Is the Ford Class Carrier a Bust?

There are many things involved here, and most completely miss the mark.

The only thing that makes a system obsolete is generally another system that has superior capabilities. Steam replaced sail, iron replaced wood. But it took combining these with the turret to finally make the "age of wood and sail" obsolete. We saw our warships get bigger and bigger, until they reached almost insane sizes, with guns over 3 times as large as any we employ today.

But it was not a new warship that made them obsolete, it was a completely new way to get ordinance to the target. If we had never invented aircraft, we would probably have Battleships still today, with 25" inch guns.

And missiles are not a replacement for aircraft. They are expensive, dumb, and are only available in limited numbers. And the counter-measures are growing more and more sophisticated every decade. There is a reason why the Missile Cruiser and Destroyer has never replaced the carrier as the offensive power of the US fleet.

And the same with drones. People scream about them like they are the return of the Messiah, but those of us that actually study them see their severe limitations. Limited range, limited speed, very limited in the amount of ordinance they carry. Not to mention very easy to render them useless. We have seen both Russia and Iran prevent us from using them, with both extreme amounts of ECM not to mention actually hacking one and causing it to fly off course and crash where they wanted so an adversary could recover it.

Anybody that does not think that China, Russia and ourselves have systems that could render most drones incapable of operating is an idiot. But you can not do that with a human powered aircraft. You might be able to degrade their capabilities by blocking out their GPS and radio signals, but they can still operate with the Mark 1 Eyeball, and have a highly sophisticated computer made out of meat right between their ears.

And our military planners so expect this, that there are already protocols in place in all of our systems. If communication is lost with the command center, our drones basically go into an "orbit mode", waiting to regain signal. After a period of time they simply turn around and return to base. They are not going to continue on without that 2 way feed. And they will never release their ordinance without a very specific command to do so.

As of yet, there is not a single offensive capability developed in Naval Warfare that will replace the carrier. Big guns went the way of the dodo bird decades ago. Drones is not it. Missiles and subs have a role, but neither is really a good system for offensive capability short of nukes. The amount of firepower the combined carrier airwings can throw at a target is impressive, and something they can continue for weeks on end. At a rate that will leave a fleet of Cruisers and Destroyers with empty bunkers and screaming for resupply ships within a single day.

Now the problem with the Malvinas conflict is many. For one, the British dumped the "Fleet Carrier" years before. Instead following the Soviet model of smaller ships, with fewer and less capable aircraft. They realized this mistake, and foolishly tried to convert 2 container ships into "easy carriers", and we all know what happened to those ships. They are now nice artificial reefs.

To be honest, England screwed the pooch in almost every way possible in that conflict. And they only won because they had more capability than their adversary. Argentina no doubt lost, but as a "Third World Country" gave them a serious thrashing in doing so, something that in the 1950's would have been unheard of.

I still somewhat chuckle at the Battle of San Carlos, also commonly called "Bomb Alley". Where the Argentines destroyed 3 ships and damaged 8 others, all with dumb iron bombs, and Korean War era aircraft. Against a fleet that claimed to be among the most modern and capable in the world. Of course, the British also jacked that up by putting them all in tight restricted waters, with an easy approach over hills that were between their bases and the enemy.

But it is a classic example on how a less capable enemy can do a hell of a lot of damage, exploiting terrain and tactics. And also how the foolish decision of years before of not purchasing the US CIWS system came back to haunt them, big time.

I have been studying this conflict now for over 35 years. It is a classic example of how a smart enemy can use their abilities to if not defeat cause massive casualties to what is believe to be a "superior adversary". I remember "experts" claiming that the UK would easily stroll down and kick them out, without bruising a toe in the effort.

But the UK lost 7 ships, and took a sound thrashing even though they won the conflict. Including some ships which were considered the "Pride of the British Navy". The most significant Argentine loss was a surplus WWII light cruiser. They might have avoided most of that if they had used better tactics, and had at least 2 Fleet Carriers.

The real lesson of that conflict should have been to not replace your Fleet Carriers with joke light carriers. But they still have not learned, and still do it even today. They had a chance to fix it with CATOBAR carriers, but still decided to go the much less capable small deck VSTOL ones.

 

There's nothing in the article that supports or denies the thread title.

