Navy’s Stealthy High-Tech Destroyer Sets Sail

By Kris Osborn

To prepare the ship for operational service.

Called the USS Zumwalt, or DDG 1000, the new stealthy ship is engineered with a radar and acoustic signal-evading Tumblehome hull design, – a sleek, modern configuration designed to help the ship avoid detection from enemy ships, aircraft and submarines, Navy officials said.

Sea Trials  for the 600-foot-long, 15,000-ton ships will, among other things, assess the functionality and performance of the ship’s many next-generation technologies in a maritime or at-sea environment, Navy officials said.

Over the next several days, the Navy will demonstrate many of the ship’s key systems and technologies,” Matthew Leonard, spokesman for Naval Sea Systems Command, told Scout Warrior.  

Embarked on the ship are representatives from the ship’s maker Bath Iron Works, officials from the Navy’s DDG 1000 Program Office, SUPSHIP Bath, and various technical subject matter experts, Leonard added.

“The Navy and the shipbuilder are executing the test program of this first of class ship with extreme rigor and this initial at-sea period will allow for earlier issue identification and risk mitigation.  We look forward to learning a great deal during trials as we work together with the shipbuilder to deliver Zumwalt to the fleet,” he added

First envisioned in the 1990s, the DDG 1000 is a high-tech, multi-mission guided missile destroyer designed for land-attack and littoral missions, among other things.  A large part of the slightly less than $4 billion per-ship costs are likely wrapped up in many of the next-generation technologies engineered into the ship.