessary, decision as to which equipment should go into a ship; secondly, it postponed the decision as to specialization of destroyers. With adherence to the outmoded concept of a general purpose destroyer, the stage was set for an upward spiral of destroyer size and cost. We entered the era wherein the tactical employment of the ship no longer governed its configuration.
Now the tail is wagging the dog. Ships are designed and constructed first, and then ways are sought to employ them effectively, in order to justify their existence. The current philosophy dictates that we make each new ship the most modern afloat; adjust cost and size as necessary to incorporate the latest weapons and electronic systems; and make each new destroyer capable of performing every conceivable destroyer mission, thus making it possible to avoid or defer decisions as to efficient grouping of missions, size and cost limits, and logical equipment suits. The most recent example of this philosophy is the USS Bainbridge (DLGN-25). This monolith is advertised as epitomizing “the vast progress made in the design and building of warships.”
While she is a public information officer’s dream come true, the Bainbridge does not satisfy any of the basic needs of the naval planner who must have large numbers of destroyers to meet the seemingly endless demands placed upon the destroyer force. The Bainbridge represents a great victory for those who believe that anything that the United States can do before or better than the Soviets regardless of cost is well worth the effort and expenditure—if only to help sway Free World opinion. It is doubtful, however, that the Bainbridge causes much loss of sleep among Soviet naval planners. She can be in only one place at a time, perform one mission at a time, escort one carrier at a time, and operate in one task group at a time. The Bainbridge cost more than $150,000,000, which is an unacceptably large chunk of money to pay for any “destroyer,” regardless of her potential.
It is highly unlikely that we will see very many Bainbridge-class ships, principally because of their exorbitant cost. Should we attempt to construct large numbers of this class, we will, in fact, price ourselves right out of the destroyer building business, if one can in good conscience refer to the gigantic Bainbridge-class ships as destroyers.
Good judgment dictates that we strike a balance between quality and quantity if we are to have reasonable numbers of effective destroyers on hand when we need them. Assuming that the Bainbridge represents the peak of quality in destroyers, let us examine the question of numbers. Our problem today is basically the same one Sir Winston saw in 1938: we don’t have enough destroyers; we need large numbers of new ones; and the new ones cost so much that they impose severe limitations on the total number which can be built. As noted earlier, our destroyer force is suffering from a severe case of advancing age, with 75 per cent being of World War II vintage—overage, according to the 20-year rule. Block obsolescence is upon us. This condition was clearly foreseeable in 1945; apparently, we thought it would go away if we ignored it. Such ostrich-like tactics failed, and we had to try other ways to avoid the effects of age. FRAM has been our latest effort in the art of destroyer-design indecision and procrastination. We loudly advertise that FRAM will add eight to ten years of “useful life” to our destroyers while overlooking the fact that not all our destroyers are being FRAMed, and those which are not FRAMed are either given away to other countries or are decommissioned.
Since new destroyers are coming into the Fleet in markedly smaller numbers than old ones are leaving, we are increasing the magnitude of the dilemma. Worse, we have no realistic plan, in the foreseeable future, for introducing new destroyers in numbers suited to our needs. Unless we start now to build destroyers in suitable numbers, we will have a totally ineffective destroyer force within 15 years. The contrary opinions of non-destroyermen notwithstanding, the destroyer is the backbone of the U. S. Navy today—and will continue to be so long as it is necessary to control the sea for our unrestricted use in peace and war. The time to start a vigorous, logical, economical, destroyer new construction program has already passed, and we must hurry if we are to catch up.
Our World War II destroyer experience was circumstantially such as to minimize the logistic problem of fueling conventionally powered destroyers. Those DDs operating in the Atlantic, although against strong submarine opposition, were generally able to fuel from shore bases. The relatively short combat radii required by the geography of the Atlantic made it unnecessary to depend on large- scale underway replenishment, or on the safe transit of oilers to replenishment rendezvous points. In the Pacific, where underway replenishment was the rule rather than the exception, the submarine hazard was minimal because of the inability of the Japanese to mount a significant submarine effort. Our task groups in the Pacific had relative freedom of movement and selection of rendezvous areas for underway replenishments. The lack of significant wartime refueling problems, coupled with the ensuing long period of peacetime operations during which we have become accustomed to seeing the oiler at the rendezvous on time, every time, have operated to our own disadvantage. While the Soviet submarine force was growing, so was its worldwide threat to our fleet oilers. But we ignored the threat, continuing to assume that the set- piece underway replenishment conditions we enjoy in peacetime exercises will exist in wartime. Today we have naval task forces permanently deployed in the Atlantic, the Mediterranean, and the Pacific. These forces are dependent upon mobility for their strategic and tactical strength. The factor which makes their mobility possible is the readily available supply of fuel which the fleet oilers provide. However, we ignore this vital point time and time again. In fleet exercise after fleet exercise, submarines are not allowed to “sink” the oilers. The oilers are held to be in the problem only “administratively,” and hence are not fair game for submarines. Well, you can be sure they will be in the problem up to their tank tops in any future war, and they will not only be fair game for enemy submarines, but even may find themselves high on the enemy target list.
