The United States Announces the Return of the Battleship [or the next Large Surface Combatant]

On this episode of What's Going On with Shipping, the Great Golden Fleet gets its battleships. I'm your host, Salaglano. Welcome to today's episode. So, we had an announcement yesterday by President Trump, Secretary Hegsth, and the Secretary of the Navy, John Failen,

about Navy ship building. Now, [laughter] you may remember a previous episode of what's going on with shipping where Secretary Failen made an announcement about ship building. It it didn't go very well. Oh.

May need to keep this close by. So that was me listening to Secretary Failen announce the cancellation of the Constellation class frigot. It was it was not a good video. I I kind of spiraled out of control in that video and and yes, there there was some drinking involved in it. However, we now

have this announcement by the president of the United States. We're going to go and listen to the president announce it. But we're going to watch not just the president announce it, but a big fan of the president and more importantly of battleships in general. Watch this video. As commander-in-chief, it's my

great honor to announce that I have approved a plan for the Navy to begin the construction of two brand new, very large, largest we've ever built battleships. You know, you used to build

>> This is a grown man right here getting very excited about the fact that President Trump has announced that we're building battleships. For those of you who don't know, that is John Conrad, the CEO of GC Captain, the most popular online news site for maritime shipping

in the world and a good friend of the show. [laughter] So, I found it very amusing to watch John get this excited about the announcement of the battleship. Now, I will note that not everybody feels this amount of excitement regarding this. And what I want to talk about today is try to as much as we can

remove Trump from this equation for a moment because I understand this is a very polarizing issue and anything involving the president tends to create a lot of derangement syndrome with him. I understand that the US Navy was talking about at the turn of the century

building a new fleet of vessels. This was going to replace what was then the aging out cold war fleet. We had Spruce class destroyers. We had Perry and Knox class frigots. We had the Tyiconderoga class guided missile cruisers and we were just introducing at the time the

Arley Burke class destroyers. So the concept was to build an entire new family of ships that was going to come out. Unfortunately, what we got was a mixed bag. We got lural combat ships which really don't fill the job of a frigot. We only got three out of the 32

plan Zoomwalt class destroyers. And even then they were not full Zoom Walts because the two forward guns on them, the 155 mm basically had no ammunition. So we we got a uh basically a gunless destroyer. Now what we're talking about is building a new large surface

combatant which the president is calling a battleship. We're going to break this down and try as objectively as possible to talk about what the hell this means. If you're new to the channel, hey, take a moment, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell so you be alerted about new videos as they come out. So, every year, Rathon does this great poster that shows

the ships and submarines of the US Navy. It's a good little snapshot here that gives you the imagery of of vessels. So, up in the upper left there, you got the aircraft carriers. Then you have the surface combatants, and that's the lower left uh column there. And then the

middle, you have submarines, you have some auxiliary vessels. They don't include all the auxiliary vessels. They leave out military seal of command vessels and then on the right column there you have all the amphibious vessels including mind sweepers and they do include two other vessels that are on the official Navy vessel register. One

of them in the dead center there in the middle on the bottom is USS PBLO still on the roster even though it is located in Pyongyang, North Korea. And then of course the USS Constitution, the only active frigot in the US Navy and maybe the only frigot we get for a long time. We're going to come back to that. But

it's in that left column that you see the surface combatants there. And the biggest thing that comes to bear on the surface combatants is this Arley Burke destroyers going back to USS Arley Burke DDG51 built back in 1991 is the bedrock class

of surface combatants in the US Navy. Uh we're up to our flight three class of Arley Burks. The cruisers, the Ticeroga class cruisers are going out for good reason. and read the USS Gettysburg report on its deployment over into the Red Sea. And there's a good reason to start getting rid of the cruisers. Uh we

only have three Zoom class destroyers, which are really cruisers. They're not destroyers, but they're undergoing this big huge modification to give them hypersonic weapons. And then we have the latoral combat ships, which are a problem all unto themselves. And one of the things that the US is trying to

address is two things here. Number one is build a small frigot type vessel. And then now to build the upper end vessel, a cruiser or as the president calls it a battleship. So the video I showed you in the beginning was after the announcement of this, the cancellation of the

constellation class frigot. Now they haven't fully cancelled it. The first two vessels FFG62 and 63 are going to be built up in Finantiier in Wisconsin. Now this ship was built to a foreign Italian

design, what was called a fm frigot. And the idea was we're going to take a frigot off the shelf that was already being built. We took this design and we were going to slap American weaponry on it, change some things out, and be able to produce this very quickly. That was not the case. And I'm going to have links to stories from the war zone and

