Navy

After Only 3 Years in Service, the USS Zumwalt’s Mission Is Changing

The USS Zumwalt and her two sister ships are undergoing a dramatic change of mission just three years after the first ship was commissioned. The destroyers, originally meant to provide naval gunfire support for the Marines and bombard targets far inland, are now being reorientated to a ship-killer role.

The Zumwalt-class of destroyers was meant to dramatically boost the fleet’s gun firepower. After the retirement of the four Iowa-class battleships in the early 1990s, the service studied a number of solutions before deciding on the Zumwalts. Each ship would be equipped with two 155-millimeter Advanced Gun Systems, each firing a precision-guided Long Range Land Attack Projectile to ranges of up to 83 miles.

The U.S. Navy originally planned to buy 32 destroyers, a number that was cut to seven ships, and then finally to just three. The cost of the LRLAP projectile, originally pegged at $50,000 each, ballooned to $800,000 each making them unaffordable to even the mighty U.S. Navy. Without enough ships and guns, the Zumwalts were in danger of becoming the white elephants of the fleet.

The Zumwalt destroyer program has been an expensive mess. The program has cost $23 billion to date, producing just three ships with an average cost of $7.8 billion—more than three times the cost of Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers that make up the bulk of the Navy’s surface fleet. Furthermore the ships are five years late and, without LRLAP ammunition, cannot fulfill their original mission.