The Russia Ukraine war has shown big metal objects are liabilities in the cheap plentiful drone war of the future.
How come this doesn’t work on Israel?
President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
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Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#12The Russia Ukraine war has shown big metal objects are liabilities in the cheap plentiful drone war of the future.
They probably are, but the Ukraine war has not shown that. The only large ship lost by either side was a Russian ship, the Moskva, which was sunk by a Neptune anti-ship missile. Other smaller craft were sunk by naval drones, not necessarily cheap.
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#13I thought the BB class was no longer relevant in today's modern, missile and drone oriented naval battle fields?
Yes-ish. In a serious fight against a peer-ish level adversary, the RoI on such a ship looks very dubious.
But short of that, a huge warship can have great prestige & intimidation value - assuming that it is competently designed, and built, and outfitted, and operated. Naval history is swarming with only-on-paper designs for big warships. And a fair number of real-steel warships which were cripples, glass cannons, or sitting ducks because of incompetence somewhere in that chain.
(Also, the USN is referring to it as a BBG, not BB - https://www.navy.mil/Press-Office/Press-Releases/display-pre... )
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#14The Russia Ukraine war has shown big metal objects are liabilities in the cheap plentiful drone war of the future.
They probably are, but the Ukraine war has not shown that. The only large ship lost by either side was a Russian ship, the Moskva, which was sunk by a Neptune anti-ship missile. Other smaller craft were sunk by naval drones, not necessarily cheap.
The sinking of the Moskva is better understood as a WWII-era lesson - if a warship has lots of munitions up top, unprotected by armor, then all an enemy needs to do is set the first few of those off. Even with an elite crew and ship full of damage control equipment, the ship may end up not worth repairing.
Example: Two 550 lbs. bombs came very close to sinking the USS Franklin - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Franklin_(CV-13)#19_March_... The Franklin was about 3 times the size of the Moskva.
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#15I thought the BB class was no longer relevant in today's modern, missile and drone oriented naval battle fields?
If you mean in terms of armament, this ship would have more missiles than any other class in the US fleet by a wide margin.
If you mean as a threat, the USN has ships sitting in the Red Sea as the Houthis and Iranians and whoever else sends off drones and missiles and they've all been fine.
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#16The Russia Ukraine war has shown big metal objects are liabilities in the cheap plentiful drone war of the future.
> In a recent attack, the destroyer USS Spruance was “in a fight where they shot down three anti-ship ballistic missiles, three anti-ship cruise missiles and seven one-way (aerial drones) that were coming towards” them, said McLane, who didn’t specify when Spruance was attacked.
> On Nov. 11, Spruance and the destroyer USS Stockdale came under Houthi fire, fending off at least eight drones and eight missiles while transiting the Bab el Mandeb, a strait that connects the Red Sea to the Gulf of Aden.
https://www.stripes.com/branches/navy/2025-01-16/houthis-nav...
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#17The Russia Ukraine war has shown big metal objects are liabilities in the cheap plentiful drone war of the future.
They probably are, but the Ukraine war has not shown that. The only large ship lost by either side was a Russian ship, the Moskva, which was sunk by a Neptune anti-ship missile. Other smaller craft were sunk by naval drones, not necessarily cheap.
Cheap in comparison to the vessels they attacked.
In Ukraine the Russians had to move the fleet out of Sevastopol because of Ukrainian naval drone attacks, mostly to Novorossiysk and then recently have had to block that in with barges dropped across the entrance to try to prevent underwater drones getting in like the one that damaged a sub there last week.
The recent drone attack on the oil tanker Qendil in the Med was an interesting new one. 2000 km from Ukraine and they seem to have used drones to drop grenades or similar on the ship.
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#18I thought the BB class was no longer relevant in today's modern, missile and drone oriented naval battle fields?
I mean, this isn’t going to actually happen. It’s just ego-stroking for mad king Donald.
But yep. Really they died before that; the last battleship ever built was competed in 1946, and scrapped in 1960. It was aircraft carriers that killed them off, really, not missiles and drones.
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#19I thought the BB class was no longer relevant in today's modern, missile and drone oriented naval battle fields?
Relevance is obviously not the Fuhrer's concern. https://backintimetoday.com/hitlers-war-follies-the-10-blund...
It reminded me about how Hitler supposedly pushed for larger, heavier tank designs. Even he didn't name them after himself, though.
Re: President Trump Announces New Trump Class Battleship
#20I thought the BB class was no longer relevant in today's modern, missile and drone oriented naval battle fields?
I mean, this isn’t going to actually happen. It’s just ego-stroking for mad king Donald. But yep. Really they died before that; the last battleship ever built was competed in 1946, and scrapped in 1960. It was aircraft carriers that killed them off, really, not missiles and drones.
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