As one of the current main combat equipment of the Chinese Navy, the 055 large missile destroyer equipped by the Chinese Navy has brought considerable combat pressure to the US Navy in recent years. For the US Navy, only three of the strongest DDG1000 "Zumwalter" class missile destroyers were built, and they have been malfunctioning continuously, unable to reach the originally pre-established combat power level. Although the "Ali Burke" Class III missile destroyer has combat effectiveness, it is not the opponent of the Chinese Navy's 055 Big Drive.
. According to the report of the US Military Observation website, in order to respond to the pressure brought by the Chinese Navy's 055 large missile destroyer, the US Navy has decided to launch its own DDG(X). This is the next generation of large surface combat ships of the U.S. Navy, and its status in the U.S. Navy is the same as that of the 055 large missile destroyer in the Chinese Navy. However, US media believe that DDG(X) has imitated too much China's 055 driver, which is very similar to a "counterfeit 055". Most importantly, as a "copy 055", DDG(X) has a price far exceeding China 055.
According to the U.S. Navy, the maximum unit price of DDG(X) will reach about US$3.4 billion, while the unit price of the Chinese Navy 055 Drive is expected to be only about US$1 billion. In other words, the unit price of DDG(X) is 3.4 times that of China's 055 Drive, reaching 340%. Moreover, the time required for the DDG(X) project is not short. The US Navy estimates that it will have to wait for another 15 years before it can welcome its first DDG(X).
From the 1990s to the present, due to the rapid decline in the domestic shipbuilding industry and overall industrial foundation of the United States, the cost of new warships of the US military has begun to rise significantly. The three projects of the Zumwalt-class missile destroyer, the Freedom-class Littoral Combat Ship and the Independent-class Littoral Combat Ship are controversial and are generally considered to be failed projects, wasting a large amount of taxes from American taxpayers.
The CG(X) project that the US Navy originally wanted most, although it had very good stealth design and combat effectiveness, after the large-scale missile destroyer of the "Zumwalter" class failed due to the use of a large number of radical technologies, the US Navy had to give up the CG(X) project and instead researched the more technically conservative DDG(X). According to the original plan, the U.S. Navy hopes to equip 30 DDG(X) in the 1930s to meet its overall combat needs.
Although from the current technical perspective, the overall design of DDG(X) is more conservative. However, the US Navy attaches more importance to DDG(X)'s subsequent upgrade capabilities. The carrier-based hypersonic missiles and carrier-based directional energy weapons that are planned to be tested on the Zumwalter-class large missile destroyer will be integrated into the DDG(X) next. At the same time, DDG(X) also retains sufficient tonnage and weapon interfaces to be compatible with more advanced ship-based weapons and combat systems in the future.
However, the US media is worried that China's cost-effective advantage in modern weapons and equipment will make the efforts of the US Navy a silence. The unit price of DDG(X) is US$3.4 billion, while the unit price of China's 055 Big Drive is only US$1 billion. This means that at the same level of spending, the United States' money to build a DDG(X) is enough for China to build a 3.4 055 large-scale drive. If China invests more resources on the 055 Drive, then this cost-effective advantage will also have a significant scale effect, bringing greater combat pressure to the US Navy.
This is not the first time that American media has mentioned this issue. The current warships of the US Navy are not only becoming more and more expensive, but also the delivery cycle of the entire ship is getting longer and longer. The reason is that the US shipbuilding industry is generally in a state of decline. After all, civilian ship orders are basically concentrated in East Asia. In order to ensure that skilled shipbuilders can be retained and their own shipbuilding capabilities, even if the US shipyard has obtained the shipbuilding order from the US Navy, it will not dare to do its best to activate production capacity and build ships for the US Navy as quickly as possible. This has led to the continuous increase in the cost of single ships of the US Navy, and it has to cut orders, forming a vicious cycle.
After all, the United States has no strength to engage in arms races and achieve absolute military hegemony.
The author believes that in the comparison between DDG(X) and China's 055 large missile destroyer, the US media also missed a very important point, that is, the iteration and upgrading speed of China's 055 large missile destroyer. Judging from the current situation, the South China Sea Fleet will be able to receive and serve all its four large 055 missile destroyers by the latest in the first half of next year. China's first batch of orders for 8 large 055 destroyers will be completed by then.
According to the predictions of the US media, the US Navy will not be able to receive the first batch of DDG(X) words in 15 years. In these 15 years, will China remain hesitant at the current technical level of 055 Drive? Of course not. It is probably less than 15 years. In the next five years, the 055A large missile destroyer upgraded based on the 055 Drive has appeared and joined the Chinese Navy's combat sequence. When the US Navy begins to receive the first DDG(X), what they need to face is probably 055C or 055D.
Even if it is only compared with the current large missile destroyer of 055, I personally do not think that the US Navy's DDG(X) will have an advantage. The reason is actually not complicated, because China's 055 Drive is essentially a device that can accept continuous iteration and upgrade. During the period when the US military designed and built the DDG(X), China was able to provide more and more advanced weapons and equipment to the 055 large drive.
Considering that China has already used the foreign trade version of the ship-based hypersonic missiles at this Zhuhai Air Show, the US military's DDG(X) is also equipped with hypersonic missiles, and the 055 Drive may have begun to use directional energy weapons to intercept hypersonic missiles.
However, even with so many problems, DDG(X) is the only and must-choose solution for the current US Navy. Without DDG(X), the US Navy would have directly cut off the development context of its large surface combat ships, which is a result that the US Navy would never accept.
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