At the moment, there is one shipyard that can do the work, and it takes approximately nine years to lay down, build, fit out, trial and commission one.
I agree with those who say these floating bombs are obsolete (in a warfighting sense), and that the upcoming Chinese Pearl Harbor will simultaneously attack and sink 5 or 6 of them.
Maybe we could equip subs with paper airplane launchers instead.
There are three US shipyards that can repair CVNs with significant battle damage: Newport News, Norfolk Naval and Puget Sound. Avondale (which builds the big amphib carriers) might be, along with Yokosuka.
The “best” hypotheticals about losing a CVN during combat operations at sea usually assume that we’ll use them in ways that we won’t. For example, it’s not like the Navy is going to stage a Custer-like charge of carriers into the Taiwan Strait on the first day of a war with the ChiComs.
Instead the CVNs will be held pretty far back to provide air cover for the assets (like Ohio Class SSGNs, or B-52s with long range standoff weapons) that will be used to attrit the ChiComs down to the point where the carriers CAN move in with limited risk of being damaged or sunk.
The further away a CVN can operate from mainland China durning the first phase of a war, the more survivable it will be. It’ll be harder to find, it will be harder to hit with long-range cruise missiles (let alone ballistic ones). Even with satelites. There will be a layered defense between it and any threat, including Aegis ballistic missile defense ships. So the CVNs will operate pretty far to the East, and in a supporting role.
This country is over. It was never as clear to me as last night.
I was at my daughters high school graduation. Mind you I live in one of the top 10 "wealthiest" zip codes in this metro area. My daughters high school is not only one of the top performing in the state, it's one of the top performing in the country. It's also heavily Mormon. My daughter is also in the top 5% of the class. So every function I go to revolves around the top 5%, NHS, etc. That is what I see. Again, heavily Mormon because their children excel.
Well, last night was the "general population" graduation.
Holy crap.
It was a sea of third worldism. And you could cut the tension with a knife. Everyone was sectioned off with their own "kind" (with a few exceptions like the multigenerational Mexican-American families--who have incidentally lived here for generations without strife). That was what was so concerning--the complete balkanization of the people in the crowd.
I can't even imagine what the other schools look like in less desirable areas.