Posted on 03/10/2016 2:45:54 PM PST by zeestephen
A $13 billion U.S. aircraft carrier is about to hit the open seas. It’s the USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), the most expensive and most advanced warship ever built. The ship was christened in November 2013 and is scheduled to be commissioned this month.
(Excerpt) Read more at msn.com ...
Unfortunately, it is reasonable to assume there is already and amply supply of weaponized satellites in orbit. So whether you use GPS, GLONASS, Galileo or BDS, the odds are not insignificant that ‘the other guy’ has a plan to make you irrelevant.
The enemy gets a vote, especially when the enemy has been stealing our technology for decades.
Garbage scow?
No, that’s too good for him. A Sewer scow is even too good.
Do hypersonic missiles have an explosive charge, or is it just a kinetic energy weapon?
Along the same line of thinking, land or sea based “rail guns” could potentially drop a shower of hypersonic projectiles onto an aircraft carrier from more than 100 miles away.
So? The democrats will just let the enemy fly in and give you Ebola.
when you go back from a CVN to a CV you lose a lot space due to fuel oil bunkarage. More Fleet oilers will be needed and more replenishment at Sea will be required as well. There are many good reasons that the United States and France both built nuclear-powered carriers. Conventional carriers are less expensive but also less capable.
Since both the zircon missile and a laser based area defense are still mostly hypothetical. The question is of course also hypothetical. But a good one, I would not count on fratricide by missiles exploding as a primary means of Defense. Launching anything that fast in a packet is asking for problems at the speeds we are speaking about the missile is going to have a straight line flight envelope. If it is a sea skimmer it becomes even less able to make any significant Maneuvers at velocity. Yes high speed sea skimmer is dangerous but it has advantages and disadvantages. The hoopla over hypersonic sea skimmer remind me a lot of the super high-speed cavitating torpedo it was supposed to be the next great carrier killer the fact that the United States had built them back in the sixties tested them and found them very lacking was seldom mentioned in the hyperventilated discussions of the idea.
Rail guns suffer the same problem as the other ballistic systems against moving targets as you must predict where the target will be when the round arrives. This can be mitigated by using a terminally guided round but this produces other problems what method will you guide the round with? A laser-based system is almost out of the question as you must have a platform to designate the target ,a GPS guidance only allows you more Precision but no more accuracy as the Target still must be predicted. Terminal Active Radar would be a good choice but once again you end up with the problem of electronic warfare and jamming. There is no perfect solution it is all a matter of compromises the modern carrier battle group has the most options and future options to deal with whatever is produced to attack them.
Since you’re a Navy Vet, you certainly must know the old saw “Loose Lips Sink Ships”.
Is it really necessary to point out in a public forum what a real ex-Navy AC gunner thinks about how possibly ineffective our anti-missile capabilities are? Shouldn’t you keep those kind of things to yourself and your former shipmates?
While I’m sure our enemies must already know many of the weaknesses of our shipboard anti-missile defense systems, there’s no need to send those enemies even one more ounce of info to help their cause.
I’m not a vet and I do thank you for your service, but I don’t think it’s right.
Correct, All Carriers since 1961 have been built at Newport News Shipbuilding in Newport News Virginia. USS Constellation was the last carrier not built by NNSB, she was built at the New York Naval Ship Yard and commissioned in 1961
An aircraft carrier is good for beating up a third world nation.
Correct. If you can blow up the image, you can see it’s definitely one of the new flying wing drones... (Like the ones that were mentioned above — as being de-funded in 2017...)
Thanks. I guess if I thought about it, it’s already been thought about.
What you think is irrelevant.
I wasn’t defending it, I was providing more information.
I absolutely agree about the naming of these ships after politicians. It’s disgusting.
At operational load and draft Enterprise might have got up to 32 knots.
It was explained to my by a carrier sailor that CVNs carry fuel to resupply escort ships. So that extra space you are talking is full of fuel anyway. LOL.
My navy days were not in aviation, so I can’t speak with any real certainty, but at the time, I had heard fifty knots.
Bottom line: nuclear carriers are an irresponsible waste of money when conventional carriers (CV) can preform the EXACT same mission just as well as a CVN. It is also reckless and dangerous form a damage control perspective with no gain at all in mission performance. All in all CVNs are major monuments to vanity and stupidity. Bring back the CV. You can build 2 for 1.
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