Watch the US Navy stealth destroyer Zumwalt successfully fire off a missile for the first time

Business Insider ^ | 10/24/2020 | David Larter

[SeekAndFind]

The US Navy destroyer USS Zumwalt fired a missile for the first time during a recent weapons test, the Navy announced Monday.

The Zumwalt, a first-in-class stealth destroyer, test-fired an SM-2 missile from the ship's launcher last Tuesday at the Naval Air Weapons Center Weapons Division Sea Test Range in Point Mugu, California.

The Zumwalt was commissioned in 2016, but it was not delivered to the Navy with a functional combat system until earlier this year.

While the Zumwalt program has faced a number of significant setbacks, including cost overruns and major delays, a big issue was the ship's main guns — the two 155mm guns of the Advanced Gun System.

When the Navy reduced its order from roughly thirty ships to just three, the cost of the rounds shot up. A single round of the Long-Range Land Attack Projectile was going to cost almost $1 million — a figure closer to guided missiles than artillery shells.

And that wasn't the only problem with the guns. Vice Adm. William Merz, then the deputy chief of naval operations for warfare systems, told Congress in 2018 that the guns also lacked the desired range. "We just cannot get the thing to fly as far as we want," he said, adding that the Navy was considering getting rid of the guns altogether.

The Navy was ultimately forced to reevaluate the combat system and change the ship's mission. Instead of naval fire support for ground units, the ship has been retasked to an anti-ship combat role.

In May, following the destroyer's delivery to the fleet, the Zumwalt test-fired the 30 mm mark 46 MOD 2 Gun Weapon System, a remotely-operated, high-velocity naval cannon for taking out small, high-speed surface threats, for the first time.

[TexasGator]

‘The power applied probably can’t go faster than their S/L ratio.”

But they do.

[TexasGator]

“Maybe it was just a crude supercavitating torpedo to which they added a dummy periscope and called it an unmanned sub. 4,000 mph, baby!”

Actually it was a guy in India trolling for hits.

[Magnum44]

My best recollection, being an aviator, not a surface guy, is that you are correct in that hull speed is like a knee in the curve of power vs speed. As you state, obviously you can go faster than hull speed, but at great expense in horsepower.

[blam]

Underwater speed record

This was my home in 1963.

[TexasGator]

"My best recollection, being an aviator, not a surface guy, is that you are correct in that hull speed is like a knee in the curve of power vs speed. As you state, obviously you can go faster than hull speed, but at great expense in horsepower."

Good general description. How much power depends on a lot of factors.

The often referenced hull speed is a theoretical value based on the wave-length of the bow wave. At that speed the boat is essentially riding in the trough.

..

[TexasGator]

Mine, circa '72.

[2001convSVT]

Sounds like the noise generated could be used to hid multiple launched torpedoes in a swarm type attack.

[Lower Deck]

Sounds like the noise generated could be used to hid multiple launched torpedoes in a swarm type attack.

If you can hear it coming from hundreds of miles away then it isn't hard to avoid it or attack it. The only known supercavitating torpedo is the Russian Shkval. While it has a speed of about 200 knots that comes with a cost - max range is between 7 and 12 kilometers, depending on version. The U.S. Mk 48, by comparison, is over 50 kilometers depending on speed. So if your submarine is travelling so fast you opponent can hear it, so fast that your own sonar is useless, and your opponent can attack you long before you're in range to attack them, then it's pretty much a suicide mission.