[Wonder Warthog]

I was chatting with our new shop supervisor t'other day.

He is relatively recently retired from the Navy, and worked in the Bremerton, WA, navy yards (which decommissions nuke ships....why....close proximity to Hanford, where the old reactor carcases are "permanently" buried after removal of fissionables).

He told me that ships of the Enterprise class had EIGHT separate nuclear reactors aboard. Modern nuclear flat-tops only have two. I can't help but wonder if someday the loss of the extra redundancy may cause problems in combat.

[castlegreyskull]

“He told me that ships of the Enterprise class had EIGHT separate nuclear reactors aboard. Modern nuclear flat-tops only have two. I can’t help but wonder if someday the loss of the extra redundancy may cause problems in combat.”

I was assigned to the U.S.S. ENTERPRISE as a nuclear trained machinest mate. It is true, there are 8 nuclear reactors aboard. There are divided into 4 seperate reactor compartments. The ENTERPRISE was the fastest ship in the fleet at one. It was once used to prove Rickover’s case to Congress about the need for a faster class of submarines.

However, the NIMITZ Class, and eventually the FORD class have just two. If you think about though, the NIMITZ has been around since 1975. Its two reactor redundancy has been proven for 37 years. Also, all of our submarines have just one nuclear reactor. The only back up that they have is returning to snorkel depth and running the diesel.

[A.A. Cunningham]

ships

Ship. The Enterprise is the only boat in the class.

[Nowhere Man]

He told me that ships of the Enterprise class had EIGHT separate nuclear reactors aboard. Modern nuclear flat-tops only have two. I can't help but wonder if someday the loss of the extra redundancy may cause problems in combat.

I wonder that too. IIRC, the Enterprise's reactors are smaller, so you need 8 of them, they were designed for atomic subs. Still, I wonder if they have a backup system where they can run a diesel or diesel/electric engine like atomic subs do. I hope some former Navy mariner chimes in on that one. I've talked to a few people who served on subs and they said they have a backup diesel/electric system to limp home or wherever if need be.