Zumwalt-class Destroyer

The Zumwalt-class destroyers are a class of United States Navy destroyers, designed as multi-mission ships with a focus on land attack. The class is a scaled-back project that emerged after funding cuts to the larger DD-21 vessel program. The program was previously known as the "DD(X)". The class is multi-role and designed for surface warfare, anti-aircraft, and naval fire support. They take the place of battleships in filling the former congressional mandate for naval fire support, though the requirement was reduced to allow them to fill this role. The vessels' appearance has been compared to that of the historic ironclad warship.

The class has a low radar profile; an integrated power system, which can send electricity to the electric drive motors or weapons, which may some day include a railgun or free-electron lasers; total ship computing environment infrastructure, serving as the ship's primary LAN and as the hardware-independent platform for all of the ship's software ensembles; automated fire-fighting systems and automated piping rupture isolation. The class is designed to require a smaller crew and be less expensive to operate than comparable warships. It will have a wave-piercing tumblehome hull form whose sides slope inward above the waterline. This will reduce the radar cross-section, returning much less energy than a more hard-angled hull form. As of January 2009, the Government Accountability Office (GAO) found that only four out of 12 of the critical technologies were mature.

The lead ship will be named Zumwalt for Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and carries the hull number DDG-1000. Originally 32 ships were planned, with the $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class, but as the quantity was reduced to 10, then 3, the cost-per-ship increased dramatically. The cost increase caused the U.S. Navy to identify the program as being in breach of the Nunn–McCurdy Amendment on 1 February 2010. While technically classified as a destroyer, the type is only 10.3 feet shorter than the WWII-era Deutschland-class "pocket battleships", and actually displaces nearly 4000 more tons than a standard-loaded Deutschland. Zumwalt-class destroyers are also both longer and heavier than the Ticonderoga-class cruiser.

Specifications

 * Type: Destroyer (Hull designation symbol DDG)
 * Service Period: 2012-
 * Characteristics:
 * Length: 610 feet (185.93 meters)
 * Beam: 80.7 feet (24.6 meters)
 * Draft: 27.6 feet (8.41 meters)
 * Displacement: 14,564 tons
 * Crew: 142
 * Power: 105,000 shp (78 MW)
 * Propulsion:
 * 2 x Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines driving Curtiss-Wright generators, 95,000 shp (70.8 MW)
 * 2 x Rolls-Royce RR4500 gas turbine generator sets, 10,200 shp (7.6 MW)
 * 2 x propellers driven by electric motors
 * Range:
 * Speed: 30.3 knots (56.12 km/h)
 * Sensor Suite:
 * AN/SPY-3 X-Band Multi Function AESA Radar
 * AN/SPY-4 S-Band Volume Search Radar
 * AN/SPS-73(V)13 Surface Search Radar
 * AN/SQS-60 Hull Mounted Mid-Frequency Sonar Array
 * AN/SQS-61 Hull Mounted High Frequency Sonar Array
 * AN/SQR-20 Multi-Function Towed Sonar Array
 * Countermeasures
 * AN/SLY-2 Electronic Warfare Suite
 * Armament
 * 2 x 155mm/62-caliber AGS naval guns
 * 2 x 57mm Mk.110 naval guns
 * 20 x 4-cell Mk.57 PVLS (fires RIM-66/67/156 SM-2, RGM-109 Tomahawk, RUM-139 VL-ASROC, RIM-162 ESSM)
 * Aircraft Carried: 2 x MH-60R Seahawk ASW Helicopters, 3 x MQ-8 Fire Scout VT-UAVs

Unit Run

 * USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000)
 * USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) - fitting out
 * USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) - under construction