The US Navy give a sneak-peek preview inside the new Zumwalt destroyer, the most expensive destroyer ever built for the Navy.
The Navy gave a first look inside the stealthy and futuristic Zumwalt destroyer on Friday during the ship's first port stop at a Rhode Island naval station.
The 610-foot-long warship has an angular shape to minimize its radar signature and cost more than $4.4 billion. It's the most expensive destroyer built for the Navy.
It's headed from Naval Station Newport to Baltimore, where it will be commissioned in October before going to its homeport in San Diego. It was built at Bath Iron Works in Maine.
It looks like a much smaller vessel on radar and it's quieter than other ships, which makes it hard to detect, track and attack.
Vice Adm. Tom Rowden mans, trains and equips the surface ships of the Pacific fleet, which will include the Zumwalt. He said Friday the Zumwalt will make a significant difference.
Its advanced technology and capabilities allow it to do a range of defensive and offensive missions, and project power, wherever it is needed, and that's generating tremendous excitement within the Navy, Rowden said. He said the Zumwalt will be a "very stabilizing" sight for allies and partners, and perhaps a "menacing" sight for potential enemies.
And, the Zumwalt's unique and significant capability to generate power could be used in ways perhaps not even envisioned yet, such as in the testing and use of laser and directed-energy weapons systems, Rowden said.
"We have the embodiment of the spirit of technological breakthroughs and the future of our Navy. I think we have the embodiment of Adm. Bud Zumwalt," Rowden said. "And I think as you combine those, and many other things together, what you really see is, tremendous, tremendous opportunity."
The ship is named after the late Adm. Elmo "Bud" Zumwalt, who earned the Bronze Star in World War II and commanded small boats that patrolled the Mekong Delta in Vietnam. He became the youngest chief of naval operations and earned a reputation as a reformer, who fought racism and sexism.
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