WWII made clear that battleships were obsolete. They only provided distant bombardment platforms( often ineffective ) to landing zones... and they were a big fat target for air power.

Russia / Ukraine war has shown that almost ALL surface vessels are now obsolete... Ukraine, a nation with no ships, has effectively bottled up the Russian Navy in the Sea of Azov... not only that but have done so with much much cheaper smart surface and underwater drones ( effectively smart very long range torpedoes ). as well as unmanned missiles.

If you are building some sort of large surface vessel today, you will spend way more money than the ship costs trying to protect it from cheap attacks... much like main battle tanks now need something to protect them from $1500 usd smart drones. so far nothing is working all that well.

And that is before either side in that war starts unleashing AI drones. Right now the drone defense is centered around breaking the linkage between the drones and the drone operators. Signal jamming, cutting the long attached tether cables, etc. But with the advent of AI drones able to select targets and operate on their own...

The people in the DOD better rethink war tactics and equipment equipment requirements. BTW, those shiny new multi-hundred million dollar war planes... a AI drone fighter jet can do soooo much more with no people at risk. High Gee maneuvers... no problem. so much for Top Gun pilots.

Thr Russian fleet that is bottled up is in a small area.

But. A while ago The Economist was discussing the US navy and the ability to use it on China.
Not very good. Land based missiles are good for nearly 1,000 miles. This puts their fancy planes too far away without refueling.
Defensive systems are getting better at targeting at range. You do need a fleet to support an aircraft carrier. The same will hold true for a battle ship.

As the article says, they're battleships in little more than name.

But since we know that Trump is always dead-on with his use of language--wait, and numbers!--well, then ...

It'll be interesting to see what Congress makes of this as well as those responsible for some of the yet-non-existent tech.

Although Israel's laser defense tech might be useful, and what hypersonic tech we have might get a boost from this proposal. Neither of which would be bad to add to the armaments that the US has and conceivably will need in the relatively near future.

Or something something. Oh, look! A squirrel!

No one should take this seriously. It's pure bombast, and the only thing good about it is the comic relief.

Combined Arms warfare is hard and Russia is stuck with Soviet Era thinking.

"haven't built a battleship since 1994"... What was the name of that battleship?

about 2:55

I believe.

But we would expect ignorance from him.

Will they be invisible like his fighter planes?

Fitted out with lasers, railguns, nuclear armed missiles, along with dozens of other type of missiles, they’ll be a force to recon with

Sticking his name on everything is especially difficult to defend as it so plainly does little to meet the nation’s needs.

The personalization of government is advancing at ridiculous speeds:
- Trump-class battleships
- Trump’s name added to Kennedy Center, Institute for Peace
- legal-tender coin featuring Trump’s face (on both sides)
- Trump Gold Cards
- Trump Accounts
- F-47 fighter jets
- 47-day ICE training

— Steve Benen (@stevebenen.com) 2025-12-23T14:04:44.654Z