USNI on each of these so that you can read them and and for yourself understand what's happening. But basically, the frigot design is not going to work. And I doubt we're even going to probably build these two frigots. Uh no clear idea if these ships are going to get built. Then you have the announcement of this. This is the

LST100 built by Damon. Damon is a Dutch uh um ship builder. The United States is going to basically take this design and build it in the United States to satisfy the US Marine Corps requirement for a landing ship medium. This is a type of

vessel that will operate in and around the Western Pacific along the first island chain and support specifically the Marine Latoral Regiments. Now, you can be sit there and say like, "Hang on a second, S. They're building a foreign design. Isn't this going to run into the same problems that Constellation ran

into being a foreign design?" Yes. Yes, you're right. However, there are some provisions in this. Number one, they're going with a vessel manager contract so that these ships are going to be built not so much to Navy specifications as commercial specifications. And the idea

being here that they're not going to alter this design fundamentally. They're still going to run a foul of some issues with Build America, which is going to require them to flip out a lot of the major components in these vessels if they're going to build them in the United States. Uh I envision that these

are the ships that are going to go up to Finantiier up in Wisconsin to replace the Constellation class frig. Then you have the announcement, which I didn't do a video on because I was kind of waiting for this this announcement on the large surface combatant. This is the announcement that the new frigot is

going to be a modification of what is the national security cutter. So the US Coast Guard built 10 large national security cutters down at Huntington Engles in Pasigoula. These ships are basically frigot size. Uh there was a matter of fact a competition to use

these vessels as frigots and I was a big proponent of this because this was an Americanbuilt vessel. You wouldn't have to go through the changes with the FM that we ran into. Now, these ships do have some shortfalls. One of the biggest ones, as noted in an article recently,

is that the first batch of these vessels will not have VLS, vertical launch cells put on them. Uh there's also going to be issues about the full sensor suite regarding anti-ubmarine. The big thing here is again trying to get a small surface combatant out in there. One of

the things that's not talked about at all and really needs to be talked about both for the small service combatant and the large service combatant is this. We have a finite amount of auxiliary vessels, particularly refueling vessels. If you look at the operation down in the

Caribbean right now, I've been watching USS Canawa, which is an oiler that is supporting the operations down in the Caribbean. That ship is running in and out of Pon. This is a port in the south of Puerto Rico about every week or two. It is basically running its ass off to

support the naval forces down in the Caribbean. And the reason it's doing that is because Arley Burke class destroyers are gas turbines vessels and they burn a shitload of fuel. Sorry, I don't know how to say this any other polite way. And you need basically a trail of replenishment vessels to keep

these ships at sea. One of the things you want with a frigot is to be able to escort commercial vessels and also have endurance. The thing with a national security cutter is they're a combination diesel and gas turbine. This allows them to cruise for long periods of time on

their diesel engines. They can use the gas turbine for sprint speed to get themselves up to speed faster. This is kind of what you want. This is the problem we have with the Arley Burks. The Burke, for example, can barely cross the Atlantic on a tank of fuel. it can't cross the Pacific. Uh the LCS's are even

worse. You got to sail them really, really slow to be able to get them anywhere. So, this is one of the key components you want. And one of the things that I talked about with the frame frig was we should have built them to the original design, start building them, and then build a flight 2 where we modify them and change them over to US

specs. I would envision kind of the same thing. Hi has plans for different variations of this uh national security cutter that can be modified and one of the most important things is to start building them. They were supposed to build an 11th national security cutter

that got cancelled. So the the facilities to build these vessels, we don't know the exact status of them down at HIi, but hopefully they'll be able to do it. They're still building the last of the national security cutters at this time. Then we recently had the

