Weapons of War! Wednesday.

War, it’s as old as us. And something we don’t seem willing to give up any time soon. No matter how detrimental, or idiotic it is to the advancement of our species... But hey, at least we get to see some cool navy vessels out of it! :)

The US navy has built the largest destroyer in its entire fleet, The USS Zumwalt. This is the largest destroyer the US navy has ever built. It is 610 feet long, and 80.7 feet wide. It has 80 advanced vertical launch cells from which it can fire almost any missile. And the Navy is currently considering outfitting these advanced stealth destroyers with nuclear missiles, and maybe even lasers. Sounds... “essential”, no?

This ship that costs 4 BILLION dollars, has been plagued with all sorts of problems however, from electrical, to engineering malfunctions. Even still, this new stealth destroyer is being called a technical marvel, for good reason perhaps.

It’s the first Navy ship to be powered by an entirely electric propulsion system. Not only is this electronic power system able to power all of the ships essential systems, including weapons systems, propulsion, and electronics. It can also make this behemoth of a ship go 35 MPH (56KMH approximately) in the water. And that’s pretty fast, considering the size of this thing.

It has a state of the art multi-functioning radar system called a SPY-3, that can detect advanced anti-ship cruise missiles and torpedoes.

Too top all of this off, it has a flight deck on the back, that can house two MH-60 Seahawk helicopters, or one helicopter and three varied vertical takeoff, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAV’s).

On the more laid back side of things, this ship also has a general store for the 150ish crew members, and a barber shop.. So, that nice. Got to keep up a sharp appearance, and have access to frivolous items while your shooting people from the sea with crazy ass missiles!

All in all, this seems like an intimidating, and interesting military vessel. But also makes me ask, “Do we really need this?”

I’ve always been interested in military tech, and how one device or weapon can change, or almost change, the course of a war. The German Tiger tanks for instance nearly made all the difference for the German Reich, simply because of their engineering! And the Atomic bomb brought Japan to its knees.

Both of those weapons of war served a purpose, not a good purpose by any means, but a purpose. These countries were at war, and looking for a way to end it.

But now, with a price tag of 4 BILLION dollars for this USS Zumwalt, are we really allocating our limited resources on this planet effectively? Especially when these really aren’t being built to end any war, or help any war effort. It just seems to be being built for the fun of it.

I love military vehicles as much as the next guy, and I’m not naive enough to think we don’t need some sort of militarized defence’s.... But do we really need a 4 BILLION dollar navy ship while, people, including many veterans are starving, and living on the streets? No. And I think we really need to re-evaluate our priorities.

Just a few thoughts military spending, and military might.

Here’s a small piece I polished off today, hope you like it.

Happy Wednesday everyone, and if you’ve got any thoughts on this, let me know.

Sincerely, Bret Frick.