What would happen to the effectiveness of our destroyers should we suffer even a 30 per cent reduction in oiler capacity early in a war? It comes down to the ultimate reality that fleet mobility really equates to fuel supply availability. Convoys to the Western Pacific in any future war will face submarines throughout the voyage. This means that destroyers will be assigned as screens. This in turn means that the destroyers must have fuel along the route, because they cannot make the trip without refueling at least twice. Can we be certain the destroyers will have fuel when they need it? What of our carrier strike groups, and the hunter-killer groups? What happens to their combat radii when we lose some oilers? Will they be able to refuel their destroyers as often as needed, without the usual frequent oiler support, and still carry on unrestricted operations? If the answers to these questions are unequivocally affirmative, then we have no fuel worries. Should the answers be less than absolutely positive, we had better come up with a solution to the problem.
The precarious position in which we find ourselves with respect to oil supply for our task forces demands sober consideration. Unless we take effective steps to reduce sharply the staggering fuel requirements of our task forces, we must be prepared to accept the high probability of severely restricted operations in a future war.
Since the Fleet’s greatest consumers of fuel are the destroyers, they require first consideration in any effort to reduce fleet oil consumption. Without the requirement to refuel the destroyers, the heavy combatants could operate for significantly greater periods independent of external fuel supply, thus gaining a greater measure of that vital necessity, tactical mobility. As a practical matter, we need nuclear-powered destroyers—which brings us back to the Bainbridge and Sir Winston. The Bainbridge is far too expensive to deserve any serious consideration for mass production. She could become, as Sir Winston said, the hunted rather than the hunter. The few ships we could afford to build of the Bainbridge-class would never be of any true tactical significance; they would, however, be prime targets for submarines. This raises the question of how we can obtain large numbers of nuclear-powered destroyers without bankrupting the U. S. economy in the process.
Clearly, the way to build large numbers of anything while keeping the cost at a reasonable level, is to initiate mass production. But what is “reasonable cost” for a nuclear- powered destroyer? This writer believes that $25,000,000, or less, is a reasonable cost and that one penny more makes the price unreasonable. “Impossible,” you say? It was once considered “impossible” to produce an economical nuclear-powered submarine. Today, nuclear-powered submarines actually cost less than some of our new design, oil- powered destroyer types. The techniques of mass production and product improvement have been applied with great success to the nuclear-powered submarine, and can be applied with equal success to the nuclear- powered destroyer.
Since mass-production mechanics depend upon the characteristics of the product, let us examine some parameters of a proposed nuclear-powered destroyer. The first of these, of course, must be a firm determination that total cost will not exceed $25,000,000. The second is a corollary of the first; that is, the finished product must perform its mission efficiently while remaining within the assigned cost limitation. These parameters lead to certain fundamental considerations, the foremost of which is that this mass-produced, nuclear- powered destroyer will definitely not be an all-purpose super destroyer—such as the Bainbridge. She will be smaller, more compact, and specialized for either anti-air or antisubmarine warfare, with a very limited complement. The hull will be small by present nuclear-powered destroyer standards, displacing no more than 4,500 tons gross. The power plant must be easily produced and should occupy no more than half the internal hull volume that would be devoted to a conventional four- boiler plant. The nuclear power plant should provide the destroyer with capability for sustained speed of 30 knots for 300,000 miles.
Crew comfort and habitability are essentials in a design concept built around nuclear power. Every modern comfort must be provided to combat the undesirable effects of prolonged periods at sea. Further, regarding the crew, the complement should not exceed 15 officers and 150 enlisted. A major factor limiting ship size is the size of the crew. With the number of highly skilled technicians required to maintain electronic systems on the rise, it would be well to design such systems to be maintained by the fewest possible technicians. (It might be interesting to determine how many Bainbridge-size ships could be manned before it became necessary to begin mothballing other destroyers for want of technicians.) In order to meet the requirement of limited crew size in the nuclear design, maximum use of automation and remote control facilities will be mandatory. Elimination of unnecessary system redundancy and use of multi-purpose high-volume, data processing systems will minimize, or eliminate, the manual plotting and bookkeeping functions which are so wasteful of manpower. One area in which economy of technical personnel can be realized is that of “black boxing” equipment and systems. “Black boxing” also has the advantage of reducing system “down time” due to electronic failure. If a failure can be localized to a module, the module can be replaced at once —and then repaired when time permits. Additional reductions in personnel requirements can be realized through extensive use of plastics, corrosion-resistant metals, and special construction techniques, with a view toward reducing “housekeeping” functions to the minimum.
