tlb wrote:MAD-4A wrote: This is not an accurate comparison:
The DD-1000s are a completely new design, nearly everything about them were new cutting-edge design technology, even the placement of the missile tubes was new. You are lumping all of the costs of the new equipment development into the cost of 1 ship. The Type 23 has virtually nothing new included - it is completely off-the-shelf equipment and even the design is conventional - in-fact the forward section looks like a 60s Russian cruiser (Kara/Kresta) and the stern looks like an OHP FFG (or perhaps Udaloy) class, Are you guys Mi-6 still stealing old Russian ship designs and using them for your own ships? (lol) so the comparisons are the letteral definition of the apples-to-oranges analogy. The figures change when you lump on the original development costs of the equipment used on the Type-23 time inflation factors to the build cost.
Not me, the quote is from the article. Once all the ships in the class are built, then someone can spread a percentage of the development cost to get a per ship figure. I only put the numbers in to compare a frigate to a destroyer.
I think MAD-4A (MADCAT!!!!)'s point is the Zumwalt had huge development costs, as just about every point reinvented the wheel with bleeding edge tech. The Type 23s had low development costs - just the engineering design of existing systems into a new platform. There was far less cost to spread over many ships.
A better US example would have been comparing the Flight 3 Agleigh Burkes against the Type 23s, the new Burkes required lots of re-engineering to incorporate in the new tech, but no development costs (as it had been accomplished by other projects.