The gun itself is described as workable, but its ammunition program depended on a much larger production run. When the Zumwalt order fell from roughly twenty-two ships to three, the number of rounds needed also collapsed. Fixed development costs then drove the guided projectile toward a quoted price of about one million dollars per round. This short watch point shows how reducing hull numbers can strand a specialized weapon even when its underlying mechanism functions.
Notable Point · 1:18:34-1:18:50
How cutting the Zumwalt class drove ammunition cost upward
The Advanced Gun System's guided round became prohibitively expensive when the planned Zumwalt fleet collapsed from a large class to three ships.