"This is America's new $13 billion warship" Topic

"The US Navy is less than a year away from adding the most expensive warship in history to its fleet, the $13 USD billion USS Gerald Ford.

The USS Ford, the lead ship of the new Ford-class aircraft carrier series, is expected to join the US Navy by February 2016, according to CNN. Once deployed, the ship will be the largest carrier ever to ply the seas and will feature a number of changes and advancements over the US' current Nimitz-class aircraft carrier.

Here's a look at this multi billion-dollar beast…"
Full article here
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Amicalement
Armand

would have been better off building 5 small ones 2/3 that size

Exceptional and Indispensable nations don't think that way Ron.

Be interesting to see what is floating after the shooting stops in the next war. Have a feeling that the Arizona and Gerald Ford will be said in the same sentence in the future.

Agree, it's really a gamble. Might be an effective instrument of sea power, might be flotsam and jetsam washing ashore in Taiwan 20 hours after the shooting starts.

Are those Raptors on the deck in the drawing?

With 3x the generating power of a Nimitz it will be able to operate batteries of the MTHEL AA Laser system, making it immune to missile attack (short of large nuclear ballistic). Small flattops would not have that capacity.

would have been better off building 5 small ones 2/3 that size

Except that 5 carriers 2/3rds the size would carry a total of about 50 aircraft, 10 birds each, roughly half the capacity of the Ford-class, and they'd all have to be F35Bs because ~670ft isn't enough space for catapults and arresting gear!

You lose combat power to about the square of the reduction in size. 1/2 the size means about 1/4 the combat power. Worse, if you get a hull too small, it's utterly incapable of operating fixed-wing aircraft.

Plus, you'd need about 5x the crew to man the ships.

Now, if the surface navy built their ships around the idea of 2x 6-month deployments with a 1-month quick refit between the two deployments, the entire surface fleet could spend a much larger % of time deployed, rather than the current 1/3 availability. SSBNs currently run at about 3/4 availability with a 3-months-out-1-month-in rotation. But it requires a pretty significant investment in people and shore-side support to make it happen, plus it beats the hell out of ships not designed around that operational tempo.

I feel $13 USD billion safer.

I'm feeling 13 Billion poorer.

I feel $13 USD billion safer

Not until they arm it you wont.

$13 USDb doesnt include the planes, helos nor armaments.

Are those Raptors on the deck in the drawing?

F-35's are in the foreground. You can tell by the single engine and folding wings. The jets in the background, closer to the coning tower, are F/A-18's.

And to be a really sarcastic person, Newport News Naval Shipyard is nothing more than a government jobs program that gives the navy a new carrier every 10 years or so as a side effect.

Yes, but you have to keep those skill sets doing something, or you lose it. For example, when NASA canceled the new Orion capsule, then restarted it, they found their space suit manufacturing team had moved or retired. So if we want the carriers, we have to at least keep one nominally on the rails to have the expertise should we want more.

"…. making it immune to missile attack (short of large nuclear ballistic)."

so there won't be any flotsam and jetsam then

I hope it works.

Seems to me electro-magnetic catapults might be very vulnerable to an EMP attack.

Why is it any more vulnerable to EMP than any other electronic/electrical system? Not having your cat working would be the LEAST of your problems.