You need drone defences, sure. Why do you need drones unless you’re going on the offensive?
Oh yes…USA!
LOL, “trump class”
Is that something that is plated in fake gold and utterly tacky, gross, outdated and generally useless?
Essentially…yes
Nono, keep wasting billions.
Regards
The rest of the world
“Trump-class.”
Trump has no class. They’ll be oil tankers with fake gold paint.
Why tf we need drones? We need billionaires to pay taxes and basic necessities to be funded from that.
Yes, but in terms of national defense it makes more sense for us to work on inexpensive quickly deployable drones as opposed to a “battleship”. Taking the “we could spend this on something other than the military” factor out of the equation.
Battleships have been obsolete for nearly a century.
Next this fool is going to order catapults for his bungled attack on the Persians.
Well, he’s also a big fan of walls, so it kinda tracks.
They represent some of the biggest, most heavy firepower single pieces of equipment out there. Useless as they might be in the modern agility and precision based wars it’s pretty on brand for someone who wants to present themselves as some kind of macho strongman.
The naval equivalent of a useless fatass is also pretty on brand.
They represent some of the biggest, most heavy firepower single pieces of equipment out there.
Bruh still hasn’t heard of the trebuchet…
About a century ago was WWI. Idk about that.
They were obsolete after WWI when the first aircraft carriers were introduced.
Come WWII they were food for torpedo bombers.
They were always vulnerable to torpedoes hell that’s one of the reasons why the old dreadnaught class was phased out. Regardless they still served their purpose during WW2 as a way to imperfectly fill the hole that modern destroyers now fill, also they were damned useful artillery platforms in the Pacific and during Korea.
They did have a use, but they were obsolete. Obsolete doesn’t mean useless. It means there are better options. You use what you’ve got, but you don’t make more of things that are obsolete.
My point is they weren’t obsolete by WW2, they were in a bit of a weird doctrinal area by the end of the war for sure but at the start of the war they were certainly still in their prime. Remember carriers were still being figured out during the inter-war period and weren’t exactly all that great, hell the first major use of a carrier during the war was during Pearl harbor and even then that only worked so well because of how small the harbor is which restricted movements and thus the reaction (Didn’t stop the Nevada from beaching itself and becoming a point defense platform) which was frankly luck for the Japanese.
Now by the end of the war they were showing their age especially with the modernized carriers that were being pumped out nearly as fast as battleships and with the improved destroyer and escort designs that could compensate for the relative lack of defenses on carriers. Frankly speaking carriers by themselves are kinda shit, they need an escort fleet to even function lest they be even more exposed than a battleship, hell there’s a reason why everyone kept trying to make carrier battleships for awhile.
I think, especially now in the age of drones, carriers are about obsolete too, yeah. They require the massive support fleets, are a huge, slow, expensive target, and nearly their entire job can be replaced with a much smaller drone carrier. It’ll be an interesting time for naval innovation, but it’s not going to be massive ships.
My money is that shits going to evolve into something like those weird Japanese carrier destroyers or someone is going to dig up the concept for carrier submarines to adapt to drones. Pretty hard to guess since there’s always the possibility that something is found that can hard counter drones kinda like how close air support broke the artillery doctrines post WW1.
Edit: ignore the previous comment lemmy freaked the fuck out.
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It’s well known that ballistic missiles with kinetic payloads are essentially unstoppable, and can take out carriers, for example, for little cost. A fucking low tech Scud carries something like a ton. Imagine a supersonic swarm of 1000kg tungsten bullets raining on a carrier.
Everyone else is buying drones from the current market leader: Ukraine.
Trump doesn’t like their leader.
So we don’t get drones.
Trump doesn’t like their leader.
Trump chose a side. It’s not Ukraine. Nothing to do with the leader. He just hates Zelenskyy because he keeps fighting back.
Why are the Democracts giving Trump ideas on how not to fuck up his military spending? They really shouldn’t be doing that, because they are on the long list of potential targets of that US military as soon as Trump decides he has enough of pretending to care about that whole constitution thing.
After spending 2025 sending sternly worded letters, the Dems appear to be spending 2026 doing everything they can to help the GOP in the midterms. Cancelling the gas tax to keep gas prices down so the illegal, immoral Assault on Iran’s impact are lessened was really the cherry on top for me.
Trump chose “battleship” because he thinks it sounds impressive to the average midwesterner (he’s usually right about these things), there’s no chance they’ll ever be built, and they know that. But now they get to complain that the Dems are stopping his big strong battleships which isn’t the image they need to be cultivating right now… unless it’s tied to the economy which is the only message.
No no no, the US desperately NEEDS a golden statue of Trump, bigger than the statues of Kim Il Sung and Kim Yong Il. It should replace the old outdated statue of liberty, as the new statue of pedophilia.
And please, they really need battleships. Because the US is a major threat to the safety of the rest of the world, with their insane military budget. So if they would build all their firepower on one platform it will be a lot easier for us to neutralize their firepower, like with a single torpedo, instead of when it’s spread out onto many small remote controlled platforms.
So please, build those rediculously useless things.
A Trump class battleship would have no class whatsoever.
Instead of those ugly gray ones, imagine beautiful shiny gold
But would it have a ballroom?
Like school on a saturday
The U.S. needs universal healthcare, not battleships or drones prone to balloon military spending further.
This is big “Thrawn recommends fighters and Star Destroyers while the Emperor wants to build a Death Star” energy for those who know ball
The empire would have been more stable if they pushed Arquitens cruisers over star destroyers.
But then, the empire wasn’t meant to be stable or effective, either.
I wonder if a drone “carrier” would be a reasonable idea. It would certainly make a good movie.
