Posted on 09/30/2013 7:33:18 PM PDT by 2ndDivisionVet
Rising from a dry dock, this is America's latest and possibly costliest piece of military machinery ever constructed.
The world's only superpower has released details of its new generation of aircraft carriers - the first of which costs a staggering $13billion - which it hopes will enable it to dominate any battlefield for decades to come.
But that sort of money buys an incredible amount of firepower, with the ship stuffed with cutting-edge and top secret technology.
When finished, the giant 1,106-foot USS Gerald R. Ford will be able to launch 220 airstrikes per day from its two runways, hold 4,000 sailors and marines, and be virtually invisible to enemy radar.
The Navy also plans to buy another three such carriers, at a cost of $43 billion, to complete its fleet.
But the project to build the most advanced aircraft carrier every made has come at a high price, with costs overrunning to the tune of nearly $3billion and major delays.
Beci Brenton, spokesman for Huntington Ingalls Industries, the maker of the ship, told FoxNews.com: 'The structure has been rearranged to accommodate new technology and meet all of the Navy’s operational requirements....
(Excerpt) Read more at dailymail.co.uk ...
It’ll buff right out.
Great Movie!
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.
Anything more than $1billion is too much
My Son did three years on that destroyer!
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.
$13b for the carrier. How much for the carrier killer missile?
Probably less than a million.
>>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.
I wonder where they will store the DNA stained dresses?
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.
“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...
We could have built 70 of these things with the $900 billion Stimulus money Obama gave to his friends.
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.
Spy satellites, however, are another story.
$13 billion for a single vessel is insane, IMO
I sure hope this thing proves its worth
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