Trump announces new class of U.S. battleships named after himself
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.
https://www.nbcnews.com/politics/national-security/trump-class-battleships-nuclear-navy-john-phelan-rcna250601Open linkView original on lemmy.world344
Comments121
It was probably easier for the DoW to pretend that this cruiser is a battleship than to make Trump understand that the battleships he keeps demanding are useless in a modern war.
He only knows the word from seeing the board game that one time him and Epstein snorted coke off it
Next Dem should reclassify “Trump Ship” to mean the shittiest possible boat. Leave it as a classification, just redefine it
Guy is so vain. If it isn't a re-badge of a project. Lay a keel or two and they'll rot in the yard before completion.
Those ships that you need to get rid of but it's too expensive to get rid of them so you just have them rotting away somewhere.
oh hey i live near there. the mothball fleet is pretty cool actually.
If this was a just world, it would be the name of the leaky prison hulk that he's chained up inside.
Wow, I thought this was a joke.
Not in this timeline buddy!
I thought the Kennedy rename was an onion article. What the fuck
I'm calling it: Trump is one Western movie watch away from ordering the military to bring back cavalry.
https://sopuli.xyz/post/38499583
The Napoleonic era is coming back, baby.
"halted"
Eeeeexcelllleeent
We still have the cavalry, stetsons and all. Unless you mean like actual horse cavalry. The U.S. Army still maintains horses and stables. But the horses are mostly just for ceremonial/parade purposes.
It's a very small unit, though, from memory.
Also, occasionally US special forces have used horses in unusual, rugged terrain. There was some unit in Afghanistan that had some technical claim to being the most-recent cavalry charge in history.
searches
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fall_of_Mazar-i-Sharif
Ceremonial horse cavalry is small, but 1st Cavalry Division still exists. Its more light armor and mechanized infantry instead of horse cavalry though.
Do they actually have horses?
searches
Apparently yes, though it's not huge either and it sounds like they're being dissolved too:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1st_Cavalry_Division_Horse_Cavalry_Detachment
Oh, I hadn't heard they were being dissolved.
those poor horses
I feel a little bad about laughing at that
Special forces it makes sense, but regular assault troops it’s just desperate.
No no no, you don't understand. This one is going to be more than a hundred times more powerful because it's going to be bigger and faster!
moped cavalry?
Dunno. They're quite easy to spot, aren't they?
you get 100 of them in formation and light the enemy on fire with the sun's rays
Mysterious Cities of Gold intensifies....
I read that in the announcer's voice.
The colour seems right, but the proportions are easy off.
Surprised this hasn't been posted yet in this thread.
This is the rare case where I don't actually disagree. Then again, I think he'd do this narcissistic nonsense even if people didn't care about Epstein. Creating petty distractions is just a habit for him, and it has always served him well.
Sir the autopilot is hard coded to go to some island
Whoops let me just…. flips switch
Sir. The battleship is unavailable because of its bone spurs
That's cause it's entirely made out of bone spurs.
Naming a class of ships after a (checks notes) draft dodger. Makes sense to me.
Bastard is trying to put his name so many places it’ll be damned near impossible to get rid of them all.
Has anyone seen a good list?
Name on:
Face on:
What am I missing?
I bet the ballroom will eventually be dedicated as the “Donald Trump Memorial East Wing Ballroom” if it ever gets finished.
So it'll be 300% over budget, be riddled with problems from cutting every possible corner, torpedo itself, blame Biden, and then explode in public?
It's entirely possible it will simply be a scheme to transfer billions of dollars into their own pockets. Things gonna be made out of sheet aluminum and zip ties and cost 30 trillion dollars
I was going to ask whether this was a trump "sharpie on map but we can ignore it once the press briefing is over" kind of situation or more of a "musk drew a couple of lines, glue them on with water soluble non-heat-resisident" kind of situation.
So, Trumped up.
There's a reason we don't have battleships anymore all around the world.
If you put all the firepower on one platform, you lose everything when that platform sinks. With the sophisticated asymmetrical weaponry out there, plus the ability to use cheap drone swarms, it's much smarter to spread the firepower over multiple platforms.
But diaper Donny the crooked pedo wants what all dictators want: compensate their micropenis with everything made bigger and more impressive than others while adding their name onto everything.
One torpedo and your golden battleship will be a very effective new coral reef.
yeah, they've been pushing for smaller and smaller carriers from what i hear from my former (he earned that former) marine bil
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.
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.
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?
Is this like space force or the golden dome? Ie. a steaming pile of bullshit from the Swiss cheese mind of a dementia ward patient??
Space force might actually be a good idea, despite all the bs and misrepresentation. I can’t claim to know anything about military chain of command but if they say it’s beneficial to have a separate org focusing on space assets like satellites, I have no reason to claim otherwise
Not a good idea
There won't be any battleship.
This is just another grift to streak the government coffers dry
Same with the " golden dome", "doge", etc... all scams so his buddies can get lucrative contracts.
Even so, this is suuuuch a sad thing. A five year old would make a fantasy battle ship and name it after himself. Its pathetic
boondoggle
It's not even that. He's so desperate for any kind of legacy that he's throwing his name at anything he can in the hopes it will stick, not realizing that the first non-MAGA president will remove his name from everything.
