Sauragnmon wrote:
Just thinking middle-of-the-road here.
Well, NTU is the middle of the road. Putting the new SPY-3 miniature-mast radar that's being put on the Israeli-export LCS is one extreme and just putting point defense weapons on it is the other extreme. For instance, the Sea Sparrow missile launchers aboard the Spruances was really cheating the platform. NTU is a lot cheaper than that and from the sounds like it a lot more effective.
I just wonder if NTU was excessively heavy in addition to the equipment already aboard the ship. It's all good in the hood, though. I am confident that unless the Kidd hulls were significantly stronger than that of the Sprucans that the Sprucan hull can wishstand being converted into the DXG version. I still don't get why, forsaking the Mk71 for this statement, that if the forward Mk26 position, which was equipped to have only 24 missiles, could support an entire 61-cell Mk41 arrangement but the position aft that could take 44 missiles could not handle the same 61-cell arrangement. This is not regarding weight concerns, but rather Captain Potter has said that for some reason, the magazine tracks instead of being removed as forward, the VLS tubes aft would have to be arranged inside of these tracks and thus situated on length rather than on width. That does not make a lot of sense to me.
Even if the arrangement is more interesting for naval arcitects, it is not necessary if the forward 24 missile magazine was so easily modified to accept 61 VLS tubes. If the project were undertaken, it sounds to me like the same proceedure for modifying aft would take place, forsaking the gym and stores area.
So, in simply following the DXG platform, the 24 missile magazine area would have to be preserved to stay consistant wtih the philosophy of supporting the Mk71. So, at the very least, and as established before, the forward VLS arrangement would likely have to be reduced to 32 cells.
I am consulting NavSea right now, and I will meet up with another man tomorrow, so I am anxious to see what he says about the arrangements we have talked about here, ranging all the way up to 64 cells forward with Mk71, 64 aft and Mk45 Mod4 aft.
But, Captain Potter, what are the four antennas you're talking about that are tell-tale signs of NTU? A common way of identifying an NTU ship is the combination of SPS-48 and SPS-49 and for the ships with the SPG-55s, the NTU ships' SPG-55s have been upgraded to the SPG-55Bs with the two white boxes on the 9 and 2 o'clock positions. I am very curious to hear what antennas you're talking about. Thanks again guys!