Today, U. S. destroyers in the traditional, warship sense no longer exist. Sailing the seas are corvettes, frigates, patrol boats, convoy escorts, pickets—but hardly destroyers as they’ve been known and feared in the past.
Up to World War II, the destroyer was considered to be a hard-hitting offensive naval unit. A destroyer was a versatile warship. She could readily hunt down a submarine, close a major combatant for torpedo attack, move inshore to smash gun emplacements, or sweep coastal areas of unfriendly small craft. She was the sort of ship the force commander could calculatedly risk in offensive actions because of the great payoffs she could produce, against the odds of what might be lost. But now this has all changed. As Winston Churchill noted in 1958, “by steadily increasing the size and cost of destroyers we transfer them from the role of the hunter to that of the hunted.”
Thus, the compact, versatile, offensive destroyer of the past might not be resurrectable for a truly useful role in the decade ahead. Or, perhaps it is necessary to have several new types of destroyers which in combination would provide the same types of offensive punch as a single destroyer of the first half of this century. Or, perhaps the true destroyer of the next decade has to be a submersible.
Logical as the above three possibilities might sound, there should still be, it would appear, a type of surface warship which could play much the same role of the destroyers of the past.
The need for such ships is based on an assumption that, for the foreseeable future, the U. S. Navy is confronted primarily with the problem of ocean control—of all the oceans of the world, not just the North Atlantic and North Pacific.
In the past, the primary naval force for exercising U. S. control of the seas has been the attack carrier task force. But only a few such task forces are presently available (and possibly even less are projected for the 1970s) which simultaneously can hold or exert control over only a few limited ocean areas. Thus, with control of the total ocean areas of the world threatened by the character of Soviet seapower (large numbers of submarines, missile-boats, missile-destroyers, and support ships for wide and diffuse geographic coverage of all of the oceans of the world), somewhat different U. S. naval units—a new type destroyer, for one—are indicated.
World War II saw the first major change in the general nature of the destroyer with the advent of the specialized ASW destroyer escort. The wisdom of this evolution was demonstrated by the superior ASW performance of DEs in war-time operations. We need cite but two: the England (DE-635), unassisted, destroyed five enemy submarines in seven days while the Bronstein (DE-189) was in on the kill of at least five more over a longer period of time. Such ASW capability was unmatched by any general-purpose U. S. destroyer through the same period.
In response to the air threats in the Pacific, the traditional general-purpose destroyer was saturated with topside electronic gear to the point where guns had to be removed. Thus, there began to appear a form of specialization which distinguished the anti-air picket destroyer from the amphibious gunfire support destroyer, which retained her gunpower at the expense of long-range air tracking, anti-air countermeasures, and point defense.
The new destroyer, which followed in the 1950s, reverted to the general-purpose destroyer of the past instead of reflecting the war-proven desirability of specialization in configuration. She was able to do this by growing in size sufficiently to take all the extra, more complex and larger gear which technology had provided to meet the increasingly sophisticated threats.
In the late 1950s, the guided missile destroyer appeared. This high-seas missile ship evolved as a defense against aircraft delivering bombs, torpedoes or short-range, stand-off weapons. And at this point, the advance of the U. S. destroyer into the missile age virtually stopped.
The Soviet destroyer, on the other hand, has developed more logically, in recognition of the significance of the missile in sea warfare. Their flush-deck, 3,650-ton Krupnys, for example, are surface-to-surface missiles configured to destroy Free World versions of the Osa and Komar-type missile boats, just as our first destroyer, the Bainbridge (DD-1), was built to answer the threat of the torpedo boats.
But, whether any country’s destroyer is a viable weapons system in this age of the nuclear submarine, the supersonic aircraft, and the missile is debatable. It seems to be actually a question of how well naval architects can achieve, or have achieved, weapon system compatibility in their total ship design, and this includes the integration of the helo with the DD.
The modern ASW destroyer escort, the DE, evolved through the 1950s and into the 1960s. First, the small Dealey (DE-1006) class appeared, followed by the large, highly specialized, low-frequency sonar ship, optimized for the convoy escort role. The single purpose nature of the DE was severely criticized by a large segment of the Navy. Her limited 27-knot speed, lack of gun-power, and her dedication to her sonar were almost incomprehensible to the old-line naval officer who thought of the destroyer as the “greyhound of the seas” which could do almost any job that needed doing.
