Capital ship.
These big battlecruisers are the biggest surface combatants in the world's navies, now that battleships are obsolete. The US only has about 20 ships of this class, and is phasing them out, replacing them with destroyers (smaller, more numerous, cheaper and expendable). It has about 80 of those. The current naval doctrine is that cruisers are too expensive to build and operate, and yes, too vulnerable to missile attack.
Yes, this is a major coup.