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

US Navy's newest $12.9bn supercarrier doesn't work: Most expensive warship ever built 'struggles with jets taking off and landing' according to internal memo as delivery is delayed again

$12.9 billion warship, the USS Gerald R. Ford, is not ready for combat, the Department of Defense says

The massive 'supercarrier' is the most expensive Navy warship ever built and is due to be commissioned this year

The ship delivery is scheduled for November, more than two years late of its original date of September 2014





A government memo says 'poor or unknown reliability issues' are behind the latest roll out problems with the ship

The most expensive warship ever built has been delayed from hitting the front line because it is reportedly not ready for battle.

The $12.9 billion USS Gerald R. Ford Navy supercarrier - the first of three in its class with a total cost of $43 billion - could potentially struggle with planes landing and taking off, moving military weapons and being able to successfully defend itself, a memo obtained by Bloomberg News reads.
The memo allegedly states 'poor or unknown reliability issues' were identified in a letter dated June 28.


Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...-dogged-reliability-issues.html#ixzz4F6hlLjfy
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Enough with this, we need to get wise-we can't afford to be blowing money right now.

Its going to take Trump to get this going, frankly.

 

I'm still scratching my head on this one.

Who are these young geeks who are designing our warships today ? First the Navy's Little Crappy Ship (LCS) that can't fight and every time they put to sea they break down and have to call AAA for a tug boat for a tow

Electromagnetic catapults to launch aircraft ???

Did some geek discover a new energy force more powerful than steam ?

For over seventy years aircraft carriers used steam catapults to launch aircraft.

What do nuclear reactors do ? They produce steam to turn turbines.

Old fuel oiled ships had boilers that produced steam to turn turbines and propeller shafts.

There's diesel electric powered ships, nothing new. They have their pros and cons. There were even a couple of diesel electric battleships and aircraft carriers during WW ll.

But electromagnetic power ??? Even the U.S. Navy is dumping the electromagnetic rail gun.

On one defense industry trades magazine one old former Navy engineering officer asked one question about this electromagnetic catapult. "Is it EMF protected ?" Or is the carrier isn't able to conduct carrier operations if it's hit with a EMF blast ?

Are the Ford's arresting gear also electromagnetic ?

I'm old schooled, I was taught in grade school that steam is the most powerful form of power. And I was indoctrinated by some really smart people, it it's not broken, don't fix it.

 

It is EMP, Electro Magnetic Pulse, a type of emission on Detonating a Nuclear Weapon.

 

Are you sure you're talking about US Navy? Are you not talking about a carrier of Italian Navy?

I cannot believe that Americans have made a typical Italian mistake [to spend billions in something which doesn't work!!!!].

So ... is it an Italian or American carrier??

 

A young friend of mine works on the USS Gerald Ford.. teaching the computer techs.. They're late , but its coming along.

 

I note now that the source of these news is a UK magazine ... eh, UK is well more on late about its new carriers ... may be it's all about envy!

 

I agree overall, but at the same time, this new tech you are talking about is what will ensure that the US will keep its lead milspec-wise. Rails guns, notably, may be the only hope for protecting naval assets from hypersonic missiles.

Maybe they should have chosen smaller testbeds to work out the kinks first, thought.

 

The first ship in a line of new ships always takes longer because they have to work the bugs out.

 

That's true... and yet it does happen that a bad ship class (or individual) still is maintained for political reasons, like the Szent Istvan or the Nelsons were.

 

It's not the first time a weapons platform has been prematurely entered into service, remember the M-16 ? A lot of names are on that "Wall" because of the original M-16's.

I probably misquoted myself when I said the Navy has dumped the rail gun. The rail gun was designed to fill the vacuum of the Iowa class BB's guns. For providing NSFS for the Marine Corps. Just from reading the test results I knew that the rail gun couldn't accomplish the mission of NSFS, unable to hit reverse slopes, unable to provide air burst since there's no explosive charge in the projectile, unable to be used on area targets, unable to provide multi gun salvos, no night illumination round, no WP rounds, etc.

Like the A-10 Warthog that was designed as a tank buster, it ended up being an excellent aircraft for providing CAS for the grunts. Ends up the rail gun found a new mission that it might prevail at, AA, anti ballistic missiles. But something new was discovered, that the rail gun projectile can be fired from a powder gun ! The rail gun also looks promising as a surface warfare weapon.

I was going to start a thread about the rail gun projectile being used with powder guns a couple weeks ago. It looks like AAA is coming back, just not in the navy but also on land with the Army. The rail gun projectile looks like it can be used as a AA round against aircraft and ballistic missiles being fired from powder guns.

The rail gun projectile isn't cheap when compared to conventional artillery rounds, over $10 K per round. Spending $10K to knock out a bunker for the grunts isn't fighting smart. But $10 K is a lot cheaper than a $2 million dollar Patriot missile taking out an enemy aircraft or incoming missile.

