Could an Old Battleship Sink the Navy’s Most Powerful Warship Floating?

By Robert Farley,The National Interest

What would happen if the US Navy’s latest destroyer, the USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) fought against the Navy’s last battleship, the USS Wisconsin (BB-64)? Fireworks.

Let us not tarry on the question of how the 2020 edition of USS Zumwalt would encounter and engage the 1991 version of USS Wisconsin. We will assume that neither ship is receiving external support; although both were designed to operate as part of a system, each will fight this battle alone. We’ll also assume that each is operating in a configuration (including weapon load) optimized for ship-to-ship combat. Finally, we’ll assume that the technologies key to the DDG-1000 class are both functional and available.

(This first appeared in 2016.)

The Missile Volley:

The battle between the two ships will begin with missiles. Since we’re assuming that neither ship is receiving outside assistance, the beginning of the encounter depends on how each ship identifies and targets its opponent. Since Zumwalt and Wisconsin used roughly comparable helicopters (and drones), we’ll assume for the ease of calculation that they identify each other at roughly the same time, at a range of about 200 nautical miles.

Zumwalt has a lot of missiles to throw at Wisconsin. Zumwalt carries 80 VLS cells, and while Tomahawk missiles will not fill all of these cells (Zumwalt needs to defend itself with Evolved Sea Sparrow missiles, fired from the same system) we can assume that Tomahawks will occupy no fewer than half of the arsenal. Zumwalt will carry modern Block IV Tomahawk missiles that can be retargeted in flight toward moving ships at sea, giving the Zumwalt a huge advantage, especially as Wisconsin lacks sufficient anti-aircraft weapons to knock down Zumwalt’s helicopters or drones.

Wisconsin would reply in kind. The BGM-109B Tomahawk Anti-Ship Missile (TASM) was retired in the early 1990s, but Wisconsin could have carried 32 of the missiles in any kind of anti-shipping configuration. Wisconsin also carried 16 Harpoon anti-ship missiles. The TASMs could reach a range of 300 miles, while the Harpoons were limited to about 70.