No, it's not a battleship

<- Back

No, it's not a battleship

hermitcrab

Comments (183)

acyou
From the 1600s to immediately after WW2, Battleship meant roughly the same thing, not "fast armored ship with big guns", but literally "Ship fit to stand in the line of battle". So yeah it's not a WW2 fast heavily armed and armored Iowa class, but those are obsolete, so we should be happy.If the guided missile cruiser is now the biggest meanest surface unit, I'm fine with calling it a battleship.Also, if gun caliber and armor plate thickness and speed, etc are less than the Iowa class battleship, the above still stands. It just means that the state of the art in what the biggest baddest ship is has moved on.The aircraft carrier in many ways already became the new battleship in 1942, and existing battleships became effectively second rate in the sense that a fleet aircraft carrier smokes a battleship, it still does.Another way to think about it is that guided missile cruisers are kind of another evolution of the aircraft carrier, they launch large numbers of missiles at much less cost.Of course, the reality is much more complicated. It's unclear how useful guided missile classes and nuclear powered aircraft carriers will be in a standup full blown major power fight, aircraft carriers have sure been nice for asymmetric warfare in relative peacetime.
Animats
It's all hype, as the article points out. "Battleship", it's not. No mention of armor. A battleship is supposed to be able to withstand a hit from its own primary weapon. The British Navy had a fad for light cruisers at one point, "eggshells armed with sledgehammers". They did not do well in WWI and WWII.[1] Nor did the armored battleships. No Japanese or German battleship in WWII survived a determined air attack. Yamato, Tirpiz, Bismark - all lost to air attack.But they looked really cool.Anywhere near the coast of China, a warship is within range of truck-mounted anti-ship missiles.[2] Lots of them. If there's a war over Taiwan, the Taiwan Strait will be a no-go zone for US warships. Being near a hostile coast held by someone with modern weapons is death to a navy today. The sinking of the Moskva was the first demonstration of this, and Ukraine has since taken out about eight more Russian warships and many smaller craft, using various missiles and drones.[1] https://hmshood.org.uk/history/bcorigins.htm[2] https://maritime-executive.com/editorials/china-s-df-27-miss...
jmward01
There are, realistically, two basic conflicts that we could get into, one where we have naval and air supremacy and one where we don't. In the world where we have basically no real threat to our naval assets then go big and don't worry about the armor. In fact, just take a bunch of super tankers and throw on as many VLS modules on them as you can. Done. This ship isn't that, as the article points out. In the other war, one where we don't own the sea, then the idea of armor is basically silly and your best defenses are numbers and size. The littoral has grown far beyond line of sight and is arguably the entire world at this point given satellites and the reach of modern weapons. In that world you want a lot, so you can loose them, and you want them small, so that a loss isn't a big deal. This ship isn't that either. It reminds me of the Homer[1]. If your entire goal is to show up in port looking good then maybe, but I doubt this ship is good at that either. The first step to looking good in port is is just showing up so smaller ships doing more port visits probably gets that job done far better. But I am a fan of an inefficient military. It is hard to fight if you have terrible weapons so go ahead! Build a terrible ship and spend a lot of money doing it![1]: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer
Waterluvian
Time and energy and willpower are very limited resources.Unintentionally, but to incredible effect, the current American regime has exploited the deeply rooted need by rational people to counter nonsense with sense, as a means to whittle down these limited resources.We’re defending against waves of shitty idiot drones with multimillion dollar missiles like this blog post. But I’m not sure what other option there is.
kcb
The US navy is in freefall. The best we can do is build a 40 year old destroyer hull and an aircraft carrier class that we plan to be building for literally 100 years. Shipyards can't build anything. Every design is mismanaged so poorly and leached on by traitorous defense contractors so badly that we get essentially nothing but the bill.
amanaplanacanal
It probably doesn't really matter, as this thing is never going to be built. I kind of suspect everybody is just going into "ok grandpa" mode until he loses interest and starts chasing some other half baked thing.
duxup
>On the whole, it’s pretty clearly a grab-bag of stuff that sounded cool, thrown together without any real attempt to explain how is this better spending an equivalent amount of money on Burkes or on the DDG(X) program, which was going to come in around 15,000 tons, and which this is allegedly supposed to replace.Yeah it's an ego project for someone with a fragile ego.
bertili
"The missile is too round at the top, it needs to be pointy. Round missiles are not scary"- The Dictator
nuancebydefault
So the trump admin is going something like a battleship. I would be surprised if they would be capable of doing that.From what I have read and heard, they are much better at destroying existing functional structures than building functional things.
uhoh-itsmaciek
This is reminiscent of the Homer: https://simpsons.fandom.com/wiki/The_Homer
ourmandave
The spec on this piece of propaganda is the main battery is all missile systems. And the secondary is 5" guns, lasers, and a railgun.The Navy stopped trying to install railguns back in 2021 but never stopped development.I assume the lasers are future tech that sound cool, except this thing will be cancelled right after the next admin renames Dept of War back to DoD.
arjie
