The US Navy is transforming an expensive weapon into a powerful weapon with the first shipboard hypersonic weapon, which is being retrofitted to the first of its three stealth destroyers.
The USS Zumwalt is in a shipyard in Mississippi where workers are installing missile tubes to replace the twin turrets from a gun system that was never activated because it was too expensive. When the system is complete, the Zumwalt will provide a platform to deliver rapid, accurate strikes from longer distances, adding to the utility of the warship.
“It was a costly mistake, but here the Navy could have pulled victory from the jaws of defeat and gotten some benefit out of them by turning them into a hypersonic platform,” said Bryan Clark, a defense analyst at the Hudson Institute.
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The US has had several types of hypersonic weapons in development over the past two decades, but recent tests by both Russia and China have increased pressure on the US military to accelerate their production.
Hypersonic weapons travel above Mach 5, five times the speed of sound, with added maneuverability that makes them harder to shoot down.
Last year, the Washington Post reported that among the documents leaked by former Massachusetts Air Guard Airman Jack Teixeira was a Defense Department briefing that confirmed China had recently tested a medium-range hypersonic weapon called the DF-27. Although the Pentagon has previously acknowledged the development of the weapon, it has not acknowledged testing it.
One of the US programs being developed and planned for Zumwalt is “Conventional Rapid Strike.” It would launch like a ballistic missile and then release a hypersonic glide vehicle that would travel at speeds seven to eight times the speed of sound before impact. The weapon system is developed jointly by the navy and the army. Each of the Zumwalt-class destroyers will be equipped with four missile tubes for a total of 12 hypersonic weapons per ship.
By selecting the Zumwalt, the Navy is trying to increase the utility of a $7.5 billion warship that critics see as a costly mistake despite serving as a test bed for more innovations.
The Zumwalt was intended to provide a land attack capability with an advanced rocket-assisted missile gun system to pave the way for the Marines to attack the coast. But the system, which features 155 mm guns hidden in hidden turrets, was canceled because each of the rocket-assisted missiles cost between $800,000 and $1 million.
Despite the tarnish on its reputation, the three Zumwalt-class destroyers remain the Navy’s most advanced surface warship in terms of new technologies. Those innovations include electric propulsion, an angular shape to minimize radar signature, an unconventional wave-piercing hull, automated fire and damage control, and a composite deckhouse that conceals radar and other sensors.
The Zumwalt arrived at the Huntington Ingalls Industries shipyard in Pascagoula, Mississippi, in August 2023 and was removed from the water for the complex job of integrating a new weapons system. It should be shut down this week in preparation for the next round of testing and return to the fleet, shipyard spokeswoman Kimberly Aguillard said.
America’s hypersonic weapon was successfully tested over the summer and missile development continues. The Navy wants to begin testing the system aboard the Zumwalt in 2027 or 2028, according to the Navy.
America’s weapons system will come at a high price. Buying 300 weapons and maintaining them for 20 years would cost nearly $18 billion, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
Critics say it’s too little bang for the buck.
“This particular rocket costs more than a dozen tanks. All it gets you is a precise non-nuclear explosion, somewhere far away. Is it really worth the money? The answer most of the time is that the missile costs a lot more than whatever target you can destroy with it,” said Loren Thompson, a longtime military analyst in Washington, DC.
But they allow naval ships to attack the enemy from thousands of kilometers away – beyond the range of most enemy weapons – and there is no effective defense against them, said retired Navy Rear Adm. Ray Spicer, executive director of the US Naval Institute, a think tank and former commander of the aircraft carrier strike force.
Conventional missiles that cost less are not exactly cheap if they are unable to reach their targets, Spicer said, adding that the US military really has no choice but to pursue them.
“The opponent has them. We never want to be outdone,” he said.
The U.S. is accelerating development because hypersonics has been identified as vital to U.S. national security with “survivable and lethal capabilities,” said James Weber, chief director of hypersonics in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Critical Technologies.
“A priority for the Department of Defense is to deploy new capabilities based on hypersonic technologies to maintain and strengthen our integrated deterrence and build lasting advantages,” he said.
