The Navy classifies the hypersonic missile as a conventional prompt strike weapon, utilizing a shared hypersonic glide body developed in partnership with the US Army. This glide body, which contains the warhead, is propelled by a conventional rocket booster. After the booster is detached, the projectile proceeds toward its target. While it no longer accelerates, it remains maneuverable.
It is this maneuverability, rather than its capability to travel at speeds beyond Mach 5, that makes it extremely challenging to defend against—so much so that current defense systems cannot effectively counter it. This has made hypersonic missiles a major focal point of competition between 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.
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