• The most modern surface warship in the US Navy is conducting a mission.
• They could pave the way for the future stationing of US hypersonic missiles in the area.
• The USS Zumwalt is one of three multi-mission guided missiles.

The most modern surface warship in the US Navy is conducting a mission in the western Pacific that could pave the way for the future stationing of US hypersonic missiles in the area.

The USS Zumwalt is one of three multi-mission guided missile destroyers in a class that the Navy claims will “increase the complexity of the battlespace for prospective adversaries.”

China is undoubtedly one of these prospective rivals in the Pacific, and the Zumwalt will undoubtedly catch Beijing’s attention.

According to expert Carl Schuster, a former US Navy captain, “the presence of a stealth destroyer will garner a great lot of (Chinese) curiosity,” particularly if the Zumwalt is armed with hypersonic missiles.

And that moment might be coming soon.

According to a US Naval Institute research from August, the Zumwalt would be updated the following year to accommodate the Pentagon’s Common Hypersonic Glide Body (C-HGB), a weapon system that launches missiles at hypersonic speeds using a booster rocket motor.

“The C-HGB is to be agile, making it more difficult to identify and intercept, and it can fly at Mach 5 or higher… at least five times faster than the speed of sound or up to 13,000 miles (20,921 kilometres per hour),” according to a May 2022 Congressional Research Service report.

According to the paper, “The C-HGB is supposed to be able to kill targets by virtue of its velocity alone.”

The Zumwalt arrived in Japan on Monday after calling at a port in Guam earlier in the week, according to posts on social media.

According to a Navy announcement, the warship has been assigned to Destroyer Squadron 15, the largest US Navy destroyer squadron based outside of the US, which is based at Yokosuka Naval Base not far from Tokyo.

Other US warships are dwarfed by Zumwalt

The Zumwalt is “the largest and most technologically advanced surface combatant in the world,” according to a Navy fact sheet, measuring 610 feet (185 metres) long and weighing 16,000 metric tonnes.

The mainstay of the US Navy’s fleet, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, are around 100 feet (30 metres) shorter and have a displacement of fewer than 10,000 tonnes.

The Type 055 destroyer, which is the largest surface combatant in China, can carry between 12,000 and 13,000 tonnes.

Though it cannot equal Zumwalt’s size, the People’s Liberation Army Navy of China can undoubtedly prevail in the quantity war.

Unreliable programme

The US Navy’s Zumwalt class destroyer programme has proved contentious and expensive. According to a 2018 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report to Congress, the three ships in the class will cost around $8 billion each if research and development expenses are factored in.

The Navy originally intended to construct 32 of the enormous destroyers, but that number was cut to three when it was determined that the Zumwalt class would require expensive modifications to carry out an anti-ballistic missile defence mission, while the Arleigh Burkes could do so more affordably, according to the Congressional Research Service.

[embedpost slug=”us-and-canadian-warships-pass-through-the-taiwan-strait-china-softens-its-rhetoric-toward-taiwan”]