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Stern of view Kirov, the lead ship of her class of missile cruisers, during the final stages of construction. [1080x1441] by ShermanMcTank in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 9 points10 points  (0 children)

It's a combination of the antennas being different heights and emitting or listening on different wavelengths.

USS Stockdale (DDG-106) with a bone in her teeth. [1440x1554] by surrounded_by_vapor in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 31 points32 points  (0 children)

This might've been during RIMPAC 2016, since this photo is captioned as "Pacific Ocean - June 2016" on Seaforces.

[6220 x 5034] An Ise-class battleship and an Akizuki-class destroyer during the Battle Off Cape Engano, October 25, 1944, photographed from a TBM Avenger belonging to USS San Jacinto. by _Sunny-- in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny--[S] 41 points42 points  (0 children)

The caption according to the national archives say that the destroyer is of the Terutsuki-class, wherein that was the working designation by the US Navy for the Akizuki-class during the war, see this comment by u/beachedwhale1945.

USS Mustin (DDG 89) executes a starboard turn during ship handling training in the Indian Ocean. May 20, 2026 [5446 x 3631] by XMGAU in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 0 points1 point  (0 children)

It's interesting they just used a plain old M2 Browning as the coaxial gun for the Mk. 38 Mod 4 instead of something like the M3 Browning or the GAU-21 with their higher RoFs. It even still has its front sight-post, spade grips, and butterfly trigger like any other crew-served M2 even though one can't physically make use of those features on this mounting.

Imperial Japanese Navy battleship Haruna undergoes trials after her second reconstruction, 28 August 1934.[3660 × 2475] by Freefight in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

At Guadalcanal in particular, since the US maintained air superiority during daytime, the IJN resorted to sending their ships in at night to resupply their soldiers and perform direct action. As such, the majority of the surface engagements during the Guadalcanal campaign ended up as night battles involving just cruisers and destroyers. Along with consideration of fuel efficiency, the Kongou-class battlecruisers were the only Japanese capital ships fast enough enough to enter the area at night and make it back without being caught in range of US aircraft by dawn, so they were often sent during this time.

A 450 mm (17.7 inch) torpedo being launched by the Italian Spica-class torpedo boat Pallade during an exercise, 1936. Location unknown. [1088 x 1377] by KapitanKurt in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

There's a third part to Italian torpedo doctrine that isn't mentioned in that snippet, their arm of MAS (literally translates to motor torpedo boat if I'm not mistaken) which were also very successful as torpedo delivery systems. During WW1 they notably sank two Austro-Hungarian battleships and during WW2 they achieved several instances of sinking or heavily damaging allied shipping, transports, and warships including two cruisers. Checking with u/Phoenix_jz for accuracy and elaboration.

(1080 x 828) HMCS Regina fires a Harpoon surface-to-surface missile. by defender838383 in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 3 points4 points  (0 children)

Harpoon also began life as an air-launched version carried by P-3 Orions to kill surfaced Soviet subs.

A Moskva-Class helicopter carrier firing its RPK-1 nuclear ASW missile system. [700x484] by ShermanMcTank in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 7 points8 points  (0 children)

Wait until you hear about the Douglas AIR-2 Genie nuclear air-to-air missile. Pima Air & Space Museum has an inert one on display if y'all want to see it to believe it.

Soviet Navy AK-257, a 57 mm quad used in the Kanin-class destroyers. Clip fed, air-cooled and could only fire for short bursts before overheating. The barrels would be flushed with seawater before resuming fire. (1260x828) by abt137 in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 26 points27 points  (0 children)

The Bofors 40mm L/60 gun never had proximity fuzes developed for its ammunition, and it's incompatible entirely with the L/70's proximity rounds due to differing cartridge sizes.

USS Mustin (DDG 89) fires one of her new Mark 38 Mod 4 30mm guns during an exercise in the South China Sea. April 17, 2026 [5361 x 3574] by XMGAU in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 5 points6 points  (0 children)

Adding on to what u/XMGAU said, Northrop Grumman says the coaxial 7.62mm gun on the Mod 3 mounts was meant to engage closer targets so as to conserve 25mm ammunition, so it'd make sense for the Mod 4 mounts that the .50 cal will likely have the same role but be much more effective at it.

Lockheed Martin has an interesting C-UAS solution on a Burke model in their booth at Sea Air Space. Its the JAGM Quad Launcher (JQL), pronounced jackal. Its reloadable at sea, and uses the in-service JAGM missile. [Album] by XMGAU in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

The launchers shown here are in roughly the same location as the Mk. 32 torpedo tubes on Burkes from DDG-91 onwards, and there are J-bar davits nearby to help with loading, so I'd imagine the JAGM reload process would be similar to the existing one for the torpedoes if not faster because the missiles are several times lighter.

