Modernized DDG(X) Destroyer: A Window Into Future Maritime Warfare

By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

The Navy is crafting a specific and carefully considered approach to its DDG(X) next generation destroyer effort intended to build a new, high-tech and extremely lethal warship able to serve well into the 2060s. 

The service’s plan, which seeks to deliver paradigm-changing capability in the near term while also positioning the platform to remain dominant surging into future decades, could be described as somewhat of a hybrid approach merging proven, cutting edge non-developmental technologies and a new generation of promising breakthrough systems together. 

DDG(X): Size, Weight and Power and Cooling (SWAP-C)

One key way to do this is to optimize the Size, Weight and Power and Cooling (SWAP-C) balance on the new ship so that the hardware footprint is consolidated and made more efficient. This enables the ship to operate with greater power density and the maximum number of high-power generated technologies built into the platform.

An interesting Congressional Research Service Report from March 2022 cites Navy statements related to DDG(X) which entirely mirror this approach

“The DDG(X) would integrate non-developmental systems into a new hull design that incorporates platform flexibility and the space, weight, power and cooling (SWAPC) to meet future combatant force capability/system requirements that are not achievable without the new hull design,” the CRS Report, titled Navy DDG(X) Next-Generation Destroyer Program, states, citing Navy statement budget documents.

These advancements are just the beginning of what maritime warfare may look like decades into the future, which is why Navy weapons developers and shipbuilders are now taking specific steps to engineer emerging technologies with a modular, open architecture approach intended to ensure sustained upgradeability.