WASHINGTON — The first Trump-class battleship could cost $23.4 billion, with the 14 subsequent ships the Navy plans to purchase averaging $18 billion, Congressional Budget Office report released today said.
This would bring the battleship program total to $275 billion for 15 nuclear-powered battleships, each weighing roughly 35,000 tons, the report said. A 35,000-ton battleship would clock in as the biggest surface combatant in the world at roughly three and half times the size of an Arleigh Burke-class destroyer, all while adding “considerable firepower to the Navy’s fleet,” according to the report.
However, the Navy’s budget request justification for the battleship says the vessel will ultimately range between 35,000 to 41,000 tons. If the ship ends up with a full-load displacement of 41,000 tons, the cost for the lead ship would increase by 16 percent, the report said.
“The Navy has stated that the ship would be equipped to carry the nuclear-armed sea-launched cruise missile, or SLCM-N,” the report said. “The number of nuclear-tipped cruise missiles the ship would carry is unknown but would probably be small given the Navy’s descriptions of the nuclear cruise missile program. Nevertheless, carrying nuclear weapons would give the battleship more firepower than any ship in the fleet other than the Navy’s 14 Ohio class ballistic missile submarines, which carry 70 percent of the nation’s deployed strategic nuclear warheads.”
