back to article US Navy's newest ship sets sail with Captain James Kirk at the bridge

The US Navy's largest destroyer has finally set sail. And at its helm is Captain James Kirk. The USS Zumwalt, named after Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, has embarked on its first open ocean trials after eight years of construction. The $4bn Zumwalt is at the cutting edge of technology and will be the first of three in its class ( …

      1. MondoMan
        Linux

        Re: Zumwalt's OS

        Interestingly, unlike most of the rest of the Navy's missile ships, the Zumwalt class will NOT be running the Aegis system (and thus will not have ABM or area air-defense capability), but will instead be running a Linux variant! Quoth the Wiki: "The Total Ship Computing Environment Infrastructure (TSCEI) is based on General Electric Fanuc Embedded Systems' PPC7A and PPC7D single-board computers[71] running LynuxWorks' LynxOS (Linux kernel)[72] RTOS.

        1. Alan Johnson

          Re: Zumwalt's OS

          LynxOS is a nice OS (IMH) but it does not have a Linux Kernel.

          It is a realtime OS with support for Linux APIs (amongst others).

          I have not used a recent version but it was very reliable and a nice environment to develop in.

      2. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stabilty

        "And cost! The program so far is over $22 BEELION dollars, with the Zumwalt's "unit" cost nearly $4 BEELION dollars."

        With a lot of defense weaponry in the West it feels like we're making the same mistake as the Nazi's in World War 2, i.e. one expensive complicated Tiger versus 30-40 simple Sherman's or T34's, hope we never have to use any of it in a major war.

        1. nematoad

          Re: Stabilty

          "...one expensive complicated Tiger versus 30-40 simple Sherman's ..."

          Apart from the fact that the "Greengrocer's apostophe" is still alive and well in your post, I think you ought to read up on the actions of Michael Wittman at the battle of Villers Bocage. Using a Tiger he single-handedly destroyed 14 tanks of the 7th Armoured Division, in one go.

          Shermans were known to the British crews as "Ronsons" after the lighter as they caught fire so easily. So quality can make a difference if used well.

          1. Dabooka
            Pint

            Re: Stabilty

            Top post Nematoad, pint earned!

            Didn't one of the Battlefield series have a Bocage level?

            1. Dan Wilkie

              Re: Stabilty

              Battlefield 1942, the King of Battlefield games.

              God the memories...

              1. Anonymous Coward
                Anonymous Coward

                Re: Stabilty

                > Battlefield 1942, the King of Battlefield games.

                The crown it was wearing had "Desert Combat" written on it....

          2. Anonymous Coward
            Anonymous Coward

            Re: Stabilty

            "Apart from the fact that the "Greengrocer's apostophe"is still alive and well in your post"

            What do you say to grammar Nazis?

            There, their, they're!

            Sorry I don't proof read every forum post to your high standards, life is too short.

            Maybe you should read how notoriously unreliable the Tiger was, granted it sometimes took 4-5 Shermans to take out one Tiger, but many were abandoned by crews because of breakdowns, in Normandy some groups had almost half their Tigers out of action due to mechanical problems.

            Some of this was due to poor engineering facilities and materials at the time, but it is widely recognised it was not a good mechanical design as it was too complex (Removing an engine was not a straightforward task for instance).

          3. JLV

            Villers Bocage

            Keep in mind, you are always gonna find the "x enemies destroyed" anecdotes popping up. By the very nature of what catches attention and makes history. There was supposedly the KV-1 with 14 kills @ Kursk, for example, but Kursk was won by Soviet numbers, not its outliers. And numbers, and reliability, again carried the day wrt Ronson M4s vs Tigers.

            Plus, IIRC Wittman fell on a nice line up of unaware enemies all in a column, wasn't a toe-to-toe slugout. Not to diss either him or the Tiger, but pls present the whole story. Respect for your counter example though.

          4. PaulFrederick

            Re: Stabilty

            They got the Ronson nickname because they light up reliably at the first strike. The Jerries called them Tommy Cookers.

            1. Matt Bryant Silver badge
              Pirate

              Re: PaulFrederick Re: Stabilty

              "They got the Ronson nickname because they light up reliably at the first strike...." Well, yes and no. The British ordered almost exclusively the petrol-engined model which - in its original and unmodified form - proved vulnerable to hits on the fuel tanks setting the whole tank on fire. Later British Shermans had added applique armour over the fuel tanks and ammunition bins to help reduce the problem. But the Yanks used a lot of the diesel-powered version without the same "brewing up" problem.

