Posted on 01/29/2017 11:01:20 PM PST by 2ndDivisionVet
The Nimitz class has two A4W reactors. 550 MW each.
I used to work at Bechtel. Their resources are limitless.
They could build a moon base if they wanted to.
They built the freeway system for Kosovo.
They just built the world’s largest airport.
The cement sarcophagus on rails that entombs Chernobyl? They designed that.
My project was an $8 billion refinery on an island off Australia. Bechtel built two more similar refineries, right next door, concurrently.
I'm not sure if I'm reading this correctly, but reactor plants produce steam just like coal and oil plants. The Nimitz class has steam turbine propulsion like the non-nuclear Kennedy and Kitty Hawk classes. Just a different heat source.
Steam cats are “dialed in” with respect to AC weight. Same with the trap wires. AC weight is reported to the Cat officer before launch and Trap officer before landing.
Silly to have a nuclear powered CV. All the rest of the CVBG is conventional and has to refuel every 4 days. A reactor is an exotic way to make steam and the rector makes training and damage control exponentially expensive and dangerous. Leave the reactors to the bubble heads.
The main advantage of nuclear power on a carrier is space for aviation fuel. The nukes carry twice as much as a conventional carrier of the same size since they don’t have to haul fuel for their boilers.
I believe the Kennedy class carried 1.5 million gallons of jet fuel (and 2.5 million gallons of fuel for the boilers) whereas the Nimitz class holds 3.5 million gallons of jet fuel.
I’d stick to land warfare your naval knowledge strategy are lacking.
I’d rather have two USS Kennedy (CV-67) class than one CVN. We have plenty of modern fleet oilers than can carry fuel.
Nuclear = reactor heat creates steam to drive turbines, no?
I stand corrected.
CC
True. He did very nearly lose his life being washed overboard in Typhoon Cobra. And he did fight the fires on the USS Monterrey that were severe enough to make a passing ship that caught sight of her announce on the ship-to-ship communications that she was a likely loss.
Thanks for the pings, Chode.
To project power against Vietnam and the Philippines. All they need to do is control local oil fields and trade routes, not attack Seattle. :)
I was reading about ‘the Gun Line’ the Navy maintained during Vietnam to provide support for Army & Marine units ashore. One consideraton was that they DID NOT want to push a nuclear cruiser close to the shoreline where it might be disabled or hit a shoal. The risk of enemy boarding wad not one that anybody wanted to take.
The Navy has no ammo for the Zumwalts’ deck guns. They are entirely ornamental until they do.
“The Navy has no ammo for the Zumwalts’ deck guns. They are entirely ornamental until they do.”
Don’t those rounds run above $100,000 per round? Or was it only 10K per round? Crazy price regardless.
We are prisoners of our own devices, lulled by cool high tech that is out of date 10X by the time the fleet takes delivery.
Make numerous cheap low tech smaller WWII Jeep carriers, launch drones, limited flt ops, VLS, torps, maybe rail or laser offensive and defensive capabilities with updated EW suites.
Project power but always have a backup plan to fight.
Cut red tape in the acquisition process, build and deploy low-medium tech ships with lethality and survivability.
I think that carriers will still have an important role in this century.
However, the new “top hammer” will be weapons launched space-to-ground/sea/air.
Not only will the battle in space decide who communicates, recons, has GPS, etc., but the ability to strike at 7 km/sec or more anywhere at any time is overwhelming.
Space power will become much more important than air or sea power.
And treaties? They only restrain those not willing to break them or discard them when advantageous.
But the hours long refueling (done at slow speed) makes the CV even more vulnerable.
Our Carriers are refueled once every 8 years or so. Rather than every 8 days or so. The refueling time interferes with the carriers mission to be on site and ready at all times.
We also do not have the fleet oilers that we used to. (14 T-AO’s, 2 AOE’s, 1 T-AOT. There are some in the reserve (mothballed) fleet).
Plus all that space for fuel oil is now usable for other purposes (Jet fuel as the other Freeper pointed out)
From a strategic and economic sense, nuclear powered CVN are here to stay.
In case you didn’t know the CVN slows down during unrep operations. It doesn’t go blasting off by itself when the rest of the CVBG is unreping for fuel.
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