How Stealthy Is Navy's New Destroyer? It Needs Reflectors

This destroyer class ship is unlike anything the Navy has ever had before. It’s primary function is to cruise coastal waters and fire on hostile land targets. The Navy lost this capability when the Iowa-class battleships were retired in the 1990s.

"According to National Defense magazine, the Zumwalt’s “advanced gun system” can hit targets 72 miles away. They can continue firing as more ammunition is brought aboard, a feature the Navy calls an “infinite magazine.”"

There are always pros and cons to everything and the Zumwalt class destroyer has a few design problems.

As good as this ship is, we will not see a large number of them enter the Navy's fleet. The drawback is the hefty price tag for this ship, Zumwalt class destroyers have a price tag of 3 Billion dollars each.

One would think that a ship with this type of a price tag would be free of any problems but this one has a major one. There are serious concerns about the ships’ seaworthiness. “On the DDG-1000 [Zumwalt-class], 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. " This hazard exists because of the shape of the ship. The inward shaping angles of the top of the ship, which are meant to aid in it's stealthy, undetectable maneuvers at sea, give rise to a wake that “Increasing wave heights" can … "lead to drastic reductions in the stability of the tumblehome topside hull form.” as opposed to the standard ship structure having wide flared tops with heel angles, which has had very few capsizing instances.

On a positive note and according to this article, the "USS Zumwalt is so stealthy that it'll go to sea with reflective material that can be hoisted to make it more visible to other ships" and it's shape gives it the appearance on radar of being a much smaller ship than it is. "The Navy destroyer is designed to look like a much smaller vessel on radar, and it lived up to its billing during recent builder trials.""