Technology Vanguard
The Zumwalt-class destroyer will introduce
new warfighting and engineering capabilities
By RICHARD R. BURGESS, Managing Editor
Integrated Power
Program costs were not provided by press time Nov. 15.
The 155mm Advanced Gun
System (AGS), developed by BAE
Systems, firing the Lockheed Martin
Long-Range Land-Attack Projectile
precision-guided round will give the
DDG 1000s the capability to strike
targets more than 83 nautical miles
inland — four to six times the range
of current fire-support capability.
BAE Systems has delivered the first two magazines
and gun mounts to GDBIW. The first ship’s gun systems
are “in the range of about 85-95 percent complete,” said
Capt. Jim Downey, DDG 1000 program manager for the
Navy’s program executive officer for ships. “They will be
delivered in fiscal year [2011]. The second ship’s maga-
zines are about 75 percent complete.”
The Zumwalt class was to be equipped with a dual-
band radar system that included the new Raytheon-
built X-band SPY- 3 multifunction radar and an S-band
SPY- 4 Volume Search Radar. This year, the Navy decid-
ed to install only the SPY- 3.
“[The] Volume Search Radar hasn’t been canceled,
but it is not going to be installed on the DDG 1000,”
Downey said. “It will still be produced … and, in fact,
the dual-band radar will go aboard the CVN 78 [air-
craft carrier] class.”
As the Zumwalt program was reviewed, “it was deter-
mined that the volume search wasn’t technically needed to
meet the key performance parameters of the ship,” he said.
Software modifications to the SPY- 3 will increase its
volume search capability, he said.
“We don’t expect any ultimate operational change
from a Sailor’s point of view,” Downey said.
Raytheon Integrated Defense Systems is integrating
the new SQQ-90 tactical sonar suite into Zumwalt,
“bringing together the full functionality of the suite’s
sonar system elements,” said Carolyn Beaudry, a
spokeswoman for Raytheon.
The first of three Zumwalt DDGs will be christened in fall 2011.
■ Zumwalt is on track to join the fleet in 2016.
■ A total ship computing environment will allow reduced manning.
■ An integrated power system will add power and flexibility.
The first of the Navy’s newest class of destroyers is less than a year away from christening, and con- struction is well under way at General Dynamics
Bath Iron Works (GDBIW) in Bath, Maine. Zumwalt, the
first DDG 1000-class guided-missile destroyer, is scheduled to be delivered in 2014, when it will introduce several
new technologies and concepts to the fleet.
The Zumwalt class of ships will feature a 600-foot-long
tumblehome hull with low-observable characteristics; an
integrated power system with dramatically expanded
electrical power; an advanced gun and projectile; a new
radar, electro-optical sensor system and sonar suite; and a
new missile launcher with capacity for larger missiles.
A multimission ship, the Zumwalt class will be
capable of anti-air, anti-surface and anti-submarine
warfare, but its most significant contribution will be
naval surface fire support from the littoral with its
long-range gun system. Zumwalt — about 30-percent
complete as of early November — is scheduled for initial operational capability in 2016.
The Zumwalt class is a concept that has evolved
since the late 1990s from the arsenal ship and DD 21
and DD(X) land-attack destroyer programs. Only three
of the 15,000-ton DDG 1000s — which are larger than
World War II heavy cruisers — are planned to be built,
a number whittled down from seven as the Navy modified its shipbuilding plans to concentrate on expanding the less-expensive Arleigh Burke class of DDGs
and their ballistic-missile defense capabilities.
