On January 15, Robert, a naval analyst from the U.S. Congressional Budget Office, released a statement saying that according to his calculations, the cost of the first ship of the Trump-class battleship could reach as high as $22 billion, and as low as $15.1 billion. The exact figure depends on the displacement, crew size, and weapon configuration. However, looking back at the recent shipbuilding costs of the U.S. Navy, if this battleship were actually built, the final cost could even exceed $22 billion. At this price, it would be possible to purchase 110 18,000 TEU LNG dual-fuel container ships, which are giant vessels capable of carrying 18,000 containers.

(The Trump-class concept is filled with powerful weapons)

The slow speed and high cost of U.S. Navy shipbuilding have become an intractable problem. From the government to Congress, numerous reports have been released, attempting to explain and solve this issue. These reports basically point to one issue: the U.S. commercial shipbuilding industry has completely disappeared, causing shipyards to rely almost entirely on military orders. This leads to a shrinking supply chain and a lack of labor in the shipbuilding industry. In these reports, China's shipbuilding industry is often cited as a contrast. China now has the world's strongest shipbuilding industry, not only with a capacity more than 260 times that of the United States, but also with technology far ahead. This superiority is not only in civilian ships but also in warships, including aircraft carriers, nuclear submarines, unmanned underwater and surface vessels, etc.

The massive industrial scale allows the entire supply chain to operate stably. Shipbuilding is a complex systems engineering project involving multiple industries and enterprises, covering almost all fields of industrial manufacturing, including metallurgy, chemical industry, mechanical manufacturing, power machinery, electrical, electronics, computers and software, satellite navigation and satellite mobile communication. With the rise of the new energy industry in recent years, shipborne new energy has also become a new development hotspot. As the leading shipbuilding enterprises, the more stable the orders and production, the more prosperous the upstream enterprises supplying them. The more ship orders there are, the greater the demand for subsystems, which can improve the scale effect of the entire supply chain.

(Trump-class model at the U.S. Navy convention)

A media outlet interviewed an American engineer who works in ship supervision in China. She said that U.S. shipyards might launch one ship every two years, while Chinese factories can launch 30 ships per year. Although the construction standards for military and civilian ships differ, the production capacity between the two countries is vastly different. Moreover, some high-end civilian ships may have technical content no less than warships.

Although the ship is large, some parts are not. Some special parts or materials require sufficient demand to support the operation of a production line. China's shipbuilding scale means that domestic manufacturers can order, allowing a production line or a small and medium-sized enterprise to go into operation. When such enterprises are organized together, they form a domestic shipbuilding industry ecosystem.

This is something the U.S. does not have, which is also the main reason why U.S. shipbuilding is both expensive and slow. Many components, materials, or subsystems need to be purchased from the international market, even from China. Even if the factory price of these materials is not high, adding logistics costs and time costs is enough to make the shipbuilding cost soar.

Moreover, in order to build warships, the U.S. Congress and military often require key components to be domestically produced, de-Chinated, and custom-made by U.S. companies. This will lead to further cost and schedule control issues.

In fact, the U.S. shipbuilding industry once had its glory. During World War II, the U.S. built a large number of destroyers, battleships, escort carriers, and cargo ships. The most prominent ones were the "Liberty" cargo ships and Fletcher-class destroyers. The Fletcher class set a record of building 175 ships, and the highest construction speed of Liberty ships reached one ship every 42 days. But this was under the pressure of war, organized by the U.S. federal government, with orders given only to U.S. shipyards, and focusing on production was the entire task.

After the war ended, when U.S. shipyards faced complex and fierce market competition, they all failed. The U.S. government also implemented trade protection policies, stipulating that a certain proportion of ships used by U.S. shipping companies must be built by U.S. shipyards and commanded by U.S. ship captains. Therefore, many U.S. shipowners preferred to buy cheap and good-quality ships from China, South Korea, and Japan, even if they had to fly foreign flags, thus breaking the trade protection policy.

(Imagined Trump-class four-ship formation by the U.S. Navy)

During the Cold War, the U.S. shipbuilding industry actually continued to benefit from the post-WWII boom. To counter the Soviet Union and achieve global hegemony, the U.S. Navy continued to order a large number of warships and regularly updated and replaced them. Such high-performance warships could not be built by Japan or Europe. Therefore, the U.S. shipbuilding industry still did well under the nourishment of warship orders and introduced a series of excellent models. For example, the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, the Los Angeles-class nuclear submarine, and the Ticonderoga-class cruiser, among others. After the end of the Cold War, the U.S. Navy's procurement budget was significantly reduced, and the decline of the U.S. shipbuilding industry began.

Before Trump took office, the U.S. Navy also tried to change the situation, reducing the number of large warships being built and developing small unmanned ships. On one hand, this could expand the scale of equipment and help the shipbuilding industry restore economies of scale; on the other hand, it would avoid giving China too many expensive targets.

However, Trump looked down on these insignificant small ships. He favored grand and impressive things. A "missile battleship" model might not be able to confront China, but if it could be built and tour the seas, it could scare other countries, such as Denmark, a small country.

(Japanese model makers have already started selling products before the U.S. Navy starts building ships)

The problem is that the U.S. shipbuilding industry is unlikely to build a 21st-century missile battleship during his term, and the U.S. Navy does not have enough money to let him play around. If nothing unexpected happens, the day Trump's popularity ends, people will openly discuss the cancellation of the Trump-class battleship.

Original: toutiao.com/article/7597983434937598479/

Statement: This article represents the personal views of the author.