Destroyer Zumwalt

Wow. The space age is here, I guess.
https://www.navytimes.com/picture-galler...82097056//

Yup. I believe I heard the talking heads mentioning that it headed out to sea for the last time this week (or was it last week?) before being handed off to the Navy.

Interesting ship. They had to ruin it's stealthiness so that fishing vessels and the like could see it on radar during it's trials. I can't remember what they hung on it to do that.

BTW, that bit of water is incredible during tide change. In a small boat it has standing waves 3-5 feet high and it'll just thrash the occupants as the water runs into or out of the tidal Kennebec. The river is very deep there despite what the water might indicate at full flow. I only did that once and once was enough. Catch it at or near slack tide though and no problem.

Whats old is new - that ship looks very much like the Civil War era ironclads.

http://www.sonofthesouth.net/leefoundati...d_line.jpg

I know that we have to put function first, though I really miss the style from the WW2 ships and equipment.

Some of the really cool looking things in the early Star Wars movies were directly copied from WW2 equipment.

I love Navy history and I imagine the sailors of the 1st Rate Ships of the Line turned their nose up at the invention of steam and the iron beasts that had no sails.  Progress is progress and in the realm of warfare you have to be on the pinnacle of technology or you don't survive.  That is the cutting edge designed to minimize radar profiles and your signature with an incoming missile.

On the other hand the old Destroyers had the neat profile with the twin 5" guns and torpedo tubes midships.  This was my Dad's ship.

If Revell made a plastic model of this new ship, it could be slapped together in about half an hour.

Here's a picture of the     new Destroyer.

Here are a couple of WW2 pics that found their way into StarWars in my humble opinion.

The bottom picture shows a WW2 weapons system that fires one barrel at the time. As each on fires, it slides back, which is on several of the Imperial Destroyers and possibly the Death Star.

I'm no naval person, but it seems to me that one either dodges blows or sits there and takes a pounding and hopefully the ship is up to that. Kinda like the idea of the NJ and Missouri. Clearly the Zumwalt is designed to not take a hit. Makes for a much smaller and lighter ship. I hope we never need to find out if the design works as intended, but what are the chances of that? I'm sure soldiers and sailors for the past few hundred years all had the same thought in their minds.

Marko, I knew that it reminded me of something that I couldn't put my finger on!

Since the Zumwalt is missiles only - makes it hard to fire a shot across the bow.