Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

bd popeye said:

Those photos are from Jeff's Flicker account. I've no problem seeing them. Is Flickr blocked in Cambodia???

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At the top of the questions facing the Navy is the future of the aircraft carrier George Washington. The budget request eliminated funds for a scheduled $3.5 billion, three-and-a-half-year refueling overhaul that would start in 2016. This would mean permanently decommissioning the ship, part of a plan to reduce the 11-carrier fleet by one and cut one of 10 carrier air wings.

The carrier is a centerpiece of a wider fight between the White House and Congress over the future of mandated budget reductions — an issue known as the sequester.

Should there be no changes in the sequester rules, the Navy has told Congress, the ship and its wing will go. If lawmakers agree to lift budget caps starting in 2016, the ship can stay.

Should funding be restored, a slight delay in the overhaul is likely, possibly pushing the work into 2017.

The situation was further clouded March 5 by an internal Pentagon memo to the service chiefs from Acting Deputy Defense Secretary Christine Fox. It directed the Navy to “program for 11 carrier strike groups and the appropriate number of associated air wings, including the refueling and overhaul” of the George Washington.

That contradicted testimony that same day by Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, when he told Congress the inactivation was going ahead unless budget caps were lifted.

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FORBIN said:

Uncertain fate for CVN Washington

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thunderchief said:

Obama really pushes for 9 carrier navy, but if it comes to that I don't think that USS George Washington would go first, USS Nimitz is primary candidate for early decommissioning .

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Yahoo said:

The U.S. Navy's newest aircraft carrier — a massive warship outfitted with the latest radar technology and sophisticated systems to accommodate unmanned, carrier-launched drones — is set to undergo more than two years of rigorous testing.

The USS Gerald R. Ford is the first of what will eventually be the Navy's fleet of next-generation Ford-class aircraft carriers. The upgraded ships are the first new designs of aircraft carriers since the USS Nimitz was built in the late 1960s.

The USS Ford was christened during a special ceremony in November in Newport News, Va. The massive warship is slated to officially enter service in the Navy in 2016. But first, shipbuilders will spend 26 months meticulously testing the aircraft carrier's various systems.

"We're kind of in the infancy stage of the test program, and the early returns are good," Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, program executive officer for aircraft carriers, told the Daily Press. "We have a long way to go."

The USS Ford's testing phase is longer and more labor intensive than normal because the next-generation warship incorporates many new technologies, including upgraded radar systems, more efficient nuclear power plants and electromagnetic launchers designed to more effectively propel aircraft off the carrier's deck.

The mammoth USS Ford weighs nearly 100,000 tons, and will eventually be home to more than 4,600 service people and up to 75 aircraft, according to Newport News Shipbuilding, which constructed the aircraft carrier.

The Ford-class carriers are designed to replace the Navy's existing Nimitz-class warships, which have been in operation since the 1970s. The upgraded designs feature larger flight decks, three aircraft elevators and the new ships also replace steam-powered systems with more efficient onboard electrical power.

Some lawmakers and industry officials have criticized the USS Ford — particularly for its $12.8 billion price tag — but the Navy is staunchly defending the warship and its new technologies, according to the Daily Press.

The Ford-class ships are expected to usher in a new era of American naval power, and are designed to operate for 50 years. Construction is already beginning on the next aircraft carrier in the fleet, the USS John F. Kennedy.

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FORBIN said:

I think often the main problem for DOD is the sequestration. If continues definitely 10 CVN.

According to law number of CVN must be 11, Congress decision/vote, for the moment USN is temporarily allowed to reduce its number of CVN to 10 from 2012 when Enterprise has been decommissioned and until the Ford is commissionned in 2016, normaly.

Ford is great but extremely expensive, 13 billions $ ! much more than the last Nimitz about the double and if USN want keep 10/11 with one life of 50 years must build one all 5 years.

America class can help a little with 20 F-35B aboard but no AEW, EW very different capability.

The future programm SSBN(X) with 12 SSBN planned, price about 5.5 billion for the moment likely to be delicate fiscally in the 2020s.

Some experts say 8/10 SSBN are sufficient USN do not agree.

If one CV is not removed then it may be instead several Ticonderoga.

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Jeff Head said:

The USS Nimitz, CVN-68, already went through its expensive mid-life refuel. The are targeting the Washington because it is next up for that expensive work ($3.5 billion), and they want to save that money.

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Jeff Head said:

These "alternate" cuts, all to the military, are an arguement made to try and convince the punbclic that theese custs must come from the military.

they do not.

Here in the US, the Congress can find the money wherever they want to, and agree to find the money.

---------- pardon the following off topic explanation ----------

Sequestrtion was a progressoive DNC trap that the GOP allowed itself to be manuevered into. It was always about severelly cutting the military...and now they want to make that happen, irrepective of the law.

The spending on the social engineering programs (which are clearly directed at getting more and more Americand dpendent on progressive policies and politicans so that they will vote for them) put in place by this administrtion is growing. Between many of those fraudulent programs, most of which have been proven to fail at improving anything, between rediculous amounts of foreign aid (a lot of it going to adversarily orinted nations), between untold tens of billions each year to the most mundane and rediculous research projects which are nothing more that pay backs political support, and between the hundreds of billions of dollars in fraud in the welfare, food stamp, unemployment, and disability programs...there is far more than enough money to be had to significantly reduce the deficit...and even abolish it.

We just need leaders with the will and foritude to cut those things, and weather the inevitable press and progressive claims that they are doing it because they hate the elderly, or they are racist, or they hate foreign imigrants, etc., etc.

Clearly, fraudlent activities in the Militray must also to be addressed and cut out...but these cuts are not to that, they are to the muscle and bone of the US capability.

---------- end off topic ----------

Anyhow, just because they do not get the George Washington retired early (and I pray they do not), it does not mean that they need to replace those supposed "savings" by prematurely retiring other vessels, or cutting into other future programs necessary for the onging security of the nation. As I say, there is a wealth of other pograms which are failing and fraudulent which can provide the savings needed.

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According to Bloomberg citing Brazil Defense Minister Celso Amorim, the country plans to build an aircraft carrier with a foreign partner as part of an effort to enhance the military readiness of the Marinha do Brasil (Brazilian Navy).

“The idea is for it to be built in Brazil, probably based on an existing project,” Amorim told a group of foreign correspondents. Latin America’s largest country will require a new aircraft carrier within 15 years and will modernize its existing one in the meantime, Amorim said.

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