The Trump Class Battleship

This is not a Cold War Story, but I am not starting up another blog site, and Cold War Stories is the nearest on topic.

Dec 22, 2025, our incompetent-commander in chief has made an announcement of the Trump class "Battleship."
To quote, "We haven't built a battleship since 1994. These cutting-edge vessels will be some of the most lethal surface warfare ships"...
..."Each ship would displace more than 30,000 tons to 40,000 tons and serve as a flagship of the U.S. fleet."

"These battleships would be equipped with advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles, electric rail guns and high-powered laser systems, as well as nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles currently under development."

And finally, "start procuring two ships, working up to 10 and eventually 20 ships to 25 ships in total, and would aim to have the first two within two and a half years. "

What is wrong with this statement? 

"We haven't built a battleship since 1994." We haven't completed a battleship since 1944. About 4 more were on the rails being worked on, but nothing completed since WWII. 

I don't know what they told him was completed in 1944, there were several Arleigh Burke destroyers, first of it's class commissioned three years earlier. A helicopter carrier, a mine sweeper and a few submarines. At around 9,000 tonnes*, the Arleigh Burkes are large for destroyers, but far smaller than the 45,000 tonnes of an Iowa class battleship.

"Each ship would displace more than 30,000 tons to 40,000 tons." 30 to 40,000 tonnes IS in the battleship range. The class previous to the Iowa was 35,000. And in line with many of their contemporaries in WWII. But, battleships as a designation has to do with not so much their punch, but their ability to take a punch. Battleships were designed, by in large, to be able to take a hit from the same gun they were armed with. 

We no longer have an industry that can create the armor for a battleship any more. The Iowa's belt armor was 12" thick, while the turret armor was 19.5". The industry to produce this armor does not exist anywhere in the world.  And if it did, it would be a waste of resources to make a battleship resistant to take hits from contemporary weapons. Like the Russian supersonic KH22. Striking at mach 4, with a ton of explosive. A dozen of those would ruin the Iowa.

A large, fast, heavily armed warship, in the tonnage range of 30 to 40,000 would be a "battlecruiser." Over the years, nations have built these. Their overall mission was to run down and destroy smaller ships. And for that mission they did OK**. But when they ran into actual battleships, the battle went against the battle cruisers badly.***

"These battleships would be equipped with advanced weapons, including hypersonic missiles, electric rail guns and high-powered laser systems, as well as nuclear-capable sea-launched cruise missiles currently under development." The US IS working on hypersonic missiles. But not yet ready for prime time. The rail gun project was canceled in 2023. Lasers DO exist and are being deployed in with ever more powerful watts. But they are still strictly point defenses. Sea launched cruise missiles, including nuclear variants, have existed for decades. And can be mounted on significantly smaller platforms. Including as small as the Al Sadiq class patrol boats we built for the Saudi's in the 80's.

In short, a "battleship" is not needed for any of these weapons. And is in fact a detriment. Need 300 missiles to off load somewhere, bring in 3 Arleigh Burkes. Cost of around 2 billion per ship.

A 35,000 ton "battleship?" What would that cost? The Ford class carrier, at 3 times the weight was 13 billion or so. Plus 5 billion R&D. So a third of that would be in the range of 3 Arleigh Burkes. 

But the battleship can only be in one place at a time, the Arleigh Burkes 3 places. It is just one of the reasons battleships are no longer used.  A battleship could control the ocean around 25 miles around it. A carrier about 500 miles. Now in the missile world, this radius does increase for the battleship. But with inflight refueling, the carrier also has a much increased radius.

Then there is the cost to run one of these things. Manpower isn't cheap.  The Ford is 4,200 men. This gives us a guesstamate of 1,400 men for the battleship. 3 Arleigh Burkes is 1,050. The Iowa was 2,700. 

I realize the last 4 paragraphs kinda make this look like a somewhat reasonable project. I was expecting the numbers to be totally out of whack. So moving on.

This ship exists right now as only some AI generated art to stroke the presidents ego. It will never exist. A warship are THE most complicated machines man has ever built. It takes a serious amount of time to architect a one. The Constellation class frigate, 7,300 tons, they started work on that in 2017. They have yet to cut any metal for it. And that is armed with weapons we know how to make. 

"aim to have the first two within two and a half years." It was 15 years from the concept of a plan for the USS Ford to first cutting of the steel. And commissioning 12 years later. 27 years from concept to reality. The Orange muppet in office is 80 years old.

While I can expect the president not to know squat about the fleet he is playing with, this has the tacit approval of the Navy Secretary, John Phelan, who should. 

Everyone in the oval office is just waiting for this man to die.  

*Flight 1 8,300 tonnes, Flight III 9,700 tonnes.
 
 **Battle cruisers HMS Inflexible and Invincible v cruisers SMS Scharnhorst and Gneisenau

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Battle_of_the_Falkland_Islands

 *** Most famously the battlecruiser HMS Hood v KMS Bismarck

     IJN Kirishima v USS Washington