I'm not a naval architect, nor did I stay in Holiday Inn last night, but I have read a fair amount on warships over the years.
The "Ironclad Bow" dates back to the mid-19th century when the first steam powered warships appeared. Steam power brought the opportunity to use a weapon from antiquity, the ram. It's effectiveness was proven in a British naval disaster off Tripoli, Lebanon.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Victoria_(1887) The other feature that became more popular was the tumblehome hull form. The above and several more naval disasters showed that this hull form lacks the righting moment of more conventional hulls.
Fast forward to today and the Ironclad Bow is now called a "wave piercing" bow. Well...... ok. But is that by design or consequence? Wave piercing catamarans have the important bits of the vessel well clear of where the water may appear. Not the case on the Zumwalt. Anybody who has done time in the world's navies will tell you that ships that are "wet" forward suffer from other problems. Seawater is insidious stuff, it will get everywhere it can through the smallest of gaps. Given the amount of electronics that undoubtedly cover the Zumwalt, I foresee reliability issues. Also, ships that are wet forward are also prone to ice build up in extreme climates. Personally, I don't fancy that in a ship already low on forward buoyancy. Call me chicken if you wish. I guess this can be fixed with heated decks, although they scream "Here I am" to every IR sensor within line of sight. No bueno.
The severe tumblehome hull form is now a stealth feature, and Handejector is quite right in mentioning the multiple radar guided missile strikes of the Falklands War. But have its stability disadvantages been mitigated in some way like deployable stabilizers? Also, how do you deploy stabilizers while maintaining a super quiet hullform to prevent acoustic detection?
On top of my reservations about the seakeeping capabilities of the hull, my main beefs with the design are the omission of one of the radars on cost grounds and the lack of a means to directly attack a submarine with torpedoes. Detect a submarine in weather too rough to launch a helicopter and you are screwed.
Let's hope that the design surprises Luddites like me. Our country can ill afford another expensive defence procurement goat rope.
