September 16, 200817 yr From Navy Times Analyst: DDGs without CIWS vulnerable By Philip Ewing - Staff writer Posted : Tuesday Sep 16, 2008 5:55:34 EDT For all the modifications and improvements that have come with each new Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the 20 most recent ships have arrived from the shipyard missing something — the distinctive white domes of the Phalanx Close In Weapons System. The first 34 Burkes carry two of the 20mm, six-barrel Gatling guns, known as CIWS, which can find and shoot down air targets that slip through the outer defenses of a ship or task group. But since 2002, destroyers have come from the builders without the guns, as plans called for a new missile, the Evolved Sea Sparrow, to take their place. But technical problems delayed the missile’s fleet introduction, so commanders decided in 2002 to outfit new ships with the standard CIWS until the ESSM came online. Eventually, every DDG 51-class destroyer will carry both. In the interim, some of the Navy’s newest ships have cruised without CIWS in hot spots throughout the world, including the 5th Fleet area of operations and the Western Pacific. Navy officials say the destroyers were capable of carrying ESSMs in their vertical launch tubes, giving them the ability to shoot down incoming missiles. But whether the ships actually had the weapons aboard — and whether they could hit nearby targets on the surface, as CIWS can — is unclear. The Navy’s not talking, and while a few photographs of CIWS-less ships can be found on http://www.navy.mil, it’s impossible to tell whether they’re carrying ESSMs in their vertical launch tubes instead. And there’s another wrinkle: Since the newer ships have come into the fleet, the Army has begun appropriating CIWS guns from decommissioned Navy ships, for use defending land targets. Ground-pounders like CIWS so much, in fact, that their program has taken priority over the Navy’s, said Capt. Tim Batzler, the CIWS program manager for Naval Sea Systems Command. That means the schedule for CIWS modifications is set up to get them as quickly as possible to land bases in Iraq and Afghanistan. But he insisted that destroyers were protected and that the Army’s use of CIWS hadn’t thrown off the Navy’s schedule for retrofitting CIWS aboard its later ships. Plans call for each Flight IIA destroyer to have one CIWS gun mounted amidships by fiscal 2013, and some have already gotten theirs. That flight began with the Norfolk, Va.-based Oscar Austin, DDG 79. Navy officials declined to go into details about why the Flight IIA destroyers are getting only one CIWS when the earlier ships had two. They also would not discuss whether a destroyer sacrificed the ability to defeat certain threats with one CIWS, as opposed to two, nor would they discuss what capability a ship lacked without a CIWS. “We don’t want to give any information to the bad guys,” NavSea spokesman Alan Baribeau said. One longtime Navy analyst said there was no question that destroyers without CIWS, or with just one aft, weren’t as prepared to deal with threats close aboard. “Sending inadequately equipped new ships into potentially hostile areas on the surface doesn’t seem to make good sense,” said A.D. Baker III, a retired Office of Naval Intelligence analyst and editor of “Combat Fleets of the World.” “We should not be sending any ships into range of potentially hostile missile attacks without 360-degree CIWS coverage.” ESSM can’t eliminate a threat within a few hundred yards of a ship, Baker said, because it has to launch vertically from the ship’s missile tubes and orient itself in flight to hit a distant target. As for the other threat that worries leaders — small-boat surface attacks — it wasn’t clear whether ships without a CIWS could use the current-model ESSM to strike fast-moving targets near the ship. The missile, an upgrade from the previous Sea Sparrow model, was designed as a surface-to-air weapon. The Navy first test-fired an ESSM at a surface target last year and had plans to continue the surface-mode tests through next year. Destroyers have other ways of hitting close-in targets. They carry .50-caliber machine guns and 25mm chain guns, manned by crew members, for use against small surface targets. But commanders prize the latest-model CIWS, the Block 1B, for its ability to deliver devastating, precise fire on the surface. A gunner inside the skin of the ship can control the Block 1B CIWS with a joystick and track targets with its infrared sensors. The gun also can operate remotely to hit air targets, as earlier models did. The new destroyers being equipped with CIWS are getting the Block 1B model, and older ships, starting with the class-leading Arleigh Burke, will be upgraded to the Block 1B CIWS as part of the Navy’s destroyer modernization program. Despite repeated requests for information about the status of the ESSM program, a spokeswoman for Raytheon, which manufactures the missile, did not respond to questions from Navy Times. Navy officials said that “the defense requirements are met” each time a destroyer deploys. There are 22 modified CIWS guns protecting bases in the U.S. Central Command area of operations, Baribeau said, with 23 more on order. John Eagles, another Raytheon spokesman, said that altogether, the guns have defeated 105 attacks, mostly from mortar rounds, saving “untold lives,” he said.
September 16, 200817 yr Doesn't the original CIWS system works against air targets by crossing the line of fire from both guns ? e.g just like AA flak guns. If that is the case, I completely understand professionals being worried... Or each works on its half of the ship's circumference ?
September 16, 200817 yr Each works independently in its own arc. Multiple CIWS firing at the same target would probably hose up the system as each firing mount tracks the outgoing bullets and uses the old feedback loop to adjust the fire towards the incoming threat. I wonder if two firing at the same target would try to shoot each other
October 22, 200817 yr Why doesn't the Army already have the Vulcan Cannon (which is the core of the CIWS system)? Last I checked, they were trying to come up with something like the Soviet ZSU-23-4 using the 20mm gatling gun. Or were those plans shelved yet again for the thousandth time? That is, until now.
October 22, 200817 yr Why doesn't the Army already have the Vulcan Cannon (which is the core of the CIWS system)? Last I checked, they were trying to come up with something like the Soviet ZSU-23-4 using the 20mm gatling gun. Or were those plans shelved yet again for the thousandth time? That is, until now. Trolling around today...now I am having trouble finding it, was a story and photos of the navy's Mk15 CIWS mounted on the trailer of an Army HEMITT. I'll post a link once I can re-locate it.
October 22, 200817 yr Why doesn't the Army already have the Vulcan Cannon (which is the core of the CIWS system)? Last I checked, they were trying to come up with something like the Soviet ZSU-23-4 using the 20mm gatling gun. Or were those plans shelved yet again for the thousandth time? That is, until now. Trolling around today...now I am having trouble finding it, was a story and photos of the navy's Mk15 CIWS mounted on the trailer of an Army HEMITT. I'll post a link once I can re-locate it. Here you go... HEMITT Mk15 combo Are the all DDG's vulnerable because the army bought them all up to slap onto the back of a logistical truck?
October 22, 200817 yr Author There are apparently around a half dozen of these C-RAM systems deployed in Iraq.
October 29, 200817 yr Why doesn't the Army already have the Vulcan Cannon (which is the core of the CIWS system)? Last I checked, they were trying to come up with something like the Soviet ZSU-23-4 using the 20mm gatling gun. Or were those plans shelved yet again for the thousandth time? That is, until now. The old army vulcan gun system http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/land/m163.htm has been mostly replaced by the stinger manpad system http://www.inetres.com/gp/military/cv/ada/Avenger.html what the army has seemd to realise is what the navy has realized that while small missile systems (ESSM,Stinger, etc.) make a great punch vs aircraft and you can get a few off vs missiles but a gun putting up 6000 rpm is great for a last resort. The R-2 unit on the CIWS is probably the best in the world at its job.
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