              The Birtish had a fixation with tanks "brewing up" due to a study done on their designs and early battles in North Africa, where the most common cause of a British tank being written-off was due to catastrophic fire in the crew compartment (very few actually exploded in best Hollywood fashion). But the cause of the frequent brewing up was traced to the bad habits of British tank crews, who packed the interiors of their tanks with personal kit such as flammable coats and oil-soaked rags, and often kept ready-to-fire ammunition stacked outside of protective containers. When their tanks were hit by AP shot, hot splinters of metal often set fire to those personal items and the fire quickly spread to the ready ammunition, and it then became a race for the crew to escape before they got burnt alive. Even the old and lighter Crusader II and III tanks suffered much less brew ups after crews started keeping the interior spaces clear and sliding doors were fitted over the ammunition racks.

              The original Sherman design was very good, so good that when it made its battle debut in 1942 the Yanks made the mistake of assuming it would stay a top-line battle tank for the rest of the foreseeable War period. And for the majority of the War it was as good or better than the majority of its opponents (the most common German tank throughout the War was the up-gunned Panzer IV with the Panther and Tiger being relatively uncommon in comparison, and the Japanese tanks being little more than target practice). But in many ways it became a moot point - in the latter parts of WW2 the majority of German tanks were destroyed from the air, or broke down and were captured, or simply ran out of fuel (because air attacks destroyed their fuel supplies). And by the end of the War the Brits and Yanks both had tank designs that matched or bettered the Tiger, Panther and even Tiger II in the Pershing, Comet and Centurion.

          5. Yag

            Re: M4 nicknames

            Can't be worse than the italian CV-35 (or L3/35), with its thin rivetted armor (acting as an embedded fragmentation bomb)

            It was nicknamed "Arrigoni" after a popular tomato sauce brand..

        2. Anonymous Coward
          Anonymous Coward

          Re: Stabilty

          In fairness, the 45's were £1 billion each. Which with a quick bit of conversion makes them roughly $1.5 billion each. And the Zumwalt is nigh on twice the displacement, and (whilst I'm unconvinced it's a good thing for a warship) cutting edge.

          Whereas the 45's don't even work most of the time. I'd imagine after a couple of years, provided these actually stay at sea without breaking down for more than a days, you'll get more sea time per £ from a $4 billion Zumwalt than a $1 billion T45...

      3. DropBear
        Trollface

        Re: Stabilty

        "Is this running Windows for Warships? "

        Shouldn't those be called, y'now, "Portholes"...?

    1. MondoMan
      Thumb Up

      Re: Stabilty

      There was much controversy over the stability of the "tumblehome" hull form. The Wiki notes: "A return to a hull form not seen since the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, the Zumwalt-class destroyer reintroduces the tumblehome hull form." and "In April 2007, naval architect Ken Brower said, "As a ship pitches and heaves at sea, if you have tumblehome instead of flare, you have no righting energy to make the ship come back up. On the DDG 1000, with the waves coming at you from behind, when a ship pitches down, it can lose transverse stability as the stern comes out of the water – and basically roll over."

      There is reason for hope -- the 1/4-scale tumblehome-hull "SeaJet" demonstrator ship did *not* roll over in tests in Lake Pend Oreille, Idaho.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: Stabilty

        so it's, basically, a roll-over design, like a cayak? I hope they have time to pull down their steel shutters before they roll! ;)

        1. Alan Edwards

          Re: Stabilty

          I was reading about this new ship earlier, and they were comparing it to the Arleigh Burke class. Apparently the Arleigh Burke can roll over to 110 degrees and still naturally right itself, the Zumwalt is deliberately unstable and needs computer help in rough water.

          The Arleigh Burke is nicer looking too, IMO. The Zumwalt is not exactly pretty, is it?

      2. swm

        Re: Stabilty

        There is a building in Boston with a very large weight at the top which can be moved by hydraulic actuators to maintain stability of the building in high winds. I think this is the building that used to shed window panes as the building flexed.

        I believe that some stealth aircraft are unstable without their control systems and if you lose the control system you bail out because your reflexes aren't fast enough to fly the plane.

        This is not new technology.

    2. Yugguy

      Re: Stabilty

      "So if the computer goes, she capsizes?! Not sure if that is a good idea."

      Yes - in the same way that a lot of ultramodern military aircraft cannot fly without constant computer control. It makes them more manouverable.

  1. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I'd serve on her.