 

DoD just announced its looking into a 2 part replacement for the A10 BTW.

Its going to develop a new attack aircraft to fill the role, and at the same time adopt a light attack aircraft thats currently being produced, most likely the super tocano (super taco's).

The new aircraft will have enhancements to protect it from SAM's.

Its probably still decades away, id expect to see the light version implemented first along side the A10.

 

That's what I'm hearing, the USAF wan't to get into the CAS business and the F-35 can't accomplish the mission that the Marine Corps will soon discover. The Air Force wants a new advanced A-10.

Who ever owns the tooling for the North American Aviation OV-10 Bronco (Boeing-?) said they can reopen the OV-10 production line to provide the light attack aircraft but it looks like the Air Force will go with the A-29 Super Tocano's.

I think the OV-10 is a better FAC aircraft than the A-29 Tocano.

Just by looking at the Bronco you see why it's a better FAC, your observation isn't obscured by the wings.

Bronco -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_American_Rockwell_OV-10_Bronco

Tucano -> https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Embraer_EMB_314_Super_Tucano

 

Electromagnetic same concept for Maglev train used all over the world, except its more powerful and can lunch plane same as steam.
downside of steam catapult is, steam require boiler and other stuff, and has a lot mechanical parts in it, which is easier to break. also steam catapult apply same amount of force to both small and large jet, typically take longer time to lunch plane compare to Electromagnetic, also more expensive PER lunch.

advantage of Electromagnetic is control by digital computer, force can varies precisely depend on the SIZE and weight of plane thus extend the life of airframe, it has less mechanical parts, less chance to break, use power generate by nuclear reactor that store charge inside giant capacitor. PER lunch cost is less compare to steam, since it just use electricity. also it can lunch more plane/hr compare to steam. there are probably more advantage but these are just few crucial one.

think DC motor, where you apply charge to make the motor spin, same concept except its linear. motor are more efficient compare to gas/steam type power plant.

US are not dumping rail gun, its just still in R&D

 

I understand the electromagnetic concept, like the railgun that requires a whole lot of electrical energy for a fraction of a second the launch that little projectile. And that electrical energy comes from either steam turning a turbine or a big diesel engine turning a generator.

The steam catapults steam pipes become electrical conduits for the electromagnetic catapults.

But...isn't steam still the most powerful form of energy ?

I misquoted as I posted above, the rail gun is being dumped as a NSFS weapons platform. It will be used as a surface warfare and AA weapons platform.

That was the whole idea of developing the railgun, providing NSFS for the Marine Corps. The rail gun can't accomplish the mission of providing the NSFS that the Marines require.

Here's what we got out of the railgun and nobody saw it coming. Bringing back something everyone said was obsolete, AAA (Anti Aircraft Artillery) Powder guns firing the railgun projectiles.

 

Wrong.

The steam catapults are adjusted based on the specific aircraft being launched. Specifically the Capacity Selector Valve is set for the aircraft to be launched. In fact, there is one guy (the Weight Board Operator) on the flight deck whose only job is to show the full aircraft weight to the Catapult Officer, Topside Safety PO, and the Centerdeck Operator, when all approve that setting is used to set the Capacity Selector Valve. Mistakes still sometimes happen, but rarely.

Steam catapult technology is old - but the bugs were worked out many. many years ago. They are reliable and a known quantity. A death due to a steam catapult failure or mistake is rare these days.

All that changes with electromagnetic launchers. There will be mistakes in the new technology and procedures, time between failure will be unknown, there will be quirks that were not expected, and people will die as Navy goes through the learning curve.

 

Seems like welfare for Republicans to me. People marching cavalry into WW1 didn't do all that well, because war had fundamentally changed. The same held true with conventional tactics in Vietnam. War has changed once again, and carriers are just as useless against insurgents as cavalry were against the Kaiser's tanks.

 

I liked the Soviets in WW2 they were all for R&D spending but if you wasted money on a failure they would send you to Siberia if lucky and most likely kill you for wasting valuable war resources so innovation was what do we have that works and how do we make that better. We could lean a lot from that philosophy what would be wrong taking an older well tested design, update it some, make it more modern with added things you want and there you go. It would be a lot cheaper in the long run especially if we went back to an escort carrier approach not just main ships of the line designs.

 

The United States approached it a different way during WW ll. A blank check.

The last Douglas C-47 was paid off in the early 1980's. Infact WW ll was paid off during the Reagan administration.

 

what I mean is steam CANNOT adjust its force as precisely as Emag catapult. like I said there are many advantage of Emag catapult(eg it can adjust the force automatically by knowing type/loadout of plane, everything is control by wire and digitally), also china is research in this area, do we really want china to have Emag before we do, that is if we abandon Emag catapult.

