The Michael Monsoor guided-missile destroyer is one of the U. S. Navy’s most technologically advanced ships. But developing that technology was more difficult than expected, and its deployment has been complicated by a strategic pivot in the ship’s mission.
SAN DIEGO (Tribune News Service) — With slick sides and sharp angles, the Michael Monsoor and its sister ship Zumwalt cut a distinct silhouette along the waters of San Diego.
Unlike a nearby aircraft carrier whose radar juts into the air, the Monsoor’s composite material deckhouse is polygonal and covered with material that can absorb radar waves and increase the destroyer’s stealth. Its “tumblehome” hull looks like something you’d see on a ship built before World War I.
Make no mistake, the Monsoor guided-missile destroyer is one of the U. S. Navy’s most technologically advanced ships. But developing that technology was more difficult than expected, and its deployment has been complicated by a strategic pivot in the ship’s mission.
In the end, what was once intended to be a class of 32 destroyers will now be only three, at a per-ship cost of about $4.4 billion, according to a December 2016 estimate by the Government Accountability Office, the most recent cost estimate available. Including development costs, that number balloons to $8.2 billion, the GAO said.
After Saturday, when the Michael Monsoor was to be commissioned, the first two ships will be commissioned, and then both will be in combat trials. The third and final ship, the Lyndon B. Johnson, is scheduled for christening in late April.
The Navy had planned to use the Zumwalt-class destroyers as replacements for its old Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, the first of which entered service in 1991. The idea was to use the Zumwalt ships in near-shore waters to support ground troops — a mission that reflected the anticipation of fights against land and sea forces from countries such as North Korea or Iran, according to an October Congressional Research Service report.
Instead, the Navy is refocused on planning for a more traditional mission: challenging the navies of competitors such as China and Russia. For that reason, and issues with the ships’ advanced gun system, the Zumwalt destroyers last year were rebranded as ship-killers with surface-to-surface cruise missiles.
The technology on the Zumwalt-class destroyers has been promoted since the program began in the early 1990s.
