Zumwalt-class Destroyer
The Zumwalt-class destroyers are a class of warship in service in the United States Navy from 2016 onwards. They were designed as multi-mission stealth ships with a focus on land attack. It is a multi-role class that was designed for secondary roles of surface warfare and anti-aircraft warfare and originally designed with a primary role of naval gunfire support. It was intended to take the place of battleships in meeting a congressional mandate for naval fire support. The ship is designed around its two Advanced Gun Systems, their turrets and magazines, and unique Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) ammunition. The class design emerged from the DD-21 "land attack destroyer" program as "DD(X)".
The vessels' distinctive appearance results from the design requirement for a low radar cross-section (RCS). The Zumwalt-class has a wave-piercing tumblehome hull form whose sides slope inward above the waterline, which dramatically reduces RCS by returning much less energy than a conventional flare hull form. The appearance has been compared to that of the historic USS Monitor and her famous antagonist CSS Virginia.
The class has an integrated power system that can send electricity from its turbo-generators to the electric drive motors or weapons, the Total Ship Computing Environment Infrastructure (TSCEI), automated fire-fighting systems, and automated piping rupture isolation. The class is designed to require a smaller crew and to be less expensive to operate than comparable warships.
The lead ship is named Zumwalt for Admiral Elmo Zumwalt and carries the hull number DDG-1000. Originally, thirty-two ships were planned, with $9.6 billion research and development costs spread across the class. As costs overran estimates, the quantity was reduced to twenty-four, then to seven, and finally to three, significantly increasing the cost per ship to $4.24 billion (excluding R&D costs) and well exceeding the per-unit cost of a nuclear-powered Virginia-class submarine ($2.688 billion). The dramatic per-unit cost increases eventually triggered a Nunn–McCurdy Amendment breach and cancellation of further production. In April 2016, the total program cost was $22.5 billion, with an average cost of $7.5 billion per ship.
Specifications[edit | edit source]
- Type: Destroyer (Hull designation symbol DDG)
- Service Period: 2016-
- Characteristics:
- Length: 610 feet (185.93 meters)
- Beam: 80.7 feet (24.6 meters)
- Draft: 27.6 feet (8.41 meters)
- Displacement: 15,766 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 Mk.51 naval guns
- 2 x 57mm/70-caliber 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[edit | edit source]
- USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000)
- USS Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001)
- USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) - fitting out
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1003) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1004) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1005) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1006) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1007) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1008) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1009) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1010) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1011) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1012) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1013) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1014) - cancelled
- USS Unnaemd (DDG-1015) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1016) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1017) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1018) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1019) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1020) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1021) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1022) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1023) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1024) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1025) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1026) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1027) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1028) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1029) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1030) - cancelled
- USS Unnamed (DDG-1031) - cancelled
