The Make-A-Wish Kid Military

Force Design for Twelve Year Olds

I assume that by now you’ve heard the exciting news from President Trump that we will be forgoing the DDG(X) in favor of the newly announced Trump-class battleship.¹

In a time where the USN has consistently failed in their procurement efforts—ranging from the LCS to the Zumwalt—we have decided to orient our effort and resources toward a project that will almost inevitably be vaporware.

So let’s look at the proposed armaments.

First is the proposed laser weapon² for point defense—which I would assume would be the HELIOS developed by Lockheed Martin.

I have no real problem with this as an additional system for close-in defense, and it would probably be standard for any next generation naval vessel.

But that’s basically where anything positive ends.

Next we have a proposed rail gun. Despite years of testing, the USN has never been able to produce a railgun that could suitably function for combat operations.

It is—for the foreseeable future—simply a nonexistent weapons system.

The most damning aspect of this is, however, the fact that this battleship will only have 128 VLS cells.

To give you context the Arleigh Burke has 96 VLS cells.

The difference here is that the Arleigh Burke costs approximately 2.8 billion per vessel whereas the Trump-class will apparently cost somewhere around 9 to 13 billion per vessel—the cost of an aircraft carrier. It’s also approximately twice the cost of a projected next generation DDG and will have a displacement three times that of the Arleigh Burke.³

Now I will preface with this, my background is not in naval affairs. I am not an expert in naval operations.

I do, however, understand the basic fundamentals of how contemporary naval operations work, and I can tell you this: it is dominated by stand-off munitions.

You need to find where to fire missiles and where to intercept missiles.

Which gets me to this.

Every Trump-class battleship that is procured (assuming a single one is ever built) is going to result in a net loss of 64 VLS cells assuming a next generation DDG has as many VLS cells as an Arleigh Burke.⁴

It means less ability to interdict missiles and less ability to conduct strikes.

On top of this—based on the displacement and our atrophied shipbuilding capacity—these will take significantly longer to produce compared to a DDG.

So it probably means significantly more than a net loss of 64 VLS cells for every hypothetical Trump-class battleship produced if you factor in lost production time.

All of this without providing any noticeable capability that an Arleigh Burke doesn’t already bring to bear.

This comes on the heels of the November cancellation of the Constellation-class guided-missile frigates in favor of a new FF(X) frigate that will not have any VLS cells.

This means the FF(X) will functionally be an expensive and useless piece of metal in the sea that can launch a few drones or maybe a helicopter. It will add little if any value to a high-end conflict.

All of this means we have less pickets to defend our aircraft carriers—the platforms that actually project expeditionary power.

You don’t have to try to rationalize any of this. There is no rational procurement process involved in any of this.

These are decisions made by children who refuse to take any aspect of governance seriously.

It is named after Trump as a make-a-wish kid tier vanity project because he appreciates aesthetics and he wants his golden fleet.

The President’s adoring fans in the Pentagon press pool can seemingly only offer a defense that it’ll look cool to 12 year olds.

We could—instead—be spending this money training and recruiting the desperately needed workforce for our shipyards.

We could be investing into our industrial shipbuilding capacity.

We could procure the next generation of DDGs at less than half the cost of these battleships.

We could be using our resources to expand our production of SM-6s, SM-3s, and cruise missiles—which if you didn’t know are fairly important to having functional guided missile ships.

But no. Doing that means you’re a low testosterone beta male.

We have elected 12 year olds to positions of power who can seemingly only understand the world through the lens of getting likes on Twitter.

We will waste years and billions of dollars to satisfy their endless impulse for getting endless content for social media.

Who knows. Maybe we’ll get lucky.

Maybe the PLAN will be too impressed by how cool our battleships look to shred them with DF-21s.

1. I think it probably would technically qualify as more of a very high-tonnage guided missile cruiser rather than a battleship, but it is getting the BBG designation so I’ll call it a battleship.

2. Yes I know it’s technically a “directed energy weapon” but I’m calling it a laser because I’m a normal person.

3. CSIS estimates a next-generation DDG would be somewhere around 4.5 billion. So, still substantially less.

4. If you made this as a comparison to the cost of an Arleigh Burke, the loss of VLS cells is even more unfavorable.