The most advanced surface warship from the US Navy is sent to east Asia.

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Seoul, South KoreaCNN — The most advanced surface warship in the US Navy is showing off its stealthy shape in the western Pacific as part of a mission that could pave the way for the US to send hypersonic missiles to the area in the future. The USS Zumwalt is the first of three multimission guided missile destroyers that the Navy says will "add a new level of complexity to the battlespace for possible enemies." One of these possible enemies in the Pacific is China, and the Zumwalt will definitely catch Beijing's attention. "The Chinese will be very interested in a stealth warship," said Carl Schuster, an analyst and former US Navy captain. This is especially true if the Zumwalt has hypersonic weapons. And it might not be too far away. A report from the US Naval Institute in August said that the Zumwalt will be updated next year to work with the Pentagon's Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), a weapons system that uses a booster rocket motor to fire missiles at hypersonic speed.

According to a report from the Congressional Research Service from May 2022, "the C-HGB will be able to turn, making it harder to find and catch. It will also be able to travel at Mach 5 or higher, which is at least five times the speed of sound or up to 20,921 kilometres per hour."

"The C-HGB is designed to be fast enough to destroy targets on its own," the report said.

A US Navy 7th Fleet spokesman said that the Zumwalt arrived in Japan on Monday after stopping in Guam last week.

A Navy statement said that the warship has been sent to Destroyer Squadron 15, which is the US Navy's largest destroyer squadron based outside of the US. It operates out of Yokosuka Naval Base near Tokyo.

Zumwalt dwarfs other US destroyers

A Navy fact sheet says that the Zumwalt is "the largest and most technologically advanced surface combatant in the world." It is 610 feet (185 metres) long and weighs 16,000 metric tonnes.

Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, on the other hand, are the mainstay of the US Navy's fleet. They are about 100 feet (30 metres) shorter and weigh less than 10,000 tonnes.

The Type 055 destroyer is China's biggest surface combatant. It can carry between 12,000 and 13,000 tonnes.

But even though China's People's Liberation Army Navy isn't as big as Zumwalt's, it can win the battle of numbers.

The USS Michael Mansoor and the ship that will become the USS Lyndon B. Johnson are the other two ships in the Zumwalt class.

Six Type 055s are currently in use by the PLA Navy, and more are expected as part of a massive shipbuilding programme that has helped the Chinese navy pass the US to become the largest in the world.

The USS Zumwalt has 80 vertical launch cells for anti-submarine rockets and missiles that can hit land and sea targets. The Type 055 has 112 launch cells that can do the same things.

The US Navy says the Zumwalt has many new features, but its stealthy design is the one that stands out the most.

"The design of the wave-piercing tumblehome hull has led to many improvements. "The composite superstructure reduces the radar cross section and other signatures by a large amount. This makes it harder for enemies at sea to find the ship," says a Navy fact sheet.

A programme with problems

The US Navy's programme to build destroyers in the Zumwalt class has been controversial and expensive. According to a 2018 report to Congress from the Government Accountability Office (GAO), each of the three ships in this class will cost about $8 billion when research and development costs are added in.

The price per ship would have been a lot lower if the Navy had stuck to its original plan to build 32 of these huge destroyers. However, the number of ships was cut from 32 to three after the Navy decided that the Zumwalt class would need to be changed a lot to do an anti-ballistic missile defence mission, which the Arleigh Burkes could do for less money, according to the Congressional Research Service.

The ships have also taken a long time to get ready. Zumwalt was put into service in 2016, but it took the Navy four years to get the final ship from shipbuilder General Dynamics after all of its systems had been tested.

A Navy official said that the Navy is not using the term "deployment" to describe the Zumwalt's current stay in the Pacific. This is because the ship is not moving.

"The ship and crew are being used as they normally would, but this is part of the process of integrating a new class of ship into the operational environment and figuring out how it works best with other ships and platforms," the official said.

Schuster, an analyst in Hawaii, said that the Zumwalt's movements are "more political than military" until the Navy can get those hypersonic weapons on board.

"At over $8 billion each, the Navy is having trouble finding a use for these ships that aren't very well armed," he said.

He said that the PLA Navy will still have something to think about.

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Content Source: https://edition.cnn.com/2022/09/26/asia/uss-zumwalt-warship-us-navy-deployment-intl-hnk-ml/index.html