Rickover and Zumwalt influenced the U.S. Navy on different time scales. Rickover's insistence on high capability dominated the earlier battle for fleet construction, while Zumwalt's investment in people and a mixed force may have the longer legacy. The FFG(X) program and proposed Marine Corps amphibious ships are offered as signs that cost, numbers, and risk were becoming central again. A counterfactual Zumwalt-class destroyer built under Zumwalt's approach would have deferred immature railguns to a later phase and fielded a conventional gun first. This remains a forecast made in 2020 rather than a description of a completed future fleet.
Notable Point · 33:36-36:10
Rickover and Zumwalt in the future U.S. fleet
Rickover won the immediate contest over American shipbuilding priorities, but Zumwalt's high-low ideas may better describe the fleet forecast in this 2020 lecture.