Navy christens next generation of aircraft carrier

[TexasTowelie]

Source: AP

NORFOLK, Va. (AP) — The Navy christened the USS Gerald Ford on Saturday with the traditional smashing of a bottle of sparkling wine across the bow of the ship — the most technologically advanced aircraft carrier the United States has built.

The Ford is the lead ship in the Navy's next class of nuclear-powered aircraft carriers. It's designed to get more fighter planes in the sky in less time and to be ready to incorporate unmanned aircraft into its air wing. It's the first carrier redesign in four decades and is scheduled to join the fleet in 2016.

"She is truly a technological marvel," Chief of Naval Operations Adm. Jonathan Greenert said in a webcast ceremony at the Newport News, Va., shipyard where the Ford is being built. "She will carry unmanned aircraft, joint strike fighters, and she will deploy lasers."

Saturday's christening was one part tribute to the future of Naval warfare and one part tribute to the ship's namesake, former President Gerald R. Ford. Ford was a lieutenant commander aboard an aircraft carrier during World War II and frequently spoke fondly of his time in the Navy.

Read more: http://www.chron.com/news/us/article/Navy-christens-next-generation-of-aircraft-carrier-4970285.php?cmpid=hpbn

[longship]

1. They are making a big deal about this in my neck of the woods.

I'm about an hour's drive north of Grand Rapids in the beautiful Manistee National Forest. All the SE Michigan media is covering this event. Top story!

[Spitfire of ATJ]

5. If someone mentions it,....say, "Pardon?"

[longship]

6. Bad Spitfire! Very bad!

A shameful and delightful play on words.

[TheDebbieDee]

2. All that is fine and good - but when will the USS William Clinton be commissioned?

And will the USS Barack Obama even be built in my lifetime?

[Buddha_of_Wisdom]

3. I hope there will be a garbage scowl that will be approprately christened as George W. Bush

and that should be done...

[adieu]

11. Make the GW Bush ship out of wood

and be used a target training exercise. When hit directly, it will shoot up a sign that says, "MISSION ACCOMPLISHED!"

[OnlinePoker]

16. They would build an AC carrier and name it after him

Only problem is every time it would be scheduled to deploy, it would disappear and end up in a naval drydock somewhere.

[awoke_in_2003]

18. They only name carriers...

after republican presidents anymore.

[Recursion]

32. There's the USS Jimmy Carter from a few years ago

It's a submarine rather than a ship, but he was a submarine officer.

[Lasher]

69. Reagan stayed stateside during WWII making military training films.

So why didn't they name a movie theater after him? They named a sub after Carter so it wouldn't appear so sinister when they christened the USS Saint Ronnie of Reagan, as instructed by Grover Norquist.

[hack89]

37. The next ship will be the USS John F Kennedy (CVN 79). Nt

[awoke_in_2003]

40. I did not know that...thanks. nt

[Lasher]

70. USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67) was decommissioned in 2007.

So the new carrier will bear JFK's name.

[Ace Acme]

73. JFK endorsed a UN proposal for total disarmament in 9/61

The proposal was that all nations be totally disarmed, not just nuclear disarmed, and the only military forces would be for maintaining internal civil order in unstable countries and for a UN police force.

He also proposed that the moon landing by a joint USSR/USA project.

And in June 1963 he pledged that the USA would never start a war.

I don't think he would like having an aircraft carrier names after him. These white elephants have no actual military purpose except to launch airstrikes on defenseless third world nations, and perhaps to blackmail them: "You'd better do what we say or we'll blow up the USS John F. Kennedy and blame it on you and we'll launch a full-scale war of revenge against you."

[Kelvin Mace]

21. Sometime around

2275, a Constitution class starship, NCC-2008

[olddad56]

22. No, but you can bet there will be a USS George W. Bush. It will probably sink.

[TheDebbieDee]

23. One can only hope it will sink......

[jmowreader]

64. If there was a hint of justice...

The USS George W. Bush will be the lead ship in a new class of floating targets.

[tinrobot]

4. Nothing but a giant machine designed to kill people

I don't see any reason to celebrate something like this.

[Bob Jones]

7. We should scrap every ship in the US Navy. The Coast Guard is enough to defend us.

Anyone expecting an amphibious landing on our shores anytime soon?

[Rebellious Republican]

8. There may be a reason you do not worry about amphibious landings, other wise you would not have

to google translate any one of these? Just Saying!

hablas español?, Parlez-vous français? Sprechen Sie Deutsch? Вы говорите по-русски? 한국말 하실 줄 아세요?, 你識唔識講廣東話呀, هل تتكلم اللغة العربية؟.

