In Aug, guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt arrived in Mississippi to begin a two-year
process to install hypersonic missile tubes.
A statement from the Navy provided to USNI News stated,
“USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) arrived in Pascagoula, Miss., today to enter a modernization period
and receive technology upgrades including the integration of the Conventional Prompt
Strike weapon system.
The upgrades will ensure Zumwalt remains one of the most technologically advanced and lethal
ships in the U.S. Navy.”
Ingalls president Kari Wilkinson said in a statement,
“To the crew and families of the guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt, we would like to extend
the warmest welcome to the newest members of our shipyard community.
It is an honor for us to serve you and the Navy by doing this important work”
In this video Defense Updates analyzes how Zumwalt class warships are getting armed with
hypersonic missile?
Let's get started.
The Zumwalt-class destroyers have 80 MK57 cells protected by the Peripheral Vertical
Launch System (PVLS) as well as two 155-millimeter guns.
Each Mk. 57 can carry a single SM-2 or SM-6 long-range surface-to-air missile, ASROC anti-submarine
rocket torpedo, or up to four Evolved Sea Sparrow short-range surface-to-air missiles.
Importantly, they can also carry Tomahawks.
The two 155-millimeter Advanced Gun Systems were supposed to be capable of engaging targets
with precision-guided shells at ranges of up to 60 miles or 95 km.
The Long Range Land Attack Projectile or LRLAP, the precision-guided shell that would arm
the ship’s guns, saw cost escalation from $50,000 a round to $800,000.
The U.S Navy, for this reason, canceled LRLAP
US Navy has decided to rearmed the class and shift the focus of Zumwalt from close to shore
to blue water engagement with the installation of hypersonic weapons.
The gun system will be replaced to add hypersonic weapon.
As per reports, the US Navy has determined that the hull can accommodate four 87-inch
missile tubes.
Each of these tubes would be able to house 3 Common Hypersonic Glide Bodies (C-HGB) along
with their boosters.
That means Zumwalt will be armed with a total of 12 missiles.
The U.S Department of Defense has been developing the C-HGB so that it will serve as the base
of its offensive hypersonic missile.
C-HGB will be used by the different services of the U.S military - Army & Navy.
U.S Navy was put in charge of developing the C-HGB.
The design of the Common-Hypersonic Glide Body is based on the previously developed
Alternate Re-Entry System, which was tested in the early 2010s as part of the Army's Advanced
Hypersonic Weapon program.
The Alternate Re-Entry System was itself based on the Sandia Winged Energetic Reentry Vehicle
Experiment (SWERVE) prototype developed by Sandia National Laboratories in the 1980s.
C-HGB's dimensions are common across the Navy and Army and have been developed keeping in
mind many aspects.
Wolfe said, “You need to have the same lethality no
matter where you’re at.
And that’s what this weapon does.
It’s all the same with the lethality to get after all these targets.
It just depends on who’s launching it, right, whether it’s the Army, from a [transporter
erector launcher], or whether it’s a Zumwalt, or whether it’s a Virginia-class submarine,”
In the C-HGB approach, the glider will be launched to extremely high altitudes using
a Ballistic Missile, then separate from the carrier missile and will skim back to the
earth towards its intended target attaining hypersonic speed.
Hypersonic speed means the object exceeds Mach 5 that is 5 times the speed of sound.
This is about 1,715 meters per second or 3,836mph or 6,174 km/h.
Each service of the U.S Military will use the C-HGB as the base while developing individual
weapon systems such as launchers capable of firing weapons from land or sea.
The C-HGB will have a warhead, guidance system as well as thermal protection shield.
Dynetics will build the glide vehicle while Lockheed Martin will build the booster as
well as assemble the missile and launch equipment.
The C-HGB has been successfully tested twice, in October 2017 and March 2020.
The glider will also be able to maneuver in flight unlike traditional ballistic missiles
and is much faster than a typical cruise missile.
The combination of high speed and the ability to take an unpredictable path will make the
missile a lethal weapon, there is no dependable way to intercept this kind of weapon at present.
C-HGB is being seen as providing an alternative to nuclear weapons for strategic retaliatory
strikes.
The US Navy wants the weapons installed and the destroyer ready to deploy by 2025.
Vice Adm. Johnny Wolfe, the head of the Navy’s strategic systems programs, told reporters
at the Naval Submarine League’s annual symposium in November,
“We’re talking about deploying this system on DDG-1000 in 2025, that’s three years
from now,”
However, in June, the Government Accountability Office cast doubt on whether the weapons would
be prepared in time.
The report reads, “The CPS program office noted that significant
scope and challenges associated with the first-time integration of CPS may present risks to achieving
DDG 1000’s installation schedule.
In reviewing CPS program office information on critical technologies, we found that significant
work remains for the program to demonstrate technology maturity,”
It adds, “If the hypersonic weapon is not ready for integration on the DDG 1000 at the
time of the aforementioned maintenance period, the Navy may have to extend the duration of
the planned maintenance period or wait for the next scheduled period to incorporate the
system on the ship.”
It remains to seen how things pan out in the coming days.