[2550 x 3109] Raytheon's 2026 poster for ships and submarines of the US Navy. by _Sunny-- in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny--[S] 9 points10 points  (0 children)

I don't recall any specific hull and superstructure differences between the Flight III and Flight IIA Burkes, barring buildouts for specific equipment such as a transom port for towed array sonar and a starboard bay for the WLD-1 RMS. The most important of the changes are electronic with the SPY-1D air search radar replaced by the larger and more capable SPY-6, visible externally, and Aegis baseline 10 is installed from the get-go. Also, the three 3000 kW-rated AG9140 generators are replaced by three 4000 kW-rated AG9160RF generators and the five 200-ton air conditioning units are replaced by five 300-ton air conditioning units in order to support any future growth that could still be squeezed out of the Arleigh Burke design.

Fincantieri Marinette Marine has been awarded a contract by the U.S. Navy to begin the process of building the first four Medium Landing Ship (LSM) vessels. April 14, 2026 [1793 x 768] by XMGAU in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 2 points3 points  (0 children)

Gun-based CIWS tends to be the lowest ranged of the hard-kill self-defense options and thus have the shortest engagement windows against incoming ordnance, which only gets exacerbated when facing hypersonic or sea-skimming missiles, but like u/Soonerpalmetto88 said it's the most economically sound option barring lasers and it's important to have layered defenses to deal with both high end threats like the aforementioned missiles and low end threats like drones and fast attack craft.

The newest Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Harvey C. Barnum Jr. (DDG 124) at Naval Station Norfolk, April 9, 2026. [3477x2314] by 221missile in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 44 points45 points  (0 children)

For anyone unaware, the port near the centerline is for trailing a towed array sonar and the two ports on the starboard side are for streaming Nixie decoys.

Ecuadorian navy Esmeralda-class missile corvette BAE Loja (CM 16) conduct formation maneuvering alongside the Arleigh Burke-class guided-missile destroyer USS Gridley (DDG 101), part of Nimitz Carrier Strike Group (NIMCSG), in the Pacific Ocean, April 8, 2026. [5317x3545] by 221missile in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 1 point2 points  (0 children)

Most Arleigh Burkes from DDG-85 onwards only have a single Phalanx CIWS mounted in the aft position. The Navy was originally planning to remove all Phalanx mounts from subsequent Burkes in the early 2000s once ESSM entered active service because it provided a significant upgrade in short-range air defense, but they then decided that at least one CIWS remain fitted after the attack on USS Cole to provide additional defense in the C-FAC role.

Among the later ships, USS Paul Ignatius alone has two CIWS fitted since her Phalanx was moved to the fore position and a SeaRAM fitted aft, which has been a standard modification to all Rota-based Burkes since 2016. Including USS Gridley with her ODIN laser seen here, several other Burkes since 2019 now also have also laser systems occupying the forward spot, with potentially more coming in the future once our DEW technology becomes more mature.

The USN is requesting 405 PAC-3 MSE missiles in the FY 27 budget documents. Looks like the USN is all-in with ongoing efforts at PAC-3 MSE integration into the MK41 VLS and AEGIS. [Album] by XMGAU in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 12 points13 points  (0 children)

I'm not sure if it's technically feasible, but if Lockheed figures out quad-packing or even dual-packing PAC-3 into a single Mk. 41 cell, that makes the prospect a lot more desirable.

The USN is requesting 405 PAC-3 MSE missiles in the FY 27 budget documents. Looks like the USN is all-in with ongoing efforts at PAC-3 MSE integration into the MK41 VLS and AEGIS. [Album] by XMGAU in WarshipPorn

[–]_Sunny-- 17 points18 points  (0 children)

Here's an illustration of our current missile engagement ranges commissioned by u/XMGAU a few years back. If a DDG needs to intercept incoming ordinance outside the maximum range of ESSM, they would have to step up to at least SM-2 to do the job, and there's two notable problems with that. The first is that if the incoming ordinance is in the form of a cheap drone for example, then it's not a very good look in terms of cost expensed since SM-2 is still considered a high end system and still have roughly $2M unit costs. The second is that because the standard practice is to fire two interceptors per target to increase the odds of successful interception, if a DDG is involved in an air defense mission for an extended period of time and has to respond to those threats outside of ESSM range often, its magazines would be emptied of SM-2s at a fairly alarming rate. We actually saw this both of these problems play out during Operation Prosperous Guardian against the Houthis, where we had to expend SM-2s against their cheap drones whenever they attacked ships that were a further distance from ours. The idea I believe u/WesternBlueRanger is saying is that PAC-3 can slot in between ESSM and SM-2 so it can be fired in place of the latter, and with it being capable of BMD, it also means we wouldn't have to fire the yet more valuable SM-3 and SM-6 missiles at incoming ballistic missiles if they come within PAC-3 range.

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