U.S.S. Gerald R. Ford Commissioned Today

Finally. Lots of new technology aboard such as electromagnetic launch catapults (similar to rail guns).

Unless it is destroyed in a war, the Fords final commanding officer hasn't even been born yet. It will still in service when most of us are dead.

IIRC the third Ford class carrier will be the new Enterprise.

of course the U.S.S. Ford is named after President Gerald Ford who served in the U.S. Navy, most of it aboard a carrier during World War Two. I was always partial to President Ford as his presidency is the one I have my first clear memories of. Not to mention that my grandmother (mothers side) really liked Ford and momma said would've loved to have seen him become president but she died in 1969.

And of course, Ford coached football a couple of different times. He was also a celebrated college football player who had offers to play pro football.

I do miss aircraft carriers having the bridle catchers on the forward end of the flight deck (sometimes called 'horns' for obvious reasons) even though U.S. carriers haven't used catapult bridles in thirty years.

Enterprise was the last carrier to have all of its bridle catchers still on when it was decommissioned.

that ship is an amazing technical accomplishment. it better be at that price.

however, i do wonder if giant CVNs have much of a strategic future. most/all places where smaller conflicts can erupt are reachable from land bases. in large conflicts between superpowers, the carrier groups would be the first to be blown out of the water. they might be too large for the limited, first wave role they can still play.

So what? It will 5-6 years to get it service ready.

At least a quarter of the money spent was in Research & Development which will be used on its subsequent sister ships.

And I've been hearing about how terribly vulnerable supercarriers for decades, at least since the 1982 Falklands War. But given all that for 35 years basically no foreign power has even bothered targeting a supercarrier for attack much less succeeding in doing so.

Cheap and abundant anti-ship missile make these and other ships more vulnerable than ever.

Can you tell me when was the last time a carrier was struck by a "cheap & abundant anti-ship missile"?

Oh that's right. You can't because it's never happened.

In just about every training exercise these days. True, that is just a similation but it is how many naval experts expect things would go down these days.

Break it down, sell the parts and use the proceeds to pay for housing and healthcare.

You do know that it has been estimated that it would take from 6-12 direct hits by modern antiship missiles to permanently put a modern carrier out of action.

This has been born out by the effects of aircraft crashing into carriers and/or ordnance exploding aboard.

The U.S.S. Enterprise during the Vietnam War once had nine 500 lb. bombs detonate on her decks and was available for flight operations in less than a day IIRC.

http://www.insensitivemunitions.org/history/the-uss-enterprise-cvan-65-fire-and-munition-explosions/

Why?

Dude who did the US fight in the past 35 years? Who should have targeted them? Grenada?

The only one maybe capable of sinking a CVN was Saddam Hussein if he hadn't been crippled by sanctions and the first airstrikes hadn't taken out whatever he still had. I don't really want to see what happens when a conflict with Iran breaks out in the Gulf. I'm rather sure there would be fleet shrinkage.

Isn't that the point? If your navy is overwhelmingly powerful, no one wants to bother with the time and expense to try and develop one capable of fighting you. Best to try something else. IIRC that is why the British long maintained the policy of the Royal Navy being capable of defeating the next two largest navies,

Combined.

Same way with an air force and an army.

Carrier based aircraft can hit targets in Iran from well outside the Persian Gulf.

Because it is a colossal waste of money.

Preventing war is a colossal waste of money?

Given you are from Ireland, a country that has lived under the de facto protection of other more powerful nations for literally centuries I guess your attitude is understandable.

To you peace and security are simply the natural order of things, not something won and secured with blood and iron.

War is peace and freedom is slavery, right?

The bloated US war machine is aimed at maintaining dominance, nothing else.

You're not that dumb Rick to actually believe all the leftist BS about the U.S. military being the main obstacle to peace around the world.

I've always thought you were too smart for that. Sure you often quote the leftist anti American line for the simple reason that you don't like the United States (for whatever reason I don't know).

But I never thought you were stupid enough to believe all that.

That don't work yet.

Not by much. The F-35 has a reach of about 2.500 kilometers. Meaning there and return of course, afterburner notwithstanding. So to reach Iran, the CVN must stand somewhere before the coast of Pakistan (totally reliable ally). Which is cutting it awfully close. On the other hand, cruise missiles? Those can go forever.

Iran is more reachable from Incirlik in Turkey, Israel, from the UAE or from Afghanistan. There is no need for a carrier. Same goes for North Korea. Better bombed from Japan, Guam or Bien Hoa in Vietnam.

All carriers do these days is air superiority. Question given the likely enemies... is it necessary?

About a third of the systems do not work yet and many of those which do are not yet certified. The ship is no where neer ready and will reportedly take 4-5 years to be certified as deployment ready. Trump just told them to commission it early so he can claim he increased the size of the fleet even though the ship was ordered by Obama and it is half a decade away from being done.

Naturally, the Trumpanzees are eating it up because they are stupid like that.

Navy's got aerial refueling.

Say what?

They're going to be launching aircraft with them next week so I would suggest you are mistaken.

If you say so.

Going by what one of the officers said today on the news. And you link says fully loaded aircraft IIRC.

Being able to launch fully loaded aircraft is kind of important.

Not necessarily. From what I've read from both carriers and air bases it has been a practice for aircraft to sometimes take off with weapons that would normally exceed their rated operational take off weights but do it with a much reduced fuel load.........and then refueling once airborne.

That way you get the twin advantages of maximum possible weapons payload and full fuel load and thus range.

It wouldn't be a full fuel load. They can't launch with drop tanks.

You can still undertake aerial refueling without your drop tanks. Full internal fuel load anyway.