U.S. Navy Stealth Warship to Get New Missiles, Lasers and Deck-Mounted Gunfire

Warrior Video Above: Navy Destroyers to Incinerate Enemy Targets With New High-Powered Lasers by 2021

By Kris Osborn – Warrior Maven

(National Harbor, Md.) The US Navy’s stealthy new first-of-its kind destroyer will incinerate targets with lasers, fire advanced weapons to destroy moving targets at sea and use upgraded interceptor missiles to track and knock-out approaching enemy fire — all as part of a broader strategic shift to prepare the high-tech ship for massive, “blue-water” maritime warfare on the open seas.

The USS Zumwalt, now going through combat and weapons activation in anticipation of its first deployment, will receive new Maritime Tomahawk missiles able to track and explode moving targets at sea, SM-6 IA interceptors, long-range precision guns and — quite likely in the very near future – laser weapons, according to the DDG 1000-USS Zumwalt Program Manager, Naval Sea Systems Command, Capt. Kevin Smith.

“We are no longer what is called a land attack that operates in the littorals. We are now an offensive surface strike platform for blue water The Navy made a decision to go that way – for good reason,” Smith said, speaking at the Navy League’s Annual Sea Air Space Symposium.

The Zumwalt, he said, is specifically engineered with the space, weight and power configurations able to accommodate a new generation of weapons. “The inherent capability of the ship, with respect to its signatures and capacity as far a space, weight, power and cooling…means there is huge margin here to do a lot of things in the future,” Smith said.

Regarded as the most advanced warship ever built, the Zumwalt uses an electric drive with an Integrated Power System engineered to more quietly and efficiently propel the ship as well as generate enormous volumes of on-board electrical power for computing, maintenance and weapons. Power “surge” capacity, is exactly what is needed to fire laser weapons, Smith said.