US Navy's newest $12.9bn supercarrier doesn't work

AR, where did you learn about this?

I've been wanting to read up more on rail guns.

 

Most from the Naval Institute Proceedings magazine and their website USNI News. -> https://news.usni.org/?s=railgun

And there's always the credible NavWeapons website. -> http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Rail_Gun.htm

Main home page -> http://www.navweaps.com/

All of the USN guns past and present. -> http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_Main.php

 

LOL, I didn't say to stop all innovation. I point out that new technology is new, unknown, untried, and cannot be fully evaluated until time is put on it in the real world.

Emag has been around a long time, but not in the application of an aircraft catapult and certainly not to the stress it will experience in flight operations.

And there is far more than just technology. People have to operate it, they will have to be trained, the training and procedures and people will not be perfect. Unexpected situations will arise, human error, procedural error, maintenance error, wear and tear on the equipment, some of these problems will take years to develop to the point they show up. Some of these problems won't even be recognized as a problem until there is a catastrophic failure.

So many people particularly kids think everything is simple, that technology just magically works, just plug it in and play. The real world is far more difficult.

That's why sometimes I think there should be a draft, get all these kids out of Starbucks, get their heads out of their iphone, and give them a taste of the real world.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/USS_Gerald_R._Ford

The new systems is part of the problem. Maybe all of it.

 

It appears that the USS Ford isn't mission capable (war fighting/conducting flight operations) and not ready to enter the fleet.

Well the U.S. Navy already has it's LCS (Little Crappy Ship) that can't fight and breaks down every time it puts to sea.

Now Obama's PC Navy has it's BCS (Big Crappy Ship)

 

Copy that. Whats a bursting charge?

I see it mentioned here... http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_61-62_ags.php

 

The explosive that inside the projectile that explodes when the fuse detonates the bursting charge.

You notice when you look at the bursting charges for the different 16" projectiles the AP (armor piercing) round weighs 2,700 lbs and has a bursting charge of only 40.1 lbs.

Whereas the 16" HC (high explosive common) weighs 1,900 lbs. but has a 153.6 lbs. of explosives as it's bursting charge. HC and HE rounds are fragmentation rounds.
http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNUS_16-50_mk7.php

You can take a HC round and put a time fuse or VT fuse on the projectile and use it was for AA. I believe that's why they are called HC and not HE. Just a common round with multi purposes.

Just before the Iowa's were decommissioned they were in the testing phase of using the Iowa's 16" guns for ASW. The idea was firing a pattern of nine 1,900 lb. projectiles out to 25 miles that would hit the water and continuing at great speed traveling underwater then detonating where the sub was detected to be. Like nine 1,900 lb. depth charges.

Using the 16" guns as an anti torpedo weapon was in the R&D phase.

 

You guys hate Obama so much it even carries over into a hatred of our armed forces. At any rate, Obama's PC Navy didn't design the Ford. Its construction began in 2005.

 

It's way behind schedule isn't it ?

Best to work out the bugs before allowing it to join the fleet.

Don't want to see what happened again when they fielded a weapon not ready for combat like the M-16.

But it was Obama who has politicized the military by using it for social engineering.

FA-18's and F-16's are actually falling out of the sky because there's no money for maintenance and flight training but there's money for a Obama PC Green Fleet paying over a $100 for gallon for green fuel instead of paying less than $4 per gallon for conventional fuels.

I have to dig through the archives to see when exactly did someone sign off on a electromagnetic catapult for the Ford class carrier.

Well it looks like it was part of the game plan since the beginning. -> http://www.gizmag.com/northrop-grumman-to-build-first-new-aircraft-carrier-class-in-40-years/10017/

 

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Considering the Pentagons trillion dollar fiasco called the F-35, I'm not one one bit surprised. Time to take a big slash out of their budget.

 

gee, I guess the navy didn't think about everything you mentioned, they apparently don't have bunch PHD and defense contractor, expert etc etc to handle or id these issues, yes new tech will has issues, same with jet engine, manhattan project etc. it will eventually be solved.

 

Who gives a (*)(*)(*)(*) about NSFS? The Marines aren't landing on contested beaches, haven't for decades, and there is no conflict in the future where it is anticipated they would. The entire USMC doctrine in modern amphibious warfare revolves around avoiding enemy defenses and landing in area the enemy isn't defending, not battering their way through like in WW2.

 

Can you please list all of the times the Marines have failed in their mission since the retirement of the Iowas because they didn't have big gun support?

 

So you're of course going to start spouting off about Bush's PC Navy designing a bad ship, right?

 

Doesn't explain why the Marine Corps is conducting WW ll amphibious assault style training exercises on the same islands they assaulted during WW ll.

 

Yemen. But that has more to do the Obama administration ignoring the chain of command and issuing unlawful orders.

NSFS has been used by Marines and Navy SEAL's in the Horn of Africa in the war against Al Qaeda.

 

For the same reason why the Army still trains the Brecourt Manor assault. Its part of the history and current doctrine builds on the lessons of the old. The lessons learned from WW2 amphibious assaults is "Don't do them. Land somewhere where the enemy doesn't have defenses."

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And we didn't need Iowas to do it. "Pop guns" were more than sufficient.

 

Well this thread isn't about the Iowa's but new technology that was built into a really big ship not knowing if it would work or not. Let's hope the Ford class carriers don't become the Navy's BCS like the LCS.

Who know's Donald Trump was very impressed when he visited the USS Iowa in San Pedro, California. His exact words were "They sure don't build ships like this today." Maybe Trump will build some Trump battleships ?

New isn't always better and when they say something is obsolete, rarely is something actually obsolete. Fifty years ago they said gunpowder AAA was obsolete now it looks like gunpowder AA guns are back in the game dealing with AA and ballistic missiles. Who ever saw it coming ?

But the young geeks are saying that electromagnetic power is more powerful than steam. Time to take out the old slide rule and see where they are coming from.

 

Every new technology has teething problems with it comes out. The Enterprise had a ton of problems when it was launched. Should we have concluded nuclear power carrier were "Big Crappy Ships" and abandoned them?

 

That's the purpose of shake down cruises, looking for things that are broke, don't work or break or leak and fix them.

But incorporating something new that works on paper but never tested to see if it actually works into a $12.9 BILLION DOLLAR weapons platform isn't old schooled.

That would be like taking the first Atlas rocket that was built and putting a manned Mercury space capsule on top of the Atlas rocket and launching the rocket into space. I believe the first three Atlas launches were failures.

 

The Enterprise was the most expensive ship ever built when it sailed and it had reactor problems from day one because it was an entirely new design. That was 1962. Is that old schooled enough for you?

 

Rickover sure talked like he was an old schooled Chief.

The Navy actually were going to have all nuclear Carrier Battle Groups and did start building nuclear cruisers and destroyers. But it was just to damn expensive.

The last U.S. Navy warship to have a teak deck was the nuclear powered USS Long Beach (CGN-9)

 

Is this you indirectly conceding the point about new technology always having teething problems?

 

New technology doesn't always have teething problems. Sometimes they get it right the first time.

Remember when CADD first appeared ? (Computer Aided Design and Drafting) It always missed something, leaving something out that usually was very important. Like a bolt on a railroad bridge and without that bolt the bridge would collapse when the first freight train crossed over it.

I remember back during the 90's when the final plans for a bridge, highrise, electrical generating plant, a new class of a ship or even a porta potty went to plans check and the engineer after glancing at the plans would ask "Is this CAD" ? And if he was told yes, the cringe in his face knowing somewhere something was very likely left out and he has to figure out what it is.