"Nobody in the Navy has asked for a new battleship of this sort -a behemoth weighing three times as much as the vessel it replaces (which itself is a very heavy ship), staffed by twice as many personnel (recruited from where?), and hoisting every type of weapon imaginable, including nuclear-armed cruise missiles, which, to the relief of every Navy commander, no U.S. surface vessel has carried since the end of the Cold War."
"The good news about President Donald Trump's announcement of a new "Trump-class battleship," based on his own vision of what a modern war vessel should look like, is that it will almost certainly never be built. The bad news is that, over the next few years, the Navy will spend hundreds of millions of dollars-maybe even a few billion-pretending that it's working on the project."
A presidential proposal calls for a new "Trump-class" battleship far larger and more heavily crewed than existing vessels, carrying many weapon types including nuclear-armed cruise missiles. The Navy did not request such a ship, and experts view the plan as unrealistic and wasteful. Building a few massive ships would contradict current naval strategy favoring many smaller, dispersed vessels that are less vulnerable. China's larger fleet and long-range anti-ship ballistic missiles further undermine the logic of a single behemoth. The proposal could lead to substantial program spending without producing an operational ship.
Read at Slate Magazine
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