The head of the US Navy has called for the new Trump-class battleships to be fitted with lasers powerful enough to shoot down incoming ballistic missiles or hypersonic weapons.
Admiral Daryl Caudle, the Chief of Naval Operations, said the "Golden Fleet" vessels, announced by President Donald Trump in December, should carry a one-megawatt laser as part of their battery. Speaking at the Surface Navy Association National Symposium, he said: "We've got to have different lasers, I think, going forward on the battleship to make them effective."
The battleships are already being developed with long-range and nuclear cruise missiles to counter US adversaries. It will be the first time a battleship-class vessel has been built since the USS Missouri in 1944. The US Navy currently operates directed-energy weapons on Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, producing between 60 and 120 kilowatts – enough to destroy drones, small missiles, or dazzle enemy personnel.
However, experts have warned that the programme faces significant hurdles. Most naval vessels under construction are at least a year behind schedule, according to the Government Accountability Office, due to a shortage of shipyard space, infrastructure, and workers. In addition, the US has not commissioned a battleship in more than eight decades, having retired them in the 1990s over cost and emerging technology concerns.
Admiral Caudle acknowledged the engineering challenges, saying: "Laser power is not the issue. It's the form factor. It's the engineering of the power to get the density of that in a shipboard design. That's the challenge."
