This is the United States Navy's latest ship, the USS Zumwalt. A guided missile destroyer with stealth capabilities. Named after Admiral Elmo Russell Zumwalt, a leading and highly decorated force in the navy, especially through the Vietnam War. Zumwalt was also a reformer of the navy's personnel policies in an effort to improve the life of the ordinary enlisted sailor and help in easing racial tensions.
The ship is designed to be of a multi-functional capability, to support ground attack troops in land operations, anti-air, surface and underwater warfare, also carrying a compliment of six helicopters and is armed with a range of various ballistic missiles and guns. She has a crew of 142 and can manage a speed of 33.5 knots.
Production of the ship officially began in early 2009 and has been some years in the construction, the project was given to the major American naval yard, Bath Iron Works of Maine. There have been one or two hold-ups in the production schedule, testing the ship's new wave piercing inverted bow and tumblehome hull configuration which reduce her radar cross-section, but the US Navy was able to accept delivery of Zumwalt on 20 May 2016 and commissioned the ship 15 October, later in the year.
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