Stealthy Zumwalt to be Armed with Hypersonics in 2025
Cutting-edge Zumwalts will receive hypersonic weapons in 2025, a potentially paradigm-changing development in open water maritime warfare.
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Meet the Zumwalt: Can a massive surface destroyer, armed with Tomahawk missiles, deck-mounted guns, sensors, antennas and heat-generating onboard electrical power, truly be considered stealthy?
Surely, tall, vertical masts, hull-mounted sensors, and protruding antenna could never be a low-observable ship, yet performing these missions comprises the technical starting point from which engineers launched into building a first-of-its-kind stealth warship.
Zumwalt: Stealth Surface Destroyer
The sleek-looking Zumwalt destroyers have been engineered with a suite of cutting edge, next-generation technologies to include massive, ship-wide high speed computing, smooth, rounded stealthy configurations, wave-piercing Tumblehome hulls and an electric drive, among other things.
Perhaps most of all, the cutting-edge Zumwalts will also be receiving hypersonic weapons in 2025, a potentially paradigm-changing development able to position the shift for massive, open water maritime warfare.
The Zumwalt fleet of destroyers, although cut to an order of only threeZumwalts due primarily to cost, are engineered to appear as a small fishing boat to enemy radar. The Zumwalt has a smooth and rounded hull configuration with few sharp edges or angles likely to generate a return signal.
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The absence of vertical structures and protruding shapes such as large deck-mounted guns, means there are fewer possible shapes likely to generate a return “ping” or signal from enemy radar. This is survivability enhancing.