    Hits all my check boxes although I'd prefer at least twenty to forty more VLS cells since this design isn't stock Bluewater, more raider. You need deeper loadouts in a raider. The advanced guns will surely be appreciated by Marines (esp. Force Recon) or Navy SEALS in the area. Given the OTH reach, several insertions could occur in near simultaneously evolutions, with drone support.

    Overpriced? With that few ships? Congress cuts and cuts the total build and WTF do you think will happen? R&D, support costs, ancillary programs are still fixed cost spread over too damn few ships. Fuck Congress.

    Thirty-two of them would be everyone's worst nightmare. Good. Go Navy!

  2. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    I sincerely hope

    the US Navy displays some common sense and put Captain Kirk in charge of the new CVS-80 Enterprise carrier when she takes to the waves in 10 years time;

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: I sincerely hope

      and he needs to be given the codename Tiberius ...

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: I sincerely hope

        But did he cheat at the Koboyashi Maru test?

    2. JEDIDIAH
      Linux

      Re: I sincerely hope

      Kirk is not an aviator, so it's not likely. He's more "Heavy Cruiser" material.

  3. graeme leggett Silver badge

    not a handsome beast

    Though the lines make its size deceptive - about the size of a WWII cruiser.

    1. nematoad

      Re: not a handsome beast

      I must say that this struck me as well.

      15,000 tons and it has to use all that technology to make it look like a WW2 cruiser?

      That's a destroyer?

      I hate to think what the US Navy would think of as a Battle-cruiser class ship!

    2. Michael H.F. Wilkinson Silver badge

      Re: not a handsome beast

      Actually bigger than many if not most WW-II cruisers. The RN County class heavy cruisers weighed in at 10,000 tonnes, rather less than the 15,000 tonnes quoted here, which is heavier than many pre-dreadnought battleships. A very far cry from the 260 tonnes of the earliest torpedo-boat destroyers. Churchill apparently once said that by forever increasing the size of destroyers, we move them from the class of the hunters to that of the hunted. He may have had a point.

      1. Anonymous Coward
        Anonymous Coward

        Re: not a handsome beast

        For all nations, the Washington treaty cruisers were fixed at 10,000 tons.

        Freed of the Treaty by the war, the US pushed cruiser weights up to 18,000 tons standard. The UK needed quantity more than "quality" so only built smaller cruisers during the war, if at all.

    3. Tom 7

      Re: not a handsome beast

      It looks remarkably like the Toblerone the missus wants for xmas, only cheaper.

    4. Yag

      Re: not a handsome beast

      Theorically, the class was not related to the size, but to the mission.

      Battleships were front liner, slugging each others into oblivion. If I remember well, it happened only once (the famous battle of Jutland)

      Cruisers were supposed to be lone wolf hunters preying on shipping and opportunity targets, role that was superseeded by the subs

      Destroyers were small-medium fleet escort ships designed to hunt and destroy those submarines.

      According to the armament of the thing and the logical aim of a stealthy ship, this should be classified as a cruiser.

      But it's easier for the navy to get funding to build a "small" destroyers than for "big" cruisers, so...

      1. WolfFan Silver badge

        Re: not a handsome beast

        There were several battleship vs battleship actions after Jutland. Among them were

        1 Denmark Strait, Hood and Prince of Wales vs Bismarck and Prinz Eugen

        2 Pursuit of Bismarck, Bismarck vs Home Fleet

        3 Naval Battle of Gualcanal, Nov 1942, Washington vs two Kongo-class (designed and one built in the UK!)

        4 Suriago Strait, six American battleships plus several American cruisers (and one Australian one) vs two Japanese battleships and assorted cruisers. USS Missouri fired last main gun salvo against another battleship ever made.

        If Halsey hadn't screwed up, Willis Lee and the four Iowa class battleships would have been in the San Bernadino Strait to meet Kurita and his boys, and we'd know who'd win in a fight between Yamato and Iowa class battleships. Instead, Lee and his battleships were out chasing Ozawa and Kurita hit the escort groups off Samar.

        1. Yag
          Pint

          Re: not a handsome beast

          I stand corrected...

      2. Gordon 10
        Mushroom

        Re: not a handsome beast

        There's a lot of speculation that the Zumwalts are actually next gen battle cruisers in disguise and are earmarked to be the test bed for the Navy's railgun/ laser projects. One of the reasons the class was reduced from 32 and almost canned at one point was rumoured to be a lot of internal interference from the Carrier Jockeys.

