Zumwalt Captain: She’s ‘Like A Very Souped Up SUV’

SGT (Join to see) Thanks!.. As an AF guy asking an Army guy...why is this classified a Destroyer, when it's longer, and with 50% more tons displacement, than a Ticonderoga class cruiser? Any Navy out there know the answer?

Interesting class of ship. Lots of electrical so they can put in the rail gun later. Probably called a destroyer because it's light in the air defense role and primarily geared for land attack. That and if it were a cruiser, you'd likely wouldn't get support for the CGX program which is looking to replace the Ticonderoga class cruisers which will be larger than the Zumwalt's. Nobody will go for a battleship or dreadnought. Comparing to WW2 class vessels is an exercise in irrelevance as the offensive power to weight ratio has increased a lot. We have subs which are the size of the old escort carriers. BTW if you're just looking at size, the largest cruise ships are 50% larger than the carriers we have now. It's an oddity like the Seawolf. Can do some great things but can't justify the cost in which far cheaper platforms are 85%+ as effective and nearly as survivable. So you'll see the difference in some niche missions which means you don't need a lot of them. Big thinking now is how to stay ahead of the Chinese antiship missile program.

BTW it's being treated as a capital ship by putting an O-6 in command vs. an O-5.

Thanks for the post - good article. Nice to see the Navy taking the advanced leap in technology.