A reader recently launched a mini-rant about the
classification of Trump’s battleship as a battleship, claiming it should be a
heavy cruiser, instead. This led me to
reflect on what it really is. Heavy cruiser? Light cruiser? Oversized destroyer? Arsenal ship?
Something else?
As you all know, President Trump has a fondness for
hyperbole (turning Canada into the 51st state, seizing Greenland,
this pretend battleship, etc.) which is often just a prelude to subsequent
negotiations (he loves making deals!).
Only the left takes the obvious hyperbole as meaning anything. The wiser and calmer among us recognize it
for what it is and get a chuckle out of it.
Thus, the classification of Trump’s battleship as a battleship is
strictly for public relations purposes and, perhaps, a bit of a thumbing of the
nose at China.
So, if it’s not a battleship, what is it? Acknowledging that we lack enough
specifications to draw much in the way of definitive conclusions, let’s go down
the list of classifications, just for fun, and see what, if anything fits.
Battleship – It’s
clearly not a battleship as it lacks armor, survivability, and effective fire
support for land forces among other shortcomings.
Heavy Cruiser – A
heavy cruiser is a mini-battleship with appropriately heavy armor, guns (land
attack), and anti-ship weaponry. Again,
this ship is clearly not a heavy cruiser.
Light Cruiser – These
are compromise ships that try to excel at one aspect of heavier ship’s tasks
while retaining some armor and survivability and, most importantly, holding to
a cost-conscious construction budget.
They may be specialized as anti-air, anti-surface, escort, or other
tasks. Trump’s battleship could fall
somewhere in this category, in some respects, although it is stunningly not
budget-friendly and lacks a specialization so it’s not really a light cruiser.
Oversize Destroyer
– Trump’s ship certainly falls into this category in terms of the lack of armor
and survivability but it has way too much in the way of weapons and is insanely
expensive for a destroyer, oversize or not.
LCS – Trump’s
ship checks a lot of the boxes for being an LCS! It tries to be all things. It depends on mostly non-existent
systems. It has no clear mission
focus. One could plausibly call it a
hugely oversized, astoundingly expensive LCS although, thankfully, no one has
yet mentioned interchangeable modules.
Arsenal Ship –
The arsenal ship is a concept ship that is, essentially, a mobile missile barge
with only that one function. We’re
getting close, here. Trump’s ship is,
essentially, a mobile missile barge albeit with large scoops of non-existent,
fantasy gold plating (rail gun, laser, etc.) piled on and lots of independent
capabilities that an arsenal ship would lack.
It also conflates anti-air and strike missions instead of focusing on
just one. Nevertheless, this is the
closest fit as far as classification.
That said, as an arsenal ship it is a hideously poor design
as evidenced by the cost and multiple fantasy systems. An arsenal ship should be a minimally
functional, cheap barge for carrying missiles for some other platform to
control.
Conclusion
The only conclusion is that, like every recent Navy ship
program, the “battleship” is just a collection of disjointed technologies,
mostly non-existent, cobbled together and slapped with the inspiring label of “battleship”. It lacks a CONOPS and, certainly, no formal Analysis
of Alternatives has been performed.
Given the extremely low probability of it ever actually
being built, we should simply view it as an indicator of Trump’s enthusiasm for
a strong Navy and hope that enthusiasm eventually gets channeled into more
productive and useful assets.
As far as this post, take it as a bit of amusement. Don’t get too worked up over it.