It's late over budget.
So? Ever saw a big project that wasn't? Also willing to be much of the cost overrun was due to scope creep. Technologies have evolved greatly over the last 10 years and it wouldn't surprise if the govt added task orders to add or improve on designs.

Love to see this in sea trials. I was on the Nimitz and would like to see this in action.

EDIT

Didn't read the entire article. Thought I had when I got to the bottom of the page but the page just kept loading so it could display ad after ad infinitum.

Finally after struggling to figure which part of the page was the article and which the ads I got to the end of page 1.

Sorry but this site is nothing but a feeder for click bait.

 

I will readily admit, I read less than 10% of the "references" that people vomit up in here. They are nonsense, normally cherry picked to try and prove their claim.

And even worse, the people that do it seem completely incapable of doing their own analysis and deciding what is important in such an article, and what is not important. When I use a reference, I generally quote an important part of it. Then provide the link to invite others to go and look at it, and determine if it is correct or not. But this is just validation, the actual analysis of the importance is almost entirely my own.

I find the entire "I am right, look at this video-article and it proves me right!" is the ultimate in being lazy. And most times, the person had already made up their mind long before, and neither knows what is important, nor do they look at anything other than the article agrees with their beliefs.

And I also believe strongly in "vetting the source". If the source does not have a proven history in reporting on such a subject fairly and impartially, I in general will ignore it. Especially if it is one of those sources that attacks everything they do not agree with, and are simply venting their spleen in the same way over and over and over again.

I find most such articles are long in complaint (normally about cost), and actually little on actual content of importance. Everything goes over cost, from the amount we spend on Social Security, to a new bridge project to a piece of military equipment. Most take years if not decades to develop, so of course things like inflation and future advancements step in to raise the cost. Most people have no comprehension that most of the weapon systems just now entering service were originally proposed during the Clinton Administration, if not earlier.

Hell, the F-35 series was originally part of a Reagan Era program! Even if nothing else had changed, the ultimate cost of each aircraft would be almost double that of the original projected cost if for inflation if nothing else. And I bet none of those screaming about cost would like to force the employees making them to accept 1990 era wages as a way to reduce costs. Nor to roll back the amount that company was taxed to their tax burden 30 years ago.

The entire "I am right, this article proves it! Click here!" is typical of the mindset of far to many today. They do not want to think, they just want to be told what to think. They can analyze nothing, and only want a fast, easy, simple solution. As a general rule, if the individual can not quote a simple relevant portion of the article (and not the entire damned thing), or goes "Read this, I am right!", I just assume they know nothing, and there is nothing of importance there to read in the first place.

And I have taken down enough of them in here by showing they are generally written by uninformed idiots that I got bored of it long ago. I am not sure if it was here or elsewhere, but a guy posted an article screaming carriers were obsolete because the Chinese military would "destroy all of our tankers".

That statement all by itself told me the guy that wrote it was an idiot, and the idiot that reposted it was even more of an idiot. The Navy does not use "tankers" for their aircraft, they never really have. A "Navy Aviation Tanker" is not a KC-130 like the Air Force. It is an A/F-18, just like the other offensive aircraft they use. And they have missiles, just less of them and droppable tanks they will jettison in the event of combat. The very fact that somebody posted that without knowing proved to me they were an idiot, and found a source written by another idiot, neither of them had a clue what the Navy used for "tankers".

 

No doubt the layout of the site is annoying. You need a browser that supports reader view - it filters out all the clickbait. There are four pages to the article and reader view will have to be selected for each page. If you need some help on how to use reader view please feel free to message me.

Since you admit to not having read it, how in the **** would you know there is nothing in it to support the title of the thread?

 

Obviously you read my addendum...
Then ignored it.

Thanks but no thanks for the click bait.

Anyone who has something to say doesn't need 18 lines of advertising per 24 lines of screen.

 

In another thread you asserted that Ethernet is primarily a cabling standard, whereas it certainly is not, but I never thought for a minute to dismiss your knowledge in its entirety because of one wrong assertion. I am not going to repeat here for you the assertion made in the article. It would take you the time you spent just on this post to read the damn thing.

 

Advising you how to read the article using reader view is equivalent to ignoring your complaint about the clickbait?

 

Reporting that I choose not to pursue click bait was my response.
I'll not be changing my reading habits to satisfy the greed of those sources.

