… Of Amateurism.
The announcement of Trump’s Golden Fleet is a failure on so many levels.
- Trump’s going to contribute to the design? It can take a decade or even more to design a new combat vessel (the article has estimates of 4-6 years, which I think is absurdly optimistic), and perhaps more for something that’s 1500 feet long and has the consequent complexity network issues. Trump may be dead of old age long before just the design is completed.
- At an estimated (same link) $10B per, losing such a ship to enemy action, accidents, typhoons, and other events means that $10B is gone, along with the time to analyze what went wrong, correct the design, and build the replacement, go through change of design verification, crew recruitment and training, and deployment. Much better to have many cheaper ships. If you want more, research what happened to German WWII battleship Tirpitz after her sister ship, Bismarck, was sunk by the Brits.
- While the weaponry cited extends the reach of a battleship, it remains highly limited compared to the most potent vessels in today’s navies, namely aircraft carriers and strategic submarines.
- Will such ships need traditional armor for slugging it out with other ships? Maybe for surviving air attack, torpedo attacks, even drone attacks (see below), but every ounce of armor will add to fuel requirements. And if a nuclear power plant is used, then you need to develop highly sophisticated recovery techniques for what that ship sinks. Lucky for you, our nuclear powered aircraft carrier techniques may transfer.
- The rest of the world has been watching Putin’s War and recognizing drones appear to be the next innovation. Us? We’re re-examining the Battle of Jutland, one of the last clashes of big ships — back in World War I. That said, yes, we can walk and chew bubble gum at the same time – but not when the bubble gum dates from 1910.
In short, this ‘golden fleet’ is symptomatic of a fixation on gold that has become a mental illness.
Or a deliberate distraction.
