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Yeah this will never be built. It will cost billions to not build it though
this post was submitted on 16 Jan 2026
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Chapotraphouse
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Damn, I should get into shipbuilding. I could figure out how to not build it for half that
diesel propulsion
to power lasers and a railgun? sure, why not. it's not going to get built anyway
no there will be a separate coal power plant just for the lasers
people think its the lasers and boom bang stuff that is the weapon, but really its just idling this belching disaster near our geopoltical rivals to fuck up the environment that is the real weapon.
Not to nerd out but the inclusion of a diesel powerplant along with a gas electric turbine is directly due to the lessons from the Ticonderoga class. The tico has very poor range because it only has a gas electric turbine and it drinks fuel. Including the diesel is for this new design to have a long endurance cruise and the turbine for all other times (sprinting, war maneuver, powering the lasers and other bullshit, etc).
I believe this also was an issue for the LCS, I think that too was turbine only. A ship designed for close in work on shores and littoral waters that drinks fuel. No ability to stay on station. Ridiculous.
It would make more sense to build them with the same nuclear reactors as the carriers with the theoretical far range they have with rail guns and silly flashlights they call lasers onboard. Like having it as a stand-off far-range sea artillery piece in that aspect would make some sort of sense.
At least it'll be slightly less devastating to the local ecology when one of these meme machines ends up splattered by a houthi-manufactured dongfeng hypersonic AShM
I think honestly the navy knows it's a huge floating high value target, and they're not willing to make it even higher value target by putting a nuclear reactor on it. It would need to be a guided missile submarine for them to invest it with a nuclear reactor
The range issue with LCS was that they nixed fuel tanks in favor of speed, so it can’t even sail from San Diego to Hawaii without refueling
600KW isnt that much for a gas turbine the size of a large missile crusier's. The MiG-25's radar unit had a rated power of 600-800KW in its highest range mode, and allowed it to overpower NATO radar jamming. And that was using 2 (albeit powerful) jet engines.
The railgun is a bit more fucky. They're more in the megawatt range and the fire rate is abysmal because charging and barrelwear isn't solved. There's a reason Russia and China just went straight to hypersonic missiles - railguns are still a meme technology.
That's only the output, it'd take closer to 6mw to power it which still can be done (i think the zumwalt could output 78mw or so) but it'd be a decent chunk of the energy for only one system
Yeah I guess assuming breaking the laws of thermodynamics to reach 100% is probably a bit too much to expect for the yanks....
does anybody in the world actually believe the US could build a new, functional weapon of war at even close to this scale? like, what rock do you have to live under to not know that our defense contractors can't make anything except profits for themselves?
I don't think you could find a single soul in Congress who would genuinely say "yes we can build this", it is just another way to funnel money into various defense contractors so said senators/congressional reps can get a nice payout after they leave office for helping Northrop Grumman get record profits for another year
All 50 states get to make 1 part.
You might not like it, but this is what peak efficiency looks like
It's not even that grandiose of scale. It's a mid-size ship. The only unique thing about it is it's loaded up with questionably effective wunderwaffen like railguns and lasers (I believe railguns have been tried like 50 times and never work in actual combat for various reasons)
Didn't America stop railgun development?
Yes... yes it did.
We will get extremely aesthetic public domain photos of this thing incinerating floating pieces of wood
(Source: Wikimedia Commons)
Hey, that piece of wood could be Hamas OR a SeeSeePee spycraft!
i like how they just scaled up 'generic modern missile destroyer' design but it's supposed to be larger than HMS hood
Losing $500 trillion dollars to a guy ramming a biplane into it. (Initially got it confused with SS-SS Bismarck, which was biplane torpedo'ed. HMS Hood was shelled but I will lathe a funnier outcome than either.)
What the fuck is this graphic, the command and conquer manual?
"Y'all want sweet laser boats more than you want coral reefs, right?"
Fucking photo of a photo shit.
Pathetic, it doesn't even have big robot legs
It's gonna get torn a new one by the Scarlett Dawn, and the USN is gonna find out why the meta is chunks of heavy armor propelled by an ungodly amount of custom jet engines.
This, the spider and the crab, are the coolest videogame units.
Is this the one they were calling the "trump class" last month?
Gas turbine/diesel propulsion
Yeah... make this beast as loud as possible for easier acoustic targeting by subs and torpediorinos!
More target practice for Ansarallah, eh?
JUST 6 years over and 4x over-budget?