First of all, the best part about this futuristic looking ship is its inaugural captain. His name was Captain James Kirk.
This is the US Navy's newest ship. The Zumwalt-class destroyers were originally envisioned as a fleet of thirty-two destroyers designed to attack targets far inland with precision-guided howitzer shells. Twenty-nine of those are now cancelled and only three will be built.
The estimated total cost so far for all three ships R&D plus construction is approaching a staggering $23 billion!
By 2018, it will become even more deadlier when it gets a railgun. While it almost sounds like fiction, a railgun uses energy to fire chunks of metal at Mach 7 with a massive destructive force. And that’s working today. The Navy railguns were developed by BAE Systems and can deliver up to 32 megajoules of energy. They operate by sending electrical pulses over magnetic rails to generate electromagnetic force, which drives the hyper-velocity projectile down the barrel.
A formidable ship. Unfortunately it was no match for government stupidity.
Edit: for a little context, the zumwalt was specifically designed not to have a missile defense system, a guided missile cruiser based on the zumwalt was supposed to be built. Both would run the same ship control system and have similar capacity to fire missiles, but the advanced missile control would only be deployed on the cruiser.
Then the cruiser was cancelled. Then zumwalt came under fire because it didn't have a missile system similar to the arleigh Burke. It didn't have that because that slated to be in the cruiser. The response from the ship builders was that the zumwalt could have that, but it had to be ordered.
So the government rejected it because the government got what the government ordered.
Once they cut it down to 3 the r&d costs per ship became astronomical and the cost for ammo for it's cannon system became too expensive to use so they aren't getting any more ammo for it last I read.
Brilliant work.
Edit 2: my salty comment does overlook significant cost overruns. Even if they built 30 the cost per ship would be substantial. High enough that they really should have only gone into production AFTER railgun tech was ready for the sea IMO.
Looks_pretty_cool on October 11st, 2017 at 20:46 UTC »
First of all, the best part about this futuristic looking ship is its inaugural captain. His name was Captain James Kirk.
This is the US Navy's newest ship. The Zumwalt-class destroyers were originally envisioned as a fleet of thirty-two destroyers designed to attack targets far inland with precision-guided howitzer shells. Twenty-nine of those are now cancelled and only three will be built.
The estimated total cost so far for all three ships R&D plus construction is approaching a staggering $23 billion!
By 2018, it will become even more deadlier when it gets a railgun. While it almost sounds like fiction, a railgun uses energy to fire chunks of metal at Mach 7 with a massive destructive force. And that’s working today. The Navy railguns were developed by BAE Systems and can deliver up to 32 megajoules of energy. They operate by sending electrical pulses over magnetic rails to generate electromagnetic force, which drives the hyper-velocity projectile down the barrel.
https://i.imgur.com/BkXbvjH.jpg
https://i.imgur.com/S0cKuyJ.jpg
InconsiderateBastard on October 11st, 2017 at 21:44 UTC »
A formidable ship. Unfortunately it was no match for government stupidity.
Edit: for a little context, the zumwalt was specifically designed not to have a missile defense system, a guided missile cruiser based on the zumwalt was supposed to be built. Both would run the same ship control system and have similar capacity to fire missiles, but the advanced missile control would only be deployed on the cruiser.
Then the cruiser was cancelled. Then zumwalt came under fire because it didn't have a missile system similar to the arleigh Burke. It didn't have that because that slated to be in the cruiser. The response from the ship builders was that the zumwalt could have that, but it had to be ordered.
So the government rejected it because the government got what the government ordered.
Once they cut it down to 3 the r&d costs per ship became astronomical and the cost for ammo for it's cannon system became too expensive to use so they aren't getting any more ammo for it last I read.
Brilliant work.
Edit 2: my salty comment does overlook significant cost overruns. Even if they built 30 the cost per ship would be substantial. High enough that they really should have only gone into production AFTER railgun tech was ready for the sea IMO.
goodinyou on October 11st, 2017 at 22:15 UTC »
This was built in my state (Maine) and it’s so stealthy that they had to add huge reflectors to it because on radar it looks like a 15 foot dinghy