Concerns over the technical feasibility of the proposed Trump-class battleship are prompting lawmakers to put the brakes on construction of the warship as part of the Navy’s planned “Golden Fleet.”
The House Armed Services Committee’s draft defense policy bill authorizes $1 billion in advance procurement funding for the battleship but bars construction until the Navy can prove it has the technology to build it.
A provision in the bill directs the Navy secretary to certify to Congress that the battleship’s planned weapons systems are at a “sufficiently mature technology readiness level” before signing a construction contract.
The committee is scheduled to debate and amend the annual must-pass legislation, which sets spending levels and policy priorities for the Pentagon, next week.
The added hurdle on the construction of the Trump-class battleship, envisioned as a nuclear-powered guided-missile warship, comes after lawmakers raised questions about its complexity, timeline and cost.
Rep. Joe Courtney of Connecticut, the top Democrat on the committee’s seapower and projection forces subpanel, said this month that he was alarmed by the speed with which the Navy was moving forward with the battleship.
“We’re going from basically a poster board in December to $1 billion requested this year, $17 billion the following year,” he said. “Before you start cutting steel, you’ve got to make sure your design piece is done, or pretty darn close to done.”
Sen. Chris Coons of Delaware, the top Democrat on the Senate Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel, echoed those worries at a recent hearing, telling Navy officials they’re racing ahead without a design and with multiple unproven technologies.
“I am profoundly concerned that this is a $50 billion boondoggle, where the delivery timeline is a political timeline, not a practical timeline,” he said.
President Donald Trump announced plans for the Trump-class warship in late December, saying it will revive the American shipbuilding industry, “inspire fear” in adversaries and anchor a new Navy Golden Fleet of surface combatants, auxiliary ships and unmanned vessels..
“They’ll be the fastest, the biggest, and by far 100 times more powerful than any battleship ever built,” Trump said alongside renderings of the proposed ship.
The first three Trump-class battleships are expected to cost $43.5 billion, with the lead ship projected to exceed $17 billion. The Navy plans to award the contract for the lead ship, the USS Defiant, in 2028 for delivery in 2036.
As envisioned, the battleship will be armed with hypersonic missiles and an electromagnetic rail gun — two weapons that the Navy has yet to field. It will also carry conventional 5-inch guns and a range of lasers and smaller guns.
Navy leaders have defended the ship in recent congressional hearings, arguing the service needs a larger ship to accommodate more capability.
“We need significant payload volume for all future fights,” Adm. Daryl Caudle, the chief of naval operations, told the House Appropriations Committee’s defense subpanel. “We need that payload volume to scale not only with the munitions we’re going to have today but future munitions we don’t know.”
But some lawmakers remain unconvinced.
They say the costly battleship contradicts prevailing naval doctrine, which favors a dispersed fleet of manned and unmanned platforms over hulking surface combatants that are vulnerable to attack.
Sen. Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the Republican chairman of the defense appropriations subcommittee, pointed to Ukraine’s use of drones and missiles to destroy or damage major Russian warships in the Black Sea.
Iran, too, has been able to use small boats and drones to threaten billion-dollar U.S. destroyers in the Strait of Hormuz, he said. He questioned if the Navy was adapting as quickly as necessary to the modern battlefield.
“At the most basic level, what is the Department of the Navy doing to ensure that U.S. sailors and Marines benefit from every possible advantage of modern military technology?” McConnell asked Navy officials at a hearing last week.
Coons posited that the current battle space will render the Trump-class battleship program obsolete.
“We should instead be putting those funds in rapidly characterizing, acquiring and deploying critically needed drones that will allow us — below and on the surface and above the sea — to be the dominant force we need to be going ahead,” he said.
