US Navy to equip its Zumwalt-class destroyers with hypersonic weapon.

According to information published by the National Interest on November 4, 2021, the U.S. Navy plans to equip its Zumwalt-class destroyers with the future hypersonic weapon developed as part of the Prompt Global Strike (PGS) program.
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Artist rendering of Zumwalt-class destroyer (Picture source: U.S. Navy)

The Zumwalt-class destroyer is a class of three United States Navy guided-missile destroyers designed as multi-mission stealth ships with a focus on land attacks. It is a multi-role class that was designed for secondary roles of surface warfare and anti-aircraft warfare and was originally designed with a primary role of naval gunfire support.

The class design emerged from the DD-21 "land-attack destroyer" program as "DD(X)" and was intended to take the role of battleships in meeting a congressional mandate for naval fire support.

The ship is designed around its two Advanced Gun Systems, their turrets and magazines, and unique Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) ammunition. LRLAP procurement was canceled, rendering the guns unusable, so the Navy re-purposed the ships for surface warfare.

The Zumwalt class has a wave-piercing tumblehome hull form whose sides slope inward above the waterline, which dramatically reduces RCS by returning much less energy than a conventional flare hull form.

The class has an integrated electric propulsion (IEP) system that can send electricity from its turbo-generators to the electric drive motors or weapons, the Total Ship Computing Environment Infrastructure (TSCEI), automated fire-fighting systems, and automated piping rupture isolation.