A few days ago, US President Donald Trump, in his usual bombastic style, announced a new class of “battleships,” to be known as (guess what?) the ‘Trump class battleship.’
“As commander in chief, it’s my great honor to announce that I have approved a plan for the Navy to begin the construction of two brand-new, very large — largest we’ve ever built — battleships,” Trump announced from his Mar-a-Lago residence in Palm Beach, Florida.
It would be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far, 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” he said.
Initially, two ships will be constructed, the first one to be named USS Defiant (BBG-1), targeted for the early 2030s. The president noted that the Navy eventually wants to have 20 to 25 ships in the ‘Golden Fleet.’
The ship’s purported dimensions, characteristics, and armaments are truly ambitious and extraordinary. However, experts doubt if the ship will ever set sail.
For one, battleships have been obsolete for decades. The armaments the ship is supposed to carry are still underdevelopment. The ship will cost as much as aircraft carriers. Its size will make it vulnerable and a “bomb magnet”.
Furthermore, the ship’s design and philosophy run contrary to the Navy’s new concept of operations, which envisions distributed firepower.
There are so many glaring contradictions that experts believe that a future administration might cancel the whole program, and the ship will never sail.
The Trump Class Battleship: What Is Known
According to the US Navy, the USS Defiant will be part of a new class of large surface combatants with the most destructive firepower of any surface ship to ever sail, capable of striking an adversary at 100x the range of the previous class.
“The Trump-class Battleship will be the first-ever guided missile battleship with the ability to deploy with nuclear and hypersonic missiles.”
The battleship will be 840-880 feet long, or three times the size of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer. It will displace 35,000 tons or more than double the largest US Navy surface combatants, the Zumwalt‑class destroyers (15,000 tons).
It will be manned by a crew of 650-850 people.
Its massive frame will provide superior firepower, larger missile magazines, and the capability to launch Conventional Prompt Strike hypersonic missiles and the Surface Launch Cruise Missile-Nuclear.
In terms of armaments, the battleship will be equipped with one 32 MJ Railgun with Hypervelocity Projectile (HVP), Surface Launch Cruise Missile-Nuclear (SLCM-N), 128 cells Mk41 Vertical Launching System (VLS), two 300 kW or two 600 kW lasers, four 30mm guns, two counter UxS Systems, 12 cells CPS hypersonic missiles, and two RAM launchers.
These armaments will indeed give the battleship formidable firepower.
However, experts are divided on whether such a battleship could be constructed. Firstly, because battleships have been obsolete for decades.
The Era Of Battleships Is Long Over
The era of battleships was over more than half a century ago. Once the symbol of naval might, they became obsolete during the Second World War.
Bernard Loo, senior fellow at Singapore’s S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), described the proposal as “a prestige project more than anything else.”
He cited the example of Japan’s World War II super-battleships Yamato and Musashi, the largest ever built, which were sunk by carrier-borne aircraft before they could play any role in the war.
In the coming decades, aircraft carriers and destroyers with long-range missiles completely eclipsed battleships.
However, since the USS Defiant will be equipped with railguns, cruise, nuclear, and hypersonic missiles, as well as laser weapons, it will qualify as a ‘destroyer’ rather than a battleship.
Thus, calling it a battleship would be a misnomer.
A Bomb Magnet
At 880 ft, the Trump-class battleship will be triple the size of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.
It will displace 35,000 tons or more than double the largest US Navy surface combatants, the Zumwalt‑class destroyers (15,000 tons).
This large frame will allow the vessel to carry more weapons; however, it will also make it more vulnerable to attacks, especially in the age of drones, sea-drones, and anti-ship hypersonic missiles.
Bernard Loo suggested that its size would make it a “bomb magnet.”
“The size and the prestige value of it all make it an even more tempting target, potentially for your adversary,” Loo said.
Mark Cancian, a senior adviser at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said the new ship will also contravene the US Navy’s new concept of operations, which envisions distributed firepower to reduce vulnerability by spreading it across many assets.
“The Navy has been moving toward a distributed operations model, in which fleet assets are spread out and connected by a network, maximizing fires by coordinating many different sensors and shooters. This proposal would go in the other direction, building a small number of large, expensive, and potentially vulnerable assets,” he wrote.
To Cost As Much As Aircraft Carriers
Bryan Clark, a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, estimated the Trump‑class would cost two to three times more than today’s destroyers, such as the Arleigh Burke destroyers, which cost about US$2.7 billion each.
This means that a single Trump-class destroyer could cost upwards of US$ 8 billion.
“At the very least, as far as I’m concerned, it’s strategic hubris,” RSIS’s Loo said.
He also pointed out that the US weapons systems routinely exceed timelines and budgets.
For instance, the US Navy initially ordered 32 Zumwalt‑class destroyers. However, this number was later cut to just three ships due to spiraling costs.
CSIS’s Cancian noted that, at “30,000 to 40,000” tons cited by the president, the ship is much larger than anything the United States has built in the last 80 years, aside from aircraft carriers.
“The truncated DDG-1000 class (only three built) displaced 15,000 tons but still took 11 years from program initiation (2005) to commissioning of the first ship (2016),” Cancian wrote.
Cancian also estimated the cost of the battleship at over USD 13 billion.
“The Congressional Budget Office estimated that a future destroyer of 14,500 tons would cost $4.4 billion or $300,000 per ton. That would imply a battleship cost of about $9.1 billion, allowing for some economies of scale. Lead ships are typically 50 percent more expensive than the average, so BBG 1 would likely cost $13.5 billion, about as much as an aircraft carrier.”
“The cost might be even higher because of inflation in the shipbuilding sector. For example, building the battleship will require thousands of experienced shipyard workers, even as there is a labor shortage, and shipyards are bidding against each other for personnel,” he added.
Furthermore, many of the weapons systems the battleship is supposed to carry are still underdevelopment. For instance, the electromagnetic railgun project was officially paused in the US four years ago.
The Railgun project was abandoned in 2021 owing to several technical difficulties and cost overruns. Similarly, while the US Navy has tested high-energy directed weapons, it could be years before the technology matures and is ready for integration.
The US Navy officials have said that construction of the first two Trump-class “battleships” is not expected to start until the early 2030s.
However, given the many contradictions in its design and philosophy, there is every chance that a new administration will cancel the entire program.
For instance, just last month, the US Navy canceled the Constellation‑class frigate program due to design and workforce challenges. There is a high likelihood that the Trump-class battleships will meet the same fate.
- Sumit Ahlawat has over a decade of experience in news media. He has worked with Press Trust of India, Times Now, Zee News, Economic Times, and Microsoft News. He holds a Master’s Degree in International Media and Modern History from the University of Sheffield, UK.
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