This will be a great way to project our power around the world!

Also a great big shot in the arm to the Tidewater area of VA..

https://gcaptain.com/u-s-navy-...s-aircraft-carriers/

Related (sort of): The designer/owner of "GCaptain" co-authored a really interesting book (so far...I'm about halfway through)on the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Don’t we already have a few ships named the Enterprise? Or are they all decommissioned?

Also I saw an ad job TV recently for enlisting in the Navy with all the hot jobs like flying and subs etc, but at the end saying there are up to $40k enlistment bonuses available. And if they are paying people that much to sign up for 4 or 6 years then spending a mint to train them what are the RE-enlisting bonuses like ? Man. If I was a kid today about to graduate hi school and not necessarily college material, I’d take a hard look at this option.

That's great news!

I spent quite a bit of time in Newport News Shipyard in the mid 90's. Quality workers. The area is a bit dicey until you get a little bit away.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
Don’t we already have a few ships named the Enterprise? Or are they all decommissioned?

Yes, they have all been decommissioned - the last one in about 2012

So the Ford cost $13B, and two more are "only" going to cost another $15B? How does that pencil out? Economies of scale wouldn't seem to apply with a unit count of three.

quote:

Originally posted by ElToro:
Don’t we already have a few ships named the Enterprise? Or are they all decommissioned?

Also I saw an ad job TV recently for enlisting in the Navy with all the hot jobs like flying and subs etc, but at the end saying there are up to $40k enlistment bonuses available. And if they are paying people that much to sign up for 4 or 6 years then spending a mint to train them what are the RE-enlisting bonuses like ? Man. If I was a kid today about to graduate hi school and not necessarily college material, I’d take a hard look at this option.

CVN-65 was retired in Feb'17.

Right now the Navy has A LOT of problems.
- Questionable acquisition and design process: F-35, LPD-17, Zumwalt-class, Ford-class, LCS, cruiser replacement, etc... The only project that has been uneventful is the Virginia-class submarines
- The Ford-class is a mess, from questionable radar, non-functioning weapons elevators, EMALS catapults that only work in calm sea states, and when they go-down, all of them are off-line...
- Zumwalt-class a truncated mess with no mission or, weapons.
- Surface fleet is overwhelmingly run by careerists who prioritize beurocratic compliance and box-checking over core competencies, see the accidents of the following: USS McCain, USS Fitzgerald, USS Benfold, USS Champlain, USS Antietam along with countless near-accidents.
- Combatant Commaders accepting more missions thus pushing the OPTEMPO in their AOR beyond the capabilities of the units and their equipment. Nobody is saying enough, hold-on a fucking minute.
- Poor upkeep and modernization of it's 4 shipyards, at least 3-submarines are welded to their piers because their dive certifications have run-out due to maintenance backlogs.
- Fat Leonard scandal
- NAVAIR replacing the C-2 COD with a less capable V-22
This is off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more...

quote:

Originally posted by TheGreatGonzo:
Related (sort of): The designer/owner of "GCaptain" co-authored a really interesting book (so far...I'm about halfway through)on the Deepwater Horizon explosion.

Link? Name of author or book?

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
So the Ford cost $13B, and two more are "only" going to cost another $15B? How does that pencil out? Economies of scale wouldn't seem to apply with a unit count of three.

BOGO?

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
So the Ford cost $13B, and two more are "only" going to cost another $15B? How does that pencil out? Economies of scale wouldn't seem to apply with a unit count of three.

Maybe Ford's cost abdorbed all the R&D costs?

I'm no expert, but there are a LOT of new technologies in the new class. They cost a lot to develop.

Has anyone taken a tour of a Ford class since they've gone into service? Or any carrier for that matter? I would love to take a tour at Fleet Week. Last time I was on a carrier, it was the Enterprise back in the early '90s.

Honestly, these things will be sunk in a second if WW3 kicks off. They are useless for fighting first world countries.

At 8 billion dollars a piece, that sort of loss would be unsustainable.

Corsair,
You know a hell of alot about our Navy. I am impressed and just learned a great deal from you.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
This is off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more...

That the Navy still hasn't replaced the capabilities they lost when the F-14 was retired early.

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
So the Ford cost $13B, and two more are "only" going to cost another $15B? How does that pencil out? Economies of scale wouldn't seem to apply with a unit count of three.

Maybe Ford's cost abdorbed all the R&D costs?

I'm no expert, but there are a LOT of new technologies in the new class. They cost a lot to develop.

Yep, the first ship in a series is the prototype. For something of this scale you don't just "Buy one off the shelf". All design has to be paid for. Integration testing and sea trials to ring out bugs cost a lot of money. Theoretically anything that doesn't work gets redesigned/replaced.

