CVN-77 nearing completion
Posted on 10/03/2006 8:06:52 AM PDT by Jeff Head
CVN-77 to be Christened on October 7th, 2006
From the Northrop Grumman site.
On Saturday, October 7, 2006, Northrop Grumman Newport News will christen the nation’s 10th and final Nimitz-class aircraft carrier, George H. W. Bush (CVN 77). The ship’s namesake and 41st President of the United States, George H. W. Bush, is scheduled to attend the ceremony along with his wife Barbara and their daughter, Doro Bush Koch, Mrs. Koch also serves as the ship’s sponsor and will do the traditional honor of breaking a bottle of American sparkling wine across the ship’s bow during the ceremony. Employees of Northrop Grumman Newport News and their families are invited. The general public is also invited to the ceremony. Visit the links below for additional information.Here are some of the latest construction pictures...a beautiful site to behold:
CVN-77 nearing completion
CVN-77 props added
CVN-77 Island lift
CVN-77 ready for christening
CVN-77 another view of CVN-77 ready for christening
What's the number on the Island? 76 is the Reagan.
As soon as someone lays the bent keel.
But do they have enough reloads. Cannon ammunition, even DU, is much cheaper than guided missiles.
Each launcher has 21 missiles. They are stinger missiles with sidewinder seaker heads. A carrier carries two launchers...and I believe they can be reloaded right on board.
Oops, not that late, meant to say later. The Battle of Santa Cruz Island took place 26 October 1942.
That graphic should make a heck of iron-on transfer for a T-shirt...
(forget that copyright stuff!)
So without reloading, they can fire 42 times. Maybe take out 20-25 missiles tops, probably more like 15-20. Now that's a lot of missiles but not that many in some scenarios. Wonder how long a reload takes, especially under fire, and how many reloads they carry? Still you'd have the same problem of reloading with the Phalanx, cause that drum of ammo isn't going to last all that long if there are lots of incoming.
Although I'm a little confused. What's wrong with the Stinger seeker? Sidewinder is an older design, but both have been updated multiple times.
Great article. I read about the U.S. Kennedys' problems and how they would be addressed. American sparkling wine though? Can't call it champagne unless it comes from Champagne I guess. Kind of like generic velcro is hook-and-loop or a band-aid is an adhesive strip.
I don't know -- I am lucky to find the airport. But it is the only carrier I can see from the road (next to the Maritime Museum).
The Reagan 76 and the Nimitz 68 are docked at North Island Naval Air Station in San Diego Harbor.
You are correct.
In addition, do not forget that each carrier also carries two 8 cell Sea Sparrow missile launchers and three Phalynx CIWS.
And all of that, including the RAMS are just last ditch point defenses for leaker missiles that get through th much more substantial protecting provided by three AEGIS vessels (usually one cruise and two destroyers) each carrying over 100 missiles themselves to engage enemy missiles and aircraft with.
Excellent examples. Like you said, let's cut the crap of naming ships for living people.
You are correct.
Bush 41 issued orders to mothball all the BB's and start retiring other ships. He also ordered the heavy corps stationed in Germany demobilized.
Poppy was rudely interrupted in his "peace dividend" tax-cutting/demobilization orgy by Saddam Hussein, who demonstrated precisely why Bush and his successors would need the ships and formations he was demobilizing, but, showing where Dubya got his stubborn streak, Poppy learned nothing from the object lesson, and went right back to mothballing and demobbing as soon as Desert Storm was over.
In addition, during his incumbency, SecDef Dick Cheney ordered the jigs and dies for the F-14 Tomcat cut up, to "prove something" to Grumman during a contract tiff.
In addition, one of the gung-ho soldiers whom Poppy and Big Dick demobbed -- who'd be a sergeant-major or a warrant officer today if he'd stayed in and hadn't been RIF'ed -- was Timothy McVeigh.
It'll be ironic if a Chinese Su-30 gets to the USS Poppy Bush precisely because the Bush won't have the new Tomcats aboard that Poppy and Dick cancelled, along with their AIM-54B/C Phoenix LRAAM's.
That all said, let me note that I hate this business of naming our capital ships after politicians -- especially politicians who haven't shown us the courtesy of dying first.
Names like Princeton and Yorktown and Essex were good enough for the aircraft carriers that brought us victory in World War II. The old tradition ought to continue. If you want to name a ship after a Navy secretary or an admiral, make it a tin can or, better, a DE, and name the destroyers with the traditional names that were used during the Big Show, especially the names of the Pearl Harbor squadrons -- like Dale, Blue, Cassin, Downes, and Helm -- and the destroyers that fought in Ironbottom Sound, Leyte Gulf, and the Coral Sea.