[sulphurdunn]

35. We currently have 10

Nimitz Class super carriers on active duty, 9 others carriers are in mothballs or being decommissioned. 4 of these new Ford Class super carriers are in the pipe at $13 billion each. With advances in offensive missile technology and submarine warfare capabilities, other navies may decide it has become much cheaper to sink these ships that to built and defend them. Just sayin...

[Ace Acme]

42. Is there any conceivable military utility to these carriers in an actual war?

It seems to me that they are sitting ducks to modern submarines and cruise missiles.

As far as I can see, their only possible use is to attack third world nations that are not capable of fighting back--or to threaten such attacks through "war games" that just happen to be scheduled off the shores of uppity nations.

They represent the bully's chip on the shoulder, going around daring someone to know it off and start something,

[jmowreader]

65. Carriers operate as part of a battle group

There are ships in the group that do nothing but defend the carrier, and the carrier has lots of defensive weapons too.

[Ace Acme]

67. If recent history is any guide, a carrier would be vulnerable to unarmed airliners

... even after multiple warnings of upcoming attacks. Of course it could still be useful--if someone blew it
up that could be used as an excuse to engage in illegal invasions, torture, assassinations and all kinds of
stuff useful to the war profiteers and their lackeys. "Remember the Ford!" I can see the headlines now.

[jmowreader]

68. If recent history is any guide, so is a skyscraper

[caraher]

71. Nonsense

A carrier is vulnerable to a lot of weapons, but in a wartime situation an airliner is such a big and slow target for its defensive systems, particularly those deployed by its battle group, that it would pose no genuine threat. And sadly, there's a combat record to point to (see USS Vincennes vs. the Iranian airliner).

But the point that others have made about a carrier's vulnerability to those other weapons still stands.

[Ace Acme]

72. So a carrier, impractical for real warfare as it is, is an enormous profit opportunity

Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 08:07 PM - Edit history (1)

... for the military industrial complex because its mere existence creates the need for a vast fleet of protective infrastructure.

OK, maybe I'll refine my position. Maybe, properly accessorized with $30 billion worth of support infrastructure, a carrier can be of military utility in an actual war.

Are they of any military utility in national defense? Can they do anything to defend our borders that land-based forces can not do? Or are they only of use in projecting force in places in the world where we are not wanted?

[RandySF]

9. Overruns? No problem.

"The Ford is about $2 billion over budget and is about 70 percent complete, with most of the remaining work occurring on its internal systems. The cost overruns are eating into the aircraft carrier's projected savings. The aircraft carrier was designed to operate with fewer crew members, which is expected to save $4 billion over the ship's 50-year life span."

[another_liberal]

25. The Pentagon is not into saving . . .

Spending money is power. That's why the Pentagon is not into saving.

[jmowreader]

10. Unlike the last president a carrier was named for, Ford was a carrier sailor

As for Clinton and Obama...I think the United States needs two more hospital ships, don't you?

[RC]

53. Save people, when it is easier to just kill them in the first place?

Ain't a gonna happen. Not this country. Cuba maybe.

[jmowreader]

61. The two hospital ships we have already are used to save people

Killing gets all the press, but the military does quite a bit of disaster relief too. (First and most vivid example to me: Hurricane Andrew, which I was part of the 10th Mountain Division force that served in relief.)

[GreydeeThos]

12. Next generation? You mean there is going to be more of these things??

She will carry joint strike fighters

One colossal waste of money being carried around by another colossal waste of money.
[/font]
Why can't we spend money on something to benefit the country like clean, renewable energy?

[indepat]

15. Hey, we have only eleven aircraft-carrier strike task forces at present, and that's not even two

for each of the seven seas. Besides, the old folks who, with cuts in their social security and getting more cat food in their diets will be able to sleep more restfully knowing an extra task force will be there to sail the seven seas keeping us safe from terra.

[Bosso 63]

27. Put it up to eleven!

This is Spinal Tap

Nigel Tufnel: The numbers all go to eleven. Look, right across the board, eleven, eleven, eleven and...
Marty DiBergi: Oh, I see. And most amps go up to ten?
Nigel Tufnel: Exactly.
Marty DiBergi: Does that mean it's louder? Is it any louder?
Nigel Tufnel: Well, it's one louder, isn't it? It's not ten. You see, most blokes, you know, will be playing at ten. You're on ten here, all the way up, all the way up, all the way up, you're on ten on your guitar. Where can you go from there? Where?
Marty DiBergi: I don't know.
Nigel Tufnel: Nowhere. Exactly. What we do is, if we need that extra push over the cliff, you know what we do?
Marty DiBergi: Put it up to eleven.
Nigel Tufnel: Eleven. Exactly. One louder.
Marty DiBergi: Why don't you just make ten louder and make ten be the top number and make that a little louder?
Nigel Tufnel: [pause] These go to eleven.
Source:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0088258/quot...

