On December 22, at his Mar-a-Lago resort, US President Donald Trump unveiled plans for a new “Trump-class” battleship as the centrepiece of his “Golden Fleet” initiative. We now have renderings of the proposed USS Defiant – a 30,000 to 40,000-ton behemoth, possibly nuclear-propelled and armed with hypersonic missiles, railguns, lasers and nuclear-tipped cruise missiles. Trump declared these vessels would be “the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built”.

Starting with two ships, the goal is to have 20 to 25. Timelines for completion are not clear, but the first hulls in the “mid-2030s” is suggested.

Based on the renderings and descriptions, this new proposal by US President Donald Trump resembles a large guided missile cruiser.Credit: AFP

Reactions have been enthusiastic from the President’s personal MAGA base, generally with some caveats. Others have shown bemusement, given the other more obvious priorities for the US Navy, and still others have ridiculed the plan. Trump talking about it in terms that an eight-year-old would find patronising and calling it after himself led many into the third camp. I’m trying my best to remain in the middle group.

Historically, the word “battleship” is derived from the “line-of-battle ship”, the “ship of the line” of the days of sail. These sailing ships, with two or three decks of cannon – HMS Victory, still preserved in commission at Portsmouth, is an example of the class – were deemed powerful enough to stand in the line of battle during a major fleet action. Smaller warships such as frigates (sometimes known as “cruisers” back then) could not stand in the line and were not battleships.

Then came the days of steam, armour and gun turrets. The new battleships now carried heavy armour and came to devote most of their carrying capacity to the biggest guns possible – they were “all big gun” designs, the first being the British Dreadnought class of 1906. This same design philosophy lasted into World War II, with gun calibres escalating from 12-inch to 15- and 16-inch and finally to the enormous 18-inch weapons mounted in the Japanese super-battleships Yamato and Musashi.

Not every detail of the Trump class is clear, but it seems the two main features of that last generation of battleships – armour and big conventional guns – will be lacking, which is reasonable enough as they aren’t much use in the modern world. Based on the renderings and........

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