Moreover, despite the indicated emphasis on sonar detection capability for this type of destroyer, there was little basic change in hull configuration directed toward optimizing of sonar effectiveness. The traditional hull “with a big sonar built into the bow was viewed with indifference by destroyermen, who generally felt that a destroyer was a poor sonar platform at best, no matter what you do to her.
The Germans in World War II, however, had demonstrated with the cruiser Prinz Eugen that a radical design of the underwater portion of the hull was necessary to achieve a long-range sonar detection capability at high speeds. Her phenomenal results while escorting the Bismarck in May 1941 were concrete evidence of this marked advance in naval architecture. Passive sonar contact was held on the battle cruiser Hood out to 32,000 yards, it was reported by members of the Prinz Eugen’s crew, despite the high escort speed maintained during the Denmark Strait battle. The Hood’s rapid destruction should have helped highlight the importance of hull-sonar compatibility. But even with the Prinz Eugen drydocked in the Philadelphia Navy Yard in 1946, with her strange underbody revealed to interested naval personnel, the lesson appears to have been missed.
Naval architects, it would appear, have continued to design destroyer hulls for optimum all-weather efficiency speed (for effective horsepower) maximizing speed and minimizing fuel consumption for the power applied. The towing tank has remained the primary design tool for measuring a destroyer’s potential performance. Other types of performance besides efficient speed have evidently not assumed a primary or critical position in determining destroyer usefulness.
Robert A. Frosch, the present Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Research and Development, and a profound observer of the evolution of naval weapons systems, has expressed his mystification of the continuing traditional destroyer hull design. “It really isn’t clear to me,” he said at the American Society of Naval Engineers annual banquet in May 1970, “why a hull that has a major task of operating aircraft, helicopters are aircraft, even though it is named a destroyer, should look like a ship designed in the 1900s—before the helicopter was invented.”
The next destroyer to appear in the U. S. Navy will he the Spruance (DD-963). What this destroyer represents is a slight advance into the missile age through her longer detection and kill range of the missile-firing submarine and her increased point defense capability to stay alive in the missile environment. But, in essence, the general-purpose nature of the destroyer has been retained, while the vessel has grown larger and far more costly. In the tactical use of such destroyers, however, a major change is represented. No longer can the destroyer be considered an expendable unit and one readily assigned to many of the missions which the “small boys” carried out in the past. Such destroyers now represent an investment too costly in ships and men. Only the protection of highly valuable ships, and particularly the aircraft carrier, it would seem, can justify their further existence. The introduction of nuclear power in the last decade, to what might be termed a destroyer-type ship, has served only to emphasize this point.
Looking toward the future, the present enthusiasms being shown for very high-speed “destroyer” concepts, using hydrofoils or surface effect principles, need tempering in light of the changed tactical requirements dictated by the speeds involved in the missile environment.
If the destroyer is to evolve logically in response to the missile and its launching platforms, certain relatively new technological developments, which promise a major impact on future destroyer design should be recognized. For example:
► Gas turbines for propulsion. More rapid ship response and less radiated noise put into the water are basic to destroyer tactics in the 1970s.
► Roll stabilization by mechanical fins, gyro, or passive anti-roll tanks. Better performance of men and equipment results, with little extra cost.
► Noise reduction techniques. The potential of the active and passive sonars of the destroyer and helo cannot be realized unless ship’s radiated noise and sonar self-noise are held to a low level. Sound mounting of inherently quiet machinery, gas turbine powering of ship’s service generators, sound damping of the hull to minimize sound transmission into the water, and minimizing of propeller cavitation noise through special design are all highly useful in bringing down the level of radiated noise. Reducing sonar self-noise can be the product of many of the proven submarine silencing techniques presently in use. Just designing a hull which reduces radical pitching in high sea states, and consequently the quenching of the sonar, is a necessary change from the traditional destroyer.
► Fiber glass or aluminum for fabrication of lighter hulls and superstructure. The payload carried is increased and higher speeds are produced for the same power plant. Minimizing topside electromagnetic interference may also drive destroyer design towards such materials.