announcement for this DDGX. Uh so DDG is guided missile destroyer X is the new variation. This is the replacement for the Arley Burke. This was announced earlier this year. And one of the problems we have in the Arley Burke is we have reached the the limit of that

frame and that hole. You can't put anything more into it. If you look at images of the Arley Burke right now, they're they're getting to be ridiculous. I give you the muffin top Arley Burke. Uh, this has got a slick 32. So, this is a modification to the Burks to put more electronic warfare in

it. And you notice these big kind of bulges out here. They call it muffin top. It's kind of like big bulging cheeks. Uh, it is fine for the stability of the vessel. It just doesn't look very good. But it goes back to the issue of the fact that the ship has reached the limit of its modification capability.

And so, the new DDGX will kind of spill that out. this is going to be the new derivation of a destroyer. We're not going to get hopefully we're not going to get a flight for Arley Burke will get this new class. And so that goes in line with what the president in his

announcement was. We're going to build these new battleships. Now let's talk a little bit about the term battleship because that's got everyone going crazy. We're not building Iowa class battleships. We're not hauling the Iowa, New Jersey, Wisconsin, and Missouri out

of mothballs and reactivating them. So, so the guys on the museum ships can calm down and everything. That that's not going to happen. So, we got imagery of what's going to become the Trump class USS Defiant. Now, [laughter] got to be clear, the name is driving

people crazy on both both sides. I got to say this. Number one, the Trump class. Okay, that's that's going to again, we're in this big big issue right now regarding Navy naming conventions. Uh, battleships traditionally have been named after states. Every battleship in the history of the United States been

named after a state except for one, USS Kirsarge BB5. All others were named for states. The problem is you can't really do that now because we've named submarines after states. The name of this one is USS Defiant, which comes from my favorite Star Trek of all times,

Deep Deep Space 9. I I mean, love the Defiant, although the Defiant wasn't a battleship. It was an escort vessel, you know, heavily gunned, overpowered. a lot of issues with the USS Defiant. I I digress. This Defiant is as called a battleship. Now, it doesn't meet all the criteria of

a battleship. Heavy guns, you know, main armament of of 12, 14, 16inch guns. We don't think it has a belt of armor on the side. However, the term battleship has changed over time. I talked about building frigots. Well, we're not building constitution class frigots like

they were built in 1794 by Joshua Humphre. Although we are naming them after the six first frigots uh constellation and congress and president. Uh those were the names of some of the very first frigots right there. But you know a frigot from 1794 is not the same as a frigot in 2025. And

neither should we think battleships are. If you look at the evolution of battleships in the US Navy, uh, USS Maine, uh, USS Texas, USS Indiana, uh, these are not what we would consider battleships even in World War I with the introduction of HMS Dreadnot in 1906, in

the case of the United States. It's the introduction of South Carolina in Michigan in 1910, or the 12 standard class battleships the US Navy will build prior to World War II. And it certainly doesn't meet the criteria of the super

dreadnots that the US will build before World War II with the two North Carolina class battleships, the four South Dotas and the four Iowa which was supposed to be six and then in the f subsequent followon five Montana class. What the

president is talking about is not so much building a traditional battleship. I I would argue there was some terms thrown around which were really interesting uh conversation about are we talking about a pocket battleship. So the concept of a pocket battleship was derived by the Germans during the inner

war years when they were limited on the size of the ships they can build. So they built the graph spay the admiral shear the deutselland and these were heavily armored ships uh heavily armed ships but lightly armored but very fast and so they were termed pocket

battleships. They were more appropriately reermed cruisers during World War II. The US built something akin to that. Not exactly, but during World War II, the US built the Alaska class, which are large cruisers. Some will call these battle cruisers. They're not battle cruisers. And we only finished two of them. The Alaska and

then this vessel. This is the Guam right here. Fitted with 12-in guns, uh, a whole slew of 5-in 38s. A lot of anti-aircraft weaponry. They were very lightly armored, but heavily armed. And so, they had a big punching power. and and the large cruisers were really

interesting design that was built by the US. It's created a huge stir. I would argue what President Trump announced yesterday was not so much a battle battleship or battle cruiser, but basically a derivation of a large cruiser. Now, what makes it different is in in particularly than a cruiser is its

size. The tonnage he's talking about is akin to a large cruiser battleship size. So, the US Navy has put out a goldenfleet.com site where you can go and pull information from about this. And I pulled a batch of this from there.

