This article by Corey Dickstein originally appeared on Stripes.com. Stars and Stripes serves the U.S. military community by providing editorially independent news and information around the world.

The Navy plans to bring back its heavily-armed class of warship known as battleships, and it will arm them with the most modern weaponry, including nuclear missiles, President Donald Trump announced Monday.

The president promised the new class of ship would be “100 times more powerful” than the Iowa-class battleships that fought during World War II and were last used by the Navy in the 1990s. Trump promised the new ships would be outfitted with an array of technology still under development, including hypersonic weapons, electric rail guns and high-powered lasers. And they will be capable of firing nuclear-armed cruise missiles, he said.

“Battleships are the largest, sturdiest and most heavily armed vessel built specifically for naval combat,” Trump said Monday from his Mar-a-Lago resort in Florida. “Each one of these will be the largest battleship in the history of our country, the largest battleship in the history of the world ever built.”

Trump said he would be involved in planning and designing the ships and announced he would meet with top weapons builders next week at Mar-a-Lago to encourage them to build new facilities and produce weapons — including ships — more expeditiously.

The Navy intends to initially build two Trump-class battleships and name the first the USS Defiant, Navy Secretary John Phelan said. Naming the ships for Trump comes after the Air Force’s decision earlier this year to label its next-generation fighter jet the F-47, shunning normal naming conventions to give its forthcoming sixth-generation fighter a nod to the 47th president.

Phelan said he hoped to see the new ships commissioned in about 2½ years.

An illustration of the USS Defiant, the first scheduled Trump-class battleship. (Navy image)

Ultimately, the Navy plans to build 20 to 25 Trump-class battleships, the president said. It was not clear Monday how much the new class would cost.

Trump has long called for the Navy to bring back the battleship and criticized some modern Navy ship designs. He said the new ships would anchor his “Golden Fleet,” which he has said would include more and larger ships, uncrewed ships and a new class of aircraft carrier bigger than the 100,000-ton USS Gerald Ford, which is the largest military vessel ever built.

Unlike the term warship, which refers generally to any class of Navy vessel, battleship has historically described a particular design — a large, up-armored vessel with some of the largest cannons available to the Navy, according to the sea service.

[FROM NAVY.MIL: The Golden Fleet]

The Navy commissioned its first three battleships in 1895 and ultimately built 59 battleships, the service said. Its last active battleship, the USS Missouri, was decommissioned in 1992.

The Missouri — a 58,000-ton Iowa-class battleship — was one of four Navy battleships active in the 1990s. It was the Navy’s final battleship built before it was commissioned in 1944 and sent to the Western Pacific to support combat operations during World War II and again during the Korean War. It was decommissioned in 1955 and made a tourist attraction in Bremerton, Wash., before it was recommissioned in 1986. The Missouri supported combat operations during Operation Desert Storm in 1991 before its final decommissioning. America’s last battleship was then sent to Pearl Harbor, Hawaii, where it has served as a memorial since 1998. A newer U.S. Navy vessel — a Virginia-class nuclear-powered attack submarine — now carries the name USS Missouri.

The new Trump-class battleship is expected to weigh between 30,000 and 40,000 tons and be made of steel, the president said.

Phelan said Trump has pushed him to develop a new battleship design since before he agreed to take the Navy secretary job. He said that combatant commanders and the Navy’s top brass agreed it was “something that Navy desperately needs.”

“The future Trump-class battleship, the USS Defiant, will be the largest, deadliest and most versatile and best-looking warship anywhere on the world’s oceans,” Phelan said. “The Iowa [class battleship] was designed to go on the attack with the biggest guns, and that’s exactly what will define the Trump-class battleships — offensive firepower from the biggest guns of our era.

“This ship isn’t just going to swat the arrows. It is going to reach out and kill the archers.”