The US Navy is reviving battleships as a central pillar of its maritime strategy. President
Donald Trump announced in December last year that the US would relaunch battleships. The Americans are now planning to commission 15 such ships by 2055, according to Bloomberg.
The US last inducted a battleship, the USS Missouri, in 1944, before retiring it in 1992. The move is being envisioned as a complement to the US Navy’s aircraft carrier-centric approach to projecting power at sea.
The US Navy’s concept of a modern battleship is framed as a response to the evolving demands of naval warfare, where distributed forces provide reach and sensing but still require concentrated combat power to achieve decisive outcomes. While the Arleigh Burke-class destroyer remains a highly capable platform, its capacity has reached practical limits, and even the planned next-generation programme involves compromises in capability, according to a US Navy report.
The development comes at a time when the Chinese Navy — the People’s Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) — has become the world’s largest maritime force by ship count. Although the US Navy remains the world’s largest navy by tonnage, experts increasingly view missile-launch capacity as a more credible indicator of naval power, as noted by the US Naval Institute.
Vertical Launch System (VLS) cells are considered a key measure of a navy’s lethality. In this metric too, the US Navy retains a significant edge. According to the International Institute for Strategic Studies, the US Navy’s 8,400 VLS cells are nearly double the 4,300 VLS cells fielded by the PLAN on surface vessels. VLS cells on submarines are not counted separately because they also involve strategic weapons.
The proposed nuclear-powered battleship is intended to deliver greater endurance, higher speed, and the ability to host advanced weapon systems, placing it at the top tier of the US fleet’s high-low mix. Its primary role is envisioned as conducting long-range, high-volume offensive strikes while serving as a survivable forward command-and-control platform in a conflict with a major military power such as China.
The battleship’s expanded size and energy capacity are expected to provide several operational advantages. Advanced Payload Modules and space for futuristic missiles fired through vertical launch systems would allow the integration of hypersonic weapons and other strike capabilities beyond current limits. Increased power generation capacity through onboard nuclear reactors would also support operations across the electromagnetic spectrum, including electronic warfare and directed-energy weapons such as lasers.
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The ship’s internal volume would additionally allow the embarkation of fleet command staff, enabling it to function as a flagship and a tactical command-and-control hub for Surface Action Groups, Carrier Strike Groups, or independent missions. By avoiding many of the design constraints faced by current vessels, the new class of battleships could also provide greater flexibility for integrating emerging technologies.
The arrival of such a vessel in contested waters or allied ports would carry strategic signalling value comparable to that of aircraft carriers.
The acquisition plan also seeks to incorporate lessons from past naval programmes by using digital engineering, modular construction, and AI-enabled design tools to reduce costs and minimise delays. This assumes significance as the US Navy is already running behind schedule on its aircraft carrier programme, with three such vessels currently under construction.
