An interview With the Captain of the USS Zumwalt (Captain Kirk)

Capt. James “T” Kirk of the U.S. Navy warship Zumwalt slid his business card across the table like a Mississippi gambler revealing a winning hand for the biggest pot of the night.

On the front, the card features the usual fare: name, title, phone numbers with a small obligatory reproduction of the DDG 1000 Zumwalt’s coat of arms in the upper left-hard corner.

But it’s the back of the card that catches the eye. There’s a black knight chess piece printed there with the words: HAVE GUN WILL TRAVEL.

The inscription is meant as an ode of sorts to the futuristic destroyer’s namesake –- Adm. Elmo Zumwalt –- and the two massive BAE 155mm gun systems that will blast targets up to about 70 mi. away with the long-range land-attack projectile to give Marines, Seals and other special operators the kind of accurate fire support they’ve been dreaming about.

“I was told that ADM Zumwalt had it on the back of his business cards while CNO,” Kirk says. “And since we have those two big, beautiful guns on DDG 1000, I thought it was an appropriate way to echo his legacy.”

Of course, “Have Gun, Will Travel” also was the name of a top-rated Western TV show that ran in the late 1950s and early 1960s about a hired gun, and there’s something particularly appropriate about such a saying being emblazoned on the back of a the business card of the commanding officer of the biggest and baddest pair of guns in the Navy’s destroyer fleet.

After all, this ship is meant to roam the West too –- the Western Pacific, that is, to add some muscle to the mindset of the Asia-Pacific pivot of U.S. forces to the region, backed up with its mighty 155mm shooters.

“They built the ship around that gun system,” says Randy Hershberger, the BAE Advanced Gun System on-site rep. “GPS guided, 10 rounds per minute.”

But the Zumwalt boasts more than just those guns. The ship also features the next-generation Mk. 57 peripheral vertical launch system –- 80 cells to fire Standard Missiles, vertically launched antisubmarine rockets (Asroc), ESSM and Tomahawk land-attack missiles, encased in a 4-in. steel plate to withstand the exhaust of the hotter-burning missiles. The Mk. 57’s modular electronics design makes it easier to integrate new missiles without requiring modification of the launcher-control software.

Then there are the new weapons the Navy plans to introduce to the fleet, like lasers and the railgun. The Zumwalt and the two other ships of the class will have the capacity and available power like none other currently in the fleet.

link.