Largest-ever U.S. destroyer heads out to sea for testing

 

 he USS Zumwalt, the largest-ever destroyer built for the US Navy, has departed Bath Iron Works and is finally headed out to sea for the first time to begin testing after almost seven years of construction, the Associated Press reports. The US Navy isn’t known for its speedy development cycles, and in this case it’s particularly knuckle-grinding. The Zumwalt rose out of what was dubbed the SC-21 program, a research program started way back in 1994 that led to the development of DD-21, the Destroyer for the 21st century.
Even given the long development time, the ship itself is a showcase of new military tech. The USS Zumwalt is a 14,600-ton design that’s 600 feet long. It has electric propulsion, a stealth design to minimize its radar signature, and new radar and sonar, the report said, all of which led to the seemingly inevitable production delays and growing price tag (now estimated at $4.4 billion). It also includes a tremendous 155mm rocket-powered projectile known as the Advanced Gun System.

Credit: US Navy

From the US military’s Fact File:

“Developed under the DD(X) destroyer program, the Zumwalt-class destroyer (DDG 1000) is the lead ship of a class of next-generation multi-mission surface combatants tailored for land attack and littoral dominance with capabilities that defeat current and projected threats. DDG 1000 will triple naval surface fires coverage as well as tripling capability against anti-ship cruise missiles. DDG 1000 has a 50-fold radar cross section reduction compared to current destroyers, improves strike group defense 10-fold and has 10 times the operating area in shallow water regions against mines. For today’s warfighter, DDG 1000 fills an immediate and critical naval-warfare gap, meeting validated Marine Corps fire support requirements.”

The new tests will determine if the vessel is sufficiently capable to join the Navy’s fleet in active commission, ahead of the completion of two more ships in the same class. Another interesting factoid: The ship’s commanding officer is named Captain James A. Kirk — and yes, it netted a letter of support from William Shatner in April 2014. “We are absolutely fired up to see Zumwalt get underway,” Kirk (the one manning the ship) told the Associated Press. “For the crew and all those involved in designing, building, and readying this fantastic ship, this is a huge milestone.”
The design of the USS Zumwalt signaled a shift in strategy for the US Navy, and represents a generational jump in operational tech for modern warfare. Inside, the ship features enterprise-grade electronics, with IBM server blades running Red Hat Linux and buried deep within the ship, as our sister site Geek covered. They’re water-cooled, shock- and vibration-resistant, and are designed to withstand electromagnetic pulses that could take out the electronics of existing warships.

The Zumwalt’s Ops center. Credit: US Navy

In the command center is the ship’s Common Display System, which consists of a cluster of three-screen server workstations with Xeon processors and LynxOS-based virtual machines. The idea is to only grant crew members the necessary levels of access required for their roles in a stacked system of multiple networks running simultaneously.
Eric Wertheim, author and editor of the U.S. Naval Institute’s “Guide to Combat Fleets of the World,” told the AP the integration of so many new systems from the electric propulsion to the tumblehome hull design carries “some level of risk.” Plus, operational concerns, growing costs and fleet makeup led the Navy to shrink the 32-ship program to just three ships, he said in the report, meaning this class of destroyers could become “something of a technology demonstration project.”
Top photo credit: US Navy