So, here's the vessel in question, USS Defiant. Now, a couple of things kind of stand out on this ship right off the bat, and we're going to go look at a much more detailed version here, but you can see obviously uh a batch of uh weapons on board, uh guns up forward and

along the side of the vessel, and a plethora of missile launching capability on board the ship. So, here is a better breakdown of this. So, up forward, looking at the bow, you see here 132 megajul rail gun. Now, rail guns have

gotten a lot of attention. The US Navy developed rail guns and then put it aside. They they could not get a good result. One of the problems you had in a rail gun is it burns through the barrels. Uh and you know, burning through a barrel is a common problem even with major guns. So, for example,

the Iowa class battleships could get roughly a little over 300 rounds out of a gun barrel before you had to replace the interior lining of the bar barrel. basically the the the the lining burnt out and you wouldn't get the spin the grooves on it. So that creates a

problem. Uh this rail gun is being developed right now by the Japanese. So the US is talking about working with other nations and the Japanese are in the process of developing a rail gun. Should you be able to get 200 rounds out of a rail gun before you need to replace it? Is that going to be enough? I don't

know. It depends on what the rail gun is needed for. If you're using it for shore bombardment, if you're using it for anti- shship capabilities, then that rail gun may be sufficient. Plus, you can upgrade the rail gun as capabilities come. One of the things that this ship allows you to do is have capability to

update and change it. It's one of the reasons you want to build a large platform because when you're on a small platform, you you you basically max out the size of the vessel. The problem with Constellation, for example, was when it was initially designed, there was only about 350 tons of excess space on board

a 7,000 ton vessel. Well, when they finished the design, the ship was a thousand tons overweight. So, that's one of the big problems. You'll see they'll carry conventional prompt strike missiles, CPS. These are the big hypersonic missiles. These are those big missiles that we see being

fitted right now on the Zoomwalt class. You see two Mark 45 5- in 62 caliber guns. These are the same type guns that are fitted on the Arley Burke. Everybody is screaming about let's bring back the 8-in gun that the US Navy designed in

the 1980s. And we we actually fielded one of those 8-in guns on board a destroyer, the USS Hull. That gun was destroyed. Everything with it was destroyed. The US Navy got rid of that program. It's gone. It doesn't exist. So, the idea of bringing it back is

really a non-starter. You would have to redesign the whole thing over again. [snorts] One of the things I think the Navy needs to be talking with with the US Army is their 155 mm gun. I talked about a 155 on board the Zoom Walts. Well, the Army developed a 155 gun, too.

The problem was the Navy version and the Army version were not compatible. Maybe we should be talking about that, especially if we're talking about shore bombardment roles. You'll see right here vertical launch cells. So 128 Mark 41 VLS cells. Really key here. You want

your vertical launch cells. One of the problems you have is Arley Burks can carry about 90. The Ticerogas can carry about 128. You want these more cells on board. So you'll have it. You'll have the Spy 6 radar, very very kind of standard we see right now being fitted

on board the Arley Burks. You'll be able to put a full embarked commander. This will be the centerpiece of a strike group on board. uh uh uh secretary of the Navy Failen talked about the fact that Admiral Hally and Admiral Spruent, you know, commanded their their fleets

from battleships. Hollyy did. Spruent did not. Spruent commanded from the USS Indianapolis. Uh he wanted to be on a heavy cruiser. He didn't want to be on a battleship. There's a whole reason behind that. Uh you'll see on here uh two 300 kilowatt lasers. So, one of the

big things about lasers is we have lasers fitted to vessels today. The problem is to power the lasers on most ships today, you got to turn everything off, including power uh propulsion. Everything's got to be fed into the laser. What you need is a propulsion

system on board this that can generate a ton of kilowatts that can power that. [snorts] Uh they talk about gas turbine and diesel powered. So to me, this is the most interesting aspect about this gas per turbine, diesel powered. Diesel

