SD.Net World Redux Comment Thread II

[Shroom Man 777]

Is the Tu-160's bomb load less than the B-1? I thought the Tu-160 was SUPER HUEG and would have superior carrying capacity.

The B-1B is a tried and tested design, whereas the actual performance of the Tu-160 in combat hasn't really been evaluated. Um, and no one really knows how much a Tu-160 costs in real-life.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Is the Tu-160's bomb load less than the B-1? I thought the Tu-160 was SUPER HUEG and would have superior carrying capacity.

The B-1B is a tried and tested design, whereas the actual performance of the Tu-160 in combat hasn't really been evaluated. Um, and no one really knows how much a Tu-160 costs in real-life.

Stas probably could provide the figures.

The Tu-160 doesn't have external pylons, though I have been working on that possibility. The issue of course is whether the high speed will get compromised.

It's larger yes, but its bombload is internal only. It does have better range, however, and speed MACH 2.

[Shroom Man 777]

The B-1B can't go to Mach 2 because its air intakes are no longer variable. However, this has the advantage of lowering its radar cross section.

[DarthShady]

What are the limits of photobucket accounts?

1 GB album size, and 25 GB bandwidth per month. Pro accounts probably get more, but they cost something.

I'm going to end up burning mine out, but it's worth it.

[Siege]

Shroom, could you give me a price tag on a squadron of 20-odd F-15 ACTIVEs with F119-PW-100 engines fitted? I could do with a dedicated interceptor squadron in case the shit hits the fan...

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Shroom, could you give me a price tag on a squadron of 20-odd F-15 ACTIVEs with F119-PW-100 engines fitted? I could do with a dedicated interceptor squadron in case the shit hits the fan...

I'm not sure, but someone should try to correct me, but an increase in a significant percentage of thrust might not be too good an idea, especially when the F-119-PW-100 delivers 160kN of thrust, versus F110-GE-129 which delivers 131 kN thrust.

[phongn]

Yeah, there's a lot more to upgrading an airplane than just cramming in a new engine. Airflow still has to be managed carefully, for one, and there's the question of it the thing will fit.

Also, the B-1A design (and descendants) are in production by various powers.

[Siege]

Hmm, well, if we'd have to redesign the entire plane it's better to just scratch that idea. I'll have to stick with the homegrown F-111XL for the interceptor role then.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

Question in general: I have been thinking about this for a while, but what's to stop the TU-160 from incorporating external pylons? Stress on the pylons? Or something to do with the Radar Cross Section?

[K. A. Pital]

RCS will suffer. Just like the B-2.

[Fingolfin_Noldor]

But it won't matter if I decide to use it as a standoff missile carrier, right?

I guess adding more load on the wings will shave off like 1/4 of the range.

[Master_Baerne]

Baerne, I can sell you B-1 bombers.


And/or F-16XLs for more tactical multi-role duties.

Wonderful. I'd like ten B-1s and twenty F-16XLs, please. About when would I receive them?

[Beowulf]

Siegetank:

Bullshit. You're building Burkes, and those cost $2 billion each.

[Siege]

Siegetank:

Bullshit. You're building Burkes, and those cost $2 billion each.

I'm sorry - what? The sources I used to eyeball that cost pointed out that the cost would be somewhere between $500 - $800 million per ship.

Keep in mind that we won't be buying one or two ships, we plan to build lots. According to the linked GlobalSecurity source, "on September 13, 2002 Bath Iron Works (BIW) and Northrop Grumman Ship Systems (NGSS) were awarded fixed price incentive multiyear contracts worth a combined total of approximately $5 billion for construction of 10 DDG 51-class Aegis Destroyers".

Now it may be just me, but $5 billion for ten ships doesn't boil down to $2 billion a piece.

Maybe I'm working off a ship cost that doesn't include missile payloads or something?

[The Duchess of Zeon]

Have you built any before? There's some extremely complex pricing considerations when ordering things at the industrial level. Look up something called amortized cost, versus unit cost. Basically you have to factor in the development cost and divide it by the number of units as well.

[Siege]

Have you built any before? There's some extremely complex pricing considerations when ordering things at the industrial level. Look up something called amortized cost, versus unit cost. Basically you have to factor in the development cost and divide it by the number of units as well.

I have; basically the Standard class is a variant of the Adventure class destroyers I've built earlier (five destroyers which are really just Burkes with a different name). I'm fairly sure that Baerne has built similar warships before as well. So we've both got wharves who can build ships like this, the only problem I could see arising is volume of construction should the FTO decide to go on a shopping spree.

Concerning cost, I know that the fewer we build, the more they'll cost apiece. The ship is *intended* to be built in fairly sizable numbers to fill out the FTO navy. I'm fairly hopeful we can keep costs low: Coilerburg for one was seeking to buy a bunch of destroyers...

[Beowulf]

When they cut down the DDG-1000 buy to two ships, that freed up $20 billion dollars, which was to be used to buy 11 Burkes. Comes out to about $2 billion. Information differs on the exact cost, but sources generally put a brand new Burke in the $1.5-2 billion range. Bear in mind that the builders don't actually get all the money from the construction, since a significant amount of equipment on the ship is furnished by the government, and doesn't count towards the listed price.

