I still don't understand the need for the Gerald R. Ford class as the US can easily make most of the same improvements of the Gerald R. Ford class on the Nimitz class hull with far fewer costs. The USS George H. W. Bush CVN-77 costs 6,2 billion $, the Gerald R. Ford CVN-78 costs 13,5 billion $. More than twice!
That's a good question. Let me try and answer.
The new reactors are not something you can economically retrofit into the Nimitz class carriers. They are much smaller and you would have to literally dismantle major portions of each ship to make it happen.
The amount of power that the new reactors provide, well over 200% more power, drive the other changes to the ship. Like the electromagnetic catapults. 1st, without the new, more powerful reactors, you could not drive the EM cats. Then, in addition to dismantling the engineering spaces to add the reactors, you would have to completely dismantle the deck and sub-deck areas to take out the steam cats and all of its equipment, and then add the new EM cats and its very different driving equipment.
Same for the new Dual Band Radars. These are more powerful and more effective than existing radars on the CVNs, but they also require a lot more power. Again, without the new reactors, you do not get the power necessary to install the new radars. Then, if you did, now you have to completely rebuild the Island.
This is just a start at the explanation. The new flight deck layout takes out one elevator and allows for better sortie rates and location of aircraft on the deck. It moves the island well back on the deck to accomplish this. It requires an expansion of the hanger deck to the aft of the vessel which requires new sponsons aft to accomodate this. To get that additional sortie rate and deck space use, another HUGE rebuild would be required on the Nimitz.
So, the fact is, you cannot get the same capabilities retrofitted onto the Nimitz without, in essence, performing a very extensive, time comsuming and expensive rebuild. Then you have to add all of that much more expensive hardware to the vessels. By the time you do all of that, you might as well have built a new carrier...which is what the Ford is. In essence, the Ford class
is an improved, a much improved, Nimitz design that takes advantage of all of the things we just discussed.
Yes, the 1st vessel is much more expensive. There are a whole lot of R&D costs and new cutting edge hardware and software to be recouped. Initially the DBR R&D was going to also benefit a class of 32 destroyers, but now, there will only be three of those DDGs and they are not using the DBR anyway. As more vessels are built and as Newport News perfects their construction methodologies, the costs will lower, though I imagine they will, even at their lowest, still cost over $10 billion each.
But the US Navy is also going to save $4 billion per carrier in operational costs over the life of the carrier, so the differnce in construction costs will largely be offset by the lower operational costs such that the total cost of ownership will be much closer...with a LOT more capability and room for growth and modernization in the new builds (because they are designed with that in mind) than the existing Nimitz class.
Hope that helps.
