Key point: The DDG-1000 isnt a stealth battleship. But it should be. Andsuitably armedit could be.

Over the years its become commonplace for writers to sex up their descriptions of guided-missile destroyer (DDG) Zumwalt, the U.S. Navys newest surface combatant. Commentators of such leanings depict the ultra-high-tech DDG-1000 as a battleship. Better yet, its a stealth battleshipa fit subject for sci-fi!

Not so. And getting the nomenclature right matters: calling a man-of-war a battleship conjures up images in the popular mind of thickly armored dreadnoughts bristling with big guns blazing away at one another on the high seas, pummeling shore targets in Normandy or Kuwait, or belching smoke and flame after Nagumos warplanes struck at Pearl Harbor.

Such images mislead. Battleships were multi-mission warships capable of engaging enemy surface navies, fighting off swarms of propeller-driven aircraft, or pounding hostile beaches with gunfire. The DDG-1000 is a gee-whiz but modestly armed surface combatant optimized for one mission: shore bombardment. The shoe just doesnt fit.

Now, theres no problem affixing the label stealth to Zumwalt, which at present is undergoing its first round of sea trials off the New England coast. Shipbuilders went to elaborate lengths to disguise the ship from radar detection. Radar emits electromagnetic energy to search out, track and target ships and aircraft. It shouts, then listens for an echo from hulls or airframesmuch as sightseers shout and listen when visiting the Grand Canyon.

Quieting the echo is the trick. This 15,000-ton behemoth displaces half-again as much as a Ticonderoga-class cruiser yet reportedly has just one-fiftieth the radar cross-section of the fleets workhorse Arleigh Burke-class DDGs. While not entirely undetectable, DDG-1000 will look like a fishing vessel or other small craft on enemy radar scopesif its picked up at all. Blending into surface traffic is no mean feat for an outsized destroyer.

How did shipwrights pull this off? For one thing, the geometry of the DDG-1000s hull, superstructure, and armaments deflects rather than reflects electromagnetic energy. Right angles and surfaces perpendicular to the axis of EM radiation bounce back energyboosting an objects radar signature. Accordingly, the DDG-1000 design includes few right angles. Everything slopes. And while radar antennae, smokestacks, and other fittings clutter the decks of conventional warships, such items are mostly concealed within Zumwalts hull or deckhouse. That accounts for the vessels clean, otherworldly look.

For another, radar-absorbent coatings slathered on the ships external surfaces muffle such radar returns as do occur. While hardly invisible to the naked eye, this big ship will prove hard to detectlet alone track or targetwhile cruising over the horizon.

If stealth is an accurate adjective, though, dubbing Zumwalt a battleship conveys false impressions. First of all, theres the matter of linguistic hygiene. Its all too common among laymen to use battleship as a generic term for any ship of war. Indeed, I got my start as a columnist in 2000 precisely because reporters took to labeling the destroyer USS Cole a battleship. An explosives-laden small craft struck that unfortunate vessel in Aden, blowing a massive hole in her side. How could that happen if Cole was a battleship? Battlewagons are ruggedly built, with vulnerable spaces sheathed in a foot or more of armor. They were built on the assumption that they would take a punch in a slugfest with enemy battleships.

Destroyers arent built on that assumption. Describing Cole as a battleship obscured a basic fact about modern warships. U.S. mariners try to bring down the archer, namely a hostile ship or warbird, before he lets fly his arrow, a torpedo or anti-ship missile. Thats because few ships are built to withstand battle damage. Crewmen call them tin cans for a reason: its easy to pierce an American ships sides should an enemy round evade the ships defenses. So it should have come as no surprise that a small craft packed with shaped-charge explosives could land a crushing blow against one of the U.S. Navys premier combatants. Again: calling things by their proper names constitutes the beginning of wisdom.

Second, those who portray Zumwalt as a dreadnought seem to be thinking of dreadnoughts not in their prime but in their age of senescence. This too blurs important facts. Aircraft carriers supplanted battleships as capital shipsthe fleets heaviest and rangiest hittersduring World War II. Dreadnoughts found new life as auxiliary platforms. They pummeled enemy beaches during amphibious operations. They rendered escort duty, employing their secondary batteries to help screen carrier task forces against aerial attack.

