Check Out The U.S. Navy’s New ‘Stealth’ Destroyer That Can Fire A Railgun Shell Over 100 Miles At 5,400 MPH

The USS Zumwalt was reportedly launched from Bath Iron Works in Maine on Monday to undergo its first voyage along the Kennebec River to the Atlantic. Measuring in a 600 feet long, the Zumwalk weighs more than 15,000 tons and cost approximately $4.3 BILLION – a number that is unsurprising considering the destroyer took four years to build. According to Daily Mail,

More than 200 shipbuilders, sailors and residents gathered to watch as the futuristic 600-foot, 15,000-ton USS Zumwalt glided past Fort Popham, accompanied by tugboats on Monday.

The $4.3bn ship departed from shipbuilder Bath Iron Works in Maine and carefully navigating the winding Kennebec River before reaching the open ocean where the ship will undergo sea trials.

Kelley Campana, a Bath Iron Works employee, said she had goose bumps and tears in her eyes.

‘This is pretty exciting. It’s a great day to be a shipbuilder and to be an American,’ she said.

‘It’s the first in its class. There’s never been anything like it. It looks like the future.’

Not only is the destroyer set to be the largest in the Navy’s fleet, but it’s supposedly going to be used to test a “railgun,” a weapon that’s being described as “futuristic.” Able to fire a shell weighing 22 pounds up to 5,400 mph over 100 miles “with such force and accuracy it penetrates three concrete walls or six half-inch thick steel plates,” the railgun is being described as something straight out of Star Wars.

The current Zumwalt going through tests is only one of three that the Navy hopes to fully claim as their own sometime next year.

[H/T Daily Mail]