New Aircraft Carrier Does More with Less Crew

[unhappycamper]

http://www.facethefactsusa.org/facts/New-Aircraft-Carrier-Does-More-with-Less-Crew/



But Still Takes 4,660 – and $26.8 Billion


New Aircraft Carrier Does More with Less Crew
Released: Nov. 5, 2012

Our newest aircraft carrier requires a smaller crew but still takes big bucks to build. Its total cost, including personnel, is $26.8 billion.

Now under construction, the Gerald R. Ford-class carrier is due to enter service in 2015 with a crew of 4,660 – 500 fewer than older carriers thanks to technology improvements. She will be the nation’s 12th active aircraft carrier; at the height of the Cold War the Navy had as many as 26.

The U.S. Navy fleet in 2012 comprised 287 ships. During the Korean War (1950-53) it was 1,122 ships. See today’s infographic for more facts about the changing profile of the U.S. Navy.

Budget constraints may complicate future additions to the carrier fleet. $26.8 billion is about half the total annual sequestration cut mandated for the Pentagon.



unhappycamper comment: The prior class of aircraft carriers, the Nimitz-class, cost around $4.5 billion dollars. The very last Nimitz-class carrier (USS George H.W. Bush) cost $6.8 billion dollars, with over $2 billion in overtime.

[SDjack]

1. USA once again has more carriers than it had in 1916. But, it has less battleships. nt

[unhappycamper]

2. Correct.

Zero battleships are less than anything greater than zero.

[MADem]

3. Why did Poppy get to jump the line? And Saint Ronnie?

And where's the LBJ?

Will we ever see a Clinton, or an Obama, I wonder?

There are recent Presidents without carriers named after them, however. Lyndon Baines Johnson has no carrier, nor does Jimmy Carter (he does have a submarine named after him, perhaps appropriate for him since he served on submarines), nor does Bill Clinton, or Richard Nixon. I note that these are all (but Nixon) Democrats. I also note that both Johnson and Clinton were two-term Presidents, that Carter was a naval officer, and that Johnson was a member of the Naval reserve with a Silver Star to his name (albeit, oddly, an Army Silver Star). Clinton had a somewhat difficult relationship with the military, both before and during his Presidency. Johnson has Vietnam, and the Gulf of Tonkin. Nixon has his disgrace. Carter was not a great President.

None of those are particularly disqualifying. Ford was not a good President, and he has an entire class named after him. George H.W. Bush served a single term and, with the exception of the Gulf War, had few notable successes (*not* being Ronald Reagan could be counted as a success for many, I think). So the question becomes: what will CVN-80 be? The USS Lyndon Baines Johnson? The USS William Jefferson Clinton? The USS Jimmy Carter (SSN-23) will still be active, so it can’t be that. I personally think it should be Johnson, but the USS William Jefferson Clinton would cause right-wing heads everywhere to explode with massive force, which has its own appeal.

Current Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus has shown a willingness to give ships names that break from the expected (the USS Gabrielle Giffords and the USNS Cesar Chavez for example) and so perhaps he will step up.

http://chronicle.com/blognetwork/edgeofthewest/2012/03/06/on-the-naming-of-carriers/

A USS William Jefferson Clinton would DELIGHT me, frankly.

[leveymg]

4. Unfortunately, it can still be sunk by one $1.2 mil anti-ship ballistic missile

and therefore has to operate in combat outside the effective targeting range of those missiles, which rivals the effective combat radius of most of its aircraft. In other words, a waste against adversaries with modern weapons.

[Angleae]

5. A strike at a carrier group by a ballistic missile would trigger a nuclear counterstrike.

You always assume a ballistic missile has a nuclear warhead until otherwise proven. There's also the not-so-small problem of finding the carrier group in the first place. You can't just launch the missile "thataway" and hope it finds the target.

[glacierbay]

6. And to top it off

Carriers are the most heavily defended ships in the world, getting to one is not an easy task.