THE TRUMP CLASS BATTLESHIPS

 

 

Alright, let’s start at the beginning.

 

Then

 

“Battleship” is an extremely well-established term that the world’s navies have agreed upon since, oh, the first one: HMS Dreadnaut, which revolutionized warships upon commissioning in NINETEEN OH SIX.  For the numerically challenged, that was just about 120 years ago.

 

Dreadnaut combined advanced technologies—ordinarily not a wise engineering philosophy—but it worked.  She had the same caliber big guns (12 inchers) rather than mixed armament, with steam turbine propulsion.  At 18,000 tons she was light for later battleships, and relatively slow at 21 knots.  In comparison, the final U.S. Iowa (BB-61) class ships pegged 48,000 tons with 16-inchers and logged 32 knots.

 

Whatever the era, battleships were big, heavy, well armored and heavily gunned.  They were meant to defeat enemy battleships in force-on-force combats to establish control of a given portion of the earth’s surface. 

 

America’s first battleship designated as such was the 10,000-ton USS Indiana (BB-1) in 1895.  Seventeen others were commissioned before World War I.

 

During the Great War the U.S. Navy considered “Tillman maximum class” battleships--inspired by my shirt-tail relation, South Carolina Senator Benjamin Ryan “Pitchfork” Ben Tillman.  They went through several concepts, peaking at a honking huge 80,000 tons with FIFTEEN 18-INCH guns.  For comparison, only two such monsters were ever produced: Japan’s Yamato and Musashi, both over 70,000 tons and both sunk in 1944-45.

 

Throughout the U.S. Navy’s long history, it has logged very few big-ship engagements, though definitions vary.  Two occurred during the Spanish-American War, resulting in slam-dunk wins at Santiago Bay, Cuba, and Manila Bay the Philippines. 

 

Sidebar: USS Maine (ACR-1) whose self-destruction mistakenly started the flail in 1898 was not repeat not a battleship.  She was an armored cruiser.

 

The Cuba and Philippines duels preclude qualification as battleship fights.  The major combatants fell into the 3,000 to 6,000-ton “armored cruiser” category.

 

Seven years later the then-largest armored warship clash occurred in Tsushima Strait between Japan and Korea, pitting four Japanese capital ships against 11 Russian including coastal defense vessels. The heavyweights displaced nearly 15,000 tons mounting 12-inch guns. The result was a huge win for the emperor’s sailors, who gunned down six Czarist battleships and 15 lesser vessels for one torpedo boat lost. 

 

In World War II U.S. Navy battleships fought two at-sea engagements.  Off Guadalcanal in November 1942 the spooky-smart Rear Admiral Willis Lee in USS Washington (BB-56) conducted a nocturnal slugfest that left the 36,000-ton Kirishima a floating wreck with four destroyers.  But Lee’s teammate South Dakota (BB-57) suffered serious electrical failure, and the Americans also lost four destroyers.

 

Almost two years later in the Philippines’ Surigao Strait, Rear Admiral Jesse Oldendorf’s crews shot two enemy battleships and two destroyers apart, without loss.

 

U.S. Navy 16-inch shells weighed up to 2,700 pounds—more than a Volkswagen Beetle—propelled by about 600 pounds of powder.  The shells blasted from the muzzle at 2,300 to 2,700 foot-seconds, achieving a range of 20 miles.  One of my novelist colleagues graduated from Annapolis in time for the war.  He provided a vivid description of a surface engagement, with violent concussion and overpowering noise.  But mostly he remembered the armor-piercing shells striking steel: “It smelled like a giant welding shop.”

 

Battleships fought no more surface engagements though Missouri (BB-63), Wisconsin (BB-64) and New Jersey (BB-62) provided gunfire support to Allied forces in Korea, Vietnam, and ultimately in Lebanon. 

 

The last American battleship in service was New Jersey, decommissioned the last time in 1992. 

 

So where does that put us in the Battleship Compendium?

 

Let’s consider the name.  Apparently the navy (seldom logical in such things for decades) has hit upon USS Defiant (BBG-1) for the first Trump battleship.  Well…that poses a problem.

 

The U.S. Navy already has a USS Defiant (YT-804).  It’s a tugboat in the six-ship Valiant class which, by the way, further illustrates naval ineptitude in ship names.  The others include Reliant (an adjective), Seminole (Florida tribe), Puyallup (Washington), and Menominee (Wisconsin).

 

Assuming the “battleships” are built, it’ll be interesting to see how The Navy deals with the name thing.

 

Today

 

This month the president announced plans to produce two ships approximately immediately followed by eight more, followed by a dozen others—or more.

 

The navy’s description of the Trump class battleships posits a high-high tech sea control vessel for which there is but one potential enemy: China.

 

Nominal displacement is 35,000 tons (about the same as a WW II battle cruiser) capable of 30 knots, crewed by about 500 Sailors (it’s Capitalized since Soldiers and Airmen exhibited proper noun Marine envy).

 

The ship’s offense includes potentially nuclear-capable cruise missiles plus defensive weapons in vertical launch cells and rolling airframe missiles.  Additionally, 21^st century directed-energy weapons railguns are considered with a 5-inch gun firing hypervelocity projectiles.

 

The latter inspires little confidence: a similar arrangement was proposed for the scandalous Zumwalt (DDG-1000) class destroyer.  Of 32 planned, three have been completed due to immense cost over-runs by Bath Iron Works and Ingalls Shipbuilding.  The Advanced Gun System was so mismanaged that it was canceled because ammunition cost nearly $1 million per round.

 

In self-respecting militaries, those responsible would go away.  Instead, We The People fund their lavish, unearned retirements.

 

Navy insiders—active and retired—express serious doubts about the Defiants.  Although the U.S. has begun a long-overdue commitment to ship building, years are required to bridge the gap.  After the first two “battleships,” Trump posits eight more toward a total of 20 to 25.  Where those ships will be built, how they will be manned and based, remains to be seen.

 

I’ll finish by citing three of my go-to authorities.

 

Those who follow naval affairs know Norman Polmar, arguably the world’s senior naval analyst.  “We have recently cancelled the frigate and two littoral ship programs.  We need small (frigate size) combatants now for a variety of missions.  It will take several years to design and order the Trump battleships.    

 

“U.S. shipyards are far behind major ship construction--look at the nuclear aircraft carrier programs.

 

“An objective review and ‘overhaul’ of U.S. naval ship design and construction procedures and capabilities is desperately needed.”

 

This summary comes from an uncommonly astute truth-teller among the retired admiral ranks: “It all dates back to insane organizational changes made by Secretary Cheney that fractured the ‘Rule of the Common Commander’ in the Systems Commands and eliminated OPNAV (directorates for surface, sub-surface, aviation, industry liaison and others).  The present organization will not ever function effectively, no matter how many patches they make to it.”

 

Finally, from an influential military journal editor: “I’m going out on a limb and saying they will never be built.”