is good like we talked about with the Frigot that gives you long range. Diesel power is very efficient in terms of fuel consumption. Gas turbines is not. So you'll get the speed out of this but you can also have the cruising element. One of the things that I think needs to be talked about in this not in the first ones but potentially forward on is

nuclear power. Uh we don't like to talk about nuclear power on surface vessels. We used to have nuclearpowered cruisers to escort the nuclearpowered aircraft carriers. Those are key because if you've got to deploy the Nimttz class carriers or the Ford class carriers from the east coast of the United States to

the Pacific, your limitation is not the carrier, it's the escorts. You've got to be trailing a oiler behind you to fuel the the the Burke class destroyers because the Nimtts and the Fords can put the hammers down and just burn neutrons. They're off and running. Uh they have no

problem doing it, but the escorts don't. [snorts] And then you see back here more 30 millimeter guns, counter uh counter weaponry on board, and then a flight deck and hanger for both helicopters and V22s. So this vessel is much larger than what

we see. It is a all-purpose large strike craft. And when you get into the specifications, you can see what we mean here. 840 to 880 ft. That is a big craft. That really limits its capabilities where you can build this. There is a grand total of three

shipyards based on that size where this can be built in the United States. Philadelphia Navy shipyard, Huntington Engles in Newport News, and Huntington Engles down in Pasigula. Now, there are other dry docks that can fit those uh up in the Brooklyn Navyyard, but the

Brooklyn Navyyard's closed. And the Norfick Navyyard, which doesn't build ships anymore, it repairs them. But if you're using those specifications, those are your three yards basically you have where you can build them. Now, you can also build them somewhere else. That's called Japan and Korea, but I very much doubt that's going to happen. Uh, look

at the size beam 105 to 115 feet. So, interesting thing about this. Why are we confining vessels to the width of the old Panama Canal? The new Panama Canal can take ships much larger. Why are we not building larger than that? We can go wider. We don't have to limit ourselves

to this anymore. We can definitely go much bigger. Here you see uh displacement over 35,000 tons. That is substantial. That is big. This is a big ship. The North Carolina, South Dakota class battleships, the six of them that were built were between 35 and 45,000

tons. So, that's what you get. The crew size substantially smaller than what you would see on a battleship. Uh 650 to 850, not really clear how that would go. And then President Trump talked about it last night, authorizing two ships, eventually going to 10 with plans to

build anywhere from 20 to 25 ships. And then you see its mission is power projection, offensive strike, and integrated air defense. We kind of went over the weapons already. So this is a large massive surface combatant. And and many people are going to make the

argument that this is, you know, something we don't need. We don't need a large surface combatant because in this age of drones and uh, you know, ballistic missiles, all you're creating is a target. And and I would argue this is only one component of a larger fleet.

And this is a criticism I have of the announcement yesterday. I would have liked to have seen a discussion about the entire plan for whatever this fleet's going to be. So we've got the small service combatant. We've got the DDG uh X which is going to be the replacement for the Arley Burke. And now

we have the large service combatant. What we're missing from here is some other key elements in particularly two that I think need to be discussed. What is the role of unmanned uh uncrrewed surface vessels? Uh that is key because

one of the things unmanned uncrrewed allow you to do is surround these surface vessels with more uh vessels, more types of of of craft that can serve as additional missile batteries, sensors, uh you name it. you

can basically surround yourself with these kind of loyal kayaks around you and you magnify your presence across the ocean. I think it's very important to talk about them. Gives you a lot of lot of targets out there. Plus, if you put uh sensor uh deception on there, you can

cast the shadows so that they look like big vessels. Uh there's a lot you can definitely do uh with those. The other element you have too is drone craft. What are we going to do with drone craft? I think right now drones in the US Navy in particularly are akin to

aircraft post World War I. And what we need built is a USS Langley. We need a converted vessel that will be a drone carrier for the United States. But I think the Navy is fighting this quite a bit. I especially the aviation guys and the submarine guys. They don't like

this. But one of the things I think we need to do is take in hand an auxiliary, a commercial ship, much like we did with the USS Jupiter and convert her into USS Langley. Really recommend a good friend of the show, Dave Winkler, his book on USS Langley. Uh, one of the things I