► Manned lightweight helos.* Destroyer-based, the helo provides a total system capability far greater than the destroyer alone. It offers earlier warning of incoming missiles or aircraft; detection of enemy surface craft far over the destroyer’s limited horizon, and the necessary information for long-range destruction by surface-to-surface missiles; ASW weapon delivery far out beyond the limited ranges of the ship’s weapons; and an extension of the range of the destroyer’s sonar detection by use of its own sonobuoys. The destroyer must, however, be optimized to support the helo through compatible command and control equipment, platform dryness and stability, low ship’s radiated noise, and day-to-day material support.
* See also W. W. Price, “A New Partnership—Helicopter and Destroyer,” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, pp. 99-100, June 1971.
► High-speed computers and other forms of microsecond electronic response. Greatly reduced decision and reaction times to meet the missile and aircraft threats place a heavy requirement on new electronic solutions.
► Lightweight guns.* Weighing from one third to one quarter that of equal caliber standard naval guns, such guns can be mounted on small destroyers, already burdened with a significant missile armament.
► Towed array sonar. A promising new capability for passive listening is offered if the destroyer and her tactics are made compatible with this sonar system.
► Cryogenic motors and generators, with their super-conductive windings. Although developmental, they promise advantages in propulsion plant weight saving, flexibility, and noise reduction, and require watching.
► Missiles for surface ship and helo. Modest modification to existing missiles can make them compatible with the helo-destroyer system.
* See also W. D. O’Neil, “Gun Systems? For Air Defense?” U. S. Naval Institute Proceedings, pp. 44-55, March 1971.
These technological items are neither comprehensive nor discussed in depth, but serve to suggest the off-the-shelf items which, in combination, might provide a new character for a destroyer of the 1970s.
The probable political-military environment for a new destroyer will, as noted previously, basically require it to be effective in ocean control. But, optimizing a destroyer for this particular role is no longer practical in light of the cost involved. There is, thus, an economic environment—the environment of cost constraints—which must also be considered, along with the political and military implications of this decade.
What is foreseen are situations where the sea becomes a more likely conflict area, both because of the economic frictions created by growing trade on and under the seas, and because land conflict solutions appear to be increasingly difficult to control. At the same time, strategic nuclear threats seem to hold less and less credibility. If, then, the total ocean area has become a potential area of international contention, (with or without supplementary land action), ships become the pawns of conflicting interests, and their guarantee of safe passage—a product of ocean control—becomes, as it has in the past, a major role of the Navy.
Since most of the recent Navy planning and direction of warship configuration in the 1960s was oriented toward the Navy mission of projecting power from the seas into land areas, a re-evaluation of what is needed in new construction to meet ocean control demands is indicated. Many factors are at play—the decreasing budgets for new weapons systems, the changing geographical patterns of friends and enemies, the increasingly limited world-wide naval base structure, the rapidly growing number of very large merchant ships sailing the oceans, the large numbers of naval units which are required to exercise meaningful control, and the fixed factors of the vastness of the oceans and the impenetrability of the ocean medium.
Consistent with these factors, it would appear that there is a type of ship—a destroyer—which can greatly enhance the Navy’s capability for control. This destroyer would necessarily reflect severe cost constraints. She would be a hunter rather than a hunted thing, be producible in large numbers, be readily usable by tactical commands (even to the point of being expendable), provide a strong inhibiting effect on the enemy, (even when her less-than-optimum capability might fail to destroy), and she would have the flexibility to supply offensive power to a multitude of missions and tasks.
Because cost constraints are the reality of military planning today, we must first arrive at a realistic cost ceiling for the destroyer. To a great extent, her cost dictates the weapons system capability which can be achieved with existing technology. It also forces a consideration of alternatives as to the mix of weapons, within the cost ceiling, and a recognition of the cost of weapons involved so as to make them consistent with the overall system investment. Thus, to use frightfully expensive weapons in an attempt to compensate for a cost-constrained, reduced ship capability would make little sense.
Producing a destroyer for about $25 million seems reasonable. At $25 million per copy, considerable numbers could be produced and the destroyer could probably be justified for unsupported operations involving extreme hazard. It would, recognizably, complement the frigates, corvettes, and escort types—forms of destroyers which have lost their destroyer identity.