[warrant46]

59. Safe not only from Terra

but safe from guys who live in mud huts and herd sheep in a pest hold 9,000 miles from amerika (the promised land)

Not only is the cat food delicious but its on sale this week with this coupon.

[penndragon69]

13. How many NEW schools and Hospitals

could have been built for the money they wasted on
this monstrosity?

[pangaia]

39. High speed rail, even.

[Ace Acme]

43. Eisenhower's "Cross of Iron" Speech:

Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies, in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone.

It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children.

The cost of one modern heavy bomber is this: a modern brick school in more than 30 cities.

It is two electric power plants, each serving a town of 60,000 population.

It is two fine, fully equipped hospitals. It is some 50 miles of concrete highway.

We pay for a single fighter plane with a half million bushels of wheat.

We pay for a single destroyer with new homes that could have housed more than 8,000 people.

This, I repeat, is the best way of life to be found on the road. the world has been taking.

This is not a way of life at all, in any true sense. Under the cloud of threatening war, it is humanity hanging from a cross of iron.

[Glorfindel]

14. Sickening and repulsive waste of money

In the age of nuclear attack submarines, cruise missiles, and remotely-operated drones, we're preparing to do battle with the Imperial Japanese Navy, circa 1941.

[pasto76]

20. hardly, and you know better

the carrier groups are the most effective means of projecting our military power. Those "strikes" on syria would have been missile boats and carriers. Marine task forces can be launched off of them and landed in hot zones or in humanitarian missions. They are part of the conventional side of what we do. Nuclear subs eh. Still scared of them ruskies? Cruise missiles are nice, but sometimes a 500 pound JDAM is more appropriate than a 1000 pound tomahawk. Drones have one or two missiles. hardly compares to an F18. you rhetoric is way off target on this one. your 1941 japanese navy comment isnt even worth going into.

get it on budget, sure. Scrap that fucking F35 JSF program, hell yes.

[Ace Acme]

44. Carriers are sitting ducks, helpless

... against subs, mines, cruise missiles, drones, and intelligent torpedos.

A colossal waste of military resources. The "Bismarck" of our time. The Bismarck's rudder was crippled by a hit from a biplane torpedo bomber, which caused her to steam in a circle. Within an hour the captain informed HQ: "Ship unmanoeuverable. We will fight to the last shell. Long live the Führer." Ten hours after the first attack, she sank.

[Recursion]

49. That's why carriers only travel in carrier groups

With, you know, subs, destroyers, AEGIS frigates, etc. around them.

[Ace Acme]

51. The necessity of an entourage only underscores the carrier's vulnerability nt

[lastlib]

17. The military doesn't understand this:

“Every gun that is made, every warship launched, every rocket fired signifies in the final sense, a theft from those who hunger and are not fed, those who are cold and are not clothed. This world in arms is not spending money alone. It is spending the sweat of its laborers, the genius of its scientists, the hopes of its children. This is not a way of life at all in any true sense. Under the clouds of war, it is humanity hanging on a cross of iron.”
--Dwight D. Eisenhower

. . . . . .

[LongTomH]

54. 50 Years later, we're still ignoring Ike's warning!

Ike's grandaughter, Susan Eisenhower, paid tribute to the legacy of his Cross of Iron speech with a 2011 article:

I've always found it rather haunting to watch old footage of my grandfather, Dwight Eisenhower, giving his televised farewell address to the nation on Jan. 17, 1961. The 50-year-old film all but crackles with age as the president makes his earnest, uncoached speech. I was 9 years old at the time, and it wasn't until years later that I understood the importance of his words or the lasting impact of his message.

Of course, the speech will forever be remembered for Eisenhower's concerns about a rising "military-industrial complex," which he described as "a permanent armaments industry of vast proportions" with the potential to acquire - whether sought or unsought - "unwarranted influence" in the halls of government.

The notion captured the imagination of scholars, politicians and veterans; the military-industrial complex has been studied, investigated and revisited countless times, including now, at its 50th anniversary. Looking back, it is easy to see the parallels to our era, especially how the complex has expanded since Sept. 11, 2001. In less than 10 years, our military and security expenditures have increased by 119 percent. Even after subtracting the costs of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the budget has grown by 68 percent since 2001. In 2010, the United States is projected to spend at least $700 billion on its defense and security, the most, in real terms, that we've spent in any year since World War II.

