There is no doubt about it, the AGS/LRLAP combo is a flexible and deadly force to be reckoned with. The gun’s cooled barrel is capable of firing a shell every ten seconds, allowing for a large amount of projectiles to impact a specific target area. It can fly up to around 75 miles from the ship and strike with pinpoint precision, even attacking at near vertical angles in dense urban and mountainous terrain. The LRLAP round itself is a rocket-assisted and GPS/INS guided shell that weighs 230 pounds. The Advanced Gun Systems and its automated magazines, each storing roughly 300 rounds, take up the vast majority of the ship forward of its deckhouse. The LRLAP and 155mm AGS combo are massive features of the Zumwalt class design, both figuratively and literally speaking. This is not hearsay: the Navy has admitted to it and there is no funding in future defense budgets for buying LRLAP shells. More evidence pointing to this exact scenario has came to light as it was discovered that the Navy has dropped all funding for the Zumwalt class’s Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) round specifically designed for the ship’s 155mm Advanced Gun Systems. In fact, there is a real chance that these ships will become test platforms as much as anything else, or mothballed altogether after a drastically curtailed service life.
![mac soared higher than my hopes for the future *ago mac soared higher than my hopes for the future *ago](https://www.supplychainbrain.com/ext/resources/0-images/corona/Coronavirus-watch-Armada.jpg)
Now, with only three ships being built in the class, and not even to the same standard for that matter, whether this tiny fleet will really be operationally effective or even fiscally sustainable is highly questionable.
#MAC SOARED HIGHER THAN MY HOPES FOR THE FUTURE *AGO FULL#
Make sure to read my previous feature " The Navy’s New Stealth Destroyer Has Watered Down Capabilities, Questionable Future" that exposes all of DDG-1000's faults and how they came to be, in order to gain full content for this article.Īlthough the media, including countless defense oriented sites, may fawn over USS Zumwalt due to its Star Wars looks, the truth is that the design has been grotesquely compromised over the years. Time to face it, the DDG-1000 concept is shattered. Now, the ship’s guns literally have no ammunition to fire. Yes, you are reading that right: Not only is the ship lacking its original radar suite, has only one intermediate range air defense missile, is not capable of ballistic missile defense-or even area air defense for that matter-has no close-in weapon system, and has had its stealth design continuously compromised. Now the Navy has axed the ammunition specially developed for Zumwalt class’s twin 155mm Advanced Gun Systems. The War Zone went into great detail describing how DDG-1000 went from the most promising surface combatant program in decades to a dim shadow of its original self.