Is $25 million too much or too little for a destroyer and her helos? Acquisition cost for the total system must be considered since it is only too easy to transfer cost from ship to helo, to make up for the constrained ship capability imposed by a dollar limit.
Why, also, does $25 million appear to provide enough investment to build a viable destroyer, while frigates and other destroyer offshoots are running far higher in cost? Firstly, the air capability envisioned provides a new complementing capability not fully used in these or other types. Also, the figure of $25 million is probably in the ball park if cost is grossly estimated from the past cost-history of destroyer types versus their payload and endurance.
A new destroyer for broad ocean control should have considerable endurance (in the nature of 5,000 miles at 15 knots), up to 300 tons of payload in addition to fuel, an austere crew, and a resulting full load displacement of about 2,000 tons. This figure alone would make questionable a destroyer of lesser cost. Speed? About 34 knots. Additional knots cost too much.
Putting together the important military characteristics of a destroyer, that could play an important role in ocean control either through escort protection of shipping or through offensive operations to reduce the threats against merchant trade, is the complex job of systems analysis. Such analysis, however, is so difficult, that the suggested combination of capabilities (within a $25 million envelope) which are offered here, must only be regarded as a bit of educated guesswork. But the outlining of possible appropriate systems and the tradeoffs represented can indicate the viability of a relatively low-cost approach to a destroyer for the 1970s.
A feasible off-the-shelf combination of weapons systems, within the $25 million cost-constraint might logically be:
► A single 4-inch to 5-inch lightweight gun.
► Two small manned helos of the 5,000-pound weight variety.
► A single-launcher, medium-range missile system, with a medium-range anti-air and anti-surface capability—and about 25 rounds on board. (The manned helo to supply over-the-horizon detection and fire control information for the surface-to-surface missile).
► A close-in, point defense anti-missile system of two, small-caliber, barrage-type gun systems.
► A towed, passive sonar array system and a hull-mounted active sonar of medium frequency with two receiving heads for shallow water operations. (The helo extends the range capability of the total ship’s sonar system by localizing devices and by using active and passive sonar buoys with data link to the destroyer for processing information.)
► A battery of deck-launched ASW torpedoes in addition to helo delivery of an ASW weapon on ship-supplied information.
► A battery of missile and aircraft countermeasures.
► A lightweight, compact, combined air-and-surface, search radar system, as in small gunfire control systems. (The helo supplies the extended range detection capability.)
What this combination of weapons systems offers, tactically, needs examination to satisfy the requirements for destroyer applicability and viability in the environment of the 1970s.
In an escort-of-shipping mission, this missile-equipped destroyer should provide a level of protection far better than is immediately evident from individual system capabilities. An anti-air missile range of 15-20 miles is a practical reality for this destroyer. With it, the destroyer can force attacking aircraft into stand-off modes where sophisticated weapons of lighter and more costly payloads have to be used, rather than allowing the close-in delivery of very cheap, high-explosive bombs or rockets.
Again, it is a matter of economics. The problem of sinking ships is quite different than in World War II. In the 1970s, very large, heavy-structured merchant ships will dominate the merchant fleets of the world and will require far more weight of conventional explosives and many more hits to sink them, than was true of the ships of past wars. The escorting destroyer, then, need not destroy enemy aircraft so much as to inhibit them from delivering lethal loads of explosives in a reasonably economic fashion.
Where aircraft pay a heavy premium in range and performance by carrying large-warhead, stand-off missiles, a surface vessel can carry a considerably greater load of such missiles with even heavier warheads. Even the small missile boats with their big weapons, (the Osa or Komar type) present a significant threat to merchant shipping if near coastal areas where such boats can effectively operate. But the destroyer, with her helo, can detect such boats beyond their electronic horizon and deliver surface-to-surface missiles on target. Again, it is a matter of economics. Although the destroyer’s missiles would be primarily anti-air missiles with relatively light warheads, the destructive effect on the enemy missile boat is likely to at least eliminate its usefulness. Such would be the case against enemy destroyers; there would be little chance of lethality but enough damage to significantly reduce their long-range, stand-off effectiveness.
