The Navy’s latest 30-year shipbuilding plan released May 11 reveals the Trump-class battleship will be nuclear powered and armed, while extending to a 15-ship class..
“The nuclear-powered battleship is designed to provide the fleet with a significant increase in combat power by longer endurance, higher speed, and accommodating advanced weapon systems required for modern warfare,” according to the plan. “Adding capability at the highest end of the high-low mix, the battleship’s primary role is to deliver high-volume, long-range offensive fires and serve as a robust, survivable forward command and control platform, it is not a destroyer replacement,” the plan says.
The plan’s description of the battleship argues the former DDG(X) program it grew out from was being forced to make “undesirable capability and weapon system compromises.”
Beyond using nuclear power for the ship, the shipbuilding plan says one advantage of the size and energy density of the battleship is “the ability to deploy theater nuclear weapons from surface units forces our adversaries into difficult strategic calculations, bolstering our overall deterrence.”
Currently the only Navy forces that field nuclear weapons are Ohio-class ballistic missile submarines (SSBN) that will start to be replaced by Columbia-class boats in the 2030s. The Navy is also working on the Nuclear-Armed Sea-Launched Cruise Missile (SLCM-N) program to field low-yield nuclear-capable cruise missiles from Virginia-class attack submarines.
The document emphasizes the energy density and size of the battleship will allow it to field the weapons promoted in the initial announcement, including electronic warfare tools and high throughput lasers that could reduce reliance on “high-cost single-use munitions for both attack and defense.”
The document also hints at the Navy’s battleship acquisition plan.
“This will be the first clean-sheet surface combatant designed in more than 30 years, and we are deliberately incorporating modern digital engineering, advanced production practices, and AI [artificial intelligence] enabled design tools to reduce cost and schedule risk from the outset,” the shipbuilding plan says. “To strengthen this approach, we are adopting proven best practices from foreign partners with advanced shipbuilding techniques.”