"The U.S. Navy's Newest Amphibious Assault Ships..." Topic

… Are The Size Of Other Countries' Aircraft Carriers.

"The America-class will be the size of other countries' aircraft carriers.

Over at military.com, Kris Osborne reports that the assembly of the second America-class amphibious assault ship, USS Tripoli, is going according to plan, with a third of initial construction already complete.

The ship "is approximately 30% complete. Fabrication has started on 211 units, 97% of all units, and 84 grand blocks are erected — 47% of the total," according to a U.S. Navy spokesperson who provided Osborne with a written statement.

Scheduled for launch in in July 2017 and with a tentative induction date set for December 18, the ship is specifically designed to accommodate Marine Corps F-35B Joint Strike Fighters, along a host of other aircraft such as MV-22 Osprey tiltrotor aircraft, CH-53 Super Stallions, and UH-1Y Huey helicopters…"
Full article here
link

Amicalement
Armand

Yes, but most other countries' carriers have either catapults or a ski-jump ramp, plus an angled flight deck.

Tango you gotta keep what news articles you post better organized :D ( TMP link )

Lion you make a good point about the flight decks. I wonder what sortie rates these LHAs can actually support. Been a couple years since I've had eyes on an a real OPLAN for an amphibious assault so I don't recall those sorts of planning considerations.

Speaking from ignorance here, but since most of the aircraft are VTOL, doesn't the primary consideration for sortie rate depend on flight deck crew numbers and training? I am not sure what the catapult has to do with it. If anything I think that would slow down the sortie rate. But as I said, I am no authority and am eager to hear more.

Ski-ramp means your VTOL planes can carry a heavier payload.

Is that article right?
The US are building 211 of them?

'The ship "is approximately 30% complete. Fabrication has started on 211 units, 97% of all units, and 84 grand blocks are erected — 47% of the total,"

My reading of the about that the ship is being built in prefabricated units, 211 of those units have been started.

There are 211 units that are built and then joined together to form the entire ship.

doesn't the primary consideration for sortie rate depend on flight deck crew numbers and training?

That's a big part but is somewhat platform-independent. From an engineering perspective, the big issues are the design/layout/and total floorspace available of the hangar decks. You need to be able to recover aircraft, get them below deck quickly via elevator, rearm-them (which means the methods of moving munitions from armored storage up to the hangar needs to be safe AND efficient), and move them to another elevator to put them on the flight deck again.

Carriers built by less experienced powers, particularly the Soviet/Russian Kiev and Kuznetsov classes, punt this sort of workflow optimization into the stands. Since the LHA6 is based on a design meant for well deck operations, we can only guess at how much stuff they moved around to get the hangar spaces up to CVN levels of efficiency.

Seems that the article is right.

Amicalement
Armand