page_title: Arleigh Burke-class destroyer
section_title: Characteristics
hierarchical_section_title: Arleigh Burke-class destroyer / Characteristics
caption_attribution_description: English: Everett, Wash. (April 6, 2006) - Sailors stationed aboard the guided missile destroyer USS Momsen (DDG 92) man the rails as the ship pulls away from her homeport of Naval Station Everett. Momsen and her crew are underway for their maiden deployment to monitor maritime operations in Southeast Asia in support of the global war on terrorism. U.S. Navy photo by Photographer’s Mate 3rd Class Douglas G. Morrison (RELEASED)
context_page_description: The Arleigh Burke class of guided missile destroyers is a United States Navy class of destroyer built around the Aegis Combat System and the SPY-1D multifunction passive electronically scanned array radar. The class is named for Admiral Arleigh Burke, an American destroyer officer in World War II, and later Chief of Naval Operations. The lead ship, USS Arleigh Burke, was commissioned during Admiral Burke's lifetime.
  These warships were designed as multimission destroyers, able to fulfill the strategic land strike role with Tomahawk missiles; antiaircraft warfare role with powerful Aegis radar and surface-to-air missiles; antisubmarine warfare with towed sonar array, anti-submarine rockets, and ASW helicopter; and antisurface warfare with Harpoon missile launcher. With upgrades to their AN/SPY-1 phased radar systems and their associated missile payloads as part of the Aegis Ballistic Missile Defense System, the ships of this class have also begun to demonstrate some promise as mobile antiballistic missile and anti-satellite weaponry platforms, operating on 15 ships as of March 2009. Some versions of the class no longer have the towed sonar, or Harpoon missile launcher.
context_section_description: The ships of the Arleigh Burke class are among the largest destroyers built in the United States. Only the Spruance, Kidd (563 ft or 172 m) and Zumwalt classes (600 ft or 180 m) are longer. The larger Ticonderoga-class ships were constructed on Spruance-class hull forms, but are designated as cruisers due to their fundamentally different mission and weapons systems than the Spruance and Kidd-class destroyers. The Arleigh Burke class were designed with a new, large, water-plane area-hull form characterized by a wide flaring bow which significantly improves sea-keeping ability. The hull form is designed to permit high speed in high sea states.
  The designers of Arleigh Burke incorporated lessons learned from the Ticonderoga-class guided-missile cruisers, which were deemed too expensive to continue building and too difficult to further upgrade. With the Arleigh Burke class, the U.S. Navy also returned to all-steel construction. An earlier generation had combined a steel hull with a superstructure made of lighter aluminum to reduce top weight, but the lighter metal proved vulnerable to cracking. Aluminum is also less fire-resistant than steel; a 1975 fire aboard USS Belknap gutted her aluminum superstructure. Battle damage to Royal Navy ships exacerbated by their aluminum superstructures during the 1982 Falklands War supported the decision to use steel. Another lesson from the Falklands War led the navy to protect the ship's vital spaces with double-spaced steel armor (creating a buffer against modern rockets) and kevlar spall liners.
  The Arleigh Burke design incorporates stealth techniques, such as the angled rather than traditional vertical surfaces and the tripod mainmast, which make the ship more difficult to detect, in particular by antiship missiles. A 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 (NBC). Other NBC defenses include a "countermeasure wash down system".
  Their Aegis Combat System differs from a traditional rotating radar that mechanically rotates 360 degrees for each sweep scan of the airspace. Instead, Aegis uses a passive electronically scanned array, which allows continual tracking of targets simultaneous with area scans. The system's computer control also allows centralization of the previously separate tracking and targeting functions. The system is also resistant to electronic countermeasures. Their stand-alone Harpoon antiship missile launchers give them an antiship capability with a range in excess of 64 nautical miles (119 km; 74 mi).
  With the retirement of the Tomahawk antiship missile variant, only the Arleigh Burke-class ships before Flight IIA versions are well-equipped for antisurface warfare with Harpoon launchers. Others are not, but are loaded with SM-2 missiles in their vertical launch cells capable of an antiship mode, though they have limited range and damage potential.
  "The 127 mm 5-inch/54 caliber Mark 45 gun, in conjunction with the Mark 34 Gun Weapon System, is an antiship weapon which can also be used for close-in air contacts or to support forces ashore with Naval gunfire support (NGFS), with a range of up to 20 miles (32 km) and capable of firing 20 rounds per minute." The class's RIM-7 Sea Sparrow/RIM-162 ESSM missiles provide point defense against missiles and aircraft while the Standard Missile SM-2 and SM-6 provide area antiaircraft defense; the SM-6 provides over-the-horizon missile defense. The Standard Missile 3 and 6 also provide Ballistic Missile Defense (BMD).
  The ship has an electronics warfare suite that provides passive detection and decoy countermeasures.  The class's Light Airborne Multi-Purpose System (LAMPS) helicopter system improves the ship's capabilities against submarines and surface ships, a helicopter able to serve as a platform to monitor submarines and surface ships, and launch torpedoes and missiles against them, as well as being able to provide fire support during insertions/extractions with machine guns and Hellfire antiarmor gu
caption: Starboard side of USS Momsen, with torpedo tubes mounted on missile deck, rather than earlier amidships mounting, and superstructure changes to accommodate a Remote Minehunting System (RMS) holding bay
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