Commentary
Without the Arleigh Burke destroyers designed way back in the 1980s, the U.S. Navy would have sunk long ago. That’s why it’s good news that the Navy is moving ahead with modernizing the DDG 51 Arleigh Burke fleet.
As a key step in the massive modernization program, the Navy has chosen the four Flight IIA Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyers—the USS James E. Williams (DDG 95), USS Chung Hoon (DDG 93), the USS Halsey (DDG 97), and the USS Pinckney (DDG 91)—to be upgraded to a new Aegis combat baseline. The new baseline will include the SPY-6 air and missile defense radar and the latest electronic warfare system, SEWIP Block III. These upgrades will be tested and vetted on these four ships before being rolled out to the rest of the Burkes scheduled to receive these upgrades.
These upgrades are part of the $17 billion modernization program that will not only be upgrading selected Burkes to the new Aegis baseline, but also fund service life extension programs on older Burkes.
While the Arleigh Burke destroyer was designed in the 1980s, with the first keel being laid on Dec. 6, 1988, they’re still immensely capable ships.
The first ship of the class, the Arleigh Burke was launched in 1989 and recently has been approved for a five-year service life extension that will see it remain in service until at least 2031. Due to their sturdy, all-steel construction and gas turbine engines that can easily be swapped out for new engines, Burkes, even the older Flight I Burkes, are great candidates for life extensions and modernization.
And with the Navy’s disappointing, overbudget, and overdue Zumwalt destroyer (DDG 1000), littoral combat ship, and Ford-class carrier programs, the Navy is in a bind and doesn’t have enough shipyard construction facilities to reverse its decline in size via new ship construction. Consequently, it’s a smart, even necessary, move to modernize and extend the service life of the sturdy, durable, and upgradable Burke warships.
Once again, we must give thanks to excellent Cold War designs such as the Nimitz carrier and the Arleigh Burke destroyers that have kept our Navy afloat, even as the Navy’s programs of the 1990s, 2000s, and 2010s have failed to produce capable, cost-effective ships to replace them. This failure to produce a good, cost-effective ship, in combination with prematurely retiring and scrapping highly capable billion-dollar hulls such as Spruance-class destroyers, has led to a major decline in U.S. Naval power from its Cold War days and President Ronald Reagan’s 594-ship Navy. Indeed, without the Burkes, our Navy would no longer be hanging on to being the world’s most powerful Navy.
At 9,000 to 10,000 tons, the cruiser-sized Burkes are large surface combatants that are four to six times as large as World War II destroyers. As is the case with most post-World War II ships, the Burkes have relatively thin hulls of 0.5 inches or less. Still, their all-steel hull and superstructure, combined with extensive compartmentalization, make them very sturdy. And DDG 51s are hardened against chemical, biological, radiological, and nuclear threats. With a range of about half that of World War II warships their size, their disproportionately wide beam isn’t optimal for fuel efficiency or speed, but it does give them excellent seakeeping characteristics.
While the Arleigh Burkes are multirole combatants, being able to attack land and sea targets and perform anti-submarine warfare, their primary purpose is to serve as fleet air defense ships. Along with their powerful anti-air capabilities, starting in 2010, all Flight I and Flight II ships were retrofitted with the Aegis ballistic missile defense (BMD). Flight IIA ships from DDG 113 onward incorporated Aegis BMD capabilities into their construction, with the remaining older ships to be fitted with Aegis BMD in the future.
Currently, the U.S. Navy sports 73 commissioned Burkes, with plans to commission or build another 21. Amazingly, every DDG 51 commissioned is still in service, and with the planned upgrades for the oldest ships, the Fight Is, those that were built in the late 1980s and early 1990s will be serving well into the 2030s.
It could be argued that the Navy doesn’t really need more large multirole combatants, such as the Burkes or the 7,300-ton Constellation-class “frigates,” but instead should be investing in smaller surface combatants, such as Israel’s hard-hitting $600 million, 2,000-ton Sa’ar 6 Corvette. Still, the Burke, unlike the Zumwalts and the littoral combat ships, is a well-designed warship with great blue-water capabilities. And unlike the marginally smaller Constellations that have only one main engine, the Burke’s much more robust design has four engines, as well as a much larger crew, making it far more resilient.
Hence, given the precarious state of our Navy, the $17 billion Arleigh Burke fleet modernization makes a whole bunch of sense.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
