I won't say this is a bad development:
The [Navy's] 2019 budget request includes a request for $89.7 million to transform its Zumwalt-class destroyers by integrating Raytheon’s long-range SM-6 missile, which can dual hat as both an anti-air and anti-surface missile, as well as its Maritime Strike variant of the Tomahawk missile.
Converting DDG-1000 into a hunter-killer is a win for the surface warfare community’s years-long drive to beef up the force’s offensive capabilities. It also answers the bell for U.S. Pacific Command, which has been pushing for the Navy to add longer range weapons to offset the increasing threat from Chinese long-range missile technology.
I noted this plan when it came out in December. I was happy enough that the land attack mission fantasy had been abandoned. But there was still a problem:
Of course, the ship is too stealthy to risk sailing with other ships and being detected because of them; yet too weakly armed and equipped to defend itself sailing alone if detected.
Remember, the ship is stealthy and not invisible.
Add to the problem of thinking the ship is a savior for surface warfare is that the ship class is just 3. So assume only one is deployed at any one time during peacetime--2 if the Navy really push the ships for a while without major maintenance or upgrades.
So I still say that Zumwalt isn't a combat vessel. It is a test platform best suited to hosting new weapons and systems before spinning them out to the rest of the fleet or to a new class of ships.
That new ship will be affordable because all of the development costs will be written off as part of the "cancelled" DDG-1000 class (and operating costs of a commissioned warship):
By canceling the ship class, it looks fiscally responsible but it really isn't. It's just accounting, since the next ship built using the exact same technology that by the rules has to be counted against the cost of the ship the research was done for will use Zumwalt technology that is now already paid for. Voila! A cheaper warship.
Oh sure, if there is a war it will be sent into combat. But that isn't the primary mission.