It’s gonna smell like shit and for some reason everything’s gonna lean towards the bow
Mega projects, no less with vanity as the centerpieces are a sign of weak militaries. The strong militaries are pursuing drone and anti drone technologies. Russian frigates warships are disabled by small Ukrainian aqua drones; and are hiding at port. The bigger they are, the harder they fall.
USS Bone Spur
The complex this man has about his small penis is insane.
Here I am thinking how this will play out once MAGA ends. How was it in Germany after the war? I bet there used to be Hitler and Himmler Streets etc.
oh yeah, this fucker is gonna be erased. all that will be left is a cautionary tale.
I WANT A PUBLIC SHITTER TOO
Hopefully, to both.
USS Floating Pedo Party Palace
USS Yuge
Don't forget the;
and the new flagship,
You forgot USS Wind Turbine Cancer
USS Bird Murder
Lol all good names. Also
USS Big Beautiful Boat
USS Defendant
The USS Implications
😂🤣 Lol.
They lost their island, they need a new home
The world's first orange battleship that fucks kids
So fart class.
Alladeen alladeen
Dude, I was literally thinking this a couple weeks ago, Trump bringing back battleships is completely on brand for him and I'm surprised honestly it took him this long
Our military needs to start pushing back, international pressure of war crimes needs to be loud.
Didn't we stop using battleships once stuff like guided missiles started being common?
We've seen in Ukraine how much destruction cheap drones can do when used intelligently.
he's only calling them battleships because as a fascist he has a simplified understanding of history and a fetishization of the past. these are surface to surface missile launch platforms with helicopter landing pads
I'm no expert, but given the distributed nature of the stuff I'm seeing with Ukraine against Russia, I would think a "not all eggs in the same basket" approach would be the best idea
Yeh, even carriers are considered potentially outdated by some military planners should the US ever face an opponent that can actually fight back.
As soon as the next president comes in, it's scorched earth time.
It's becoming increasingly hard to see him as a man and not a toddler.
Are we sure he "aced" all those tests he did lately?
Edit: I just saw the article's image of him showing the ship. Shit, it really looks like a bad render of a 90's videogame... How can people say he's mentally fit?
By the time they are actually finished being constructed, he will likely be long dead. Not even being malicious; military vessel construction is slow as balls.
Very bold of you to assume that any of them will ever finish construction. It feels like the US Navy has canceled more new ships than it's built in the past couple decades.
To paraphrase Utopia [AU]:
You don’t have to build it, we just need to announce it.
How dare you suggest we not support our veterans! Those former-military-member owned contract companies need that money, don't cancel the umpteenth redesign/retrofit/scrapyard contract! (/s)
Why put 50 billion into one weapons platform when it can be sunk by a cheap drone?
I don't get it.
Narcissism and cronyism. What other reasons does trump ever do things for?
They said he's a narcissist
I finally watched The Apprentice yesterday and somehow all I can think about him now is "what a sad, sad, sad little man". Feels freeing.
(I say this as a non-USian)
Yeah, we'll be changing that. In the future, it will be illegal to name anything after traitors, and that includes Confederate Civil War officers, and all MAGAs.
Anybody that objects will be investigated as a Domestic Terrorist, and if found to be actively MAGA, will go to prison.
The name Trump will be treated like the name Adolf. Orange spray tans will be the new Charlie Chaplin mustache.
Are they going to deploy those in Gulf of Mexico?
Does he know trump means fart?
How about a dump truck?
Given his long list of failures and placing the most incompetent people into important positions, this ship will most likely do a Wasa on launch.
A-maga-d, that is huge small penis complex 😱
If this ever get build, it'll sink on the maiden voyage from the weight of the golden cannons just like everyone knew it would but nobody in charge dared tell the king. Oh wait, that was another time and place.
Why are we building battleships? Aren’t they obsolete? Like at this point isn’t the whole edge for naval dominance submarines?
I think ukraine has shown its small naval drones, both submersible and non-submersible.
Battleships are meant to bombard land positions... not go ship to ship. Leave that to the escorts.
Is that an AI-generated pic?
Pedo ship?
What a load of crap that is.
However it’s not going to happen. These would take way more years to develop than Trump has in office and I have to hope sanity will prevail. And if we can’t even develop the Zumwalt destroyer how can we hope to develop some boondoggle four times its size and complexity. How can the navy afford to run such things? And most importantly how can we deploy this big fat target that doesn’t add value?
Navy is complaining that it can’t keep up with Chinese shipbuilding so the last thing it needs is to blow its budget over the next decade or two with this nonsense. I have to believe this is just noise to placate Trump and will be resolved when he’s gone. However it will set the navy back another four years and waste billions of dollars
Will they be gold-plated?
Haven't drones made these obsolete? A swarm of Chinese drones would cripple one in a day.
That's a good point, but it seems so obvious. I would we have a giant EMP or laser pointer thing that could wipe them out. Idk, just seems like they should have thought of that
Fair point. I know Ukraine had been using them successfully. Maybe fiber optic drones? I feel like this is the new arms race.
I hope EVERY SINGLE OFFICER assigned to those ships resign.
The chomo fleet?
USA has nothing to do but spam stupid news. Fixed it for you.
That’s nice grandpa, but it’s time for your nap before you rage tweet all night.
USS pedo express
"Bubba Buckets"
Literally the only way to associate the name Trump with Class.