laststandonzombieisland

Wow.

The first class of U.S. battleships built since 1944.

I mean, this announcement.

Engineered to outmatch any foreign adversary, the new battleship class will be the centerpiece of naval power. At triple the size of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, its massive frame provides superior firepower, larger missile magazines, and the capability to launch Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missiles and the Surface Launch Cruise Missile-Nuclear.

The Trump class will be capable of operating in a traditional Integrated Air and Missile Defense role with a Carrier Strike Group or commanding its own Surface Action Group for Surface and Anti-Submarine Warfare efforts, in addition to delivering long-range hypersonic strategic fires and quarterbacking the operations of an entire fleet as the central command control node.

I mean, yes, build a Great Navy.

A world-class Navy with new and innovative vessels that will be cutting-edge for generations to come.

Bring back a modern BBG or BBGN, hell, bring back a class of CGNs while you are at it.

I’m all for a modern take on USS Long Beach with 192 VLS strike-length cells.

But the move to designate these new battlewagons the “Trump class” with hull number “1” and the first named USS Defiant (BBG-1) is just pure unadulterated MAGA autism.

You would be far more likely to get a Democratic-controlled Armed Services Committee (coming in 2027 if not 2029) to approve billions of pork-flavored dollars for a ship named after a state. Give it the name of the biggest state (in terms of population and House seats) that currently doesn’t have a ship named after it already on the Navy List, and give it a traditional hull number in line with previous battleships– the future and sixth USS South Carolina (BB-67)– or BB-72 if you take into account the canceled Montana class battleships.

Plus, it should be pointed out that the canceled USS Kentucky (BB-66) was redesignated as BBG-1 in 1954 while still under construction, so at least the new Trump battleship should be BBG-2.

Further, there is already a “Defiant” on the Navy List, a Valiant-class harbor tug (YT-804), which commissioned in 2010. The Navy also owns the Nichols/Serco Maritime unmanned demonstrator ship USX-1 Defiant, which is not officially in commission.

Moving past the name and hull numbers and looking at the renderings, these will be the same rough size (35,000 tons, 840-880 feet oal) as the 10 fast battleships of the North Carolina/SoDak/Iowa classes, but Trump is advertising a build out of 20-25 (!) of these leviathans.

Main battery will be a dozen Conventional Prompt Strike cells (including the use of a theorized W80-4 tipped SLCM-N) and 128 Mk 41 strike-length VLS, with a secondary battery of a 32MJ railgun (hold your breath), a pair of 5-inch guns, 2 300-600kW lasers, and a defensive battery of two RAM launchers, four Mk46 30mm guns, four AN/SEQ-4 ODIN lasers, and two undefined counter UxS systems.

A huge mistake is making these gas turbine-powered akin to the DDG and LHD-8 designs rather than nuclear powered– something that will be desperately needed with the electric draw of the rail gun, ODINs, etc.

Plus, there are realistically just two yards in the country (Ingalls and Newport News) that could build these without major improvements to their facilities, and both are already swamped making CVNs, SSBNs, SSNs, LHAs, LPDs, DDGs, and FF(X)s, so somehow freeing up yard space for two dozen 35,000-ton battleships while still building everything else is…well…just not going to happen.

Three other private yards may have slipways big enough for an 880-foot/35,000-ton warship: NASSCO in San Diego, Philly Shipyard, and BAE in Jacksonville, but do they have the personnel and shop space to pull off such a project?

There are only something like 21 certified dry docks in the entire country to conduct routine warship maintenance– with just four of those on the West Coast (THE biggest issue with a modern Pacific naval war in my opinion). Of those 21, just nine are rated to hold a battleship-sized vessel, and they are busy supporting CVNs, LHA/Ds, AOs, and LPDs.

Portsmouth NSY and Bremerton NSY both have very large dry docks capable of holding a CVN, but could they construct a 35,000-ton battleship and still address their huge maintenance backlogs of current ships? That’s probably a big no.

Industrial reality is going to hit this project hard.

Congress may hit it harder.

An Arleigh Burke-class (DDG-51) destroyer costs roughly $2.5 billion per ship for the newest Flight III models, while a Ford-class carrier is more like $13 billion. Back-of-the-envelope math would have a BBG fall somewhere in the middle of those two bookends, which would still be an amazingly stout $7.75 billion per hull. Times 25 hulls is $193B. Sure, the F-35 program runs $2 trillion, but that includes mountains of R&D and sustainment costs as well as spare parts. Speaking of which, what would lifecycle costs be on 25 battleships, each with a 650-800 member crew (which is about three times the size of a DDG crew)? The Navy has often quoted that it cost $100K per year per bluejacket, so that is $2B in just salaries and benefits for battleship sailors, per year, not to count those in shoreside support and maintenance.

Hell, maybe this is all a big ask to get Capitol Hill to gratefully torpedo the 25 Trump-class battleships for a new and improved 12-ship Long Beach CGNs, all conveniently named after Big Blue Cities.

I’d take that.