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 ...
Carriers are dead meat when it comes to defending against nuclear missiles. Heck 50 years ago they were dead meat against nukes and nowadays, those missiles will be coming in at supersonic speed with stealth war paint, maybe sea level too.
Nah when it comes to nuclear war the carriers will fire first and then watch hundreds of nukes swarm them to death. But still I like having them for the non-nuke punks out there.
13 billion is just 5 days worth of QE.
LOL! “Whip Inflation Now’’.
The Carrier will make sure there will be no Soviet domination of Poland.
Submarines will have their torpedos taken out. The USS Bush aircraft carrier already has this: http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=74665
...and it’s just a Nimitz class carrier, not a new Ford class Super-carrier.
The Fords also get laser weapons and active armor.
You didn’t understand Post #59. ICBMs are now intercepted in Space by ship-borne SM-3 interceptors...operational since at least 2004.
Apparently, a resurrected Walter White kills her on the first episode of “NCIS New Mexico.”
fish,
When something travels through the water that fast, does friction create intense heat, like in the atmosphere?
Only a question of time before the “punks” hang a primitive A-bomb under a mass produced drone and aim it at the center of a battle group.
Probably a question of even less time before they launch one off the deck of a commandeered container ship and aim it at the White House.
Case in point is the carrier sank to gather data to build the FORD. The Navy hit her hard off and on over a week or so time frame and she stayed afloat in ZEBRA readiness. The America went down only because before it left Philly they placed massive explosives in her hull at many key areas not just one. She floated until they deliberately gave the final engineered explosions to sink her. BTW America was built on 1950's technology awarded under POTUS Ike.
I'm uncertain about the new launch technology being developed. But a carriers value to the Carrier Group and other ships is highly significant. Got a motor burnt up? A carrier has a shop to rewind the motor. Need a specific with very close tolerances part made? A carrier has a well fitted machine shop. Have mass causality on a ship such as fire or explosion? You can take team off a carrier to assist and not harm the carriers mission capabilities. With the older DFM steamers we could fuel smaller ships at sea and did so many times. A carrier is a whole lot more to it that planes. It is a fully functional command center.
The last U.S. Navy carrier sank by enemy combat was in WW2 and they were older versions before the Navy began building them with compartments and voids. My vote would have went to build both Nimitz Class and a couple of DFM steamers as well.
My biggest beef about carriers is this. No more than three preferably two at a time should ever be berthed at N.O.B. Norfolk piers for any reason. Modify Mayport for a carrier berth again.
I don’t think 200 knots is fast enough to create intense heat in the atmosphere. As for travelling through water, AFAIK Russian torpedo’s principle is about to make a cloud of gas around so it is not actually a travelling through water. It is more of missile than torpedo.
Current engineering cannot make 90,000 tons of steel “invisible” to radar. Design can make a large ship like the Ford seem a little smaller on a radar screen, but no ways invisible.
I guess that means bh0 will be giving it to the Russians, since he has elevated them back to superpower status while reducing the USA to 3rd World wantabee.
They already have a protective, sacrificial cage around the carriers.
They are called destroyers, cruisers and supply ships.
LOL!!! They’re going come after you for that.....blasphemy!!
Submarines, missiles, Phalanx!!!
That is what is being ignored.
We are sending American manufacturing everywhere else.
BRING BACK US MANUFACTURING.
Now.
“naval-launched SM-3s can not only intercept ICBMs in Space “
Not really. They are designed to intercept short and mid range missiles, but...nevermind. Space & Missiles is my turf and know it extremely well. There simply isn’t a missile intercept system that is viable against ICBMs.
I think these ships will be cancelled by sequester or something like that.
Indeed. The Russians made that observation in the late 1950s and have been perfecting their anti ship missile tech ever since.
In the olde days I worked on making remotely piloted targets to simulate Russian missiles and had to study the issue in depth. My conclusion the was the carriers were toast if things went south.
Fleet defense capabilities had not gotten better with the retirement of the long distance shield of the F-14. And now other countries have the Russian missile tech.
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