Fewer warships in recent history have incited as much dismay, disillusionment, and cautiously optimistic hope as the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000). Since it is the lead ship in a new generation of multi-mission, stealth destroyers, Zumwalt’s development has been more complicated than smooth as silk. Technical failures, runaway budgets, and shifting military priorities re-ordered the program to make it considerably different from its originally imagined shape.
The Zumwalt-class was designed to replace existing needs with future combat. Its tumblehome design, low radar profile, and power plant integral to the hull produce 78 megawatts of energy, sufficient to power a small city, and broke new ground in naval ship construction.
With a radar cross-section roughly a thousand times lower than the Arleigh Burke-class, a composite superstructure, and enhanced radar arrays that are enhanced, Zumwalt would be practically invisible to sensors that were hostile to the United States. But the ambitious venture was soon plagued by headwinds.
Instead of 32 ships, only three were produced, costing each one a staggering amount of over $4 billion. The long-range naval gunfire support concept disintegrated as soon as the 155mm Advanced Gun System shells nearly cost a million dollars each. The final product was a destroyer with enormous guns but no inexpensive shells to fire.
By 2023, the Navy shifted gears, initiating a paradigm shift to insert hypersonic strike capability on Zumwalt via the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) program. Ingalls Shipbuilding teams in Pascagoula, Mississippi, removed the idle gun mounts and inserted specially configured launch tubes for the Intermediate-Range Conventional Prompt Strike system. The ship emerged from drydock late in 2024 to come back to the fleet with an entirely new mission.
The Navy and the Army created the CPS program that centers on a rocket booster-powered hypersonic missile that rises to the heavens before gliding at speeds of up to Mach 6—sufficient speed to evade interception. Zumwalt currently has 12 such missiles, spread among four tubes where the gun turrets used to be.
Otherwise, the destroyer’s 80 Mk 57 Vertical Launch System cells wait to launch Tomahawks, Evolved Sea Sparrows, Standard Missiles, and ASROCs. The Mk 41 and Mk 57 cells are also slated to have their capabilities expanded to fire any missile in the Navy arsenal, making the ship one-of-a-kind when it comes to versatility.
This retooling is only part of a larger strategic realignment. While naval modernization across the world is heating up, the Navy needed Zumwalt to fill a gap no other ship can: a stealth attack capability that will be able to penetrate deep into enemy waters and strike high-value targets before defense can respond.
Stealth, speed, and hypersonic firepower allow Zumwalt to attack critical targets while being difficult to detect, a feature increasingly sought in modern naval warfare. Troubles remain. The tumblehome shape, while stealthy, has been criticized for seaworthiness in high seas. The ship also lacks a close-in weapon system for a desperate defense, a weak point. With only three in the class, they are costly to support because each is an individual, one-of-a-kind test platform for technology.
To reduce the burden, the Navy is going towards using more standardized equipment to replace Zumwalt’s specialized combat and radar systems, like the Enterprise Air Surveillance Radar and the Aegis Combat System, so that it is less vulnerable and quicker to outfit.
Though it has so far been a successful test, the larger fleet as a whole is also facing mounting pressures. Older Ticonderogas and Arleigh Burkes are kept in commission as newer models, such as the DDG(X), languish on paper in concept. The question that looms over Zumwalt is not merely its high-tech firepower, but balance: in the war of the future, will a few high-tech warships beat sheer numbers on more conventional fleets?