Fenrir
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Inverted bow designs are great for speed, but poor in high sea states where they tend to dive under waves and swamp the deck with water, which isn't ideal for military designs where stability matters for firing weapons:
We see a hybrid inverted bow on the Zumwalt class, known as a tumblehome design:
For Zumwalt it's less about speed and more about maximizing all aspect stealth. In this case by cutting down on wake formation.
Compare the wake formation of the commonly found bow design of the Freedom class LCS:
Or a similarly sized Burke with a bow design comparable to the Freedom class:
To that of the much larger Zumwalt:
Even at high speeds, Zumwalt's design produces less of a wake then backswept bow designs. its stability in high sea states has been questioned. The Burke class and similar ships use more conventional bow designs to provide increased stability in rough seas, which in turn provides a better platform for sensors to operate in or for weapons to be discharged.
What's up with the recent trend towards a smaller VLS cell number? It can't simply be a cost saving measures, as the ships are still costly and lengthening them by a few meters isn't going to drastically increase their cost.
The last few Nansens also saw an increase from 8 to 16 cells, but it seems that's the upper limit many European ship designers are exploring:
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