Think of a big expensive reusable drone like a Reaper, able to fly in from hundreds of miles away, then loiter all day just out of range. When it sees a target, instead of launching an expensive missile, launch drones to targets. This lets you carry more and cheaper weapons, while also taking advantage of high quality reconnaissance and all day loitering
Actually, the US already has those. They are sailing logistic hubs which are converted merchant ships. It can support multiple helicopters landed at the same time and it can transport fuel and other goods. But more importantly, it can carry and control several shipping containers full of drones from a safe distance behind their warships in action. They are completely different to previous military logistic ships, they are considered asymmetric hybrid logistic combat platforms, or special ops mpyherships. And because they used to be merchant ships, they are extremily cheap compared to actual military ships.
The only official one known is the MV Ocean Trader. They are support ships so not official military commissioned ships.
The US, Russia and China (and maybe other countries) are experimenting with civilian ships carrying military gear in shipping containers. Like radar systems and missile systems, but also drone launchers and jammers. Russia is already known for their asymmetric warfare, with their seperstist armies fighting in Ukraine before they invaded, their shadow fleets and their mercenary armies in Africa. But China and the US are also operating in a similar way, finding a gray area between civil and military operations.
Why, you may ask? Well, during a conflict a military target is a valid target. But a civilian target is not. So why not equip a civilian target with military gear? That’s also why the invasion in Ukraine was labeled by Russia as a “special military operation” instead of a war. Same as what the US did when they kidnapped Maduro and when they illegally attacked Iran. “Let’s call it differently so we can get away with it.”
But a civilian target is not. So why not equip a civilian target with military gear?
Because it’s against Geneva conventions and reduces your military’s legitimacy, and opens up your civilian logistics to attacks because the enemy wouldn’t have a way of knowing if a merchant ship is military or not, so you can’t complain if the enemy starts bombing civilian infrastructure.
Yes, but the confusion with the enemy whether the target is legit or not gives you a little extra time, which can be critical. And it gives you plausible deniability. It’s making war less black and white and more a massive complex confusing gray zone, especially for your enemy.
It would make it just as confusing for you because the enemy would adopt the same method if everyone accepts it. It makes life for all people less safe. It’s not necessarily a bad idea tactically but it is bound to increase the deaths of civilians.
Yeah that’s true. They are trying to gain the edge and it will come at the cost of many civilians, but the countries that do this hold little value to human lives.
Very informative, thanks!
But I wasnt thinking carrier like a ship, but a flying carrier, a mother ship . A drone that can loiter all day above a battlefield, then release dozens of cheap drones when needed could make a real impact. At the same time you could put money into the drone that gets there, recons, loiters, and returns, while using the advantages of cheap short range suicide drones as your expendable “ammunition”.
Why not both? A cheap disposable drone will never have much range, loitering, reconnaissance, so needs help getting to the battlefield (unless it’s your own town as in Ukraine). But even an expensive long range drone can only go so far. Think of the logistics hub as the military base only a couple hundred miles from Target, wherever there is an ocean. The loitering drone be battlefield over site and response, then cheap suicide drones as the ammunition
There is also the concept of a cargo plane which can drop drone swarms. A few drones are for jamming, some have radar, some have missiles to take out anti air systems and the rest are duds (to saturate defenses) or carry a payload for kamikaze to hit the actual target. The plane loiters outside enemy range while dropping 100 to 500 drones. Thing is, drones don’t need a large platform. You can even easily convert a small attack submarine to a subsurface drone carrier if you like.
Honestly the place my brain went is weirdly the old blimp carrier concept from the inter-war period. Like I wonder if it could be adapted to work with drones, maybe with modern materials and tech it could solve the core issues of it being weirdly uncontrollable and the planes breaking themselves and the blimp when trying to “land”.
Exactly! I actually started with sci fy, alien motherships releasing clouds of fighter as my inspiration. Then quickly headed to those weird blimp concepts.
Not only can modern technology solve the problems but suicide drones can be folded to pack more in and you don’t have to worry about them coming back, unlike manned fighters. Treat them more like ammunition, smart and slow ammunition
They are already working on it. Old Zeppelin hangars have been facelift and new ones have been built and in secret they are re-developping them to be drone and control platforms. I don’t know why, they stopped using and developing them because they are highly unpredictable and dangerous in heavy winds.
Blimps and Zeplins were heavily limited by the tech of their time materials were heavy and hard to use for example I know damned well the blimps built here in SoCal used leather gaskets. It’s possible to compensate for some of the instability with more modern props and battery tech.
Also if shit keeps going how it is we may need a couple modernized designs due to resource shortages, hydrogen can be sourced locally jet fuel not so much.
Even modern day designs have one major flaw: they can’t operate in wind. But rest assured, next to that major flaw there are many other flaw as well.
Honestly I just like dirigibles so if they want to bash their heads against walls and build new ones I’ll be happy.
I couldn’t care less, as long as they don’t use hydrogen but helium when they fly over my house.
But from what I’ve heard from avionic engineers and specialists it’s just stupid. But tell that to startups who got a motherload of money from the government consisting of idiots who pull the government’s wallet after seeing a 10min presentation which is basically a poorly produced animation video.
Y’know I fucking hate startups simply because they seem to just exist to waste time and money. Doing some fucky R&D for old tech is fine and can be interesting since sometimes someone finds something new to correct old issues, but as soon as a startup gets involved it basically instantly turns into a boondoggle. This is the type of shit that should be left to the Skunkworks and borderline redneck R&D labs in towns you’ve never heard of not some dipshit who thinks innovation means slapping LEDs on everything.