Notably absent thus far from the proposed specifications is any mention of ASW or AAW armament systems. This is intentional because of the special considerations inherent in mass production of nuclear-powered destroyers within a fixed cost framework. Such an undertaking will necessitate a radical departure from the utopian philosophy we have heretofore so fanatically embraced in destroyer design. We will have to recognize and accept that neither can we afford, nor is it reasonable for us to attempt, to incorporate anti-air and antisubmarine warfare capabilities into every destroyer. At the outset, we must determine the ratio of ASW destroyers to AAW destroyers which will be required for, say, a ten-year period. Then we must stick to our program and mass produce the ships decided upon. All destroyers produced under this concept would be identical in every respect save armament systems. Each ship would consist of two basic parts, one being the common hull-power plant combination, and the other being the ASW or AAW armament system.
Such a design concept is fully feasible, provided a few fundamental and highly essential factors are kept in mind. For example, the physical dimensions of any given compartment must be exactly the same in both configurations. Major weapons launchers should be located in the same relative positions in both models; if the AAW model is to have a TALOS launcher amidships, then the ASW model should have its ASROC launcher amidships. Since all internal dimensions would be the same in both models, it would be necessary to specify equipment packaging so as to permit installation of either an ASW system or an AAW system in the common hull without any structural design changes. Standard dimensions and weights should be specified for each piece of equipment, such as radio transmitters, receivers, teletypes, computers, radars, and plotting tables, so that follow-on equipment and improved models will fit exactly into the space vacated by their predecessors—thus obviating structural changes when new equipment is installed. Weight and moment problems dwindle to nothing when a program of standards is established and rigidly enforced for all equipment weights.
Designing and building such $25,000,000 nuclear-powered destroyers will not be easy. It will be a far-reaching, adventuresome undertaking, by our present standards, and a fitting challenge for the most inventive minds of our nation. In order to build such a ship successfully, we shall have to eliminate the indecision which is currently the hallmark of destroyer shipbuilding. The fact of the matter is that the frequent sweeping changes in destroyer design which confront us today result principally from not knowing what we really want or need in a destroyer. Like children in a toy store, our ship designers have so many “goodies” available that, instead of selecting the essential ones, or attempting to decide which will be best in the long run, they try to keep everything—and cram all of the “goodies” into each and every ship. We even try to shape the ship to fit the systems. The result is well known to all who sail destroyers. While these elaborate systems look fine on paper, and make good PIO fodder, they seldom work even passably well in actual day-to-day operations. A firm decision must be made as to hull design, suited to mass production, as well as the AAW and ASW packages, which when added to the standard hull will produce AAW or ASW ships respectively.
Another necessary basic change in our thinking becomes evident: a departure from the concept that every destroyer must be capable of being simultaneously the ideal AAW platform and the ideal ASW platform. It is time to accept facts and return to reality in ship design. Further, we will have to desist from the naive practice of deferring fleet introduction of a proven workable system on the grounds that “something better will be available in two or three years.” The modular approach to the total system design will require careful supervision of system interface design, which represents a novel departure from current ship design practice. In order to keep the cost beneath the prescribed $25,000,000 ceiling, it will be necessary to relinquish many of our notions concerning manufacturing processes and materials. We will have to use modern, mass-produced plastics and solid state circuitry as far as possible. Recent advances in the art of microminiaturization have made practicable equipments of gross volumes so small that they would have been considered impossible only five years ago. It has been said that the Navy is ten years behind industry in design and application techniques, particularly in the field of electronics and associated equipment. This lag is costing us many millions of dollars yearly, which could be put to far better use. It is time we caught up with the present and took a closer look at tomorrow.
Assuming we embark on the project outlined in this paper, what advantages can be expected to accrue to the Navy? First, of course, is the acquisition of relatively large numbers of nuclear-powered destroyers at a price competitive with that of conventionally- powered destroyers, during an era when the need for replacement destroyers will be critical. Then there is the matter of planning destroyer design requirements on a year-to-year basis. This problem would be virtually solved in advance, because the planners would have, so to speak, nuclear-powered destroyers available to them off the shelf, in either AAW or ASW configuration. Changes over the years in the relative numbers of AAW and ASW ships required by the fleets would not result in wholesale design changes, with attendant upsets in the destroyer production program; the only change necessary would be in the relative numbers of AAW and ASW packages added to standard nuclear-powered hulls. Having once set this program in motion, block obsolescence would cease to be a threat since destroyers could be built at rates easily adjustable to requirement levels. The long drawing-board-to-launching cycle would finally have been drastically shortened.
It goes without saying that the benefits of mass production generally multiply themselves. Manufacturers improve production techniques and product reliability as more of the same items are manufactured. Prices come down as does production time. This means that over-all ship cost would eventually be significantly less than the original program limit of $25,000,000. One side benefit worth considering is the likelihood that the basic nuclear-powered hull, less armament package, might prove well-suited for use in oceanographic research ships, communications relay ships, or other relatively small ships which could operate for protracted periods independent of fuel resupply.
The question we must answer now is whether we are able to face realities, and exert the effort necessary to produce a good, practical, mass-produced nuclear-powered destroyer, or whether we want to continue seeking front page newspaper space with such high-priced novelties as the Bainbridge, which will never exist in sufficient numbers to serve any useful tactical function.
Sir Winston saw and understood the problem in his time. We must see and understand the problem in our time.