Of all the government boondoggles, the United States Navy’s Zumwalt-class destroyer might be the silliest waste of money ever. After years of avoiding having to make the hard call on the failed Zumwalt-class (e.g., mothballing these boats), the Navy has kicked the can down the road again. 

This time, the Pentagon has concocted a scheme that might prove to be utterly useless: arming the Zumwalts with hypersonic cruise missiles that the Navy has been developing to counter China in the Indo-Pacific. 

Now, there are some people lamenting the fact that the Zumwalt never went into full production and more units were never bought. And their reason is, frankly, ridiculous. 

According to these sources, now that the Navy has figured out what to do with these boats after twenty years of being totally unable to use them, the Pentagon is retrofitting them by removing their primary guns and replacing them with hypersonic cruise missile launchers. 

They want to turn the Zumwalt class into a hypersonic missile carrier.

Some of you are salivating at that. I know. It’s what we’ve always wanted. Indeed, it’s what America needs, right? 

The Russians—yes, the Russians—are beating us in hypersonic weapons technology. They have long-range and shorter-range hypersonic ballistic missiles in their arsenal that they have used already in combat. China, too, is working on increasingly complicated hypersonic weapons platforms. 

In fact, some of the technological advances China enjoyed over the last few years with its hypersonic weapons development are downright scary. For instance, China successfully experimented with beaming sixth-generation (6G) communications into one of their hypersonic glide vehicles as it was reentering the atmosphere using a laser to enhance Chinese control over the vehicle. 

So, yeah, America needs to up its game in the hypersonic domain.

Lipstick on a Pig

But the idea that the Zumwalt-class destroyers, given all their chronic problems and failures, can live up to the hype that surrounded them when they were first sold to the American people is ridiculous. One can only put so much lipstick on a pig, after all. And why is the Navy even entertaining notions of placing hypersonic cruise missile launchers on the Zumwalts?

It's because the much-ballyhooed main guns for the Zumwalt-class destroyers that were originally planned to be installed didn’t work. Originally, the Navy had planned for the Zumwalts to feature the Advanced Gun System (AGS) that would fire specialized “Long Range Land Attack Projectile” (LRLAP) ammunition.

Designed to be highly precise but useable only on the Zumwalts, the Navy realized that at a cost of $800,000 per round made the LRLAP munitions impractical. It’s just too bad that the Pentagon figured this out after it had committed to the AGS. Without the LRLAP munitions, the AGS was rendered useless. 

So, the Navy had to go back to the drawing board for what the Zumwalts would fire.

A Monumental Waste

Hence, the introduction of hypersonic missile launchers. And while some of you reading this might be inclined to congratulate the Navy for taking one of its greatest failures, the Zumwalt-class destroyer, and trying to make it a success story, remember that the ship itself is an expensive claptrap. Not only are the main guns for the Zumwalt a failure, but the destroyers are notorious for their relatively weak armor and their chronic engine woes. 

Let’s get this straight. The Navy spent $8 billion per unit on the Zumwalt-class destroyer (which has been billed as the world’s largest destroyer), equaling about $24 billion in all. This new destroyer was to be revolutionary. Instead, it is an evolutionary dead-end (an expensive one at that). Its guns don’t work. Its armor is dangerously weak. And its engines are subpar. That doesn’t sound like a warship. Placing hypersonic weapons onboard will not overcome the inherent flaws of this expensive, useless warship. 

The Navy should be taken to task for wasting the kind of money it has on this failed warship and the boats themselves should be mothballed before they wind out getting their crews killed in combat. 

Brandon J. Weichert, a Senior National Security Editor at The National Interest as well as a Senior Fellow at the Center for the National Interest, and a contributor at Popular Mechanics, consults regularly with various government institutions and private organizations on geopolitical issues. Weichert’s writings have appeared in multiple publications, including the Washington Times, The American Spectator, to the National Interest. His books include Winning Space: How America Remains a Superpower, Biohacked: China’s Race to Control Life, and The Shadow War: Iran’s Quest for Supremacy. His newest book, A Disaster of Our Own Making: How the West Lost Ukraine is available for purchase wherever books are sold. He can be followed via Twitter @WeTheBrandon.

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