Many risks could tank Trump-class battleship ambition

The proposed Trump-class battleship, officially known as the BBG(X) guided missile battleship program, is planned to be the largest warship built by the United States since World War II. The entire project is riddled with gambles, any one of which could tank the project. Here are some of those risks.

(1) The US has no contemporary experience in designing and building a battleship. The last time was between 1943 and 1945 when the US built four Iowa-class battleships. They were upgraded and rehabilitated a couple of times until finally decommissioned in the early 1990s.

All four are now museum pieces, the Missouri at Pearl Harbor, the Iowa in Los Angeles, the New Jersey in Camden, NJ, and the Wisconsin in Norfolk, Virginia.

According to public information, the first Trump-class ship will be dubbed the USS Defiant. It will weigh (empty) over 35,000 tons, be conventionally powered and somewhat slower than the Iowa-class ships.

At present there is no suitable design for the USS Defiant, so naval architects will be busy figuring out a proper configuration, assessing power requirements for the vessel itself and onboard weapons, and determining how the ship will be constructed.

In Italy, when building itsCavour aircraft carrier,the Italians lacked a navy yard big enough for the proposed ship. They opted for modular construction and actually welded the ship parts together offshore.

US Navy planners may have a similar idea: fabricate the ship in segments, either constructed in the US or abroad (likely in South Korea), then assemble the whole at a site in the US. One report says that South Korea’s Hanwha has been tapped by Trump to build the USS Defiant.

A modular approach is new ground for US Navy yards. It isn’t clear this approach will be selected, as it entails significant risk, but there are not too many other options. A key problem is the lack of skilled manpower and engineers needed for a project of this scale. Most reports say that actual constructionwill not beginuntil the 2030s.

(2) There is no hard information on the design of the ship’s conventional power plant or who will supply it once the actual requirements are defined. Because of the laser weapons and railgun, the ship will also need a vast amount of power storage onboard.

(3) Many of the proposed weapons onboard the USS Defiant are unproven and experimental. This includes hypersonic weapons, rail guns, a proposed Surface-Launched Cruise Missile with a nuclear warhead and a 5-inch gun featuring a hypervelocity projectile (HVP).

(4) So far as is known, no mission studies for the BBG(X) guided missile battleship program have been undertaken. How will this vessel be used with existing capabilities including destroyers, cruisers, submarines and aircraft carriers? What advantages does it bring, especially against major potential adversaries?

(5) How will the BBG(X) guided missile battleship be protected from a well-equipped enemy with missiles, guided weapons, drones, submarines, etc? Recently there have been many whoquestion the viability of large aircraft carriersfacing long-range precision weapons, especially those developed by China. It isn’t an unfair presumption that a massive battleship would face the same sort of risk.

(6) Some of the proposed systems, such as the 32 megajoule railgun, are still developmental and fraught with serious problems, especially overheating and huge power requirements. If these systems are prematurely installed and fail, they could cause onboard accidents including explosions and fire that could cripple the battleship.

(7) The railgun is not the only system where testing and development still are needed before such systems are permanently built into the warship’s design. One of them, the SLCM-N (Surface Launched Cruise Missile with Nuclear Warhead) is mostly untested and undeveloped, requires a special launch system based on a cold gas system to eject the weapon from the ship and does not yet have a nuclear warhead that has been approved and is safe.

Like other systems on the proposed warship, it is far from clear why the SLCM-N is needed since Trident missiles from submarines can deliver small nuclear warheads on target. The argument for SLCM-N is that it would act as a deterrent to an adversary: in fact, such a system may prompt an adversary to field even more conventional and cruise nuclear missiles.

(8) There is no existing fire control system for this new class of ship that can optimize and integrate the onboard ship’s capabilities, network with and coordinate with existing assets, including surface ships and submarines, and handle new threats as they emerge, which is certain to occur).

When one considers the ongoing software problems with the F-35 stealth fighter, the complex set of weapons on the USS Defiant and integrating the ship with existing naval and air fleets will be a major developmental challenge.

(9) A major risk is affordability. Current estimates put the cost at US$10 to $15 billion per ship, but this figure will surely rise once the weapons systems are included. Considering timelines, inflation,and potential delays, a price around $25 billion per ship would not be surprising. Two ships are initially planned, and the Navy says it ultimately intends to buy 25.

The obvious question is what is the payoff for the huge costs since all the proposed systems can be fitted on smaller ships at far less expense. Likewise, the project will eat up existing meager shipyard and development resources, meaning that other programs inevitably will suffer as a result.

At the end of the day, Congress should carefully consider whether the risks outweigh the benefits of the program. Minimally, Congress should carefully review the justifications for this project and its overall impact on US Navy programs and readiness.

Stephen Bryen is a former US deputy undersecretary of defense and special correspondent at Asia Times. Thisarticle was first published on his newsletterWeapons and Strategyand is republished with permission.