First Trump-class battleship will cost as much as aircraft carrier, predicts analyst

It took the US Navy 11 years from programme start to commission the USS Zumwalt shown here. (US Navy)

The lead ship of the new Trump-class battleship is to cost as much as a Ford-class aircraft carrier, according to an analyst for the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS).

Due to the high cost and other significant development hurdles, “This ship will never sail,” wrote Mark Cancian, a retired US Marine Corps colonel, who is now senior adviser with the CSIS Defense and Security Department, in a CSIS commentary The Golden Fleet's Battleship Will Never Sail posted online on 23 December.

US President Donald Trump confirmed details of the new class of large surface combatants at a press conference on 22 December.

For more information about the proposed new class, please see Trump details plans for new US Navy ‘battleships' .

”At the ‘30,000 to 40,000' tons [27,216 tonnes to 36,287 tonnes] cited by the president, the ship is much larger than anything the United States has built in the last 80 years, other than aircraft carriers,” Cancian noted. “The truncated [guided-missile destroyer] DDG 1000 [Zumwalt] class (only three built) displaced 15,000 tons [13,608 tonnes] but still took 11 years from programme initiation (2005) to commissioning of the first ship (2016). The battleship will be more than twice as large and more complicated – nuclear-capable with directed energy weapons. The first ship, USS Defiant (BBG 1), is likely to commission in the early to mid-2030s, assuming it is built at all.”

The current DDG 51-class Flight III displaces 9,000 tons (8,165 tonnes) and costs USD2.8 billion each, the CSIS commentary noted.