PUBLISHED on August 8, 2025, 09:20 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary – Recent photos of the USS Michael Monsoor, a $9 billion Zumwalt-class stealth destroyer, have sparked online mockery and concern after it arrived in Yokosuka, Japan, showing extensive rust and surface wear.
-While the U.S. Navy dismissed the ship’s degraded appearance as “typical” for a vessel on extended sea duty, critics see it as symbolic of the entire troubled Zumwalt-Class program.
-The program has been plagued by massive cost overruns, a drastically reduced fleet size from 32 to just three ships, and a main gun system for which the Navy never purchased ammunition.
The Zumwalt-Class Stealth Destroyer Is a Rusty Mess?
Images on social media show the USS Michael Monsoor (DDG 1001), a Zumwalt-class guided-missile destroyer, during a port call in Yokosuka, Japan.
The ship, as seen in these images, seems to be suffering severe wear and tear from sea duty. The degraded aesthetic condition of the Michael Monsoor generated concern from multiple quarters about what is touted as the U.S. Navy’s most advanced surface combat vessel.
The photos from the recent port visit have been released on several forums. They show extensive discoloration of the ship’s exterior, corrosion streaks, and considerable surface damage, presumably suffered during sea duty. The images created a flurry of online chat threads and discussion forums.
The commentary – some of which is in Japanese – suggested that the vessel looked like it was ready for the scrap yard, rather than being one of the U.S. Navy’s state-of-the-art vessels. The ship looks “beaten up,” read one account. Other commentators were questioning whether the amount of rust on the surface of the ship would degrade its stealth design and its radar-absorbing surface materials.
One post read, “that level of aging…the oil streaks are bad too…you’d need courage to go into battle with this.” Another user added, “If this ship gets deployed in that condition, its operational life may be over. Better to just shout loudly to drown out the sound.”
Official Explanations
Navy representatives responded to the criticism and tried to assuage some of the more alarmist observations made about the ship’s condition. They explained that the discoloration and oil streaking in the photos are common conditions seen on ships that have recently endured extended periods of sea duty.
They pointed out that prolonged exposure to saltwater, UV radiation, and maritime pollutants will result in the kind of poor external appearance of a ship that is seen right now on the Mansoor. They further claimed that the dark stains and rust lines on the ship’s exterior are also caused by tethering equipment. (These are the metal cables used to moor the ship in port.)
“This type of surface wear is typical of large vessels that operate continuously in challenging marine environments,” one of the Navy spokespersons said. He also pointed out that the external appearance of the ship as seen in photographs has no negative effect on the ship’s combat readiness or mission capability.
Program Cutbacks on Zumwalt-Class
The USS Michael Monsoor was the second of only three Zumwalt-class destroyers ever delivered.
The original plan was to build some 32 of these ships, but the planned procurement was cut back dramatically due to the program’s considerable cost overruns.
The class also suffered from changes to the ships’ mission profile while the vessels were still in the early stages of production.
Some of the Zumwalt-class’s major weapon systems also proved to be problematic.
One frequently cited example is that the Zumwalt ships were supposed to provide naval gunfire as cover for amphibious landings.
However, the Navy then decided to not purchase the ammunition for its 155-mm Advanced Gun System, which negated that part of the ship’s mission.
Perhaps the biggest difficulty the program faced was cost overruns. The Government Accountability Office reported that initial projections in 1998 were for a cost of $1.3 billion per ship.
However, by the beginning of this decade, the costs, which included amortization of the research and development across just three ships, had increased the price per ship to $9 billion.
The three Zumwalt-class ships are among the most expensive vessels ever delivered to the Navy’s surface fleet.
As of today, the Navy has made no additional statements on the condition of the Michael Mansoor.
For now, it will continue to be forward-deployed in the Pacific and will be pulled out of service for periodic maintenance and modernization of some of its on-board systems.
About the Author: Reuben F. Johnson
Reuben F. Johnson has thirty-six years of experience analyzing and reporting on foreign weapons systems, defense technologies, and international arms export policy. Johnson is the Director of Research at the Casimir Pulaski Foundation. He is also a survivor of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. He worked for years in the American defense industry as a foreign technology analyst and later as a consultant for the U.S. Department of Defense, the Departments of the Navy and Air Force, and the governments of the United Kingdom and Australia. In 2022-2023, he won two awards in a row for his defense reporting. He holds a bachelor’s degree from DePauw University and a master’s degree from Miami University in Ohio, specializing in Soviet and Russian studies. He lives in Warsaw.
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