Against the new types of high performance submarines, the destroyer would not show up as a highly effective ASW ship so much as an inhibitor of submarine action. Operating primarily in a quiet mode (with design optimized for reduced radiated noise in most modes of operation) the destroyer would depend mainly upon long-range, passive sonar detections of enemy submarines, complemented by her helo’s active and passive sonar buoy patterns. In the very quiet, passive mode, the destroyer would tend to keep her presence unknown to the lurking submarine, which, in turn, tempts the submarine to use speed (with increased noise) to gain information and to be offensive. This, in turn, increases the destroyer’s chances for detection. If the submarine chooses to stay very quiet, she is, in effect, inhibited. Similarly, aggressive actions by the submarine at great distance from the escorted ships become susceptible to convergence-zone detection and, with the helo assisting, the ASW capability of the helo-destroyer system can be projected a great distance for localization and weapon attack. A missile-firing submarine operating independently of other forces is likely to use the convergence zone area for gaining fire control information and attack. Again, the destroyer can help to meet this threat. When the enemy submarine attacks merchant shipping, the overtness of her actions provide the helo (armed with ASW torpedoes) a ready, counterattacking capability.
There has been much debate as to the wisdom of destroyers using active sonar in the ASW role, because of the range advantage gained by the submarine in detection. With the advent of very-long range, guided torpedoes, a lone destroyer, in an active mode, appears to be at a disadvantage. But, in the quiet mode, with helo assist, the inhibiting nature of this “force” should be great. And if the destroyer is fired at, the helo in the air might easily provide a counterattack which would be fatal.
Could, then, a nuclear submarine of great investment risk shooting at a $25-million ship?
In the offensive role of ocean control, this single-ship task force would not be constrained from operations close to land or in shallow waters because of her high altitude visibility of threats and her compatibility with a continental shelf environment. Her missiles give her a long-range punch against small coastal craft. She can reach into harbors from a stand-off position. In fact, she provides a good blockade capability against countries being supplied by sea. For the low-key wars of rebellion around the world, the destroyer is the sort of system which can be risked in the blockade role, where other types of naval force can appear too exaggerated and tempt retaliatory action by other major powers.
What has been sketched out here is a destroyer of about the size of a World War II DE, but with the offensive power of missiles, large-caliber guns, homing torpedoes, and lightweight aircraft to assist. The gas turbine propulsion should give better arrangements and require less personnel. Hull design should not be constrained by effective horsepower considerations, but, rather, be optimized for aircraft operations, for low noise, and for electronic compatibility. Lightweight superstructures, smaller and lighter radars, reduced manning, more useful volumes through hull design, better seakeeping, a single engine room—these are some of the indicated directions in hull design which can make such a concept practical, both as relates to efficiency and as to cost.
Is it possible to get such a destroyer designed and built? It seems impossible to visualize large committees of naval officers, with their wide diversity of intense specialized interests, arriving at the compromise characteristics of a highly cost-constrained destroyer. It would seem, however, that two or three warriors—and I use this term in its traditional sense—could dictate a balanced set of capabilities for the ceiling price determined and make good sense even under the test of systems analysis. There are a few such “destroyermen” with an innate and creative sense of destroyer tactics who could readily visualize the wartime tradeoffs involved in any combination of capabilities for a destroyer and who could determine the best mix. (Also needful of recognition is the need for at least one of the warriors to be an “airman” to ensure the total system capabilities.)
Systems analysis, this writer submits, would be hard put to derive a better destroyer.
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Captain Ruhe, a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy, Class of 1939, saw destroyer duty in the USS Roe (DD-418), prior to World War II. From destroyers, he moved into submarines in 1941 and served in them throughout World War II and until 1952. From then on, he had mixed sea duties; first, several destroyer commands, then a submarine division, and a cruiser command, the Topeka (CLG-8), in 1964. He retired from the Navy in 1967 after a final two years as Deputy Director of Program Planning in the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations. After a year on the staff of the President’s Commission for Marine Science, Engineering, and Resources, Captain Ruhe joined the General Dynamics Corporate staff in the position of Corporate Director of Marine Program Development. During this present assignment, he was active in General Dynamics’ DD-963 contract definition effort, which subsequently generated many of the thoughts contained in this article.