New ship for the Navy

The Navy has christened the first of three cutting-edge Zumwalt-class destroyers. But the next two may have weaponry straight out of science fiction.
First, the basics on the DDG 1000 (photo), the first of three Zumwalt-class destroyers: The six-hundred-foot-long ship comes equipped with new technologies including radar reflecting angles, a striking inward-sloping tumblehome hull, an all-electric integrated power system, and an advanced gun system.
The Zumwalt-class destroyers are a class of guided missile destroyers designed as multi-mission stealth ships, with a focus on land attack. The class is a scaled-back project that emerged after funding cuts to the larger DD-21 vessel program; the program was previously known as the DD(X). The class is multi-role and designed for surface warfare, anti-aircraft warfare, and naval gunfire support. They take the place of battleships in filling the former Congressional mandate for naval fire support, though the requirement was reduced to allow them to fill this role. The vessels' appearance has been compared to that of the historic ironclad warship.
The class has a low radar profile; an integrated power system, which can send electricity to the electric drive motors or weapons, which may someday include a railgun or free-electron lasers; total ship computing environment infrastructure, serving as the ship's primary LAN and as the hardware-independent platform for all of the ship's software ensembles; automated fire-fighting systems, and automated piping rupture isolation. The class is designed to require a smaller crew and be less expensive to operate than comparable warships. It will have a wave-piercing tumblehome hull form whose sides slope inward above the waterline. This will reduce the radar cross-section, returning much less energy than a more hard-angled hull form.
The lead ship is named Zumwalt for Admiral Elmo Zumwalt, and carries the hull number DDG-1000. Originally thirty-two ships were planned, with the ten billion dollar research and development costs spread across the class but, as the quantity was reduced to ten, then three, the cost-per-ship increased dramatically.