All US Navy destroyers will get hypersonic missiles, Trump’s national security adviso

[Boats]

All U.S. Navy Destroyers will get Hypersonic M\missiles, Trump’s national security advisor says
By: DAvid Larter - Defense News - 10-21-20
Re: https://www.defensenews.com/naval/20...-advisor-says/

Photo link: https://www.armytimes.com/resizer/JZ...DGJI6E4MO4.jpg
The Arleigh Burke class guided-missile destroyer USS Sterett (DDG 104) steams through the night in the Gulf of Oman on Sept. 17, 2020. (Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Drace Wilson/Navy)

PORTSMOUTH NAVAL SHIPYARD, Maine — The U.S. Navy will be pushing to put hypersonic missiles on all Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, President Donald Trump’s top national security official said Wednesday.

The Navy is planning to field hypersonic missiles first on the Virginia-class attack submarine, then on the new Zumwalt-class destroyers then finally across the Burkes, National Security Advisor Robert O’Brien told an audience here.

“The Navy’s Conventional Prompt Strike program will provide hypersonic missile capability to hold targets at risk from longer ranges,” O’Brien said in prepared remarks. “This capability will be deployed first on our newer Virginia class submarines and the Zumwalt class destroyers. Eventually, all three flights of the Arleigh Burke class destroyers will field this capability.”

The Navy has discussed back-fitting some of the older Burke-class destroyers, but putting them on all three flights, including ships dating back to the early 1990s, would be a massive expansion of the capability in the surface fleet. The current launchers are not large enough to accommodate the larger diameter missiles.

Swapping out the launchers on all the destroyers would be a significant expense and would likely tie up shipyards for years to come. An alterative to back-fitting the older destroyers would be waiting for a smaller hypersonic missile to be developed, such as an air-breathing model, as opposed to the boost-glide design.

How to get more firepower on ships is a crucial push for the Navy as it considers the challenge of keeping China at arms length in the Indo-Pacific region. Other ideas being considered are putting larger VLS cells on the next-generation surface combatant.

Defense News is travelling with O’Brien during the visit, as the National Security Advisor pushes support for a plan, first unveiled by Secretary of Defense Mark Esper, that could see the Navy’s fleet grow to over 500 ships.

“Investment in the future is vital. Lightly and unmanned vessels equipped with artificial intelligence are likely to play a role in the future of our nation’s fleet,” O’Brien stated. “The same is true of the small amphibious ships necessary to move [Marine Commandant Gen. David] Berger’s Marine littoral regiments around the islands of the Indo-Pacific.”

During his comments, O’Brien pledged that the push for “Battleforce 2045” would be accomplished without eating into readiness, saying “The pursuit of these new systems, however, cannot be allowed to cause a “trough” in force structure, whereby the nation endures reduced capability while we wait for future technologies and new ships to come online. Any such plan that trades current capability for future 'out year promises is not acceptable to the President.”

O’Brien’s speech come the same day Forbes printed comments from Thomas Modly, the former acting Navy secretary, which threw skepticism at the Battleforce 2045 concept.

Esper and O’Brien hatched the idea in a private meeting “to discuss Navy strategy and shipbuilding, but no one from the Navy to include myself, the CNO, the Commandant, or any senior three-star involved in developing the shipbuilding plans budget were invited," Modly, who resigned in April, claimed.

“Math is a very stubborn thing," Modly added. “If you are going to increase the size of the fleet from 275 to 355, or 500, and you aren’t going to increase the Navy’s topline to pay for it, you’ve merely created a mathematical challenge for yourself that cannot be solve.”