The first shipborne hypersonic missile is being modified onboard the first of the U.S. Navy’s three stealthy destroyers, turning an expensive flub into a powerful weapon.
Workers at a Mississippi shipyard have replaced the twin turrets on the USS Zumwalt with missile tubes from a gun system that was never used because it was too costly. The Zumwalt will increase the warship’s utility by offering a platform for carrying out quick, accurate strikes from a larger distance once the system is finished.
Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute, stated that although it was an expensive mistake, the Navy may salvage some usefulness from them by turning them into hypersonic platforms.
Although the United States has been developing several kinds of hypersonic weapons for the past 20 years, recent tests by China and Russia have increased pressure on the military to accelerate their development.
Beyond Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, hypersonic weapons are more difficult to shoot down due to their increased agility.
The USS Zumwalt is seen at the Huntington Ingalls shipyard in Pascagoula, Miss., Thursday, Nov. 21, 2024. (AP Photo/Gerald Herbert)
Image: Gerald Herbert/Associated Press
The Washington Post revealed last year that one of the documents released by Jack Teixeira, a former member of the Massachusetts Air National Guard, was a defense department briefing confirming China’s recent testing of the DF-27, an intermediate-range hypersonic weapon. The Pentagon had not previously recognized the weapon’s testing, although it had acknowledged its development.
Conventional Prompt Strike is one of the U.S. initiatives being developed and scheduled for the Zumwalt. After launching like a ballistic missile, it would release a hypersonic glide vehicle that would reach its target at seven or eight times the speed of sound. The Army and Navy are working together to create the weapon system. Four missile tubes, each containing three of the missiles, would be fitted to each Zumwalt-class destroyer, giving each vessel a total of twelve hypersonic weapons.
The Navy is trying to increase the utility of the Zumwalt, a $7.5 billion warship that critics say was a costly error even if it was used as a test platform for several breakthroughs.
The Zumwalt’s Advanced Gun System with rocket-assisted bullets was intended to enable land-attack capabilities, allowing Marines to charge ashore. But because each rocket-assisted projectile cost between $800,000 and $1 million, the system with 155 mm guns concealed in stealthy turrets was scrapped.
The three Zumwalt-class destroyers continue to be the Navy’s most technologically advanced surface warships, notwithstanding the blemish on their image. Those innovations include electric propulsion, an angular shape to minimize radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull, automated fire and damage control and a composite deckhouse that hides radar and other sensors.
The Zumwalt arrived at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August 2023 and was removed from the water for the complex work of integrating the new weapon system. It is due to be undocked this week in preparation for the next round of tests and its return to the fleet, shipyard spokeswoman Kimberly Aguillard said.
Over the summer, a U.S. hypersonic weapon was successfully tested, and the missiles’ research is still ongoing. In 2027 or 2028, the Navy hopes to start testing the technology on board the Zumwalt.
The cost of the U.S. armament system will be high. The Congressional Budget Office estimates that purchasing 300 of the weapons and maintaining them for 20 years will cost close to $18 billion.
There is too little value for the money, according to some.
This particular missile costs more than a dozen tanks. All it gets you is a precise non-nuclear explosion, some place far far away. Is it really worth the money? The answer is most of the time the missile costs much more than any target you can destroy with it, said Loren Thompson, a longtime military analyst in Washington, D.C.
According to retired Navy Rear Adm. Ray Spicer, CEO of the U.S. Naval Institute, a think tank and former commander of an aircraft carrier strike force, however, they give Navy vessels the ability to strike an enemy from thousands of kilometers away, beyond the range of the majority of enemy weapons, and there is no effective defense against them.
Conventional missiles that cost less aren t much of a bargain if they are unable to reach their targets, Spicer said, adding the U.S. military really has no choice but to pursue them.
The adversary has them. We never want to be outdone, he said.
The U.S. is accelerating development because hypersonics have been identified as vital to U.S. national security with survivable and lethal capabilities, said James Weber, principal director for hypersonics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Critical Technologies.
Fielding new capabilities that are based on hypersonic technologies is a priority for the defense department to sustain and strengthen our integrated deterrence, and to build enduring advantages, he said.
The Associated Press, 2024. All rights reserved. All rights reserved. It is prohibited to publish, broadcast, rewrite, or redistribute this content without authorization.
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