"The USS Gerald R. Ford Is A Lesson In How The US Navy" Topic

…Builds Ships

"For the past 1½ years, on 18 trips off the Virginia and North Carolina coasts, sailors and shipyard workers from Newport News have prepped the Navy's newest carrier for deployment — 27% over its original budget and years behind schedule.

The costliest single item on the Department of Defense's shopping list, the USS Gerald R Ford has been on a fast track to launch a series of new technologies intended to boost the Navy's striking power for at least the next 50 years.

It is a fast track that started two decades ago…"

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Imho…critics of the USS Gerald Ford were always told that because this was a new aircraft carrier class, problems and delays (as well as costs) were going to occur…that made a sense at the beginning, but after years behind schedule and almost 30% over budget… well… add in the fact that four of its massive elevators are still not working and shock trials have been delayed for years …. seems that a lot of people are saying enough is enough…

Armand

Good to see the catapults seem to finally be working well.

Very sad to hear that the elevators and toilets don't work properly though.

I never would have thought those would have issues.

See, this is what happens when you try to reverse engineer a crashed UFO without completely understanding the technology.
It's like giving your iPad to a guy in a grass hut in the Cannibal Islands.

Named after a train wreck of a president, I'm not surprised with the problems.

John the OFM.
Brilliant, Sir. Best two sentence analysis this year. H

The criminal part is that they're not doing the shock trials until after other hulls are started. Bureaucratically and for funding, it makes perfect sense.

When the Ford fails the shock trials, the Navy will have to rebuild the hulls at enormous expense (tearing things out just to get at the structural elements that they have to tear out to rebuild); say it'll cost too much to fix, shrug, and ignore it; or cover it up.

But if they can ever get them to work properly and to specifications … and you guys can afford to pay for them … then they will be impressive, indeed awe inspiring. Something that big, sailing that fast, able to launch that many planes, for that many air strikes … wow!

If…

Unfortunately, another costly CVN torpedo / ASM magnet not well suited for a non-permissive environment. That said, they are great for pounding the tar out of 3rd world countries that do not possess credible anti-ship capabilities or advanced adversaries if the USN controls the air and sea space. Given the short legs of USN tactical air, modern SSNs and those fancy hypersonic ASM are likely to relegate carriers to a secondary role much like the battleships found themselves in WW2. However, she is an impressive looking ship that no enemy wants patrolling off her coast.