Here's Why The U.S. Navy Can't Seem To Build Guided-missile cruiser

In today’s episode we will take a look on the reason why the U.S Navy can’t seem to build the Guided-missile cruiser ? It is generally known that modern cruisers are the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships that can usually perform several roles. The role of the cruiser varied according to ship and navy, often including air defence and shore bombardment. The Navy has for almost two decades struggled to figure out what kind of platforms should replace the Guided-missile cruiser as the air defence command ship for the carrier strike group, and several efforts have been cancelled or postponed along the way.

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[byrondaniels]

Sound like the problem is in the Shipbuilding Industry and the school systems. The shipyards can't do the job needed because it doesn't have and cannot hire the required talent. The talent isn't there because nobody provided the training, guidance and incentives to train the up and coming workforce appropriately. Thanks for addressing this topic. Being a retired US Army guy, I never really think about this sort of problem with modernizing cruisers. I thank kgb1393 for his comments. His knowledge and understanding the implications of his wise statements are certainly beyond me. Good discussion.

[kgb]

The pros and cons of the Ticonderoga:
- Ticonderoga uses the AEGIS system and mainly used the SM-2 missile. That missile, use TSARH (Terminal Semi Active Radar Homing) with inflight INS/Data Link update from the AN/SPY-1 radar. For terminal illumination, the target is illuminated by the AN/SPG-62 radar, Ticondeorga has 4 of them while Arleigh Burke has 3, so a Ticonderoga can illuminates 4 differentes targets in same time while the Arleigh Burke is stuck to 3. But, today Navy use more modern missiles, like the SM-6 which have ARH, and even the SM-2 is modernized to receive ARH capacity this year, the ESSM is same as the SM-2 and it's receiving ARH capacities. So for those, the Ticonderoga is not that superior because AN/SPG-62 will become useless later.
- Ticonderoga has 122-cell VLS while Arleigh Burke has 96/90-cell. It's less, but by reducing the multirole capacities by adding more anti air missiles, it can be good for the Arleigh Burke, remember a Ticonderoga don't has its full VLS load of anti-missiles, even it is a dedicated AAW platform.
- Ticonderoga has space for AAW staff. In Composite Warfare, the AMDC (Air and Missile Defense Commander) of a CSG is the Captain of one of the Ticonderoga, and it has space and crew for that job. Arleigh Burke was tested as a AMDC platform, even commanded by a Ticondeorga captain, and the ship proove to have good capacities but space. Some though to put the AMDC and personnal on the carrier but it probably means loosing that particular personn because it adds more people on the carrier and also, in case of a carrier attack, it means loose big personnals: right now, from the 5 warfare commanders 4 are on the Carrier, the only one out is the AMDC on the cruiser, so it will means loose the CCSG, the Commodore of the DESRON, the AMDC, the COS and the CAG in case of carrier attacker.
- Ticonderoga has superstructure in aluminium magnesium reinforced (not sure about that magnesium intel). It is a less resistant material than steel from the sea rough conditions and battle damage (do not really like the fire).
-To finish, the only revelant case for the Ticonderoga to stay in the fleet is that is ha a lot of VLS cell, and it has space for AMDC.
Right now it is known that US Navy had budget problem (Zummwalt, LCS programm). Right now their budget are mainly dedicated to Columbia SSBN. The only reason Ticonderoga is save comes from the Congress, who don't want a weak Navy, even they allowed the Navy to decommission some Ticonderoga.

[johnknapp]

The Tico's and Spruance's were build on pretty much the same hull. One specialized in anti-air and called a Cruiser and the other anti-sub and called a Destroyer. It really comes down to the job that the ship is designed to do. The Burke's (depending on version) have a mix of both.

[darrylkenes]

Northrop/Grumman is building Ford class carriers and subs all day long. They have their own training programs, pay incredibly well and know how to build anything the
Naval architects can design. It’s a problem of what the navy wants. They are having trouble with the mission needs.

