The proposed Trump class Battleship (officially the BBG(X) guided missile battleship program) is planned to be the largest warship built by the United States since World War II.
At present the US Navy has problems sorting out a workable, affordable and capable frigate - and have been working on this issue for the last 10 years already and still have not solved it. How the hell are they going to get behemoths like battleships going, let alone get all the technical and logistical problems identified in the article solved. It would be better to build autonomous arsenal ships controlled from existing naval platforms as force multipliers than spend enormous sums on this gold-plated bomb magnet.
I haven't seen such a cockamamie military idea in a long, long time.
How do they imagine this is going to work? What is the benefit even of concentrating all these resources on one platform?
Have they done simulations about what it would take to defend such a vessel against:
1. Large swarms of "Sea Baby" type drone boats?
2. Autonomous torpedoes?
3. Waves of aerial drones?
4. Smart mines, analogous to the lurking FPV drones being used in Ukraine, which wait on the seabed?
5. Other new weapons which flow from the revolution in drone/autonomous weapons technology?
Those guys should be spending their time on trying to figure out how are existing capital ships -- our $12 billion aircraft carriers will survive the new realities.
It will never happen. A lot of money will be thrown into the discussion stage but nothing like it will emerge. Plans and goals will be continually changed with each successive administration. The only constant will be a lot of money spent looking into various concepts and proposals.
The first thing is .....what do you mean it's slow. What's the point of making it slow? Put some nuclear power in it, turn it into a catamaran hull form and make it a speed boat. No, instead what about a cold fusion power plant...... That's good for a lot of money coming up with ever changing radically different power plant designs right there since by definition the whole project is off the wall.
Make it stealthy
Make looking impressive a major part of the design.
Wait, what? Build it offshore??!!?? Well, why not just wet lease it from the Chinese?
Oh, and it has to be huuuuuge. Everyone has to want to say it's the best.
True that. But South Korea would probably use their own gear unlike Raytheon using Chinese gear for the hard part. On the other hand, at least Raytheon (under its new name whatever that is) has the Chinese parts shipped to the U.S. for assembly. So there is that.
It reminds me of Japan's Yamato Class battleships, they built two of them during WW2 at enormous expense during a period when they should have been focusing on better air defenses, viable encryption, etc.. The project was highly controversial inside Japan, and there were many in the military who spoke out against the project (unsuccessfully). By their launch date, submarines and aerial vulnerability had already rendered such platforms obsolete. The two warships spent their entire time running away from combat, taking away resources from Japan's naval and air forces to protect them. Rather than contributing to naval strength, they were a liability. Outside Japan the Yamato battleships are widely considered a disastrous decision for Japan. Nevertheless, inside Japan the Yamato is worshipped and mythologized as a great symbol of Japan's former imperial military prowess (it has appeared in many recent Japanese films, including Gozilla -1.0).
It’s easy to carp about all the problems and just say no. It’s hard to say yes. Sounds to me (an old man who doesn’t know much) like a typical Trump strategy. Think huge, get people thinking about and focusing on the future. If you give up before you even start you’ll never have anything. Think of all things that will be invented as offshoots of these ideas. IE gps was invented because general Abrams couldn’t direct his tanks across vast expanse of open desert in desert storm without a guidance system. GPS was a floundering idea in the pentagon which couldn’t get funded because the powers that were had no imagination or foresight. Couldn’t conceive of how it could work or be useful. I know this because of a cousin of mine doing top secret work on it. He was one of the faceless witnesses at congressional hearings begging for financing. Trouble was none of them could see the use of such a crazy idea. Then desert storm came along and the problem of knowing where the tanks where became a huge obstacle. My cousin and his crew of researchers caught the attention of generals who immediately saw the solution to a huge problem. Suddenly Congress was throwing money at the project and demanding that it be done yesterday! It was top secret but slowly civilian use were allowed and here we are unable to live without it. In those days I would visit my cousin and asked what he was working on. His response was the old cliche: if I tell you I’ll have to kill you. It was years later he told me this story.
At present the US Navy has problems sorting out a workable, affordable and capable frigate - and have been working on this issue for the last 10 years already and still have not solved it. How the hell are they going to get behemoths like battleships going, let alone get all the technical and logistical problems identified in the article solved. It would be better to build autonomous arsenal ships controlled from existing naval platforms as force multipliers than spend enormous sums on this gold-plated bomb magnet.
I haven't seen such a cockamamie military idea in a long, long time.
