The Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers is the first destroyer of the United States Navy built around the Aegis combat system and the SPY-1D multi-function phased array radar. The first ship was commissioned on 4 July 1991. After the decommissioning of the last Spruance-class destroyer, USS Cushing, on September 21, 2005, the Arleigh Burke class ships became the U.S. Navy's only active destroyers.
The class is named for Admiral Arleigh "31-Knot" Burke, the most famous American destroyer officer of World War II. Admiral Burke was alive when the class leader was commissioned.
| General characteristics | |
|---|---|
| Type: | Destroyer |
| Displacement: | 8,315 tons full load (Flight I) 8,400 tons full load (Flight II) 9,200 tons full load (Flight IIA) |
| Length: | 505 feet (154 m) (Flights I and II) 509 feet (155 m) (Flight IIA) |
| Beam: | 59 feet (18 m) |
| Draft: | 30.5 feet (9.3 m) |
| Propulsion: | 4 General Electric LM2500-30 gas turbines; two shafts, 108,000 total shaft horsepower (4 x 27,000 horsepower) (75 MW) |
| Speed: | 30+ knots (56+ km/h) |
| Range: | 4,400 nautical miles (8,100 km) at 20 knots (37 km/h) |
| Boats and landing craft carried: | 2 Rigid hull inflatable boats |
| Complement: | 23 officers, 250 enlisted |
| Armament: | • 90 cells Mk 41 vertical launch systems • BGM-109 Tomahawk • RGM-84 Harpoon SSM (not in Flight IIa units) • SM-2 Standard SAM (has an ASuW mode) • SM-3 Standard Ballistic missile defense missile for AEGIS BMD (DDG 61, DDG 55 and expanding) • RIM-162 ESSM SAM (DDG-79 onward) • RUM-139 Vertical Launch ASROC • one 5 inch (127 mm/54) Mk-45 (lightweight gun) (DDG-51 through -80) • one 5 inch (127 mm/62) Mk-45 mod 4 (lightweight gun) (DDG-81 on) • two 20 mm Phalanx CIWS (DDG-51 through -84, several later units) • two Mark 32 triple torpedo tubes (six Mk-46 or Mk-50 torpedoes, Mk-54 in the near future) |
| Aircraft carried: | • None, but LAMPS III electronics installed on landing deck for coordinated DDG-51/helo ASW operations (Flights I and II) • two SH-60 Seahawk LAMPS III helos (Flight IIA) |
Arleigh Burke Class DestroyerCharacteristics
The Arleigh Burke class are among the largest and most powerful destroyers ever built in the United States, both larger and more heavily armed than many previous cruisers. (The larger Ticonderoga class were constructed on Spruance-class hullforms, but are designated as cruisers).
The Arleigh Burke's designers incorporated many lessons learned by the Royal Navy during the Falklands campaign and from the USN Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers. The Ticonderoga-class cruisers were supposedly becoming too expensive to continue building, and too difficult to upgrade. Visually, the angled rather than traditional vertical surfaces of the Arleigh Burke design are part of "stealth" technologies, which improve the ship's ability to evade and/or destroy anti-ship cruise missiles.
The Arleigh Burke class returns to the traditional all-steel construction. Combining a steel hull with an aluminum superstructure had been an innovation to reduce topweight, but proved vulnerable to combat damage. A 1975 fire aboard USS Belknap that gutted her aluminum superstructure and observation of battle damage to British ships during the Falklands War prompted the decision to employ a steel superstructure.
Her Collective Protection System makes the Arleigh Burke class the first U.S. warships designed with an air-filtration system against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare.
So vital has the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System role of the class become that production of Burkes is being restarted in place the Zumwalt class destroyers and all ships of the class are being updated with BMD capability.
