America's Zumwalt-Class Destroyer: Too Few, Too Advanced and Too Late? ( Source- The National Interest / Author- Dave Majumdar)
USS Zumwalt ( Image credits- Wikimedia Commons / United States Navy) Source- The National Interest Author- Dave Majumdar The U.S. Navy’s first DDG-1000 destroyer Zumwalt (Note; It’s not USS until the ship is commissioned) is set to undergo an initial set of sea trials in December. The ship is one of three DDG-1000-class vessels the service is buying—which effectively means that the ships are glorified technology demonstrators for the various high-tech innovations found onboard. “We’ve got a builder’s sea trial with a notional start of the 7th of December,” said Sean Stackley, assistant secretary of the Navy for research, development and acquisition in an interview with Defense News. “That is the critical milestone in terms of being able to deliver in the spring. We need a successful trial. We’ll learn things from the trial, we always do. First-of-class, we expect to learn a lot.” The roughly 15,700-ton vessel has been years in the works and features a host of