A story about govt waste and a long pitch on $LMT $NOC $RTX and $HII: While I like to joke about the F-35, this is about the Zumwalt-class destroyer program, the Navy’s cool but expensive next-gen stealth destroyer that can’t shoot, isn’t very stealthy, and doesn't float well.

US military procurement is kind of the opposite of Occam’s razor: where there’s a cheap, simple solution that’s 80% effective, we find a way to do it that’s 20% better but 1,000% more expensive. This is how our tax dollars end up in the pockets of the military industrial complex.

The Zumwalts were designed around three key features, 1) massive long-range phased array radars, 2) an Advanced Gun System firing highly accurate artillery shells called the Long-Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP), and 3) a stealthy hull.

1) The original design incorporated both the Raytheon AN/SPY-3 radar and a longer-range Lockheed AN/SPY-4 radar for tracking things like ballistic missiles. But the AN/SPY-4 technology leap was too ambitious and development costs spiraled out of control, so the Navy cancelled it.

2) The gun system and LRLAP ammunition didn’t work well. Envisioned as a low cost alternative to missiles, development costs spiraled out of control and the LRLAP ended up costing $1M per round. So the Navy cancelled it, and the two big guns on the Zumwalts today are unusable.

Designed to replace the Navy's WWII era big-gun battleships, the Zumwalts' mission of firing artillery shells at land targets 80 nautical miles away is a headscratcher itself in the age of aircraft carriers and cruise missiles that can strike targets 1,500 nautical miles away.

3) To achieve a stealthy radar signature, the designers opted for a tumblehome design (looking from the front, the sides of the ship slope inwards like this ^ as opposed to traditionally flared outwards like a V).

This makes the ship very stealthy by deflecting radar signals away, but tumblehome designs are inherently unstable and prone to roll over in heavy seas or when damaged, which one may expect to happen to warships in battle.

As development costs grew, composite radar-absorbing materials were replaced with steel, reducing its stealthiness. Furthermore, to augment its reduced capabilities, it has continuously been fitted with bolt-on systems and antennas that have further reduced its stealthiness.

The Navy originally wanted to procure 32 ships. In the end, it will end up getting 3, at a cost of $8 billion per ship.

This is why defense accounts of >half of Federal spending, and why we can't have nice things like good healthcare, education, or infrastructure. The End.