I think the new generation of garbage barges should be called Trump class.
This class of vessel would be more appropriate. Dubbed USS Mushroom
Not necessarily. It’s usually the first to be commissioned by Congress that names the class, at least for the last century anyway. This would presumably indeed be the Defiant in this case, if Congress actually approves the line of ships and commissions this particular ship.
That said, norms, standards, and Congressional approval are not as indicative of the future as we once assumed.
For the layman, this announcement by TFG is a serious sign of his dementia. According to the BBC,
Construction on the Trump-class USS Defiant ship, which will be equipped to carry an array of weapons, is expected to begin soon, with Trump saying the first vessels will be operational in two-and-a-half years.
For starters, these ships haven’t even been designed yet, a process that will take years assuming it were even possible. The idea that a ship this sized will be operational in two and a half years is patently delusional. For reference, the time between laying down and commissioning a modern carrier is 8 years. This is, of course, ignoring the fact that Congress has to actually authorize these things and allocate the money to build them. Something that TFG frequently forgets about, but until the country is the dictatorship that he wants it to be, TFG decreeing that something will happen means jack and shit until Congress authorizes the spending.
And again, in layman’s terms, TFG may as well have been announcing that these ships will be armed with phasers, photon torpedoes and powered by a warp drive. And they’ll be operational starting in two and a half years. That’s the level of delusion and dementia on display from the man who is unfortunately the President of the United States of America.
According to Golden Fleet, they are to be armed with:
Surface Launched Cruise Missile - Nuclear (SLCM-N) - these don’t exist. Thay are a project being considered. Report to Congress on Nuclear Sea-Launched Cruise Missile - USNI News
12 cell CPS - again, these don’t exist. CPS, Conventional Prompt Strike is a system that is still in development
128 cells Mk41 VLS - this actually does exist. Not a good sign that we’ve had to get this far down the list to find something that exists in reality.
1x32MJ Railgun with HVP - this is along the lines of the Terminator asking for a phased plasma rifle in a 40 watt range from a gun store in California in the 1980s.
2x5" guns with HVP - actually exists. Oh wait, apart from the Hypervelocity Projectile part. They don’t yet, still in trials.
2x 300kW or 2x 600 kW lasers - well at least he’s keeping his options open. Still as non-existent as the 32MJ railgun
2x RAM launcher - they exist
4x30mm guns - again, exists
4x ODIN lasers - actually exists! Nowhere near as impressive as the name sounds though. Optical Dazzling Interdictor, Navy are ‘soft kill’ weapons to blind or destroy cameras and sensors on UAVs
The ship’s purported characteristics are so extraordinary that the announcement will surely spark immense discussion. However, there is little need for said discussion because this ship will never sail. It will take years to design, cost $9 billion each to build, and contravene the Navy’s new concept of operations, which envisions distributed firepower. A future administration will cancel the program before the first ship hits the water.
What future administration?
Apres moi, le deluge is the level of thinking by this regime.
Pretty much. I mean this is Kim Jong Un level of thinking on display. But at least Kim had the decency to make physically real giant bronze statues of himself, not slap a portrait of himself over AI slop.
Yeah. If nothing else Trump is a malignant narcissist; to Trump future Administrations by definition don’t matter, because they aren’t him. So he doesn’t care about the damage he is doing or the future of any such project because as soon as he dies, the universe has lost the only reason it ever had to exist.
It’s notable that he also made absurd claims that the ships would be made within about two years, as that (impossible) date would put it within his Administration and likely lifespan. Because if it took the realistic amount of time then he’d never get the chance to enjoy them, and therefore there’s no point to it.
There’s also the thought that somebody else isn’t the new president after 2028.
That’s how Trump differs from other authoritarians like Hitler or Stalin, or like Putin or Kim. They believed, at some level, that L’État, c’est moi - they are the state and the state is them. That’s why they cared about things like their legacy. Trump, OTOH, is incapable of conceiving of something larger than himself. To him, the state is just another mark.
Yes. I’ve said in the past that while Trump is the standard bearer for American fascism, he’s incapable of being fascist himself because that would require him to care about something other than himself.
Of course that doesn’t prevent him from engaging in behavior, and giving orders, that are indistinguishable from big-F Fascism.
A bit Like Putin, there’s just a very large sub rosa looting of the state going on at the same time as the very public aggrandizement of the State over the Little People, and especially over the wrong sort of Little People.
I was going to vent about these new Defiant class “battleships”, but others have already done better than I would have. I’ll just add that battleships were dumb by 1942. That we’ve been having arguments about them since then shows it’s an emotional issue, not a rational one.
Trump class (fixed that for you).
Really.
Defiant is supposed to be the first ship but collectively they are designated as the “Trump Class” of ships.
And isn’t the usual naming scheme for battleships to name them after a state? I get there is no law that says it has to be that way but it seemed the tradition. And our armed forces are steeped in tradition.
Lots of stuff about our government were steeped in tradition. His Disgustingness has decreed there are now new traditions affecting all branches of our government.
It’s like playing roulette - the ball goes around and around, and you don’t know where it’s going to land! He can fire off a dozen missiles, and no one will know who he’s attacking! It’s brilliant!
Especially since the winning briber bidder will be a nonexistent shipyard in Oklahoma.
The 2nd in class will be called the Grift Spree.
Does the US even have any shipyards (not to mention steel mills) capable of building one of these monsters?
I’m sure we could get there eventually but likely would take decades before we would even start building the ship.
(Getting that ship building capability back probably is worthwhile.)
Philly can, they recently did an overhaul of the USS New Jersey BB-62 in fact.
Keep in mind, Carriers, Super Tankers and some Containers ships are as big or bigger than the Battleships. There must be at least 1 more US yard capable of building a BB.
Newport News, Virginia is the one that builds the Ford Class Carriers, and every Nuclear Powered Carrier in US History. Though they’re in the middle of building CVN-80, The Enterprise. They’re also working on CVN-81 at the same time, the USS Doris Miller if Trump doesn’t decide to override and rename it before launch. The Big “E” is due 2028 and I think the Miller is due in 2031.