EDIT: GS says "the Navy estimate for procurement of a single DDG 51 class ship in FY 2009 is $2.2 billion."

[Siege]

When they cut down the DDG-1000 buy to two ships, that freed up $20 billion dollars, which was to be used to buy 11 Burkes. Comes out to about $2 billion. Information differs on the exact cost, but sources generally put a brand new Burke in the $1.5-2 billion range. Bear in mind that the builders don't actually get all the money from the construction, since a significant amount of equipment on the ship is furnished by the government, and doesn't count towards the listed price.

Well, the corporations are the government in my particular case so I guess that'll be more or less par for the course . I can't honestly say I've got any experience with this particular issue, I'm eyeballing as I go... But I'm quite confused by the conflicting costs being quoted. How come GS.org consequently says the damned thing costs approximately $500 million on one page and four times as much on another?

EDIT: GS says "the Navy estimate for procurement of a single DDG 51 class ship in FY 2009 is $2.2 billion."

Yes, but that's for a restart of the line and "based upon a Navy assessment, including discussions with both current shipbuilders, to explore any subcontractor issues, a restart of DDG 51 procurement in FY 2009 is feasible. However, several ship and Government Furnished Equipment vendor base issues (including configuration change issues and production line re-starts) must be addressed in order to award and construct additional ships, which will increase ship costs above the most recently procured ships. "

Wouldn't that raise the cost above what it would be in our situation?

[Raj Ahten]

Indhopal is also putting up some money for the FTO's joint ship program. I imagine the yards and such are all in Bearne or San Dorado.

[Czechmate]

Keep in mind there are several 'flights' of Burkes. A Flight I ship with slightly outdated technology could, reasonably, be the $500m vessel. A Flight IIB with hangars, advanced combat systems and brand-new construction, could easily be the $2.2b figure quoted elsewhere.

[Siege]

Keep in mind there are several 'flights' of Burkes. A Flight I ship with slightly outdated technology could, reasonably, be the $500m vessel. A Flight IIB with hangars, advanced combat systems and brand-new construction, could easily be the $2.2b figure quoted elsewhere.

The $5 billion for 10 ships I quoted earlier was from September '02. Flight IIA Burkes have been commissioned since '00, and our ships aren't really "brand new" but based on existing (if tweaked) designs. So if that's the explanation for the quadrupling cost it certainly wouldn't apply (in its entirety at least) to our ships.

[Beowulf]

To put it simply: the $500 million is to BIW for the ship itself: the hull, the engines, the habitation stuff, etc. The rest of the cost is going to Lockheed Martin for the AEGIS system, the Mk41 VLS cells, etc, and other contractors for other pieces, like Phalanx, or the 5" gun, sonar, torpedo launchers, etc. The interesting thing about ships is: steel is cheap. It's the electronics and armament that's expensive.

[Sea Skimmer]

Siegetank:

Bullshit. You're building Burkes, and those cost $2 billion each.

No they don't they cost like 1.3 billion each and back around 2000 it was closer to 950 million. Filling the ship with missiles and training the crew however might push all up costs towards 2 billion. The new Burkes being considered (the Navy isn't sure it will kill DDG-1000 anymore) are supposed to have a bunch of new combat systems and other electronics so they may prove more expensive, but thats all pretty undefined.

[Siege]

To put it simply: the $500 million is to BIW for the ship itself: the hull, the engines, the habitation stuff, etc. The rest of the cost is going to Lockheed Martin for the AEGIS system, the Mk41 VLS cells, etc, and other contractors for other pieces, like Phalanx, or the 5" gun, sonar, torpedo launchers, etc. The interesting thing about ships is: steel is cheap. It's the electronics and armament that's expensive.

Ah, right, I'd begun to suspect as much. We'll have to revise final ship cost upward then. Bearing in mind that we're ordering in bulk, and we're cutting down on max range, the gun system and a bunch of other stuff that isn't missiles and the guidance systems, how's $1.2 - 1.5 billion apiece sound?

[Sea Skimmer]

Is the Tu-160's bomb load less than the B-1? I thought the Tu-160 was SUPER HUEG and would have superior carrying capacity.

The B-1B is a tried and tested design, whereas the actual performance of the Tu-160 in combat hasn't really been evaluated. Um, and no one really knows how much a Tu-160 costs in real-life.

Tu-160 has a larger payload and it’s all internal, 88,000lb vs. 75,000lb for the B-1. Tu-160 is a fair bit bigger then any B-1 model so this should be no surprise, about 606,000lb MTOW vs. 477,000lb MTOW for the B-1B. Most of the weight difference stems from the Tu-160s much greater unrefueled range however, and not its mach 2 performance or larger payload.

However a major limitation on how much any heavy bomber can carry are how many hard points you have to attach a given type of bomb or missiles too. This for example means the Tu-160 can only carry 12 Kh-55 cruise missiles because only 6 can fit in each bomb bay, while the B-1B can carry a 22 similar AGM-86 ALCMs because it can has 14 external hard points able to take on each, besides 8 internal missiles. Course using all those external points would add so much drag that no possibul B-1 model would go supersonic.