The focus of the US Navy’s research and development is on hypersonic missiles, which are projectiles designed to travel faster than the speed of sound. Initially, the plan was to place these weapons on cruise-missile submarines before expanding their use to other ships. However, Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Mike Gilday has stated that the Navy’s first use of hypersonic missiles will be on Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyers.
The Navy characterizes the hypersonic missile as a “conventional prompt strike weapon,” utilizing a common hypersonic glide body developed in collaboration with the US Army. The glide body, which houses the warhead, is propelled into flight by a conventional rocket booster. After the booster detaches, the missile continues its course toward the target.
Though it no longer gains speed, it remains maneuverable.
This maneuverability, rather than its speed exceeding Mach 5, poses a challenge for defense systems since current defensive measures are not well-prepared to handle such missiles. This distinct feature has made hypersonic missiles a focal point of competition among the United States, Russia, and China.
The Zumwalt-class of guided-missile destroyers consists of just three ships: the USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) Michael Monsoor (DDG-1001) and the upcoming Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002). The lead ship was first delivered to the Navy in May 2016 and commissioned a few months later.
The guided-missile destroyers were designed by Northrop Grumman Ship Systems, and Raytheon Company served as the systems integrator. General Dynamics Bath Iron Works, Lockheed Martin, BAE Systems Land and Armament, and Boeing worked on the project as well.
The Zumwalt-class are designed to operate in littoral waters, so the Navy is working to outfit them as blue-water surface warfare and naval-strike platforms. Their primary weapon was to be the Advanced Gun System, with its pair of 155 mm guns using Long Range Land Attack Projectiles. Reducing the number of Zumwalt-class ships to three raised the price per shell of ammunition to nearly $1 million per round, so the service was forced to reconsider its original plans.
The main issues facing the Navy before it can implement the plan are that the hypersonic missiles aren’t completely developed yet, and the vertical-launch-system cells on the Zumwalt-class destroyers aren’t large enough to hold the new missiles.
In the middle of March 2021, the Navy solicited defense industry partners for ways to reconfigure the Zumwalt-class vessels, so they could handle the new hypersonic missiles. In the solicitation, they requested an advanced payload module that could carry the missiles in a “three-pack configuration.”
Gilday also mentioned that the Navy is looking for ways to use the power-generating abilities of the Zumwalt-class to use direct-energy weapons as a defense against emerging threats.
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After outfitting the Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyers with the hypersonic missiles, the Navy plans to add the weapons to their Virginia-class submarines. The goal is to have the missiles on the former by 2025.