Washington. November 20. INTERFAX - The United States, according to the planned plans, will begin equipping its Zumwalt-class destroyers with hypersonic missiles in 2025, and Virginia-class nuclear submarines in 2028, said Vice Admiral Johnny Wolf, Director of Strategic systems programs of the US Navy.
"We are going to deploy (hypersonic systems) in the US Army in fiscal year 2023, they will deploy their first battery. And we are going to equip them (destroyers) of the Zumwalt class in 2025," the vice admiral said, speaking at a symposium of the Submarine Fleet League.
"And then, in 2028, we plan to equip the first Virginia-class submarines, when modular containers will be installed on them for this purpose," he said, adding that the US Navy is trying to speed up the process of rearmament of submarines.
The US Navy has two Zumwalt-class destroyers, the main weapons of which are 80 Tomahawk cruise missiles, and 19 Virginia-class multipurpose nuclear submarines of the fourth generation capable of carrying 12 such missiles.
The Vice Admiral said that flight tests of hypersonic systems for the Navy will continue this year. Meanwhile, he noted that in order to test weapons for submarines, it is necessary to create an underwater test complex, which is still under construction.
According to him, in the 2022 fiscal year, which began in the United States on October 1, the Navy is preparing to conduct two full-scale tests of hypersonic missiles. He also recalled that in October, three successful tests of hypersonic systems developed for the US Army and Navy were conducted, the launches of which were carried out from the landfill on Wallops Island on the Atlantic coast in Virginia.
As reported in the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, on November 18, the frigate of the Northern Fleet "Admiral Gorshkov" performed a new test launch of the hypersonic missile "Zircon". The missile successfully hit a target in the White Sea. The launch was carried out as part of the final test cycle.
Prior to that, the Russian military reported successful test launches of the Zircon from the frigate of the Northern Fleet Admiral Gorshkov in July of this year, as well as in December, November and October 2020.
On October 4, the Russian military conducted the first test launch of a hypersonic missile "Zircon" from a nuclear submarine of the Northern Fleet.
On November 3, Russian President Vladimir Putin announced that the tests of the Zircon missile are being completed, it will enter service with the Russian fleet in 2022.
