The DDG 1000 Is Just Prototype "A"

The Zumalt DDG1000 doesn't have half its weapons capabilities envisioned. As an example no railgun (too expensive), no advanced cruise missile (under development), and finally, its concurrent adversaries ( the competition changes how it does its business every day).

The plug and play ship is not a destroyer since its bigger than a cruiser. Its invisibility on a radar screen is its chief design attribute as known by anyone paying attention. A new ship class designation should be assigned. A battleship is too big and old, a cruiser is so 1980, and the DDG1000 is just a weapons carrying ghost. Not to mention frigates and LCS, the DDG1000 has its own number sequence. What will really get the ball rolling is a new enumeration and class designation for what the navy has wrought.

The Zumwalt class ship is every ship thrown into a seabag stirred not shaken. Concurrency is plugging whatever works well into its hull. The ship lacks its own class. A class name comes to mind best representing what it is on the ocean. A destroyer destroys everything in harm's way including itself if necessary. A battleship is the main gun in a gun battle. A frigate is just a frigate with some hops to its propulsion system. The Arleigh Burke class is a very effective upscaled WWII Tin Can with everything that has been long since scrapped from what destroyers dream about.

Therefore the prototypical number should be as follows: 100-A,100-B, and 100-C. A new class name should be a Formula-1 class of ship. It goes faster than a cruiser and destroys the competition in a battle and can do it all in the littorals once upgraded for its time and place. A Formula-1 is constantly being tuned and tested not unlike the race car on race day or during track testing. The weather plays into what tire a Formula -1 racer uses not unlike the DDG1000 Zumwalt needs an over-expensive cruise missile for moving targets. The class designation and ship sequence number should be F-1-100A until its dialed in as a warfighter. The Navy has until the letter Z to get it right. The DDG1003 is the third version which should be designated as F-1-100C.