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View Full Version : DoD Study Calls for Two Aircraft Carriers to be Cut from Fleet


Buncheong
04-25-20, 23:27
“The assessment is part of an ongoing DoD-wide review of Navy force structure and seem to echo what Defense Secretary Mark Esper has been saying for months: the Defense Department wants to begin de-emphasizing aircraft carriers as the centerpiece of the Navy's force projection and put more emphasis on unmanned technologies that can be more easily sacrificed in a conflict and can achieve their missions more affordably.”

https://www.defensenews.com/naval/2020/04/20/defense-department-study-calls-for-cutting-2-of-the-us-navys-aircraft-carriers/
Diamondback
04-25-20, 23:31
All well and good until the Chicoms figure out how to hack a drone and mark our mail "Return To Sender"...
SteyrAUG
04-26-20, 00:58
Are our UAVs currently sophisticated enough to engage enemy fighters and win? Are they carrying enough firepower to destroy large navy vessels?

If yes, then I agree that carriers full of expensive tech and pilots need not be needlessly risked in an "old school" show of force that is nothing more than a vulnerable liability.

If no, then we probably need to keep a carrier fleet in place that can go to bad places and decisively determine the outcome of conflicts.

I'm just not really current enough on UAV technology and capability. I know carriers redefined the "battleship war" that most people expected WWII to be. But at the same time, modern tech doesn't always tip the balance, Germans has Me262s but it wasn't enough and was too late in the game to redefine the game.

UAVs are a wonderful piece of weaponry. Harder to detect and generally more precise and all without risking a a much more expensive fighter plane and pilot.
SteyrAUG
04-26-20, 01:03
All well and good until the Chicoms figure out how to hack a drone and mark our mail "Return To Sender"...


I'm sure there are more than a few basic failsafes built in.
FromMyColdDeadHand
04-26-20, 01:42
Contractors already made their money making them, now they'll make more decommissioning them- a nuclear reactor ship can't be easy to take down. Plus, all that money on the new tech, boo-yah cash flow.
rjacobs
04-26-20, 07:49
The nimitz is 45 years old.

The Eisenhower is 43 years old.


Whats the service life of a super carrier? I read somewhere 50 years.
mack7.62
04-26-20, 07:52
Why decommission them, convert them to floating power plants, I bet if done right one could power a good sized city.
You could even line the flight deck with solar panels to appease the environuts.

Oh wait, that might make sense, never mind.
ABNAK
04-26-20, 08:40
I remember when we were going to invade Haiti back in 1994. The DoD had taken the USS Eisenhower and basically put an Army light infantry brigade on it from the 10th Mountain Division. It was big enough to house the men and equipment, including their helicopters and artillery IIRC. Maybe that can be a future use of older carriers?
Buckaroo
04-26-20, 08:45
Why decommission them, convert them to floating power plants, I bet if done right one could power a good sized city.
You could even line the flight deck with solar panels to appease the environuts.

Oh wait, that might make sense, never mind.This! It seems quite reasonable to me.

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hotrodder636
04-26-20, 08:49
It is proving quite a challenge to decommission a nuclear carrier, not so much a sub.
https://www.navytimes.com/news/your-navy/2019/06/06/this-is-how-the-navy-plans-to-break-the-big-e/

Contractors already made their money making them, now they'll make more decommissioning them- a nuclear reactor ship can't be easy to take down. Plus, all that money on the new tech, boo-yah cash flow.


USS Enterprise was active for 51 years. IIRC, the Nimitz class was designed to last longer, but I have to find my old Navy notes on that.

The nimitz is 45 years old.

The Eisenhower is 43 years old.


Whats the service life of a super carrier? I read somewhere 50 years.

Navy reactor cores are very power dense and therefore much more expensive than commercial nuclear fuels making them not cost effective for general power production. That said, if there is still core life at the end of ship life, they could feed into shore power and use the rest of the nuclear fuel...I am just not sure of the grid logistics there. There would most definitely have to be some electrical-transmission modifications done to support this (and the solar panels :rolleyes: )

Why decommission them, convert them to floating power plants, I bet if done right one could power a good sized city.
You could even line the flight deck with solar panels to appease the environuts.

Oh wait, that might make sense, never mind.