[mwrguy]

66. They understand, they just don't care

This is a group dedicated to killing people and breaking things.

[awoke_in_2003]

19. halfway down the slip...

the ship tripped and fell over.

[pam4water]

24. OMG someone named a ship after Ford. It's going to crash into all the other carriers and

sink them

[IDemo]

26. We'll show those Soviets who's boss!

oh wait...

[Historic NY]

28. All for a guy that was selected and not elected...

[Recursion]

34. JFK is getting a ship in this class

So that's something, I guess...

[Ace Acme]

45. JFK endorsed a UN proposal for total disarmament

Not just nuclear. Total. No military, anywhere, except a UN police force and internal security forces.

He also proposed that the moon landing be a joint Soviet-US effort. Naming an imperialist gunboat after JFK would appear to be a deliberate propaganda irony.

[hack89]

38. He was also a WWII Navy combat veteran. Nt

[underpants]

29. Freakin' Lasers!! I hope it doesn't shoot lasers like Pres.Ford played golf

[bemildred]

30. Ah, a mother ship for drones. nt

[jpak]

31. I can't wait until they christen the USS Barack Hussein Obama

[Ace Acme]

46. The Death Star will be named for Obama nt

[Recursion]

33. For those curious, here's the count of ships named for each President

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._military_vessels_named_after_Presidents

Washingon: 8, 1 active, also 1 class of submarine

John Adams: 3 (but see below)

Jefferson: 3

Madison: 4

Monroe: 2

John Q. Adams: 0 (but see below)

Jackson: 3, also 1 class of attack transport

Van Buren: 1 (but see below)

William H. Harrison: 0

Tyler: 0

Polk: 2

Taylor: 0

Buchanan: 0

Lincoln: 2, 1 active

Andrew Johnson: 0

Grant: 1

Hayes: 0

Garfield: 0

Arthur: 0

Cleveland: 0, not even non-consecutive ships

Benjamin Harrison: 0

McKinley: 0

Theodore Roosevelt: 3, 1 active

Taft: 0

Wilson: 1

Franklin Roosevelt: 2, 1 active

Truman: 1, still active

Eisenhower: 1, still active

Kennedy: 1, nominally active (it's docked in Philly), plus a new carrier in the class of this article has been laid down

Lyndon Johnson: A Zumwalt-class destroyer has been laid down

Nixon: 0

Ford: 1, this ship

Carter: 1, still active

Reagan: 1, still active

George H W Bush: 1, still active

Clinton: 0

George W Bush: 0

Obama: 0

Note on the Adamses: 1 ship, the USS President Adams, is named after both J Adams and J Q Adams.

Note on Van Buren: in addition to the USS Martin Van Buren, the USS Van Buren is named after Van Buren, Arkansas, which is itself named after Van Buren.

[Historic NY]

36. Sheesh...nothing for Millard Fillmore.

[Sognefjord]

56. Or my state's own Herbert Hoover

[Ace Acme]

47. Surprised they had the nerve to name one for Grant

He was one of the most corrupt presidents in terms of military contract corruption that ever was.

[Historic NY]

55. He never benefited from it, his poor judgement to

appointing hacks and big political campaign contributors to positions that accelerated the the corruption and greed was his worst decision......those guys were stealing all they could and then even more including all the gold in NY.

[Ace Acme]

62. He never benefited from making his supporters very, very grateful? I see. nt

Last edited Mon Nov 11, 2013, 02:25 AM - Edit history (1)

[yuiyoshida]

41. Just wanted to see it..

[sakabatou]

48. It looks good

[yuiyoshida]

50. un..

Kakkoii desune!

[sakabatou]

52. Sou da

[sulphurdunn]

57. Global military expenditures

were about $1.8 trillion in 2012. Of that amount about $680 billion was spent by the US. The net incomes of the 100 wealthiest individuals on earth was $240 billion. The 400 richest Americans have a combined net worth of $2.2 trillion. One might ask who the major beneficiaries of all that military spending are and who should be paying for most of it if it needs to be spent.

[locks]

58. It cost 12 billion dollars

Maybe it could be sent to the Philippines and deploy food, water and medicine by lasers.

[Tabasco_Dave]

60. Should we call it the Ford?

[Ace Acme]

63. Call it the Edsel.

$15 billion worth of ugly that seemed like a good idea to some fools at the time.