Ignoring all the practical considerations, the one thing I am positively in favour of is naming warships things which we can all believe in, so USS Defiance is great. I've always enjoyed the US submarines San Francisco and even District of Columbia, and the Chinese ships Liaoning and Nanchang, as an example. But my favourite names have to be the British names Formidable, Invincible, and Audacious. Now that I can get behind.
davidw
It's going to be the "cybertruck of the seas" is what it's going to be if it's not quietly shelved when he gets distracted by some other thing that offends him.
cosmicgadget
Couldn't he have just gone the F-47 and Kennedy Center route and just renamed an existing (/in development) thing?
gherkinnn
Related to the definition of Battleship for the fellow pedantic: What is a tankhttps://acoup.blog/2022/05/06/collections-when-is-a-tank-not...Less humorously, the proposed Trump class "Battleship" is what a teenage armchair general would dream up. The kind of person who thinks Ministry of War sounds cool and cosplays as his favourite operator.
hippo22
Are ships even defendable in the age of hypersonic missiles? It seems like, should a large-scale war happen again, it will look entirely different from the wars in the 20th century.
erulabs
Please be _appear weak when you are strong_Please be _appear weak when you are strong_Please be _appear weak when you are strong_
kevin_thibedeau
We should christen it as a new class of ships: the dreadyep. With any luck, the gold encrustations will sink it when it is set afloat. Barring that, maybe some midshipman will "forget" to seal off a bilge port.
Havoc
Yeah that's what the military youtubers are saying too...makes no sense
jpm_sd
Meanwhile, China has found a simple and practical alternative.https://www.twz.com/sea/chinese-cargo-ship-packed-full-of-mo...
petersumskas
Interesting read. Given what was covered and tradition notwithstanding, I think “Trump Class” (apart from being an oxymoron) is a perfect designation:- oversized- completely lacking in style- not technically capable for the role it finds itself in!
throw-12-16
Taiwan will be betrayed just like Ukraine.
netsharc
I wish SNL was currently on the air and made a hell of a joke out of that announcement...Here's my sketch idea: Naval officers unveil the ship, but when they pull the curtains, they murmur that it's smaller than claimed (The ships will be bigger, faster and a hundred times more powerful than any previous US-built warship, according to Trump(1)). Stormy Daniels shows up and says "Oh yeah, he likes to brag, but it's more like a mushroom.".Cut to the bridge of the ship, the navigation officer comes to the Captain and says "Sir, the ship can't navigate properly. It seems whatever coordinates we set it always wants to head to... Epstein Island!"Then the radar officer says "Sir, we are picking up something on the radar. It's a big, it's long...". Cut to footage of a big, black, submarine. The Captain interrupts with "That must be the Obama-Class submarine! The biggest, baddest ship we've ever had!", and the crew look at it in awe.Then Obama shows up and lectures the viewing public: "Impressive, huh? But in reality there's no Obama-class submarine. The legacy of leading the country should be measured by how it improved Americans' lives, not by the ships and ballrooms." (this message needs to be workshopped...)Stormy Daniels reappears and says "I know which ship I'd rather be on (wink).". Then fade out the scene with the crew panickedly saying "Captain, the ship is losing power! It looks like it's falling asleep!".(1) https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2025/dec/22/trump-new-na...
burnt-resistor
Whatever this febrile dream vaporware could be, it's still way too big for modern combat. Don't take my word for it, listen to a US Navy Commander, a serious person obviously, explain how it's terrible and completely inattentive to real USN needs and doctrine. https://youtu.be/0Zqa9azGo6MMoreover though, it's another facet of the show of the White House occupant embellishing their ego and playing the reality star part through random, aspirational concepts of a plan.PS: I dislike almost all Republicans and most Democrats, especially all of the ones who take bribes from corporations and foreign governments, so this isn't a political message but a reality statement.
ourmandave
If you want to know what the Navy was/is really planning look up the DDG(X).A destroyer planned since 2021, hopefully it won't be another Ticonderoga class fuck up.
jasonwatkinspdx
I mean the whole proposal is nothing more than some of Trump's staffers coming up with an image and a bullet list and him liking it.The Navy is gonna slow role this thing till he's out of office then reform the plan. Which is insanely annoying to me as a tax payer as we've basically had 25 years of the Navy's procurement being an absolute disaster, and now we're gonna lost another 4+ years over Trump's idiotic showboating.
csours
"Trump Class Battleship" - absurd"Gulf of America" - absurd"Tariffs will reduce inflation" - absurd"Trump Kennedy Center" - absurd"Mexico will pay for the wall" - absurd"Ukraine started the war" - absurd"We'll make drugs 1500% cheaper" - absurd---Why does MAGA love absurdity so much?
lifestyleguru
So Americans are now about to replace words in dictionary with word "Trump" or it will only be used as a prefix? [1][1] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NYJ2w82WifU
pron
As a non-American living across the pond, the thing that is most terrifying to me about Trump's presidency isn't his authoritarian tendencies, corruption, cruelty, or criminality. The world has seen plenty of leaders like that. Maybe not recently in so-called Western countries, but it happens. What's novel is his sheer idiocy. Calling him a moron is an insult to the intelligence of morons. And what's so terrifying about it isn't that a man so stupid was elected president of such a big and important country, although that's bad enough, but seeing American titans of industry and other members of its elite - people possessing real power - seriously discussing, or even praising, the quality of the emperor's new clothes.
sapphirebreeze
[dead]