think we need to do is doing that. We need to have that element where we can operate drones off these vessels. We're seeing the capability of drones right now in the Black Sea. Uh, we've seen them used in the Red Sea. Uh, we've seen them used around. the US Navy should be doing it. The problem is there's really

no coherent strategy right now for the use of drones by the US Navy. It's really being done independently by all these different fleets around there. Now, I understand everybody view on President Trump. I got that. I I got that 100%. And people will get

absolutely opposite of whatever political party is in. If you're favor of of President Biden, you know, or against President Biden, you have that 180 view. Same thing with Trump. We have polarized ourselves when it comes to politics. However, the surface combatant that President Trump and Secretary Hegsth and

Secretary Failen talked about yesterday is the next evolution here. Uh France just announced they're building a nuclear aircraft carrier akin to the Ford class. China is building a nuclear aircraft carrier akin to the Ford class. Don't get confused by what Ukraine is

doing against the Russian military in the Black Sea because again the Russian Black Sea fleet is not comparable to the US Navy or the Chinese Navy in its capabilities. Large surface combatants are a key feature, but you need it as part of a

balanced fleet. And that is a key element right here. When we come back over here to this fleet and take a look at it, you see aircraft carriers, you see service combatants, you got submarines, you've got amphibious vessels. This is a balanced fleet. What's missing from here, by the way, is the auxiliary fleet. Very happy that

Secretary Fallon talked about seal lift recapitalization. Uh really updating the auxiliary fleet needs to be done. It's a key thing I've talked about a lot on this channel, but what you need is a balanced fleet. One of the things that cruisers, for example, which I think this vessel falls into the category of

much more than a quote unquote battleship, but battleships sound cool, is that it gives you longer range, longer endurance, longer times on station than what you get right now with the Arley Burks. One of the things that we saw happen with the Arley Burks down in the Red Sea is that they had to

basically after a engagements is withdraw to go reload. This vessel gives you a deeper magazine. It gives you more capability. And if you surround them with these autonomous vessels that are you know fitted with missile capabilities in uh you know modular

modules or containers then you have a greater ability to control and stay out on station longer. Plus a large service combatant kind of like the battleships that were repurposed in the 1980s the Iowa, the New Jersey, the Missouri and the Wisconsin. They had the capability

to refuel ships at sea much like the carriers do. So you don't need all the time having an oiler with you. You can use your large combatants to keep your smaller combatants out at sea. This is a key thing. Again, was not very well articulated yesterday and I think it

needs to be done. I I I mean I had a lot of problems with what was said yesterday in terms of just some facts. We have more than 30 submarines. That's true. Uh should know that. [snorts] But one of the things I think is is what is that overall plan regarding the development of the US Navy? And so I

think a large surface combatant uh is is a key element of it. Call it a battleship, call it a strike cruiser, call it a battle cruiser, call it a cruiser. I don't care what you call it. But one of the things we we can't get hung up on are names. Uh what we needed to be talking about is why you need these large purpose. We did an exercise

not too long ago where we sent commercial vessels from Texas over to the uh Europe as part of a redeployment exercise. The only ship that could escort them was USS Vela Gulf. Vela Golf is a Ticerog class cruiser. The reason Vela Golf went is because it had the

distance and range to do that. No other vessel had that capability. That is a key element range and and loiter time and station cap keeping is exactly crew. The reason you have cruisers is because they can cruise for a really really long

time. And that's one of the things that we're seeing here. Battleships in World War II were the same way. They were able to resupply other vessels. Cruisers could do this. The heavy cruisers could do this. And I think that's what we see being articulated here. I just think it didn't come across 100% clear about

that. I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, hey, take a moment, subscribe to the channel, and hit the bell so you be alerted about new videos as they come out. Leave a comment, share it across social media, and if you can support the page, how do you do that? You hit the super thanks button down below or head on over to Patreon and become a monthly yearly subscriber. Uh,

would someone mind heading up to Massachusetts and do a wellness check on John Conrad? I'm not sure he uh survived what happened yesterday. He seemed he was very excited. He was very, very excited and I'm concerned about him because, you know, I I I love picking on John Conrad. It's one of my favorite things to do. Till our next episode, the

s signing