Path: utzoo!utgpu!watserv1!watmath!att!cbnews!military
From: terryr@ogicse.ogc.edu (Terry Rooker)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: A question about Spruance-class ships
Message-ID: <13896@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 12 Feb 90 04:26:36 GMT
References: <13765@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Oregon Graduate Institute (formerly OGC), Beaverton, OR
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Approved: military@att.att.com



From: terryr@ogicse.ogc.edu (Terry Rooker)
In article <13765@cbnews.ATT.COM> v059l49z@ubvmsb.cc.buffalo.edu writes:
>
>Seeing that some of the Spruance-class destroyers have the VLS system in
>place of the ASROC launcher, what missles are carried in there since I
>am of the understanding the ASROC version for VLS is still in development.
>I know they are going to carry Tomahawk, but the Sea Sparrow launcher is
>retained.  Is the VLS full of Tomahawks?
>
Presently Tomahawks are all that can be carried by Spruances.  The
goal is to have VL ASROC (or its successor), and a VL Harpoon.
Unfortunately the funding situation being what it is, they may end up
carrying only Tomahawks.  It won't be the first time planned element
of the Spruance class was dropped.  They were planned to get the
Advanced Lightweight 8" gun before that program was cancelled. In one
of the better examples of bungling, the gun was designed to utilize
laser guided projectiles (using a now defunct optical fire control
system), so the accuracy with dumb rounds was not important.  then the
weapon wasa cancelled because the dumb round accuracy was bad (they
weren't sure the optical director would get funded).  The current VLS
can only carry Tomahawk.  Whether they are full of Tomahawks is
another question.  

-- 
Terry Rooker
terryr@cse.ogi.edu