There will always be mistake/issue with new technology. we stay ahead many competitor in term both commercial and military technology by innovate, then proficient in these new tech(in the 40s there were issue with jet engine vs propellers driving plane). once these bug are fixed then we can fully utilize advantage of Emag catapult.

 

not sure steam is more powerful vs Emag but you don't need a cannon to kill a fly, as long the latter can lunch plane with required force, then its fine. and EMag has many advantage over steam. also I'm pretty sure maglev train is faster than steam train, and waste less energy.

current rail gun is still too big, but doesn't mean we should stop R&D. there are plenty advantage of Rail gun over AAA/missile etc etc. been able to bombard enemy from 300km away using rail gun is cheap and more fire rate etc.

 

At $25,000 per round, that's not cheap.

At 6 rounds per minute that's almost comparable to a 6" light gun cruiser 10 rounds per minute. But the light gun cruiser had nine 6"/47 guns able to fire nine round salvos which are used for area targets.


The 8"/55 gun = 3 RPM
6"/47 gun = 10 RPM
5"/38 gun = 15 RPM
5"/54 gun = 35 RPM



If a ship can't put six rounds on an area target lets say 1/4 sq mile in one second or less, it can't accomplish the mission for NSFS.

The two Zumwalt class destroyers have two railguns and they can't provide a two gun salvo because just firing one round requires 25 megawatts of electrical power.

And one of the biggest problems with electromagnetic platforms is heat dispersion. With the railgun it's just not the heat generated in the electrical conductors but also the magnetic gun rails and the projectile traveling through the barrel at 3 Km/s.

Also for a railgun projectile to be able to achieve the speed and to reach out and touch something the railgun barrel requires a 70 caliber barrel, it's just physics.

A 6" railgun barrel has to be 420 inches (35') long. A 5" railgun requires a 350 inch (29') long barrel.

 

Control and precision is not the advantage of emag over steam catapults - steam is digitally controlled, it can be extremely precise. I suspect some (not all but some) of the "advantages" of emag over steam are just propaganda. Its trading steam technology and knowledge for emag technology and knowledge - trading the risks of steam for the risks of very high current. The risks of steam catapults are known, the risks of very high current (emag) catapults are not, so its easy to exaggerate the differences in favor of emag.

One big advantage is the startup of the steam system - it has to be warmed up, and warmed up in the proper order. Steam can't just turn on and launch planes. And emag takes up less space, fewer pipes. But emag requires special generators, and inductors, cabling, and very very high current - lots of unknowns are in store there.

Emag is probably better, but until emag is put in use launch after launch, day after day, year after year, in all kinds of weather, with a wide array of people operating it, its benefits and disadvantages wont really be known.

 

Emag is not new concept it has been field in commercial industry for long time. there will always been risk involving new technology, but are we just gonna stop innovation? look at the risk of jet engine after WWII, this is just one example

 

like I said rail gun is still in R&D, Zumwalt doesn't has rail gun its rocket propelled, also compare to 300km missile vs a slug that can travel same distance, and has higher fire rate/lower profile, its cheaper/better. it will take probably decades before rail gun can be field in weapon platform. whether or not future military will use rail gun or not depend on many factors, but it needs to be researched, since we are not the only one research rail gun china/Russia are doing it do, just lagging behind us.

 

Navy's Rail Gun Still Headed to Sea, but on Which Ship? -> http://www.defensenews.com/story/de...un-navy-fanta-naval-zumwalt-ddg1000/78443016/

Rocket propelled naval guns are nothing new, we had them during the Vietnam War and during the 1980's a GPS guided LRLAP projectile was developed for the Iowa class battleships 16" guns giving them a 80 plus mile range.

The 155 mm naval gun for the Zumwalt class destroyer is comparable to the old 6"/47 naval gun. both are 6" guns. Except the the Zumwalt gun is actually a rocket launcher and has the whoop ass of the navy's old 8"/55 guns.

A Zumwalt can put twenty 225 lb. rounds on target in one minute while the older Worcester gun cruiser could put ninety 130 lb. AP or 105 lb. HC rounds on target in one minute.

The old Des Moines 8" gun cruisers were able to put ninety 230 lb. HC rounds on target in one minute.

Both the light and heavy gun cruisers had a secondary armament of 12 X 5"/38 guns which was the gun of choice for "danger close" NSFS for the Marines.

Neither the Zumwalt or the Aegis class destroyers or Ticonderoga class cruisers of today come anywhere close to NSFS firepower of the old gun cruisers.

You put six of those 155 mm/62 (6.1") Advanced Gun System (AGS) on a ship with a secondary armament of twelve 5"/54 guns and you have a real warship that can accomplish the mission of providing NSFS that the Marine Corps requires for them to accomplish their mission.