[williambinkley]

I served on a 30+ year old cruiser in the 90s. It was a struggle just finding spare parts.

[CheapSushi]

I can't tell if this channel is made by a bot or some foreign people but it just repeats the hell out of itself to make the videos lengthy enough.

[jamesocker]

The ship yards don’t have expertise as they no longer pay workers for that expertise, unions and skill loss have created a huge deficit of skills in use for manufacturing and repair skill. To many students want to sit at a console vs repair and maintain an assembly. The loss of Maint monies has further reduced our readiness. Quit over paying managers and get the pay to the boots on the, ground or the cycle will continue to decay

[keith]

To be honest, this problem is 40 years in the making. I grow up in LA during the great defense industry lay off of 90s. After that, no one wanted to work for defense industry. The internet age made things a lot worse.

[makegaminggreatagain]

DDGX looks and sounds interesting, as much as it's a different class, let's hope it's not a flop like the Independence and Freedom.

[jepkratz]

At 15K tons displacement, the three Zumwalts are in fact cruisers. You (and the US Navy) can call them destroyers if you want, but they're still cruisers. The same classification game is played with some of the new Chinese "destroyers." The Long Beach class were 15K tons, the Albany class were 13.7K tons, the Leahy's 7.8Kt, the Belknaps 7.9Kt, the Californias 10.6Kt, the Virginias 11.6Kt, and the Ticonderogas 9.8Kt. The US Navy and Congress could very well lay down more cruisers if they wanted to, but have been prioritizing (or $ wasting - looking at you LCS)) elsewhere.

[TheFlutecart]

I served on USS Normandy CG-60 back in the early 90's. We were pretty bad ass back then, but times are changing again.

[albertoswald]

For a reemphasis on surface warfare perhaps we should try a modernized version of the Strike cruiser concept of the 70's and 80's. Not to mention building a few arsenal ships for a huge upgrade in missile power!

[mattheww]

The problem is that the Ticos were a compromised design, built on a Spruance hull with an Aluminum superstructure. The new Flight III Burke destroyers have a bigger radar have almost as much missile capacity, the only thing they lack is the space for the carrier air defense commander.

The ticos haven’t aged well and when they go into to start upgrading them they find they’re in pretty poor material condition and honestly all could use a trip to the scrap yard. The cruiser 21 program was cancelled after the Zumwalt DDG debacle and they really should just buy a bigger Burke with more command space to take over for them.

[Kriss_L]

The Navy has primarily shifted the surface fleet to anti-air and protecting the carrier, and moved almost all offensive capability to the carrier. The primary reason a Burke can not do the "cruiser" mission is it lacks the physical space for the AW mission staff.

So, does the US Navy really need a new class of "cruiser" just to steam along behind the carriers? Or could a destroyer with added space for the AW mission meet the requirements just fine?

[huntclanhunt]

We need cruisers... The Burke is a great ship but it lacks firepower for shore bombardment. It also has less room for radar and comms systems.

[jeanettewest]

Meh, easy answer: Navy wants the very latest high-tech stuff that is so high-tech, most people don't know how to run it, and cannot repair it. I STRONGLY urge everyone to read Arthur C. Clark's "Superiority" about EXACTLY what is happening in the U.S. military today. We need to focus on existing platforms, refine them, and produce lots of them. "Quantity has a quality all its' own", rings true.

[theodor-agathos]

The Georgios Averof cruiser from Greece, has been decommissioned in 1952 and serves today as a museum.

[Spectre-wddl]

The role of a cruiser doesnt really exist anymore with the advent of guided missiles. All it is is just a bigger hull with more cells. IMO it makes more sense to build more smaller "destroyer" sized ships.

[johnschmitt]

Quite a few navies have "Destroyers or Frigates" that are larger than the Ticonderoga Class Cruisers.

[jimmiller]

Why? Because the Zumwalt class wasted $BB. And then the new CVN wasted $BB. And the LCS wasted