The class design emerged from the DD-21 "land attack destroyer" program as "DD(X)" and was intended to take the role of battleships in meeting a congressional mandate for naval fire support.

[12] The ship is designed around its two Advanced Gun Systems (AGS), turrets with 920 round magazines, and unique Long Range Land Attack Projectile (LRLAP) ammunition.

As costs overran estimates, the number was reduced to 24, then to 7; finally, in July 2008, the Navy requested that Congress stop procuring Zumwalts and revert to building more Arleigh Burke destroyers.

[26] Many Congressional subcommittee members questioned that the Navy completed such a sweeping re-evaluation of the world threat picture in just a few weeks, after spending some 13 years and $10 billion on the development of the surface ship program known as DD-21, then DD(X), and finally DDG 1000.

[30] A 26 January 2009 memo from John Young, the U.S. Department of Defense's (DoD) top acquisition official, stated that the per ship price for the Zumwalt-class destroyers had reached $5.964 billion, 81 percent over the Navy's original estimate used in proposing the program, resulting in a breach of the Nunn–McCurdy Amendment, requiring the Navy to re-certify and re-justify the program to Congress or to cancel its production.

[31] On 6 April 2009, Defense Secretary Robert Gates announced that the DoD's proposed 2010 budget would end the DDG 1000 program at a maximum of three ships.

Both Northrop Grumman Ship Systems and General Dynamics Bath Iron Works shared dual-lead for the hull, mechanical, and electrical detailed design.

Almost every major defense contractor (including Lockheed Martin, Northrop Grumman Sperry Marine, and L-3 Communications) and subcontractors from nearly every state in the U.S. were involved to some extent in this project, which was the largest single line item in the Navy's budget.

The decision in September 2006 to fund two ships meant that one could be built by the Bath Iron Works in Maine and one by Northrop Grumman's Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi.

[48] According to a Naval Sea Systems Command spokesman, despite being 40% larger than an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, the radar cross-section (RCS) is more akin to that of a fishing boat.

[53][54][55] On 2 August 2013, the U.S. Navy announced it was awarding a $212 million contract to General Dynamics Bath Iron Works to build a steel deckhouse for destroyer Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG 1002).

[68] In November 2016, the Navy moved to cancel procurement of the LRLAP, citing per-shell cost increases to $800,000–$1 million resulting from trimming of total ship numbers of the class.

Since they would be too large to fit in the VLS tubes, it has been suggested that the two AGS, having no use since the cancellation of their ammunition, could be replaced with three-pack advanced payload modules to fulfill a conventional prompt strike deterrence role.

[75] The Navy will request FY 2022 funding to replace the 155 mm AGS turrets with Advanced Payload Modules for the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic missile.

[85] A 2005 report by Congress' investigative arm, the Government Accountability Office (GAO), questioned that the technology leap for the Dual Band Radar would be too much.

With the duties of volume and surface search and terminal illumination, there is concern that a large-scale missile attack could overwhelm a radar's resource management capacity.

With the development of the AN/SPY-6 Air and Missile Defense Radar (AMDR), it seems unlikely the DBR will be installed on any other platforms, as it is on the DDG 1000 class, or in total, as it is on Gerald R. Ford.

[94] Although Zumwalt ships have an integrated suite of undersea sensors and a multi-function towed array, they are not equipped with onboard torpedo tubes, so they rely on their helicopters or VL-ASROCs to destroy submarines that the sonar picks up.

The design was shifted to the AIM system in February 2005 in order to meet scheduled milestones; PMM technical issues were subsequently fixed, but the program has moved on.

In such small numbers, the committee struggles to see how the original requirements for the next generation destroyer, for example providing naval surface fire support, can be met.

He concluded that the ship's problems "are emblematic of a defense procurement system that is rapidly losing its ability to meet our national security needs.

"[58] Fredenburg went on to detail problems relating to the skyrocketing costs, lack of accountability, unrealistic goals, a flawed concept of operations, the perils of designing a warship around stealth, and the failure of the Advanced Gun System.

With its guns neutered, its role as a primary anti-submarine-warfare asset in question, its anti-air-warfare capabilities inferior to those of our current workhorse, the Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, and its stealth not nearly as advantageous as advertised, the Zumwalt seems to be a ship without a mission.

[109] On 31 July 2008, Vice Admiral Barry McCullough (Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Integration of Resources and Capabilities) and Allison Stiller (Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Navy for Ship Programs) stated that "the DDG 1000 cannot perform area air defense; specifically, it cannot successfully employ the Standard Missile-2 (SM-2), SM-3 or SM-6 and is incapable of conducting Ballistic Missile Defense.

On 22 February 2009, James "Ace" Lyons, the former commander in chief of the U.S. Pacific Fleet, stated that the DDG 1000's technology was essential to a future "boost phase anti-ballistic missile intercept capability.

The tubes are long and wide enough to incorporate future interceptors, and although the ship was designed primarily for littoral dominance and land attack, Raytheon contended that they could become BMD-capable with few modifications.

A primary goal for DD 21 was to provide sea-based fire support for on-shore troops as part of the force mix that would replace the retiring Iowa-class battleships as mandated by Congress.

"[123] The Navy had decided not to use a tumblehome hull in the CG(X) cruiser before the program was canceled, which may suggest that there were concerns regarding Zumwalt's seakeeping abilities.

Based on the rolls he had been experiencing in his cabin, the executive officer thought that, at most, they were at sea state three, where wave height only reaches a maximum of four feet (1.2 m).

However, the DDG 1000 program manager said that the 57 mm round's lethality was "significantly over-modeled" and "not as effective as modeled" in live test-firing, and "nowhere near meeting the requirements"; he admitted that the results were not what he expected to see.