Navy hopes Golden Fleet battleships will solve capacity limits of destroyers
Next-generation battleships will provide additional capacity needed to carry multiple offensive weapons and command-and-control capabilities the service does not have with its current surface fleet, a senior Navy officer said Tuesday.
President Donald Trump announced in December that the Navy would design and develop a new class of battleships as part of the future so-called “Golden Fleet.” The vessels would be the first battleships built by the United States since the mid-20th century, when the Navy shifted focus to operating platforms optimized for long-range strike — such as aircraft carriers — and other missions.
And while experts have expressed concern over the sea service’s ability to build the massive ships, the need for larger platforms to carry more weapons and equipment will be necessary, Rear Adm. Derek Trinque, director of surface warfare (N96), said during a keynote at the annual Surface Navy Association symposium.
He added that with weapons like the Conventional Prompt Strike (CPS) hypersonic weapon and directed energy lasers approaching fielding stages, the Navy was unsure how to retrofit its next-generation destroyers, known as DDG(X), with all of the new systems.
“DDG(X) came from a recognition that we were approaching the limit of what we could add to the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer,” Trinque said. “We needed something newer and bigger that could have more power and accept more weapons and project more power than the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer.”
The Navy’s requirements for DDG(X) limit the amount of missile launchers it can carry, meaning the service would have had to make a choice between equipping the next-gen destroyers with CPS or another gun weapon system, Trinque said.
One consideration was to build two DDG(X) variants, one with hypersonic missiles and a second with gun weapons. However, that would create more problems and limitations for fleet commanders when building carrier strike groups, he said.
The introduction of new 30,000-40,000-ton battleships — considerably larger than the Navy’s current destroyer fleet — would offer the ability to carry not only both hypersonics and gun weapons, but also directed energy systems and critical C2 capabilities, Trinque said.
“The battleship will have command-and-control capacity to truly command a surface action group. So this can be a centerpiece of a surface action group, or it could be a part of a carrier strike group,” he said. “But this is command and control and offensive capability capacity that we need.”
