Blog: Navy's newest destroyers evolve to fill traditional battleship roles

[unhappycamper]

http://www.militaryaerospace.com/articles/2013/11/zumwalt-destroyer-blog.html



$5+ billion dollars 'worth' of destroyer

Blog: Navy's newest destroyers evolve to fill traditional battleship roles
November 12, 2013
By John Keller
Editor

THE MIL & AERO BLOG, 12 Nov. 2013. U.S. Navy leaders have launched the first in a new class of surface warships designed for shore bombardment -- a job that traditionally belongs to battleships and heavy cruisers.

This new warship, which emphasizes naval surface fire support, is neither a battleship nor a cruiser, but is large enough to be either one. It's the USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000), and the Navy insists on calling it a destroyer, even though its core mission is far from what one would expect from a destroyer.

The Zumwalt is 600 feet long, nearly 81 feet wide, and displaces 14,800 tons, which makes this vessel larger than the Navy's fleet of Ticonderoga-class cruisers (CG 47), WAY larger than the Navy Arleigh Burke-class destroyers (DDG 51), and is only slightly smaller than the 1950s-vintage Navy nuclear-powered Long Beach-class cruiser.

~snip~

The Zumwalt should be ready for deployment at sea in two or three more years. It's scheduled to have two sister ships in the class, the USS Michael Monsoor and the USS Lyndon B. Johnson. It's doubtful that any more of these kinds of ships will be built.



unhappycamper comment: FWIW, this bad boy costs more than a ($4.5 billion dollar) Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

[msongs]

1. designed to attack the US Treasury...mission accomplished nt