 

No, your response was that you saw nothing in the article to support the title of my OP, and then you admitted that you hadn't actually been able to navigate past the interspersed adverts to even make it through the first page. I agreed with you that the interspersed adverts were distracting and then suggested you use reader view to skip them. I did not advocate that you click on the clickbait. And completely opposite of your apparent understanding of my suggestion to try reader view, you somehow seem to think that using it would satisfy the "greed of those sources"? As Ron White said, there's no fixin' stupid....

 

Pushing a site that pushes click bait is pushing click bait.

I told you I had not read the entire article and why.

If that response is unsatisfactory perhaps you'd best consider other career options.
Spammer isn't working.

 

Already discussed, not going over it again. But the fact you bring this up yet again shows the lengths you go to in order to avoid answering anything you do not like.

And as I said, lazy posters who are unable to do their own research, or simply do not understand anything actually involved so eat up anything put in front of them.

 

our carriers have a squadron of Marine aircraft and pilots aboard because for several decades the U.S. Navy has not been able to afford enough naval squadrons of their own to bring the air wing of carriers up to strength.

 

You post on a thread that the article referenced in the thread’s OP doesn’t support the title of the thread and then admit to not having read the article. Kinda makes you the spammer from my point of view.

 

That ain’t me chief, but if you want to think it is I ain’t sweatin it. Pretty simple OP, if you’re too lazy to read the article in question then just skip the thread next time.

 

yes, the acronym for ford is ' found on roadside dead'

they got a defense contract from affirmative action, it was not earned by quality work.

https://www.allacronyms.com/FORD/Found_On_Roadside,_Dead

 

I read the article. It was highly biased, lacking in huge amounts of detail, and was nothing more than an opinion piece that was trying to push his beliefs on others. I even went over several points it got very wrong, kinda hard to do if I did not read it.

And yet again you attack instead of dealing with the topic itself.

Goodbye.

 

I don't understand what the article is attempting to portray.

I'm just getting TDS vibes.

On one hand, they hammer Trump for directing the Navy to revert to the proven technology. On the other hand, they illuminate the problems with the new technology.

It's confusing.

 

Fix Or Repair Daily.

 

That was my take on it also.

One thing that has to be realized, in this manner the President is actually on cue with how the military normally does something. A very "conservative" organization, it tends to not take huge jumps with unproven technology. It tends to make slow and incremental changes over time as technology is first retrofitted into older systems, then improved.

We did not just jump from gun cruisers to missile cruisers. First the Navy converted 2 Baltimore class Cruisers into the Boston class Guided Missile Cruisers. We did not start just making slant deck carriers, we first converted older straight deck carriers to test and improve the concept before we started to make new ones. To me this should have been the same. We have 1, modify any others to come out of the shipyard with proven technology. But leave in place the capability to be converted at a later date.

To me, this should have first been tested on an older carrier. Say the Enterprise, use it as a testbed to get all the kinks worked out before it is put into wide production.

But far to many are dazzled by "new technology", and think it is the solution to everything. But often times it is later seen in hindsight that it was not all as great as was thought at the time. Just look no farther than the F-117. Weird bird, was not even named to match it's actual role in combat. And in use for less than 25 years, the shortest lifespan of an actual in-service combat military aircraft since the jet engine replaced rotating airfoils.

 

Sorry, but the entire new carrier program is clearly ****ed.

https://www.dote.osd.mil/Portals/97/pub/reports/FY2019/navy/2019cvn78.pdf?ver=2020-01-30-115502-643

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/weapons/RS20643.pdf

 

The F-117A was designated as such largely due to a practice of how secret aircraft are developed and by the U.S.

During the 1960s and 1970s, the U.S. would give captured Soviet fighters (mainly supplied by Israel) designations in the discontinued "century series" to give the impression that the aircraft being tested were new prototypes the U.S. had built.

As this became more widely known to international observers and non government aviation enthusiasts, the U.S. government when it started building prototype aircraft for new secret projects continued giving them "century series" designations to make observers think they were merely more captured Soviet Migs being flown. Which is how the "F-117" got its official designation.

In addition, the USAF since the early 1970s has been ruled by what is sometimes called the "Fighter Mafia". That is former fighter pilots occupy all the primary positions of power. They don't like designating combat aircraft with anything but the "F" (for fighter) designation. IIRC the last major combat aircraft they labeled with anything else was the A(for attack)-10. And they did not want the A-10 program from the beginning and have tried to kill it for the last 30 years.