USS Zumwalt's--The all-electric destroyer is here(video)

The USS Zumwalt is pioneering many cutting-edge technologies and unconventional design elements, from its missile arrangement to its reduced radar profile.

It's nigh. The USS Zumwalt is pioneering so many advanced technologies that some decision makers have criticized the program for trying to do too much, too soon. IEEE Spectrum reports.

Two decades ago, the U.S. Navy began designing what it then called its “21st-century destroyers”... In 2001, though, the Navy canceled that program and replaced it with a less costly alternative. It took another dozen years, but the first destroyer of that new generation is now nearing completion.

The total cost of the program, including R&D -- which will result in three of these high-tech warships -- is estimated to be $22 billion. It’s too soon to know if Zumwalt’s cutting edge tech is battle ready, but it’s not too soon to consider how these designs will affect future naval warfare.

Some notable departures from current warship designs. (Pardon my unfamiliarity with ship terms.)

1. Shape. The Zumwalt has a tumblehome hull, which means the main body narrows rather than widens with height above the waterline. And the rake of the bow is inverted (or, the front of the ship slopes inward). The inward-angled hull won’t reflect radar energy straight back to an adversary’s antennas.
2. Deckhouse. The Zumwalt has a cabin that rises above the level of the main deck. This deckhouse has sides that slope inward and houses the bridge, exhaust stacks, and various radar antennas. It reduces the ship’s radar profile. And unlike the steel hull, the upper part of the deckhouse is made of balsawood-cored carbon-composite panels: reducing weight up top to improve stability, resisting corrosion, and adding stealthiness.
3. Missile arrangement. Its vertical missile-launcher tubes are arrayed around its exterior -- along the flanks, positioned between inner and outer hulls. Other ships put them in the middle of the ship, where they’re best protected from enemy fire. Putting them on the periphery makes them more vulnerable to enemy fire, but if they were hit, the resulting blast would explode outward, leaving the watertight inner hull intact.
4. Power system. Rather than being directly attached to combustion engines, the propellers and shafts are turned by electric motors. The electric-drive systems is flexible enough to propel the ship, fire railguns or directed-energy weapons, or both at the same time. The 78 megawatts from its four gas-turbine generators can be directed through the ship’s power-distribution network wherever it’s needed. (The tightly integrated power-generation and distribution system has led some to call it the U.S. Navy’s first “all-electric ship.”)

Despite its cutting-edge technologies, the Zumwalt class was passed over for the Navy’s most technologically challenging missions of all: sea-based ballistic-missile defense. The main task envisioned for this ship: cruising in coastal waters while supporting military operations on nearby lands.

U.S. NAVY

USS Zumwalt

On Saturday morning in Bath, Maine, the daughters of the late Admiral Elmo R. "Bud" Zumwalt Jr. will break a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow of the ship that bears their father's name.

The USS Zumwalt is being hailed as the the largest Navy destroyer ever built.

Its new home will be San Diego. The Maine Sun Journal reports during a November 2013 tour of the Zumwalt, Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel explained the reason why:

"[The Zumwalt] represents [an] important part in our Navy’s security. That its first assignment will be in San Diego … represents an important shift of our balance and assets and focus in America’s interest in the Asia-Pacific.”

Capt. James Kirk is the ship's commanding officer. I'm sure he's heard enough Star Trek jokes to last a lifetime.

As Home Post reported last year, the Navy was forced to cancel the Oct. 19, 2013, christening ceremony for the Zumwalt because of the government shutdown.

Here's some cool time lapseVIDEO, courtesy of General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, of the future Zumwalt in December 2012:

Video

Time Lapse of USS Zumwalt

United States
Name:	Zumwalt
Namesake:	Admiral Elmo Zumwalt
Awarded:	14 February 2008
Builder:	Bath Iron Works
Cost:	> $3.5 billion[1]
Laid down:	17 November 2011[2]
Launched:	28 October 2013
Christened:	12 April 2014
Commissioned:	2016 (planned)
Status:	Completed
Badge:
General characteristics
Class & type:	Zumwalt-class destroyer
Displacement:	14,564 tons[3]
Length:	600 ft (182.9 m)
Beam:	80.7 ft (24.6 m)
Draft:	27.6 ft (8.4 m)
Installed power:	Integrated Power System (IPS)
Propulsion:	2 × Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines(35.4 MW ea.)[4] driving Curtiss-Wright electric generators[5] 2 × Rolls-Royce RR4500 turbine generators (3.8 MW ea.)[4] 2 × propellers driven by electric motors Total: 78 MW (105,000 shp)[4]
Speed:	30.3 knots (56.1 km/h; 34.9 mph)
Complement:	142
Sensors and processing systems:	AN/SPY-3 Multi-Function Radar (MFR) (X-band, scanned array) Volume Search Radar (VSR) (S-band, scanned array)
Armament:	20 × MK 57 VLS modules, with 4 vertical launch cells in each module, 80 cells total. Each cell can hold one or more missiles, depending on the size of the missiles, including: RIM-66 Standard Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile (ESSM) BGM-109 Tomahawk RUM-139 Vertical Launch Anti-Submarine Rocket 2 × 155 mm Advanced Gun System 920 × 155 mm total; 600 in automated store + Auxiliary store room with up to 320 rounds (non-automatic) as of April 2005 70-100 LRLAP rounds planned as of 2005 of total 2 × Mk 46 30 mm gun (GDLS)
Aircraft carried:	2 SH-60 LAMPS helicopters or 1 MH-60R helicopter 3 MQ-8 Fire Scout VTUAV