Research, facilities, and tooling intended for thirty Zumwalts were spread across only three ships. The programme cost also included removing the tooling so Arleigh Burke construction could resume. The resulting average cost therefore combines the delivered ships with investment in an abandoned production plan. A proposed alternative would build general-purpose sisters with conventional weapons while retaining the first three for specialist work, including the hypersonic conversion discussed here. With about two dozen similar-looking ships around them, identifying the specialist strike vessels at long range could have been harder. That potential ambiguity is part of the argument for retaining the newer design in larger numbers.
Notable Point · 30:03-32:20
Program cost, unit cost, and a larger Zumwalt fleet
Zumwalt's apparent unit price absorbed facilities and development intended for thirty ships, while a larger mixed fleet could have hidden the few hypersonic-strike variants among ordinary destroyers.