“I did not expect to be told to build a battleship when I got this job, and I will tell you, I'm extremely excited about it." - Rear Admiral Derek Trinque, the Navy's Director of Surface Warfare at SNA 2026.

Tough choices about whether to put hypersonic weapons or big guns on the Navy’s latest destroyer were one of the factors that put the sea service on a path to develop a new battleship, the Navy’s director of surface warfare said today. 

During a speech at the Surface Navy Association’s annual conference today, Rear Admiral Derek Trinque expressed his enthusiasm about the new program and offered some context about its genesis.

“I did not expect to be told to build a battleship when I got this job, and I will tell you, I’m extremely excited about it, and I mean that with no sarcasm,” he said.

Admiral Trinque said that the requirements, he said, grew out of the U.S. Navy's DDG(X) program aimed at building a next-generation destroyer to succeed the Arleigh Burke class, both to replace older hulls (Flight I's) as they reach the end of their service life and because the Flight III's have maxed out the growth of the hull.

DDG(X) Design Compromises

“We found ourselves in a weird situation” where in order to keep its desired number of vertical launch cells on the new destroyer, “we were going to have to make a choice between a gun weapon system and Conventional Prompt Strike,” the Navy’s soon-to-be fielded hypersonic weapon, Trinque said.

The Navy considered making two different variants of DDG(X) — one with a gun system and another able to launch Conventional Prompt Strike missiles — but Trinque added, “I don’t want to put those kind of limits on a fleet commander. This would explain why we have seen two different concept images for the DDG(X). The initial concept contained a 5-inch main gun on the bow, while a later design,, revealed by Program Executive Office (PEO) Ships during a ceremony for outgoing DDG(X) program manager Captain Matt Schroeder, features significant changes to weapon systems onboard the ship. The new rendering strikes the 5-inch Mark 45 gun entirely, a staple of U.S. Navy large surface combatants. The existing Mark 41 VLS modules have been rearranged, now installed in what appears to be four 8×2 cell modules stacked front to back. This design allows for additional room for larger diameter VLS modules in the future like Lockheed Martin’s G-VLS. See our video on the G-VLS here.

DDG(X) Leads to BBG(X)

“And so when national leaders announced that they were interested in building a battleship, this was a great opportunity,” he said.

The battleship will have Conventional Prompt Strike, gun weapon systems, a “large number” of vertical launch systems, power for directed energy weapons — an “incredible amount of offensive strike capability” as well as command and control capacity that the Navy does not have in its current fleet, he said.

The U.S. Navy currently believes about 700 people will be needed to man the battleship, he added. 

Official render of the BBG(X), the Trump-class battleship USS Defiant (BBG-1)

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