How do they imagine this is going to work? What is the benefit even of concentrating all these resources on one platform?
Have they done simulations about what it would take to defend such a vessel against:
1. Large swarms of "Sea Baby" type drone boats?
2. Autonomous torpedoes?
3. Waves of aerial drones?
4. Smart mines, analogous to the lurking FPV drones being used in Ukraine, which wait on the seabed?
5. Other new weapons which flow from the revolution in drone/autonomous weapons technology?
Those guys should be spending their time on trying to figure out how are existing capital ships -- our $12 billion aircraft carriers will survive the new realities.
Can you imagine $30 billion slipping beneath the waves on its way to the bottom?
It will never happen. A lot of money will be thrown into the discussion stage but nothing like it will emerge. Plans and goals will be continually changed with each successive administration. The only constant will be a lot of money spent looking into various concepts and proposals.
The first thing is .....what do you mean it's slow. What's the point of making it slow? Put some nuclear power in it, turn it into a catamaran hull form and make it a speed boat. No, instead what about a cold fusion power plant...... That's good for a lot of money coming up with ever changing radically different power plant designs right there since by definition the whole project is off the wall.
Make it stealthy
Make looking impressive a major part of the design.
Wait, what? Build it offshore??!!?? Well, why not just wet lease it from the Chinese?
Oh, and it has to be huuuuuge. Everyone has to want to say it's the best.
Let's hope we only waste money on discussion.
Jesus Christ. What a boondoggle, and we can’t even build it in the US!
True, but why should Raytheon have all the fun? Let someone else in on the money train for once.
They shouldn’t, but neither should we sent $25 billion/ea to Korea
True that. But South Korea would probably use their own gear unlike Raytheon using Chinese gear for the hard part. On the other hand, at least Raytheon (under its new name whatever that is) has the Chinese parts shipped to the U.S. for assembly. So there is that.
It reminds me of Japan's Yamato Class battleships, they built two of them during WW2 at enormous expense during a period when they should have been focusing on better air defenses, viable encryption, etc.. The project was highly controversial inside Japan, and there were many in the military who spoke out against the project (unsuccessfully). By their launch date, submarines and aerial vulnerability had already rendered such platforms obsolete. The two warships spent their entire time running away from combat, taking away resources from Japan's naval and air forces to protect them. Rather than contributing to naval strength, they were a liability. Outside Japan the Yamato battleships are widely considered a disastrous decision for Japan. Nevertheless, inside Japan the Yamato is worshipped and mythologized as a great symbol of Japan's former imperial military prowess (it has appeared in many recent Japanese films, including Gozilla -1.0).
Trump's current ship of state is already sinking.
They should call this fantasy the Titanic Class.
It’s easy to carp about all the problems and just say no. It’s hard to say yes. Sounds to me (an old man who doesn’t know much) like a typical Trump strategy. Think huge, get people thinking about and focusing on the future. If you give up before you even start you’ll never have anything. Think of all things that will be invented as offshoots of these ideas. IE gps was invented because general Abrams couldn’t direct his tanks across vast expanse of open desert in desert storm without a guidance system. GPS was a floundering idea in the pentagon which couldn’t get funded because the powers that were had no imagination or foresight. Couldn’t conceive of how it could work or be useful. I know this because of a cousin of mine doing top secret work on it. He was one of the faceless witnesses at congressional hearings begging for financing. Trouble was none of them could see the use of such a crazy idea. Then desert storm came along and the problem of knowing where the tanks where became a huge obstacle. My cousin and his crew of researchers caught the attention of generals who immediately saw the solution to a huge problem. Suddenly Congress was throwing money at the project and demanding that it be done yesterday! It was top secret but slowly civilian use were allowed and here we are unable to live without it. In those days I would visit my cousin and asked what he was working on. His response was the old cliche: if I tell you I’ll have to kill you. It was years later he told me this story.
Stick to drones its all about drones the days of battleships are over even carriers have had their day
This sounds like a Ford Class carrier on steroids. At least if they try welding it together offshore they can sink it without taking the crew with it.
Trump sees that US shipbuilding is dead currently, bad designs delivered late at exorbitant cost.
His solution, an arsenal ship built in modules by Korean yards and welded together in the US.
It is more likely to work than any of the proposed alternatives.
So give him credit, he is at least proposing a plausible path forward. If China is the problem, then enlisting Korea is obviously essential.
His plan does that. How well is not the issue.
Looks to me like a great, big , beautiful target.
I don't claim to know much about naval affairs, but this seems like a bad idea.