L’amiral Elmo Zumwalt, qui fut chef des op\u00e9rations navales (CNO) de 1970 \u00e0 1974, \u00e9tait c\u00e9l\u00e8bre pour son esprit r\u00e9formiste. Il prit en mains l’U.S. Navy alors que celle-ci \u00e9tait dans une crise interne profonde (probl\u00e8mes de discipline, de personnel, etc., en marge de la guerre du Vietnam) et parvint \u00e0 la remettre en selle. Pour le saluer, l’U.S. Navy d\u00e9cida, 25 ans plus tard, lors du lancement du programme de baptiser la nouvelle classe de destroyer r\u00e9volutionnaire DDG-1000 de son nom, et ce serait le classe Zumwalt<\/em>, le premier DDG-1000 devant \u00eatre le USS Zumwalt<\/em>. La question se pose aujourd’hui, alors que pr\u00e8s de $20 milliards (\u00e9valuation basse) ont \u00e9t\u00e9 d\u00e9j\u00e0 d\u00e9pens\u00e9s sur le programme, s’il y aura jamais un USS Zumwalt<\/em>.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tDefense News<\/em> publie un article le 12 septembre<\/a> pour rendre compte de la frustration du monde politique washingtonien, notamment au Congr\u00e8s, devant l’attitude de l’U.S. Navy. Des annonces successives ont \u00e9t\u00e9 faites ces derni\u00e8res semaines selon lesquelles le programme allait \u00eatre stopp\u00e9, puis tout de m\u00eame poursuivi, avec des d\u00e9tails \u00e9tonnants sur les capacit\u00e9s de cette unit\u00e9, sans qu’on en sache beaucoup plus sur les intentions r\u00e9elles du service.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThe service has never released a public announcement on what it’s trying to do with the program. Immediately after a July 22 top-level Pentagon meeting, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Gary Roughead and Navy Secretary Donald Winter traveled to Capitol Hill to personally inform key lawmakers that the service wished to slash the planned seven-ship Zumwalt class of stealthy, advanced destroyers to two ships and return to building tried-and-true DDG 51 Arleigh Burke-class Aegis destroyers. This was in response to a new intelligence assessment of a Chinese ballistic missile that can target ships at sea. Word of the move quickly filtered out to media via the offices of a number of senators and congressional representatives.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbA well-attended hearing of the House Seapower subcommittee followed on July 31, when two senior Navy officials testified about the destroyers. At the hearing, several lawmakers expressed frustration at the lack of analysis and explanation for the move, and Vice Adm. Barry McCullough, the Navy’s requirements chief, and Allison Stiller, the top ship acquisition executive, afterward rushed away from reporters and declined to answer questions about why the Navy wants to end a program that has cost about $11 billion in research and development and taken more than a decade to develop.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbGiven no warning of the Navy’s change in attitude, congressional supporters of the ship including most of the delegation from New England, where electronics giant Raytheon is developing the Zumwalt’s combat system and radars fought vociferously to save at least the third ship, currently in the Navy’s 2009 budget request.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbFaced with strong opposition, the Navy backed off its decision and on Aug. 18, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England sent a letter to Congress explaining that the Navy has been directed to support the budget request for one DDG 1000 but would protect future options for restarting DDG 51 production.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbSince then, mum’s been the word for a detailed explanation by top Navy leaders of what the service now wants and why.<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tDes informations int\u00e9ressantes sur cette affaire (\u00e0 partir des auditions au Congr\u00e8s du 31 juillet mentionn\u00e9es ci-dessus) ont \u00e9t\u00e9 donn\u00e9es le 3 ao\u00fbt 2008<\/a> sur un site professionnel d’anciens officiers et d’officiers actifs de la Navy, Information Dissemination<\/em>. Le parall\u00e8le y est fait entre le DDG 1000 et le programme d’avion d’attaque General Dynamics A-12 Avenger<\/em> II, abandonn\u00e9 en janvier 1991, et qui constitue sans nul doute le plus grand scandale de programme rat\u00e9 et abandonn\u00e9 qu’ait connu la Navy. Les pr\u00e9cisions donn\u00e9es dans cet article sur les capacit\u00e9s du DDG 1000 sont absolument saisissantes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00abThe biggest procurement disaster in modern memory is the A-12 Avenger II, which is also the largest project canceled in midstream. The Zumwalt class is looking for a way to be associated with that rather unhappy memory.