Newport News Shipbuilding Chosen As Final Assembly Yard For Trump-Class Battleship

Parts of the first Trump-class battleship will be built at different manufacturing yards to ramp up the construction process of the three-football-field-long warship.

HII’s Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia has been chosen for the final assembly of the battleship components.

This is the same drydock where the Ford-class aircraft carriers, the current largest in the world, were assembled.

To be precise, Newport News Shipbuilding Dry Dock 12, which is almost half a mile long, was selected for the assembly process.

Though HII has not elaborated on how it would use the dock for this work, it highlighted streamlining operations to build a robust network of yards for completing the project on schedule.

In a statement given by a senior HII official, the yard said that they are evaluating their capacity and the productivity of their distributed shipbuilding network.

“In addition, we continue to invest in our Newport News facilities and in integrating advanced technologies in our shipbuilding processes. We have seen NNS shipbuilding throughput increase by 15% in 2025 and expect to see a similar increase in 2026,” the statement read.

HII Newport News and General Dynamics Electric Boat have built sections of Virginia and Columbia-class submarines in the past and have collaborated with the Navy for several key projects.

Recently, HII Ingalls Shipbuilding also contracted other shipyards to build modules for Arleigh Burke guided-missile destroyers.

The Navy has also confirmed that the $17.5 billion battleship will be powered by the same A1B reactor as the Ford-class carriers.

This will provide a heightened combat power by offering longer insurance, higher speeds and advanced weapons systems needed in a modern warship, mentioned the shipbuilding plan released this month.