"""
"""
The CG(X) program, also known as the Next Generation Cruiser program, was a United States Navy research program to develop a replacement vessel for its 22 Ticonderoga-class cruisers after 2017. Original plans were for 18–19 ships, based on the 14,500 ton Zumwalt-class destroyer with additional ballistic missile defense and area air defense for a carrier group. The program was ended in 2010; with its mission and results intended to be forwarded to and taken by a successor to the Flight III Arleigh Burke–class destroyers instead.

[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arleigh_Burke-class_destroyer#Production_restarted_and_further_development]

The CG(X) would have used the IPS electric propulsion system of Zumwalt, as of the FY09 budget estimates in February 2008. Zumwalt's gas turbines are capable of generating 78 megawatts (105,000 hp), and that was thought barely sufficient for the radar and future weapon systems on the CG(X) - the working assumption is that the entire ship's electric load, including a Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) radar will consume 31 MW. In July 2008, Young said that "for the most capable radar suites under consideration, the [Zumwalt] hull cannot support the radar".

Meanwhile members of the House Projection Forces Subcommittee had been pressing the Navy to use nuclear power for major combatants, partly as a response to concerns about the price and availability of oil. They prompted studies in 2005 and 2006, the second of which stated that nuclear power broke even at an oil price of $70–$225/barrel for escort ships of 21-26,000 tonnes with heavy radar use. This led to a requirement in the FY2008 Defense Authorization Act that all major combatant vessels be nuclear powered unless it was not in the national interest.

The Navy studied nuclear power as a design option for the CG(X), but has never announced whether it would prefer to build the CG(X) as a nuclear-powered ship - it would have added $600–800M to the initial cost of the ship, but save on running costs. Under normal budgeting practices, long lead-time items for nuclear propulsion would have needed to be procured in FY2009 if the main ship were to be procured in FY2011. If the two-class solution had been pursued, it seems probable that the escort cruiser would have used gas turbines like Zumwalt, and the larger ballistic missile defense ship would have been nuclear powered, and hence known as the CGN(X).

The AOA apparently looked at two options, using two of the Seawolf-class submarines' 34 MW S6W reactors, and halving one of the two 550 MW(th) A4W reactors used in Nimitz-class aircraft carriers. The first option would not even match Zumwalt for power, while the second option probably would not fit into the Zumwalt hull. On the other hand, it would give plenty of headroom for future weapon systems such as directed-energy weapons and railguns, hence the proposal for the BMD ship of a larger hull with nuclear propulsion.
[...]
The CG(X) radar system would likely have been a development of the AN/SPY-3 dual-band active electronically scanned array radar of the Zumwalt class. It might also have been influenced by the replacement for the AN/SPQ-11 Cobra Judy missile-tracking radar on USNS Observation Island. As mentioned above, a future Theater Ballistic Missile Defense (TBMD) radar is being modelled as consuming 31 MW of electrical power, compared to 5 MW for the AEGIS system on an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
[...]
A CG(X) based on the Zumwalt hull would lose one or both of its guns, and replace them with more VLS launchers for anti-aircraft missiles. However, Zumwalt's lack of capability in air defense and BMD was cited as a major reason for the near-cancellation of the class in July 2008. Recent intelligence that China is developing targetable anti-ship ballistic missiles based on the DF-21 appears to be shaping the Navy's thinking on the CG(X)'s capabilities, when previously Zumwalt's air defense was believed to be good enough to justify delaying the introduction of the CG(X).

The Kinetic Energy Interceptor (KEI) program is developing new weapons against ballistic missiles, but the KEI missiles take up six times more space than SM-3s and a Zumwalt-sized hull could not carry a meaningful number.[9] The KEI may be dropped from the CG(X) program.
"""
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CG(X)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CG(X)

Labels: Oleg Zabluda

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