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LiveScience
LiveScience
Peter Ray Allison

Stealth destroyer 1st to carry hypersonic missiles that travel 5 times the speed of sound — with testing imminent

The future USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) is underway for the first time conducting at-sea tests and trials on the Kennebeck River December 7, 2016 in the Atlantic Ocean. The Zumwalt is the largest destroyer ever built for the U.S. Navy. .

A U.S. Navy stealth ship is getting a major upgrade: USS Zumwalt is currently being fitted with an experimental hypersonic weapon system called Conventional Prompt Strike.

Hypersonic weapons are seen as the next stage in non-nuclear warfare, as they enable targets to be destroyed swiftly and accurately and from far greater distances than conventional weapons allow. In a briefing document leaked by a former Massachusetts Air National Guard member, it was revealed that China had tested its DF-27 intermediate-range hypersonic weapon system last year, according to AP News.

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