Early Burkes without a helicopter hangar had room, in this proposed layout, for a third Phalanx so that two mounts could still cover an arc after one failure or battle casualty. Two close-in systems may appear to cover the ship, but apparent coverage is not the same as redundant coverage. The issue grows more important outside the dense protection of a task group, whether the destroyer is a distant picket or on an independent mission. Separate forward and aft VLS groups apply the same principle to missile capacity.
Notable Point · 1:26:14-1:29:18
Redundancy for an independently operating Burke
The Burke layout illustrates why overlapping close-in weapons and separated VLS groups matter more when a destroyer operates as a distant picket or alone.