The Zumwalt class of the US Navy is an impressive class of destroyers that includes three guided-missile warships with stealth capabilities. One of its most interesting features is its price, as it is the most expensive destroyer ever built. Cost per unit -including research and development- reaches the crazy amount of 7,5 million dollars. With such a high cost, it's not a wonder why Zumwalt received so much criticism. The biggest of this criticism was about one of its most promising features: the Advanced Gun System.
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Γιατί τα Arleigh Burke είναι τα καλύτερα αντιτορπιλικά του κόσμου
System Issues
As we stated earlier, one of the most important features of the class was the expensive Advance Gun System, a system that never worked. AGS is a naval missile system that provides long-range naval fire support against land targets. Every Zumwalt destroyer features two of these systems that shoot 155mm shells. The two turrets of the AGS are located in the front part of the hull and are moving in their internal bays when they are inactive. Their range is almost 60 to 100km. But, what went wrong and the system never worked?
Let's take things from zero: AGS is a unique naval system that was built only for the Zumwalt class. The system would have used the unique Long Range Attack Projectile that was specially designed for the AGS. However, while they were being developed, their cost reached the astronomical amount of 800,000 to 1 million dollars per missile. The US Army couldn't justify this amount and terminated the program. The result was that AGS became useless as it hadn't any ammunition to use. There have been a lot of concepts for the replacement of the AGS, but nothing was official until 2021.
Last year, the US Navy revealed that the 155mm AGS turrets will be replaced with a hypersonic launcher. The vertical launch system will shoot the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic missiles. The first of them will be delivered to the US Navy and will be used in the Ohio class submarines around 2025. The US Army will have these missiles in 2023. The CPS capabilities include a speed greater than 5 Mach and a range longer than 2,700 km.
However, the missile isn't small enough to fit in the Mk. 57 vertical launching systems of the Zumwalt ships. That's why CPS will need dedicated space for a launching system, a system that will replace the AGS.
These modifications will be in 2024. CPS looks to fit perfectly the Zumwalt class, as hypersonic missiles are the newest and most dangerous threats of our time.
