DoD Buzz: QDR Likely Kills Two Carriers, EFV

[unhappycamper]

QDR Likely Kills Two Carriers, EFV
By Colin Clark Wednesday, December 9th, 2009 11:17 am
Posted in Air, Land, Naval, Policy, Rumors

Word on Capitol Hill is that the Quadrennial Defense Review should result in the demise of two Navy car­rier groups and the Marines’ Expeditionary Fighting Vehicle. On top of that, the Joint Strike Fighter pro­gram is likely to lose a so-​​far uncer­tain num­ber of planes and the Air Force looks to lose two air wings.

Folks on the Hill are watch­ing the car­rier cuts par­tic­u­larly closely. They were will­ing to accept the tem­po­rary loss of one car­rier but two groups may just be too much for law­mak­ers to swal­low though it would con­ve­niently answer the hot debate about whether the Navy faces a fighter gap.

“Even if they cut two car­rier strike groups (which will be an uphill bat­tle for DOD), they still face a sig­nif­i­cant USN fighter gap,” said a con­gres­sional aide fol­low­ing this. “The Navy seems to rec­og­nize this, but every­thing we’ve heard thus far from OSD seems to indi­cate that they’d rather try funny math then address a clear gap.”

The 2010 defense autho­riza­tion report noted care­fully that Congress was will­ing to accept the “tem­po­rary reduc­tion in min­i­mum num­ber of oper­a­tional air­craft car­ri­ers” from 11 to 10 until CVN 78 is com­mis­sioned in 2015. The report also noted that “the Navy has made a long-​​term com­mit­ment to field 11 air­craft car­ri­ers out­fit­ted with 10 car­rier air wings com­posed of 44 strike-​​fighters in each wing.” Congress, the report’s authors said, is “very con­cerned” about “cur­rent and fore­casted short­falls in the strike-​​fighter inven­tory.” Given the totemic nature of car­ri­ers for the Navy and the num­bers of jobs and the money at stake for mem­bers of Congress, a bat­tle royal over plans to per­ma­nently reduce the fleet by two car­rier groups seems assured.

On the Joint Strike Fighter, one con­gres­sional aide said a cut to the F-35’s over­all num­bers would not be sur­pris­ing given the program’s ris­ing costs and the tight­ened bud­get sit­u­a­tion the coun­try faces for 2011. And now we have some detail about just how big those cuts may be, Our col­leagues at Inside Defense are report­ing that a draft Pentagon direc­tive would result in extend­ing, “devel­op­ment by at least a year, reduce pro­duc­tion by approx­i­mately 100 air­craft and require the addi­tion of bil­lions of dol­lars to the effort through 2015.”


Rest of article at: http://www.dodbuzz.com/2009/12/09/qdr-likely-kills-two-carriers-efv/?wh=wh



unhappycamper comment: I'm laughing my ass off about this one.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CVN_78



Name: USS Gerald R. Ford
Namesake: Gerald R. Ford
Awarded: 10 September 2008
Builder: Northrop Grumman Newport News
Cost: $5.1 billion
Laid down: 13 November 2009<1>
Sponsored by: Susan Ford<2>
Commissioned: est. 2015
Status: Under construction
General characteristics
Class and type: Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier
Displacement: appx. 100,000 tons
Length: 1,092 ft (333 m)
Beam: 134 ft (41 m)
Propulsion: 2 x A1B reactor
Speed: 30+ knots
Range: Essentially unlimited distance; 20 years
Complement: 4,660
Armament: Evolved Sea Sparrow Missile
Rolling Airframe Missile
Close-in weapons system(CIWS)
Aircraft carried: More than 75


What's so funny is DoD Buzz said on 3.20.09 that:

"The next nuclear-propelled aircraft carrier, the Gerald Ford (CVN 78), is expected by non-Navy sources to cost some $10 to $12 billion."

I had also seen a post from one of the military rags saying the new Ford-class aircraft carriers would cost around $11,5 billion sans airplanes and people.

[driver8]

1. So the Gerald Ford is a NEW class of carriers and not a Nimitz class?

Hmmm -- I had not heard that.

[unhappycamper]

2. Yup. The last of the $4.5 billion dollar Nimitz carriers was the $6.8 billion dollar

George H. W. Bush. (The extra $2.3 billion was mostly overtime so they could a) get the carrier delivered before Poppy popped off and b) so they could start the new $11.5 billion dollar Ford carriers.)

Keep in mind that $11.5 billion is only an estimated cost. The delivered product will most likely cost a few bucks more.

[driver8]

3. I spent 3.5 years on the USS Dwight D. Eisenhower running nuclear power plants.

I would love to see the new class of carriers.

[Captain Hilts]

4. The FORD class is a boondoggle. Upgrade NIMITZ. that's enough. nt