ping
Posted on 01/29/2017 11:01:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
In 2009, the U.S. Navy finally began construction of the first new type of aircraft carrier in nearly thirty-five years. Named after former president and naval aviator Gerald R. Ford, the USS Ford fully takes the nuclear supercarrier into the twenty-first century. The technological innovations built into the new ship, while causing the inevitable delays involved in building a first-in-class vessel, will keep the Navy’s unique fleet of super flattops the largest and most advanced in the world for the foreseeable future.
USS Ford follows in the steps of the highly successful Nimitz-class carriers. Construction began in 2009 at Huntington Ingalls Industries in Newport News, Virginia—the same location where the Ford’s predecessors were built. Indeed, the Ford class resembles the Nimitz ships in many ways: they measure 1,106 feet long versus the Nimitz’s 1,092 feet. Both classes weigh the same: approximately one hundred thousand tons fully loaded. Layout is similar, too, with an island on the starboard side, four catapults and an angled flight deck.
The ship is powered by two new-design AB1 nuclear reactors. The reactors are manufactured by Bechtel, which beat out longtime naval reactor giants General Electric and Westinghouse for the reactor contract. Together, the two reactors create six hundred megawatts of electricity, triple the two hundred megawatts of the Nimitz class. That’s enough electricity to power every home in Hampton, Virginia; Pasadena, California; or Syracuse, New York.
Ford is going to need that power, not only to reach its estimated top speed of thirty-plus knots but also the new Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), which uses electric currents to generate strong magnetic fields that can quickly accelerate an aircraft to takeoff speeds....
(Excerpt) Read more at nationalinterest.org ...
I was wondering how many posts it would take before somebody picked-up on that mistake. Gerald Ford, IIRC, was a damage control officer on an escort carrier in WW2. He was not a flier or air crew.
We will always need to project power at sea. Having said that the cruiser was traditionally the bringer of gunboat diplomacy. My suggestion would be to start with the design of the old Desmoines class of cruiser, replace one turret with missles
, make the power plant nuclear etc. Cheaper,faster too.
Provides for tactical redundancy (with degraded performance) and maintenance down time. You could use one big plant.
Also, those reactors can power lasers. That will be about the only cost effective means of clearing drone swarms.
The see BS Sunday morning show had a story about the Zumwalt. They bragged about guns on the front deck fire missile assisted rounds that could hit targets 60 miles away! Woo hoo woopy that’s not much further than the big boats of WWII ( I think). But even that is a poor trade for an air launched rocket.
What else is new?
And as you must be aware, during the Reagan administration, his tax cuts actually increased government revenues, due to the increase in economic activity. That ultimately helped to reduce deficits.
In the face of that crisis President Trump is taking a huge gamble.
No, the true gamble would be to do nothing—to fail to act aggressively.
As for infrastructure spending, do you deny that it is critically needed? The fact that such things have been put off for so long is certainly not the President's fault.
At least President Trump's infrastructure spending will be Constitutional in nature.
Unfortunately, he shows no disposition to address entitlements
Yes, it has been over a week since he took office. And no action on entitlements yet? What a slowpoke!
Where do you get this notion that entitlements won't be addressed at some point? Do you think President Trump will skip that step?
In any event, if not entitlements, the President certainly intends to reduce the welfare state by getting America back to work, and those programs represent a yuge percentage of government expenditures.
Yes, Captain Obvious, the President has inherited a very difficult job. He and his supporters knew that going in.
I can't think of a single person in this country who is better suited to the tasks at hand. President Trump is the right man at the right time.
Will President Trump make mistakes? Of course he will. And, fortunately, you'll be right here to perform the invaluable service of reminding us of every single one of them.
You clearly have an endless list of concerns. Thanks so much for sharing them, but I strongly suspect that they have been adequately anticipated, and will be addressed in as intelligent a manner as possible.
Maybe it's time for you to start seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty...
Airdales and nukes only bubbleheads captured USN design and leadership positions long ago eliminating diesel boats and fire power opposition opting for a more defensive posture just as the Democratic Party has been misdirected into Socialism.
Not true the Iowa class battleships could only reach out to a little over twenty miles.That was with their 16 inch guns.
ping
I wasn’t sure of the exact distance, but glad someone corrected it.
The main point of the report on the Zuwalt is that it is an over-engineered money pit that offers a huge target.
The Zumwalt reminds me of the USS Excelsior in Star Trek III: The Search for Spock.
