The largest, most sophisticated and most powerful destroyer in the world -- the USS Zumwalt (DDG-1000) -- will deploy to Asia early next year, and so will her two sister ships by the next decade. Their opponent: China's People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN).

While the third ship in the Zumwalt-class, the USS Lyndon B. Johnson (DDG-1002) will be armed with an electromagnetic railgun in place of one of its 155 mm guns, all three ships in the Zumwalt-class will likely mount laser weapons systems to shoot down aerial drones and, eventually, missiles.

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The second ship in the Zumwalt-class is the USS Michael Mansoor (DDG-1001). She was christened at the Bath Iron Works in Maine on June 18.

The USS Zumwalt, meanwhile, will journey to San Diego to have her combat systems installed. She will also undergo rigorous final testing.

Once these critical tasks are accomplished, she will report to Hawaii where she will join the United States Pacific Command as one of the warships in the United States Seventh Fleet, the largest and most powerful in the Navy.

When she joins the fleet early next year, the $7.5 billion USS Zumwalt will have lived-up to the promise made by Secretary of Defense Ash Carter last April that all the Zumwalts will be assigned to the Pacific as part of the rebalance of U.S. forces to the region to counter China and promote stability.

Carter said "all three of our newest class of stealth destroyers, the DDG-1000, will be homeported with the Pacific fleet' in addition to other new military equipment slated for the Pacific such as the F-22 Raptor and the F-35 Joint Strike Fighter.

As for combat lasers aboard the Zumwalts, Rear Admiral Michael Manzir, Deputy Chief of Naval Operations for Warfare Systems, said the Navy is "moving towards funding a directed energy plan which would enable us to move towards implementing interim directed energy laser capability between now and 2020."

Adm. Manzir also revealed a laser can also be used for communications and for ISR (intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance).

"We are not waiting until we have what many see as the ultimate goal, a one megawatt laser weapon. We would like to build capability incrementally," said Adm. Manzir.

"Over time we will be able to field higher and higher power laser weapons."

And rarely talked about is the ability of the Zumwalt-class to deploy the U.S. Marines' F-35B Lightning II stealth jet; the Bell Boeing MV-22 Osprey multi-mission tiltrotor aircraft; unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) and helicopters. The Zumwalts have the largest stern flight deck (9,000 square feet) and the largest hangar (3,600 square feet) among all Navy destroyers.

F-35Bs can take off and land on the Zumwalt, something not possible on the Navy's Arleigh Burke-class guided missile destroyers.

The Zumwalts can accommodate and railgun and laser weapons because of the massive power its engines generate. They can pump out 78 megawatts of power (about as much electricity as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier) thanks to two 45.4 MW Rolls-Royce MT30 gas turbines driving Curtiss-Wright electric generators and two 3.8 MW Rolls-Royce RR4500 turbine generators.

TagsUSS Zumwalt, US Navy, People's Liberation Army Navy, PLAN, USS Lyndon B. Johnson, USS Michael Mansoor, Railgun, Lasers, Secretary of Defense Ash Carter, Rear Admiral Michael Manzir