No, it's not a battleship
Perception of the “Trump-Class Battleship”
- Widely seen as a branding/ego project born from a rendering and a bullet list, not from operational need.
- Many expect the Navy to slow-walk it until it can be canceled or reshaped, but worry billions will still be burned in the process.
- Compared repeatedly to “The Homer” car and the “cybertruck of the seas”: a grab‑bag of cool‑sounding features without a coherent concept of operations.
- Technically, commenters note it’s not a real battleship: no serious armor is mentioned, main battery is missiles, and it cannot meet the classic standard of surviving its own primary weapons.
US Navy Procurement and Opportunity Cost
- Fits into a broader narrative of failed or mismanaged programs (Zumwalt, LCS, even DDG(X) now canceled in its favor).
- Concern that diverting money and yard capacity from DDG(X) and other work will leave the USN badly outpaced by China in the 2030s–2040s.
- Some argue the “waste” still sustains US shipbuilding and industrial capacity; others call it naked kleptocracy or “feeding the machine” instead of delivering combat power.
Naval Roles, Battleships, and Survivability
- Long historical thread on battleships’ decline: expensive, vulnerable to airpower and now to anti-ship missiles; carriers, submarines, and missile ships assumed their role.
- Debate over whether any large surface combatant is survivable near China’s coast or in the Taiwan Strait, given dense missile threats and submarines.
- Recurrent theme: in a serious high‑end war, numbers, dispersion, and smaller hulls may matter more than a few giant prestige ships.
Hypersonics, A2/AD, and China
- Strong disagreement: some treat hypersonic missiles as overhyped (pointing to high interception claims in Ukraine); others present detailed arguments that magazine depth and physics make defense against large salvos effectively impossible.
- Several commenters conclude that in a China fight, US carrier groups and big surface ships might be unusable inside key theaters, constraining US options.
Automation, Drones, and Alternatives
- Proposed alternatives include arsenal ships, modular missile barges, container‑ship launchers, and automated or “crew‑optional” platforms that manufacture or assemble drones near the front.
- Others are skeptical: maintenance, reliability, and cost of sophisticated unmanned large ships are seen as major practical blockers.
Politics and Symbolism
- Many comments treat the ship primarily as domestic propaganda: geriatric nostalgia, absurd naming (“Trump Class”, “Gulf of America”), and authoritarian spectacle rather than strategy.
- Some lament that serious people and institutions feel obliged to engage with or flatter such ideas, draining attention and credibility.