Another feature of this catapult is that it can be dialed down or up depending on the aircraft being launched, a steam catapult would rip a drone apart, different weights of aircraft and different rates of acceleration will be able to be done with this type of catapult, if it works as planned :)
I would be in favor of costal diesel submarines with AIP, they are quieter than nukes, can stay down for long periods, have demonstrated that they can sneak up on surface fleets and are much cheaper than nuke attack subs, leave the nukes for the blue water and make a fleet of these for costal defense
It is new that the debt doubled in eight years and there is simply nothing on the horizon on the spending side to indicate that it will not double again to $30 trillion by 2024. At least we are in agreement that we are on the verge of a crisis.
As you are no doubt aware spending did not decrease but substantially increased in the Reagan years which increased the national debt. The problem is not that the tax cut (and the reduction of regulations and the repatriation of substantial sums-which I neglected to mention in my original post on the subject but which should further increase economic activity) as proposed by President Trump will fail to stimulate the economy, the problem is there will be a lag time and spending might more than exceed GDP growth if not controlled thus rendering the debt worse, the crisis greater, the time shorter.
Control requires control of entitlements.
Where do you get this notion that entitlements won't be addressed at some point? Do you think President Trump will skip that step?
Because he has emphatically stated that he will not touch Social Security, Medicare, or any of the benefits of Obama Care. Because he has said that he would establish a new entitlement. So, yes, I think President Trump will skip cutting entitlements for political reasons and there is very little to be expected in terms of meaningful cuts of the budget.
As for infrastructure spending, do you deny that it is critically needed?
Having had the advantage of a review by Mark Levin on his television program I can say, yes, that much of the infrastructure spending program is clearly not needed. You have any idea how many billions are to be squandered on rail systems in Texas, California and the Northeast? Do you have any idea how many billions are being squandered on rivers?
With all humility I ingenuously suggest you sign up for the free week of Mark Levin and review his analysis of the infrastructure spending program which will reveal, unfortunately, many, many programs that are certainly not "needed."
Maybe it's time for you to start seeing the glass as half full instead of half empty...
With our current fiscal mess, our very real security threats, the glass is not half full but three quarters empty at least. This is a political forum for the exchange of ideas it is is not, at least now that the election is over, a forum only for cheerleading on behalf of Donald Trump. I have supported him where I think he is right and I point out where I think he is wrong. You will note that I support him with respect to his overall plan but that there are particulars, especially failure to address entitlements, about which I am cautious.
All of this about the debt situation is by way of setting the predicate, the predicate being that our military can be only as strong as our economy. We do not have money to make mistakes in arming up and I suspect that President Trump will have an even bigger battle fighting the mandarins in Congress about the proper allocation of funds for national defense rather than for pork as he has had properly allocating infrastructure spending.
My criticisms are by way of hoping that he succeeds, not hoping him to fail and I think it is inappropriate of you to assign malevolent motives every time you disagree with me on policy.
We have got to get our economic house in order in order to have an effective military. To get our economic house in order we have to get spending in order no less than the need to get GDP growing. To get our military in order we have to establish priorities and we have to make hard choices. Eleven Ford class super carriers must be evaluated in the light of new technologies, the nature of the Chinese threat, and the size of our purse.
Linear motors predate the Disney project by decades. I used them in semiconductor equipment in the 70’s.
Each component of the armed forces are in their own ways easy targets, but taken together, given the combinations of targets the enemy has to take into account makes this something dangerous. We have been working on Space Planes that will one day orbit in 8-12 hour shifts with a look down, shoot down, communications array that can even look below the surface of the earth’s crust; these craft can function as fighter bombers, or communications drones, manned and unmanned. Quite dangerous in their own right.
It is an appalling article.
Not discussed are their vulnerability to EMP...
wow
Mad_as_he$$ is correct. The Navy started the work on the electric catapult way back before 1982 and it was kicked around for quite a bit longer before then. Near as I can tell the first roller coaster using this technology was in 1996 (http://coasterpedia.net/wiki/Launched_roller_coaster)
A point that I don’t think was mentioned in the steam vs electric catapult discussion is that a steam catapult MUST be kept warm at all times. This requires a constant expenditure of energy to keep it at operating temperature (not to mention the energy required to keep steam pressure available).
An electric catapult is more like a light bulb. When not turned on it uses no energy.
This is why the sortie rate can be increased. There is essentially no recharge time between shots (depending on your electric power available of course and Ford has the power) and the net energy usage is less per shot.
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