The super ship fit for a superpower: America's $13bn aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford

The London Daily Mail ^ | September 30, 2013 | Staff

[Carriage Hill]

It’ll buff right out.

[Maine Mariner]

Great Movie!

[chiefqc]

By the time mac daddy slitters out of office he will be very close to that figure with his spendings for parties, golf an d vacations at the tax p[ayers expense and the tax payers will have nothing to show.

[hinckley buzzard]

How did the Navy ever get along without the acumen of all FR's strategic geniuses. Why, I bet Naval Operations never even thought about subs, missiles, nukes and such, until our resident experts pointed them out.

[4rcane]

Anything more than $1billion is too much

[tanknetter]

$13 billion? What happened to the $4 billion we were paying?

First of class. While she's a highly-evolved Nimitz hull, she's also packed full of bleeding-edge technology. IIRC they're rolling all of the development costs into her, so the next two (USS John F. Kennedy and USS Barack H. Obama**) will "cost" a lot less.

(** Ok, ok, ... that's only if Joe Biden is the next President. If it's Hillary! it'll be the USS Clinton. After both her AND Bill, just like they did with that destroyer named after FDR and Eleanor. At some point the Navy will be able to hang the name "Enterprise" onto one of the post-America Class LHAs. Probably)

[Empireoftheatom48]

My Son did three years on that destroyer!

[freedumb2003]

Does it trip down airplane stairs?

Ford played varsity college football (center and LB). He was actually quite an elegant man who wore his athletic background lightly with aplomb.

Good looking kid, too:

If course the ribbing he got at SNL's expense was pretty good natured.

Today's "comedy" is all about the hate.

[Joe Bfstplk]

$13b for the carrier. How much for the carrier killer missile?

[2ndDivisionVet]

Probably less than a million.

[freedumb2003]

>>wo (USS John F. Kennedy and USS Barack H. Obama**)<<

The carter was a boat (a sub).

I can see the JFK as a flathead — he at least was a man of some principle (drug-addiction and womanizing notwithstanding.

The USS obozo will be a garbage scow.

The USS clinton will be a cigar boat.

[Mark17]

The USS clinton will be a cigar boat.

I wonder where they will store the DNA stained dresses?

[Mr. Wright]

With Obama in charge, I am very surprised that the name of this ship has not been changed to The USS Al Sharpton or The USS Sheila Jackson Lee. Nothing surprises me with this guy and his cronies in D. C.

[tanknetter]

If course the ribbing he got at SNL's expense was pretty good natured.

It might have been "tame" by today's standards, but it was anything but good natured. Chevy Chase has admitted as much, saying that he saw it as his personal mission to help destroy Ford.

As for Ford, in WWII he was an officer aboard the Independence-class light-carrier USS Monterrey. The Independence-class were Frankencarriers - they slapped a flightdeck onto the top of Cleveland-class light cruiser hulls and sent them out with a capacity of 45 planes (although in operation they rarely carried more than 30).

The Clevelands had stability and center of gravity issues to begin with. Putting a nice heavy flight deck and associated gear (arrestor gear, a catapult, two elevators) didn't really make things better. During "Halsey's Typhoon" ("Cobra", during the Philippine operations in support of MacArthur), the Monterrey was experiencing severe rolls, and aircraft broke loose on the hangar deck and started careening around into each other. A bad fire broke out, and Ford - directed to assess the situation - went down and personally led a fire detail.

[winner3000]

“invisible to enemy radar”
What about enemy satellite? Or enemy fishing dinghy? For something to be invisible, it helps if it’s small!
The enemies of the US keep investing in small, cheap counter-measures, and we keep helping them by building stuff that we cannot afford to get hit...

[Iron Munro]

We could have built 70 of these things with the $900 billion Stimulus money Obama gave to his friends.

[Greysard]

We do not need $13B carriers. For one thing, ICBMs are getting popular and no carrier can defend against them.

Those carriers are not to lead a fleet against a powerful foe (China, Russia, India.) There would be no sea battles, just because nobody else has a fleet with comparable might. The opponent would simply place a nuclear mine, or launch a nuclear torpedo, a cruise missile, or a theater ballistic missile. Or ten. Or a hundred. Enough to sink the whole ACG on the spot. A mere megaton airburst will seriously ruin the day of anyone on the surface - and close approach, into the range of CIWS, is not required for that. A fireball a couple miles away (Phalanx's published range is 2.2 miles) will only give the sailors a few extra seconds to live. Carriers are not a player against a strong opponent. Chinese submarines have already demonstrated that ACGs are vulnerable if the sub is just laying still on the bottom until the ships come above it.

Then what are they good for? They are ideal platforms for attacking Libyas, Syrias, and other Panamas of the world. In other words, they are only useful for "foreign entanglements," against an opponent who is three or four notches below you. A major war, were it to happen, would be fought high above ground, and it would be over in about one hour. The fleets just won't have time to meet each other, with all combatants being utterly destroyed. But if a conflict at sea is the trigger, one modern warship can sink another from behind the horizon.

[Iron Munro]

>>>invisible to enemy radar.<<<

Spy satellites, however, are another story.

[98ZJ USMC]

President Ford and Vice President Ford, served both capacities somewhat admirably at the time of serious peril.

He did and too many people don't appreciate just how perilous those times were.

....and Chevy Chase can go suck balls.

[GeronL]

$13 billion for a single vessel is insane, IMO

I sure hope this thing proves its worth