Once you have a working design the following ships are mostly build to print, which is much less expensive.


Think about it, the price to develop a new car is around 1 billion dollars, I think we can all agree a CVN is a much more complicated vehicle.

quote:

Originally posted by Expert308:
So the Ford cost $13B, and two more are "only" going to cost another $15B? How does that pencil out? Economies of scale wouldn't seem to apply with a unit count of three.

From my understanding the first one built is always the most expensive one and each one built after that is much less expensive up to a certain point. God Bless

quote:

Originally posted by Hound Dog:
Maybe Ford's cost abdorbed all the R&D costs?

I'm no expert, but there are a LOT of new technologies in the new class. They cost a lot to develop.

Having been conceived in the 'age of transformationalism' the Ford has waay too many immature technologies ergo, it's been in commission for 2-years and has yet to enter operational service...LCS is in the same arena.
At $15b, it's twice the cost of the last carrier built before it, and the following carrier CVN-79 USS John F. Kennedy is already $2b more than the Ford.
The dual-band radar will only be installed on the Ford, the next two carriers will instead have the same abbreviated radar that the Zumwalt's and newer LHA's have. Maintaining one-off technologies will end-up costing the Navy more in the long-term.
The electric magnetic catapults while common on modern-roller coasters, are having problems operating in non-calm waters, the Navy choose a company that had no prior experience in developing such technologies for warships. Similar issues with the weapons elevators, which only three of them are working

quote:

Originally posted by bubbatime:
Honestly, these things will be sunk in a second if WW3 kicks off. They are useless for fighting first world countries.

At 8 billion dollars a piece, that sort of loss would be unsustainable.

Only a submariner would think such. While the economics and the current air wing short-comings make such boasts cautionary, you get three carriers on-station doing 24-hr combat ops, that enemy is going into defense mode immediately and their only hope is either to out-last the weapons magazines of the carriers or, move their targets beyond the range of that carrier's aircraft.

quote:

Originally posted by 2000Z-71:

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
This is off the top of my head, I'm sure there's more...

That the Navy still hasn't replaced the capabilities they lost when the F-14 was retired early.

Sortof, the big loss is the A-6 and it's capabilities. When USN ceded medium bombing tasking to the USAF and the A-6 got pushed out the door, in favor of strike, that's when the Navy lost it's hammer.

Please, never name one after Obama. The alternative to carriers is building a much larger number of smaller, nimbler vessels, including submarines and surface ships. Submarines don’t require escorts and can hit distant targets on land. carriers have not been tested in battle against an enemy able to fight back since World War II – more than 70 years ago. The Chinese in particular, have established sea zones bristling with anti-ship weapons meant to make it impossible for enemy flotillas to enter. There is also a serious flaw in the current configuration of U.S. carriers: their complement of strike aircraft. Almost all are short-range jets, the F-18 Hornet, whose range could render the planes useless in some conflicts. In order to be relatively safe, a carrier would have to stand off by 1,300 nautical miles, or 2,300 kilometers – out of range of the Dong Feng missiles. And the F-18s have a range of only 400 nautical miles (equal to 460 statute miles or 740 kilometers) to a target with enough fuel to return. If in fact the carriers have to stand off, the Hornets would have to be refueled in midair an impractical number of times while flying to and from their targets. It thus would be all but impossible for carriers to send air power into the zones the Chinese currently have established.. The ship the Navy needs is the arsenal ship. A concept for a floating missile platform intended to have as many as five hundred vertical launch bays for mid-sized missiles, most likely cruise missiles. In current U.S. naval thinking, such a ship would initially be controlled remotely by an Aegis Cruiser, although plans include control by AWACS aircraft such as the E-2 Hawkeye and E-3 Sentry.

Ford is a big ship. Im also glad to see tha the third ship will be Enterprise. We should always have an Enterprise.

Like a BOGO deal on carriers.

quote:

Originally posted by corsair:
Sortof, the big loss is the A-6 and it's capabilities. When USN ceded medium bombing tasking to the USAF and the A-6 got pushed out the door, in favor of strike, that's when the Navy lost it's hammer.

Yeah, A6s days were and are over. Every F18 and JSF on the flight deck can rain more effects than the A6 ever could.

Sure the A6 could carry more 'bombs', but they couldn't hit shit with them, compared to the precision of a JDAM / JSOW / Laser guided weapons.

Back in the day the Intruder would drop a string of bombs on a fixed target (and likely miss), now we can hit today with nearly 100% certainty with 1-2 bombs from high altitude and minimal exposure.

Tomcat was great as a stopgap strike aircraft, but I could have rained so much more destruction in OEF 2001-5 if I had been in a FA-18F compared to a Turkey.