        One of the coolest things I have read about them? Apparently coz they are all electric you can switch the power between various sub systems on demand such as between the electric engines and that big ass radar array they have.

        Give them energy shields and it'll be X-wing vs Tie Fighter navy stylee.

  4. russell 6

    Stability

    Maybe it has an extendable keel which can be deployed and retracted as or when needed. There is certainly enough height in the superstructure to hide one ;)

  5. Pedigree-Pete
    Mushroom

    Pearl Harbour

    Wasn't the "Z" the only ship to make hits and escape the Chinese invasion of Pearl in "Red Sun"? (Can't check just now because Windows Kindle app has scrambled my copy of Red Sun).

  6. BernardL

    Helloooooo

    A crew of only 158? How will they find each other in a ship that size? Search dogs? FindMyCrewmate?

  7. enormous c word

    Aint no looker

    Well - whatever else it might be, it is one ugly mother

  8. Locky
    Pirate

    The Royal Navy best not order any of these

    This guy would destroy the fleet

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aDHPCr5m4ko

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: The Royal Navy best not order any of these

      The UK will probably order some....we just won't be able to afford weapons for them until 10 years after they are delivered.

      1. annodomini2

        Re: The Royal Navy best not order any of these

        ...10 years after they are obsolete.

      2. graeme leggett Silver badge

        Re: The Royal Navy best not order any of these

        The Navy's planned ship in the stealthy(ish) format is the Type 26 (to replace the Type 23) for "warfighting, maritime security and international engagement"

        "warfighting" - is that a borrowing from our Atlantic cousins?

        1. disgruntled yank

          Re: The Royal Navy best not order any of these

          Could be a misprint for "wharffighting", something the personnel do off duty, or an indication that the ship isn't really seaworthy.

          But yes, Pentagon's Redundancy Team, aka the Squad Squad, probably came up with that one. (I believe that it is commanded by Gen. Consensus.)

          1. disgruntled yank

            Re: The Royal Navy best not order any of these

            I have just remembered that William Safire's "Squad Squad" was also known as the "Department of Redundancy Department"....

  9. Matt Bradley

    Imperial Star Destroyer, anybody?

  10. Matthew Taylor

    Regrettably, they seem to have launched it upside down.

  11. Chris G

    Soul?

    I'm sitting eating a sandwich on a 15 metre Fairline motor yacht while I'm reading this, just doing some work on it. Being more of a sailing man I think the Fairline is ugly but when the Zunwalt was in the ugly queue it really took the piss and all of the ugly.

    In the past, naval ship's seaworthyness often saved the lives of their crews even when significantly damaged, if I sailed on this I would try to wangle a position near a life boat station.

    It has got life boats somewhere......surely.

    Meant to say, most ships engender a feeling of soul, this looks absolutely souless. Not designed by your usual naval architect.

  12. Winkypop Silver badge
    Devil

    Hmmm

    As pretty as a bag of spanners.

  13. phuzz Silver badge
    Facepalm

    Phew

    Well apparently the US Navy knows nothing about building ships, so thank fsck that the combined forces of el Reg's commentards are here to school them on modern warship design!

    Honestly, why did they even bother paying mere mortals to design the thing when they could have come here and discovered that their plans were all bad and wrong?

    1. Anonymous Coward
      Anonymous Coward

      Re: Phew

      ...Let's face it el Reg's readers are all bloody awesome, multi talented super stars, there's no denying it!

    2. Sokolik
      Thumb Up

      Re: Phew

      What you said.

      I'm incredulous of questioning the need for a modern Navy, in this day of global trade. Sincerely, how else does stuff get reliably and continually from the manufacturers (China, et al) to the consumers (northwestern hemisphere, that is, us) ? But for modern Navies of U.S., UK, & France, how would all merchant sea lanes not be the Somali coast?

      As for the futuristic design and seaworthiness, I doubt the guys and gals at naval design bureaus are stupid. As for the futuristic design and any tactical vulnerabilities, I'm sure, behind those sloped bulkheads and within those turrets are a lot of nasty and effective surprises for any adversary of any means.

      "Cole", agreed, is a valid and valuable lesson. Yet, again, I doubt the design bureaus are too stupid to have learned that lesson.

      As for costly financing, why else did Congress or the Navy drastically lower the class from 32 vessels to three?

      Trust me, all this is true. I'm an Air Force officer, so It's very difficult for me to cough up the necessity of a modern Navy!

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