America’s £3billion stealth ship that can dodge enemy radar and is commanded by Captain Kirk sets sail
USS Zumwalt - dubbed the Starship Enterprise - will boldly go where no ship has gone before with new tech making it virtually invisible to radar
AN “invisible” 15,000-tonne destroyer leaves a shipyard to prepare for service.
The USS Zumwalt will boldly go where no ship has gone before — and like Star Trek’s Starship Enterprise it is captained by James Kirk.
It took four years to build at a cost of £3.2billion.
The vessel features an angular shape to dodge radar and sensors, and has half the normal destroyer crew size due to advanced technologies.
It boasts a powerful new gun system that can unleash 600 rocket-powered missiles on targets more than 70 miles away.
The 610-foot ship is 50 per cent heavier than current destroyers.
The command centre wouldn’t look out of place in the cult science-fiction show Star Trek – with two chairs almost completely surrounded by a bank of video monitors.
The real Kirk on board the Zumwalt joked about his namesake, Captain James T. Kirk from Star Trek: “Certainly I have been ribbed every now and then with someone saying, ‘You’re going where no man has gone before, on this class of ship’.”
The ship has taken four years to build and is so stealthy it will sail with reflective material that can be hoisted to make it more visible to other vessels.
These reflectors, which look like metal cylinders, will be standard issue on the Zumwalt and two sister ships for use in conditions such as fog or busy waters.
The Navy destroyer is designed to look like a much smaller vessel on radar, and it lived up to its billing during recent trials.
Lawrence Pye, a lobsterman said that on his radar screen the 610-foot ship looked like a 40- to 50-foot fishing boat.
Despite its size, the warship is 50 times harder to detect than current destroyers thanks to its angular shape and other design features.
Lawrence Pye, a lobsterman said that on his radar screen the 610-foot ship looked like a 40- to 50-foot fishing boat.
Future versions of the ship are expected to be used to test a futuristic 'Star Wars' railgun that uses electromagnetic energy to fire a shell weighing 10kg at up to 5,400mph over 100 miles – with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates.
The Zumwalt is due to be commissioned in October, and will undergo more testing before becoming fully operational in 2018.