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbOn Thursday the Navy revealed information that was completely counter to all previously disclosed information regarding the DDG-1000 program. The following is quoted from the submitted statement (PDF) of Vice Admiral Barry McCullough.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe DDG-1000 program is developing a capable ship which meets the requirements for which it was designed. The DDG-1000, with its Dual Band Radar and sonar suite design are optimized for the littoral environment. However, in the current program of record, the DDG-1000 cannot perform area air defense; specifically, it cannot successfully employ the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2), SM-3 or SM-6, and is incapable of conducting Ballistic Missile Defense. Although superior in littoral ASW, the DDG-1000 lower power sonar design is less effective in the blue water than DDG-51 capability. DDG-1000’s Advanced Gun System (AGS) design provides enhanced Naval Fires Support capability in the littorals with increased survivability. However, with the accelerated advancement of precision munitions and targeting, excess fires capacity already exists from tactical aviation and organic USMC fires. Unfortunately, the DDG-1000 design sacrifices capacity for increased capability in an area where the Navy already has, and is projected to have sufficient capacity and capability.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n \t\u00bbThe statement it cannot successfully employ the Standard Missile should come to a surprise to everyone who reads it, because the meaning of what is stated above has extraordinary ramifications…<\/em>\u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tLe cas du DDG-1000, dont l’historique est bien document\u00e9<\/a> sur Wikipedia<\/em>, est exemplaire de la situation du Pentagone. Il rejoint le cas du Future Combat System<\/em> de l’U.S. Army ou celui, actuellement en pleine pol\u00e9mique, du programme KC-45 de l’USAF, dont le processus de s\u00e9lection vient d’\u00eatre arr\u00eat\u00e9<\/a> au moins jusqu’\u00e0 la prochaine administration (sans parler des F-22 et JSF pour la m\u00eame USAF, et pour les autres services dans le cas du JSF ).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n \tSi les composants des divers probl\u00e8mes identifi\u00e9s peuvent \u00eatre diff\u00e9rents, y compris de domaines diff\u00e9rents (ici techniques, l\u00e0 de proc\u00e9dures, parfois avec des composants politiques), une cause g\u00e9n\u00e9rale se d\u00e9gage. Il existe une situation de paralysie qui s’est install\u00e9e au Pentagone. L’accusation faite contre la Navy de garder le silence sur la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 de la situation du programme DDG-1000 semblerait impliquer des attitudes comme la dissimulation, la duplicit\u00e9, etc. Nous opterions pour une autre explication: la Navy ne dit rien parce qu’elle n’a plus rien \u00e0 dire, parce qu’elle ne sait plus comment faire ni par cons\u00e9quent quoi dire. Cette attitude se retrouve effectivement dans le cas du programme KC-45. La crise est si profonde qu’on ne parvient m\u00eame plus \u00e0 l’identifier dans ses causes, ses contours et ses cons\u00e9quences.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n <\/p>\n \tMis en ligne le 13 septembre 2008 \u00e0 09H04<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" L’amiral Elmo Zumwalt, qui fut chef des op\u00e9rations navales (CNO) de 1970 \u00e0 1974, \u00e9tait c\u00e9l\u00e8bre pour son esprit r\u00e9formiste. Il prit en mains l’U.S. Navy alors que celle-ci \u00e9tait dans une crise interne profonde (probl\u00e8mes de discipline, de personnel, etc., en marge de la guerre du Vietnam) et parvint \u00e0 la remettre en selle.… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[2623,7775,3319,4608,3194,5471],"class_list":["post-70186","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bloc-notes","tag-bureaucratie","tag-ddg-1000","tag-navy","tag-paralysie","tag-pentagone","tag-zumwalt"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70186","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=70186"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/70186\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=70186"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=70186"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=70186"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}