The DDG-1000 is optimized for that sort of auxiliary duty. In particular, the vessel sports a couple of long-range guns optimized for bombarding foreign shores, along with eighty vertical launchers capable of lofting land-attack cruise missiles hundreds of miles inland. The vessel thus meets the navys need to supply offshore fire support to troops fighting in coastal areas. Gunfire support is a capability that lapsed when the last battleship retired in 1992. In a narrow sense, then, its fitting to liken the Zumwalts to battlewagons.

But battleships never fully relinquished their multimission character. In their days of nautical supremacy, they dueled hostile battle fleets to determine who would command the sea. They then protected cruisers, destroyers, and amphibious craft that fanned out in large numbers to exploit maritime command. Dreadnoughts retained that primacy until the flattop and its air wing came into their own during World War II.

But they remained hard-hitting surface-warfare platforms even after being eclipsed. Carrier aviation didnt render them obsolete. For example, the battleships Washington and South Dakota played a pivotal part in the naval battles off Guadalcanal in 1942. The Pearl Harbor fleet got some vengeance in a surface gun battle in Surigao Strait in 1944. Surigao Strait comprised part of the Battle of Leyte Gulf, historys last major fleet action. Iowa-class battlewagons resumed their surface-warfare function during a short-lived revival during the 1980s and 1990s. Equipped with Harpoon and Tomahawk anti-ship missiles to complement their nine 16- and twelve 5-inch guns, they formed the core of surface action groups while also discharging shore-bombardment missions.

In short, battleships remained multimission vessels throughout their service liveseven after technological progress relegated them to secondary status. The Zumwalt is one-dimensional by contrast. Each ship is armed with two advanced gun systems capable of raining precision firealbeit with lightweight projectiles compared to battleships 1,900- and 2,700-lb. roundson land targets some 83 nautical miles distant. Marines will welcome the backup.

It remains unclear, however, how capable the advanced gun will prove against enemy surface fleets. For example, a recent report from the Congressional Research Service pays tribute to the guns long-range land-attack projectiles but makes scant mention of how the DDG-1000 would fare in surface warfare. The guns manufacturer touts the weapons highly-advanced gunfire capabilities for anti-surface warfare, yetlike the ships other boostersoverwhelmingly emphasizes the littoral-combat mission. To date, then, surface action appears to be an afterthought for the DDG-1000sunlike their dreadnought forebears. Thats another nuance masked by the moniker stealth battleship.

In that vein, its fair to say the DDG-1000 suffers from the same problem bedeviling the rest of the U.S. Navy surface fleet. Assume the advanced gun system eventually boasts the same range against warships it boasts against land targets, eighty-three nautical miles. Guns can disgorge a large volume of fire, to the tune of hundreds of rounds, compared to the ships eighty-round missile magazine. Thats good.

But it matters little if the ship never gets within range to fire its guns. However impressive for a gun, eighty-three nautical miles is only a fraction of, say, the range sported by Chinas YJ-18 anti-ship cruise missile. Currently being deployed aboard Peoples Liberation Army Navy ships and subs, the YJ-18 can strike at targets 290 nautical miles distant. Nor, apparently, will the Zumwalts carry Harpoons, whose range falls short of the advanced gun systems in any event.

Like the rest of the surface warships, then, the DDG-1000 will find itself sorely outranged by the missile-armed submarines, warplanes and surface combatants that comprise the core of naval fighting forces around the Eurasian perimeter. Chinese or Russian forces can blast away from beyond the reach of American guns or missiles. And if U.S. forces try to close the gap, they will do so under firefire that will enfeeble them on the way.

In that the DDG-1000s plight does resemble the battleships plight after Pearl Harbor. Its a heavy hitter whose reach is woefully short. Defense firms are developing new long-range anti-ship cruise missiles. The U.S. Navy has experimented with repurposing land-attack cruise missiles for surface warfareresurrecting a capability the leadership shortsightedly allowed to lapse after the Cold War.

Lets get some long-range weaponry out therepronto. No, the DDG-1000 isnt a stealth battleship. But it should be. Andsuitably armedit could be.

James Holmes is Professor of Strategy at the Naval War College, coauthor of Red Star over the Pacific, and the last gunnery officer to fire a battleships big guns in anger. The views voiced here are his alone. This article first appeared several years ago.

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The Navy Has A New Stealth Destroyer, But It Is No True Battleship (At Least Not Yet) - The National Interest Online