A family of four walking on a bridge away from the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier.
A family of four walking on a bridge away from the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier.
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Navy of the Future: DDG 1000 Keel Laid

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Artist rendition of the 155mm AGS (Advanced Gun System), which is part of the DDG 1000 program, can tattoo targets from 70 miles using Lockheed Martin’s 230-pound Long Range Land Attack Projectile. (Image Navy Times)

The keel of the Navy's future  high tech destroyer, USS Zumwalt DDG-1000, was laid down yesterday at Bath Iron Works in Bath, Maine. DDG-1000 will be named in honor of former Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Elmo R. "Bud" Zumwalt Jr., who served as Chief of Naval Operations from 1970-1974. The ship's co-sponsors, Ann Zumwalt, Mouzetta Zumwalt-Weathers, and Lt.Col. James G. Zumwalt symbolically authenticated the keel with a plate displaying the initials of all four children of the ship's namesake, including eldest son, the late-Elmo R. Zumwalt III. Today's shipbuilding techniques allow construction of ships to actually begin before the keel is laid by using advanced modular shipbuilding. Zumwalt's construction began months before. Keel laying continues to symbolically recognize the joining of the ship's components and the ceremonial beginning or birth of the ship.

Zumwalt is currently more than 60 percent complete and scheduled to deliver in fiscal year 2014. Construction on the second ship of the class, Michael Moonsoor (DDG 1001), began March 2010.

DDG 1000 will have a 'tumblehome' hull form, in which the hull slopes inward from above the waterline to provide a significantly reduced radar cross section. (Image Naval-Technology.com)

To read more about the Zumwalt's combat capabilities and the Advanced Gun System click on these links...

Advanced Gun System (AGS)

Zumwalt Class Multimission Destroyer

Here is a video explaining the mission of the DDG-1000 Zumwalt class destroyers...