The move comes amid outcry from Democrats after the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts affixed Trump’s name to its sign in Washington.
Donald Trump’s name is being attached to a new class of U.S. battleships that will have nuclear capabilities.
Making the announcement at an event at Trump’s Mar-a-Lago estate in Florida, Navy Secretary John Phelan referred to the warships as “Trump-class battleships" and said a forthcoming vessel dubbed the USS Defiant will be “the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans.”
Trump’s eponymous battleships will be armed with guns and missiles, as well as hypersonic weapons, electronic rail guns and high-powered lasers.
That battleship appears to have no large guns, a stealthy hull, a helicopter platform, and I doubt armor, given the superstructure.
This kind of comes off to me like some of Japan’s “destroyers”.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Izumo-class_destroyer
I’m wondering if what happened here is that the Navy wanted a cruiser and Trump wanted more honors.
EDIT: I’d also add that tradition is almost always to name the class after the lead ship, but the “Trump class”, assuming the artist rendition there is of the lead ship, appears to be of a USS Defiant, not the USS Donald J. Trump. Not that I’m complaining — I’ve long prefered the old British Navy style use of names like HMS Invincible or HMS Glorious or whatnot stuff. The USS Enterprise for the US, etc.
EDIT2: Apparently, based on other articles, the hull classification symbol is “BBG”, which has never been used, but would theoretically refer to a guided missile battleship, so it could have a bunch of VLS cells for armament. I’m a little hazy on what would distinguish it from a guided missile cruiser (CG), though.
That might be a good guess, perhaps two or three nuclear powered cruisers, fitted out for drone and anti drone work. Trumps gone and hijacked that.
I understand the Burkes were supposed to pick up the role the Ticonderoga class played, weren’t they?
Calling it the Defiant hurts even more.
Wishing so goddamn hard for Ben Sisko’s Muthafuckin’ Pimp Hand to come take a swing at the tangerine toddler.
It’s not right if the Defiant is captained by someone who isn’t a mall manager and space Jesus
it is in the hands of the prophets now, my child
They could be talking about an arsenal ship? Basically a battleship size missile carrier with loads of VLS cells
I think the US navy did study the concept, but found that it was more survivable to spread those cells across more ships than to concentrate them in larger hulls
See, this is more of my beef with the system - battleships have been named after states almost exclusively. If he wants a ship named for himself it should be a CVN.