I saw the USS Farenholt being towed out in 1971 to be expended as a target for NAVAIRLANT, which was holding trials for the air-launched Harpoon. She looked beaten-up, but her name was familiar and I wondered why......I was reading Japanese Destroyer Captain at the time, and pretty soon I found a reference to the Farenholt. That little ship had taken a beating from the IJNS Kirishima, a 30,000-ton battlecruiser, in one of the night battles off Guadalcanal, and had survived somehow to bring most of her crew home. Where's her successor and namesake in the Fleet?
I'm sick of naming ships after politicians and admirals who died in their beds. Or, in this case, who haven't even died.
I am still waiting for the USS Patton.
Why was that, do you think? I thought that test was carried out fairly recently, under Bush's incumbency, so there shouldn't have been the ideological prejudice you'd have expected from the Clinton Navy Department appointees.
Seawolf was used effectively against aircraft and Exocets during the Falklands War and during Desert Storm successfully intercepted a Chinese-made Silkworm (Styx) that had been launched against a BB.
In view of its track record, I've often thought our big ships ought to carry it, but the Nav has relied on Sea Sparrow and Phalanx instead.
Better still, supplement the Avenger HUMMVW-based SAM with a Sidewinder-based system. Longer range, I think, than Stinger.
It was carried out in May 2005. She lies 15,000 plus feet below the Atlantic Ocean. There was a serious organized effort to try and get her put on Museum Hold for preservation. The Pentagon and the Navy was not at all interested or even very open for that matter in information about preserving her. The kept going on about hull condition but never despite many request provided specifics on the matter. Kinda odd when Forestall Class Carriers {Older than KITTY HAWK Carriers} are sitting mothballed. First it was get her scrapped ASAP and I do mean as quick as possible ahead of all other carriers then when they saw it was not cost effective {actually no company would do it due to EPA rules} they used her for the test.
Look at her age. The second newest conventional carrier senior only to John F Kennedy. Her class name sake KITTY HAWK out lasted her and will even out last JFK as well. AMERICA was even younger then the ENTERPRISE. Her hull was intact. There was no cheap steel in the hull it was made on a KITTY HAWK plan and intended from the very first day to be so by IKE. One age old rumor is McNamara ordered her changed from a nuke to conventional. That was impossible to do. Her keel was laid a month before JFK even took office and was launched before LBJ took office or shortly after. It's easier to scrap a program and start over than to change a carrier once the keel is laid. It would have added years to production.
There were three carriers which hulls suffered much more abuse than AMERICA's. ENTERPRISE, FORRESTAL, and Oriskany had much greater hull damage histories. The Oraskany was recently sunk as a reef. Those three ships saw the worst carrier fires in modern Naval history.
I think the name AMERICA was not PC anymore and Congress wanted the name gone not just the name but any reminder as well. It signifies our nation rather than a multinational Navy and military which is where we are being taken. We likely stand a better chance of seeing the USS United Nations in todays political climate.
Senator John Warner also ignored letters and petitions sent to congress and literally INSISTED this CVN-78 class be named after Gerald Ford. This task by tradition is done by Sec of Navy. Sec of Navy also got the same letters and petitions. But Warner slept through some of the worse military budget cuts in history he being the RINO he is. I'll stop at that.
To put things in perspective. Gerald Ford was a Naval officer. So was Carter. Carter was vetted by Hiram Rickover. Despite Carter's political views that is an achievement in itself. He got a sub named for him. Reagan I can see as this man changed the map and did significant improvements to our military. A ship for Ford? Fine a Frigate, sub, or Cruiser, for a POTUS who was not elected to that office would have been fitting.
If I get into office, I'm going to rename those ships wholesale. Goodbye USS Texas, hello USS Bergall. Adios, USS Dallas, hello USS Pomfret. Double-ditto the CVN's. And you'll see the Constellation, JFK, and Kitty Hawk come back from the boneyard faster than you can say "but my peace dividend!....."
There was a USS Franklin D. Roosevelt. It was CV-42, and was originally to be called the Coral Sea, but FDR dies shortly before the christening, and the Navy changed the name.
There's a USS Roosevelt now, named after FDR. It's an Arleigh Burke class destroyer, DDG-80, homeported in Mayport.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.