Futuristic Destroyer Heads Out for Sea Trials
On December 7, the U.S. Navy's largest and most expensive destroyer ever headed out for sea trials.
Before taking her down Maine's Kennebec River, Navy Captain James Kirk said that “we are absolutely fired up to see Zumwalt get underway. For the crew and all those involved in designing, building, and readying this fantastic ship, this is a huge milestone.”
The $4.4 billion, 16,000 ton Zumwalt is the first of her class and a showpiece for many technological firsts as well. But the program has run into seemingly endless cost overruns, delays, and cutbacks.
In addition to her high construction cost, the total cost per vessel suffers from the reduction of the program size by a factor of ten, from 32 vessels to three. Including its third of $9 billion in research and development, the cost of the Zumwalt rises to some $7 billion – and some in the Pentagon have called for cancelling the final hull in the class, which is already under construction at Bath.
Recently the Defense Contract Management Agency said that “has no confidence in” Bath's cost projections for the program, citing a list of deficiencies dating back four years that it says remain unresolved. Agency spokesman Mark Woodbury told media in a statement that the DCMA had “identified systemic deficiencies in scheduling processes” and that “estimates of cost at completion that were not being updated based upon performance trends.” Bath says that the majority of these problems have been resolved.
Delays due to labor shortages, especially a shortage of electricians to build her sophisticated systems, have also added to the expense. Zumwalt's unexpectedly high man-hour requirements have had a knock-on effect on Bath's Arleigh Burke-class destroyer program as well, as labor for the Zumwalt has pulled employees from the construction of the conventional ships.
The Navy envisioned the Zumwalt class as a sophisticated platform for shore bombardment, a function which has gone unfilled since the retirement of the WWII-era battleship Iowa and her sister ships in the late 1990s (and again in 2006, after a brief reactivation). Zumwalt's tumblehome hull and composite superstructure are designed to reduce her radar cross-section to that of a small fishing boat, and she has electric final drive, with four large Rolls-Royce turbine generators providing an abundance of power.
For armament, in addition to conventional guided missiles, she is fitted with two automated 6-inch turret guns capable of ten rounds a minute each, the largest on a Navy vessel since World War II. The third vessel in the class could also be used as a test platform for an electromagnetic rail gun.
In addition to the Zumwalt's sailing, Bath Iron Works got some good news in the Navy's announcement Friday of an order for one more Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, in a swap with competitor Ingalls Shipyard in Mississippi. It would be the sixth in the class for Bath.
Bath is in early contract negotiations with its unions in an attempt to cut costs and stay competitive. The yard wants to secure an order for a series of new U.S. Coast Guard cutters, and managers say that unless they can reach a satisfactory agreement with labor, this may not happen – leading to the loss of as many as 1,000 jobs.
Additional photos, courtesy Bath Iron Works:
