Gerald R. Ford Class CVN

TomS said:
sferrin said:
But the Tomcat was bigger than both and they routinely carried 24 of those in addition to S-3s, A-6Es, EA-6Bs, etc., none of which are exactly small.
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Look at the spotting factors -- IIRC, the Super Bug is as big as an F-14 on the flight deck.

And note the comment about moving planes. They figured out that stuffing the hangar full didn't make for more operational effectiveness once you take into account the time and effort to respot planes all the time.
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I would wager usable aircraft at any given time aren't much different to be honest. Still wish we'd add some ASW to the mix.
 
TomS said:
sferrin said:
But the Tomcat was bigger than both and they routinely carried 24 of those in addition to S-3s, A-6Es, EA-6Bs, etc., none of which are exactly small.
Click to expand...

Look at the spotting factors -- IIRC, the Super Bug is as big as an F-14 on the flight deck.

And note the comment about moving planes. They figured out that stuffing the hangar full didn't make for more operational effectiveness once you take into account the time and effort to respot planes all the time.
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Needs to be pointed oit that back in...

Early 2000s?

Roughly when the F14 left ircc.

The Navy stated they were dropping several Squadrons from carriers with the F14 to save on money.

Since you can surge several new Squadron of planes in a few months in a few months compare to trying surge a a few new carriers.

Especially considering that the Ford does have a similar number of SUPPORT Crew, ie mechanics, armors, technicians...

And similar level of shop mechanic shops.

Despite the memes, modern gear is so much more user friendly in both the use and maintaince of it. Even with the F35Cs, you dont need as much crew to run as even the old F18s did let alone the F14s. But the Ford still has similar air wing crew numbers to the Nimitz.

Odds are that tge Ford can do 90 plane ops just fine.

They dont cause we dont have the spare 20 planes...
 
Does the USN have any known contingency plans for surging squadrons to a deployed carrier? While there probably aren’t a lot of carrier qualified units and pilots just lying around at any given moment, I would have thought it still far easier and faster to add a squadron or two to deployed CVs then wait for a whole bird farm to spool up and move out. Plus I’d assume there might be a need for attrition replacements.
 
I would would suspect that there are no currently up to date contingency plans in that regard, unfortunately.
 
TomS said:
Look at the spotting factors -- IIRC, the Super Bug is as big as an F-14 on the flight deck.

And note the comment about moving planes. They figured out that stuffing the hangar full didn't make for more operational effectiveness once you take into account the time and effort to respot planes all the time.
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The Superbug's not quite that bad. I've had to do a bunch of conversions, but its spot factor is equal to the Intruder, and thus about 10% less than the Tomcat's. Which makes sense, since the Superbug is a little shorter and has a significantly lower wingspan than an unswept Tomcat.
 
CV12Hornet said:
TomS said:
Look at the spotting factors -- IIRC, the Super Bug is as big as an F-14 on the flight deck.

And note the comment about moving planes. They figured out that stuffing the hangar full didn't make for more operational effectiveness once you take into account the time and effort to respot planes all the time.
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The Superbug's not quite that bad. I've had to do a bunch of conversions, but its spot factor is equal to the Intruder, and thus about 10% less than the Tomcat's. Which makes sense, since the Superbug is a little shorter and has a significantly lower wingspan than an unswept Tomcat.
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And the ONLY times F-14s' wings were unswept were during maintenance (usually in the hangar), during landing, and duuring launch.

Just watch some vids of F-14 flight deck ops... they don't spread the wings until they are taxying to a catapult, and they sweep them as soon as their hook is clear of the wire that stopped them.

So for deck parking, the spot factor was always "wings swept" for F-14s unless they were planning a maintenance evolution for the wings.
 
You can probably fit more Tomcats in a space than Super Hornets since the Tomcat has a more arrowhead sort of shape when stowed. That makes tessellation a lot easier in general.
 
BlackBat242 said:
And the ONLY times F-14s' wings were unswept were during maintenance (usually in the hangar), during landing, and duuring launch.

Just watch some vids of F-14 flight deck ops... they don't spread the wings until they are taxying to a catapult, and they sweep them as soon as their hook is clear of the wire that stopped them.

So for deck parking, the spot factor was always "wings swept" for F-14s unless they were planning a maintenance evolution for the wings.
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Fair enough. Still, the numbers still work out to the Super Hornet taking up about 10% less space than a Tomcat.

Kat Tsun said:
You can probably fit more Tomcats in a space than Super Hornets since the Tomcat has a more arrowhead sort of shape when stowed. That makes tessellation a lot easier in general.
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The arrowhead shape definitely helps the Tomcat a lot, otherwise it'd never be about the same as the Phantom in this regard.

Okay, numbers. According to this document (pg.10), the Super Hornet has a spot factor of 1.46 and the Legacy Hornet 1.20. Spot factor in comparison to what, exactly? I believe the Corsair, as official spot factors are calculated in comparison to the last light attacker the Navy was using, which in this case would logically be the A-7.

By comparison, where a Kitty Hawk has 153 spots for Corsairs (pic #3), it only has 91 for Tomcats (pg.6), though in reality since my Tomcat data is for the Forrestals, the Kitty Hawks would logically have at least a couple more spots available. This puts the Tomcat at 1.68 Corsair spots, or rather a little lower due to the capacity differences between the Forrestals and Kitty Hawks. Regardless, those capacity differences aren't so large to make the Tomcat on par with the Super Hornet.
 
Here’s some spot factors I’ve collected over the years (from multiple sources).

F/A-18C equivalents
F-35C 1.16
F/A-18E 1.24
F/A-18C 1.0
F-14 1.32
F-111B 1.53
F-4J 1.24
F-8E 1.08

A-7 0.85
A-6 1.2
EA-6B 1.23
S-3 1.25
E-2C 1.71
CMV-22 1.21
MQ-25 1.10 estimated

SH-3 0.70
SH-60 0.51

A-7E equivalents
F-35C 1.39
F/A-18E 1.46
F/A-18C 1.18
F-14 1.55
F-111B 1.8
F-4J 1.46
F-8E 1.27

A-7 1.0
A-6 1.42
EA-6B 1.46
S-3 1.49
E-2C 2.01
CMV-22 1.43
MQ-25 1.32 estimated

SH-3 0.83
SH-60 0.63
 
Isn't the smaller airwing basically because Ford was optimized for power projection rather than knocking out the Soviet Navy in one punch?

Total sortie rate is important when you're looking at a Forward From the Sea sustained air campaign a la Iraq/Iran/Mideast contingencies, but for something like a Maritime Strategy bastion bum-rush, I think the idea in the 80s was that large all-up alpha strikes (from as many flattops as possible) were was what needed. As I recall, that was part of the logic of having Midway hanging around - the ungodly modifications to her deck allowed her to dump a fairly good alpha strike on the Soviets, even if she couldn't really generate anything near a Nimitz-type sortie rate.

Carriers, of course, are flexible beasts - It seems fairly probable that you can overstuff Ford with a hundred and ten airframes and just eat the losses in total sortie rate if the fashion of the decade is full-deck alpha strikes.
 
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The Reagan era role of using carriers to go after the Murmansk and Vladivostok bastions required as many carriers as the USN could deploy with as many aircraft.
The only real comparison today given Russia's depleted state would be providing air and missile defence cover for Taiwan or South Korea.
I assume for such a contingency the USN would swing carriers and airgroups from other theatres depending on the level of threat there.
 
uk 75 said:
The Reagan era role of using carriers to go after the Murmansk and Vladivostok bastions required as many carriers as the USN could deploy with as many aircraft.
The only real comparison today given Russia's depleted state would be providing air and missile defence cover for Taiwan or South Korea.
I assume for such a contingency the USN would swing carriers and airgroups from other theatres depending on the level of threat there.
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The other major difference is that previous CVWs had to be split between interceptor/attack/bomber aircraft and that modern fighters no longer have these distinct functions. An F-18E/F fulfills all roles, even if perhaps not as well relative to some of their predecessors in their day. None the less you can have 40 fighters or forty attack aircraft or a mix of the two, perhaps with some overlap on the same airframes, depending on your need. The loss of dedicated tankers means the combat aircraft also have that responsibility too, unfortunately.
 
I'd say it will probably still be a while yet before it is robust enough to use in naval reactors.
 
Ford has yet to make an operational deployment, its recent deployment to Europe was for training, only 50+ a/c were onboard, plan for 64 whereas Nimitz's at one time operated with 92 a/c, unable to operate F-35Cs as Navy cut the costs due to its big overspend, when Congress found out they mandated follow on CVN-79 Kennedy fitted out to take the F-35C over the objections by the Navy.

In 2022 Ford was only 32 days at sea and yet its 5 years since it was commissioned, 10% of the ships 50 year life already gone and yet to demonstrate it can achieve its designed higher SGR of 160 sorties per day (12-hour fly day for 30 plus days) and to surge to 270 sorties per day (24-hour fly day) which the main driver for the new Ford design over Nimitz.
 
Cordy said:
Ford has yet to make an operational deployment, its recent deployment to Europe was for training, only 50+ a/c were onboard, plan for 64 whereas Nimitz's at one time operated with 92 a/c, unable to operate F-35Cs as Navy cut the costs due to its big overspend, when Congress found out they mandated follow on CVN-79 Kennedy fitted out to take the F-35C over the objections by the Navy.

In 2022 Ford was only 32 days at sea and yet its 5 years since it was commissioned, 10% of the ships 50 year life already gone and yet to demonstrate it can achieve its designed higher SGR of 160 sorties per day (12-hour fly day for 30 plus days) and to surge to 270 sorties per day (24-hour fly day) which the main driver for the new Ford design over Nimitz.
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Yeah, literally none of what you just said is even remotely true.
 
Cordy said:
Nimitz has yet to make an operational deployment, its recent deployment to Europe was for training, only 50+ a/c were onboard, plan for 64 whereas Kitty Hawk at one time operated with 92 a/c, unable to operate F14s as Navy cut the costs due to its big overspend, when Congress found out they mandated follow on CVN-69 fitted out to take the F-35C over the objections by the Navy.

In 2022 Ford was only 32 days at sea and yet its 5 years since it was commissioned, 10% of the ships 50 year life already gone and yet to demonstrate it can achieve its designed higher SGR of 160 sorties per day (12-hour fly day for 30 plus days) and to surge to 270 sorties per day (24-hour fly day) which the main driver for the new Nimitz design over Kitty Hawk.
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Fix that for you.

Cause that is basically EXACTLY WHAT THE NIMITZ DID and had called for its first DECADE. As was the Enterprise before that and the Forestall before THAT.

These things take time hoss, not only is the Ford a leadship design its a fully new design.

First in over 80 years since the Nimitz was base on the Kitty Hawks with those being base on the Forestalls.

Its going to be full of issues by their very nature.

Nothing you said make the Ford useless, infact it going to pay dividends down the line. Like it did with the Nimitzs.

If you had some pataince and go look up the history of that class leader you'll see that.

Edit: Like the Nimitz did so poorly on trials that Carter Canceled the rest of the class. In comparison the Ford is doing just fine.
 
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TomS said:
sferrin said:
But the Tomcat was bigger than both and they routinely carried 24 of those in addition to S-3s, A-6Es, EA-6Bs, etc., none of which are exactly small.
Click to expand...

Look at the spotting factors -- IIRC, the Super Bug is as big as an F-14 on the flight deck.

And note the comment about moving planes. They figured out that stuffing the hangar full didn't make for more operational effectiveness once you take into account the time and effort to respot planes all the time.
Click to expand...

Talking about the different sizes of US Navy fighters on carrier decks, has got me thinking about the next generation NGAD/FA-XX fighter and where that will be scale wise. Whether that will be the same size as the F-14 or the FA-18E Super Hornet.
 
Not sure if this is the right place to mention this but the Air Group in the Cold War ended up covering medium strike (A6) light strike (A7, F18), air defence (F14, F18), ASW (S3, SH2, SH60) Early Warning (E2) and COD (C2) plus some recce, EW and tanker types like RF8 and A6 Prowler.
My question is will the USN now have to look at going back to something like this for Cold War2 the China Syndrome?
 
uk 75 said:
Not sure if this is the right place to mention this but the Air Group in the Cold War ended up covering medium strike (A6) light strike (A7, F18), air defence (F14, F18), ASW (S3, SH2, SH60) Early Warning (E2) and COD (C2) plus some recce, EW and tanker types like RF8 and A6 Prowler.
My question is will the USN now have to look at going back to something like this for Cold War2 the China Syndrome?
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Yes and no. The medium and light strike along with the air defense roles are all filled by the Super Bug and Lightning. They're adding back dedicated tankers in the form of AAVs. They still have the EW and AEW assets in the Growler and Advanced Hawkeye. The COD role is still being filled by either the C-2 or CMV-22. ASW is still covered by the Seahawk. The only real capability that's been lost is dedicated recce aircraft and fixed wing ASW.

There really isn't a need for a dedicated bomb truck like the Intruder with the advancement of PGMs. What used to take an entire strike package to destroy can now be taken out by a single JDAM. So we won't see a new dedicated attack aircraft, at least not anytime in the foreseeable future.

AFAIK, China's submarine fleet is considered to be something of a bad joke among the Western Navies. They're advancing in capability, but they're still running a minimum of 1-2 generations behind the USN and RN. Helicopters and SSNs are more than capable of handling the ASW needs of a CSG.

What we will probably see is a renewed focus on long range aircraft to fully replace the Super Bug, and probably even the Lightning (the Navy really never wanted the plane to begin with). We know the Navy is already looking at rebuilding its Fleet Air Defense capability with a 6th Gen Air Dominance fighter. It wouldn't surprise me to see them develop it into a strike fighter to cover the attack missions as well.
 
FighterJock said:
Talking about the different sizes of US Navy fighters on carrier decks, has got me thinking about the next generation NGAD/FA-XX fighter and where that will be scale wise. Whether that will be the same size as the F-14 or the FA-18E Super Hornet.
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IMO it'll be closer in size to the F-14, if not closer to even F-111B size. As SSgtC notes, the US Navy is looking at a fighter that can do deep strikes and outer air battle, both of which point to a large aircraft to carry the amount of fuel and powerful sensors needed.
 
Looking forward to seeing an "air dominance fighter" that looks as cool as an F14 did when I first saw a picture of the mockup in the 1960s.
A decent long range strike aircraft for the USN might even find a home with the RAF like the Buc did in 1968. Shame our carriers wont be able to ship them.
 
uk 75 said:
Looking forward to seeing an "air dominance fighter" that looks as cool as an F14 did when I first saw a picture of the mockup in the 1960s.
A decent long range strike aircraft for the USN might even find a home with the RAF like the Buc did in 1968. Shame our carriers wont be able to ship them.
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Don't be so sure. Apparently the idea of converting the QEs to CATOBAR isn't dead yet. As of June, 2021, the MoD was requesting info on EMALS and AAG for installation on the Queen Elizabeth class. They're looking for max launch weights of 55,000 pounds and max trap weights of 47,000 pounds. The public reason is to add AAV capability to the ships as a force multiplier to the existing F-35B fleet. But if they're going full cats and traps anyway...
 
As the F15E and even the Tomcat shows it doesn't even need to be two fighters to do both deep strike and dogfighting.

Just one with a large payload, decent equipment, and lots of sensors that can turn and burn.

And you can cheap out on the payload abit. Dont need a F15E playload of 20k pounds of bombs if you only going ever use the F14s 14.5k pounds.

The A6E had 18000 pounds of bomb capacity for comparison. And rarely used it.
 
SSgtC said:
uk 75 said:
Looking forward to seeing an "air dominance fighter" that looks as cool as an F14 did when I first saw a picture of the mockup in the 1960s.
A decent long range strike aircraft for the USN might even find a home with the RAF like the Buc did in 1968. Shame our carriers wont be able to ship them.
Click to expand...
Don't be so sure. Apparently the idea of converting the QEs to CATOBAR isn't dead yet. As of June, 2021, the MoD was requesting info on EMALS and AAG for installation on the Queen Elizabeth class. They're looking for max launch weights of 55,000 pounds and max trap weights of 47,000 pounds. The public reason is to add AAV capability to the ships as a force multiplier to the existing F-35B fleet. But if they're going full cats and traps anyway...
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Let's see if that happens, I want it to happen to convert the QE class carriers to CTOL from STOVL, the carriers should have been CTOL from the start in my view and the Royal Navy should have bought the F-35C instead.
 
SSgtC said:
Cordy said:
Ford has yet to make an operational deployment, its recent deployment to Europe was for training, only 50+ a/c were onboard, plan for 64 whereas Nimitz's at one time operated with 92 a/c, unable to operate F-35Cs as Navy cut the costs due to its big overspend, when Congress found out they mandated follow on CVN-79 Kennedy fitted out to take the F-35C over the objections by the Navy.

In 2022 Ford was only 32 days at sea and yet its 5 years since it was commissioned, 10% of the ships 50 year life already gone and yet to demonstrate it can achieve its designed higher SGR of 160 sorties per day (12-hour fly day for 30 plus days) and to surge to 270 sorties per day (24-hour fly day) which the main driver for the new Ford design over Nimitz.
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Yeah, literally none of what you just said is even remotely true.
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" literally none of what you just said is even remotely true"
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USS Gerald F Ford was commissioned Jul 22, 2017 with Trump in attendance, so yes it is 5 years and 5 months since commissioning and yet to make an operational deployment.
https://www.google.com/search?q=cvn...#fpstate=ive&vld=cid:8bdf340e,vid:8dDIr1ng9lU

Congress mandates Navy to make CVN-79 Kennedy operationally capable of flying F-35C
"Get USS Kennedy Ready For F-35Cs Congress Orders Navy" December 2019
https://breakingdefense.com/2019/12/get-uss-kennedy-ready-for-f-35cs-congress-orders-navy/
"Navy to Modify CVN 79 with F-35C Capability" November 2, 2020
https://aviationweek.com/defense-sp...tions/us-navy-pays-cvn-79-f-35c-modifications

SGR rate, DOT&E Says Ford Unlikely To Meet Sortie Generation Rate, Critical of Self-Defense - would note Navy disagrees, but as
Ford did not have a full air wing aboard so not as yet to demonstrate it can achieve its designed SGR
https://www.defensedaily.com/dote-s...-of-self-defense-but-navy-disagree/navy-usmc/

 
Cordy said:
Ford has yet to make an operational deployment, its recent deployment to Europe was for training, only 50+ a/c were onboard, plan for 64 whereas Nimitz's at one time operated with 92 a/c, unable to operate F-35Cs as Navy cut the costs due to its big overspend, when Congress found out they mandated follow on CVN-79 Kennedy fitted out to take the F-35C over the objections by the Navy.

In 2022 Ford was only 32 days at sea and yet its 5 years since it was commissioned, 10% of the ships 50 year life already gone and yet to demonstrate it can achieve its designed higher SGR of 160 sorties per day (12-hour fly day for 30 plus days) and to surge to 270 sorties per day (24-hour fly day) which the main driver for the new Ford design over Nimitz.
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  • The Ford's 2022 deployment was not just for training, it was very much an operational if low intensity deployment. Yes it was also meant to help train the crew on a new class in an operational environment, but they were very much operational and were available for actual combat missions if the situation came up. Regardless, it'll have a "normal" full length deployment with its full airwing as part of the Global Force Management system this year so even if its 2022 deployment didn't satisfy you, you can be happy when it deploys again this year in the exact same way the Nimitz class do.
  • The Ford can (and has) operated with the same number of aircraft that Nimitz class currently do. The Ford's airwing size is a result of Navy wide airwing downsizing, not anything to do with the Ford class.
  • The Ford itself was never planned to have F-35C compatibility from the start. You have to remember, the Ford was launched in 2013 before the F-35C had even touched an aircraft carrier. In fact, when the Ford was launched the F-35C was having arrestor hook issues and it couldn't even catch a wire. The Ford was commissioned in 2017 but the F-35C didn't see IOC until 2019. The timeline for where the F-35C was in development compared to when the Ford was getting built meant that it just wasn't practical for the Ford to have F-35C compatibility from the start. CVN-79, being the first Ford to commission after F-35C IOC meant that Congress has demanded it have F-35C capability from day one.
  • The Ford spent a lot more time at sea in 2022 than just its deployment.
    • The Ford has actually been operating as the East Coast's sole training carrier for the past few years, which does help take the load off the Nimitz classes even if it wasn't actually deploying.
  • The Ford likely won't get a chance to demonstrate its greater sortie rate unless we get into a major combat operation. That's basically the only time sortie rates get stressed, exercises rarely come close to actual operations. And even then its unlikely to max out its sortie rate as even during the Gulf War the most average sorties a carrier did was an average of 96.5 sorties per day from CVN-71, below the supposed Nimitz class average of 120 sorties per day or surge to 240 per day.
    • Also, I should say that sortie rates are much more affected by the number of operational aircraft a carrier has over anything else. As if a carrier has 70 aircraft, to do 120 sorties per day each aircraft has to average 1.7 sorties each day but with 90 aircraft each one only has to average about 1.3 sorties each day. As it happens CVN-71, the carrier with the highest sortie rate during the Gulf War, also had the most amount of aircraft on board of any aircraft carrier (78 aircraft). All this to say, I don't think the Nimitz or Ford classes will be able to reach their max sustained sortie rates with the current size of Navy air wings. What needs to be seen is if the Ford can see increased amount of sorties per aircraft per day over the Nimitz, and I think we're unlikely to really find out until the Ford operates in an actual combat operation.
 
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The Ford Atlantic deployment was for training, Ford was not assigned to the 2nd Atlantic fleet combatant commander, no doubt the training was to allow it to work out its operational concepts and procedures and its new equipment, understand the first operational deployment planned for sometime this year.

Why were Ford and Kennedy not planned to have F-35C capability built in from the start, (the Navy initially ordered F-35Cs back in 2009 as part of LRIP-4 so plenty of time to build in capability) my guess is that Navy was so over the original $10 billion Ford budget and coming in for stinging critism from Congress and the late Senator McCarthy in particular for its incompetence, they cut the F-35C capability to save costs, it will be much easier for Navy to hide the costs of a F-35 capability upgrade in a future O&M budget than the Procurement budget (usually always much more expensive to retrofit than build in from start). As said when Congress found out in 2019 no F-35C capability it was too late for Ford but they ordered the Navy to incorporate into the build of Kennedy (the first Nimitz class with F-35C capability installed was the Carl Vinson during a 17-month docking planned incremental availability in 2019/20 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard).

PS The Ford holds the dubious world record as the most expensive navy ship, the CBO An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2020 Shipbuilding Plan said " The Navy’s current estimate of the total cost of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship of the CVN-78 class, is $13.1 billion (now raised to $13.3 billion) in nominal dollars appropriated over the period from 2001 to 2018. CBO used the Navy’s inflation index for naval shipbuilding to convert that figure to $16.2 billion in 2019 dollars, excludes the R & D of ~$6 billion.
 
Cordy said:
The Ford Atlantic deployment was for training, Ford was not assigned to the 2nd Atlantic fleet combatant commander, no doubt the training was to allow it to work out its operational concepts and procedures and its new equipment, understand the first operational deployment planned for sometime this year.

Why were Ford and Kennedy not planned to have F-35C capability built in from the start, (the Navy initially ordered F-35Cs back in 2009 as part of LRIP-4 so plenty of time to build in capability) my guess is that Navy was so over the original $10 billion Ford budget and coming in for stinging critism from Congress and the late Senator McCarthy in particular for its incompetence, they cut the F-35C capability to save costs, it will be much easier for Navy to hide the costs of a F-35 capability upgrade in a future O&M budget than the Procurement budget (usually always much more expensive to retrofit than build in from start). As said when Congress found out in 2019 no F-35C capability it was too late for Ford but they ordered the Navy to incorporate into the build of Kennedy (the first Nimitz class with F-35C capability installed was the Carl Vinson during a 17-month docking planned incremental availability in 2019/20 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard).

PS The Ford holds the dubious world record as the most expensive navy ship, the CBO An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2020 Shipbuilding Plan said " The Navy’s current estimate of the total cost of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship of the CVN-78 class, is $13.1 billion (now raised to $13.3 billion) in nominal dollars appropriated over the period from 2001 to 2018. CBO used the Navy’s inflation index for naval shipbuilding to convert that figure to $16.2 billion in 2019 dollars, excludes the R & D of ~$6 billion.
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Can you explain why the USS Ford wouldn't be the most expensive navy ship?
 
Again, the Ford itself was never planned to have F-35C compatibility from the start. It was not cut. Congress didn't "find out" in 2019 that the Ford itself couldn't deploy with the F-35C, they knew from the start that it couldn't and never made any move to correct it. The 2019 thing was when they found out the Navy was considering not adding F-35C compatibility to CVN-79 from the start, and what do you know Congress forced it to have it. But they never did that same thing for CVN-79. Why? Because CVN-79 is planned to commission after F-35C IOC but 78 was commission years before it. When the Ford itself was being fitted out we still didn't even know what exact modifications a ship would need to deploy with the F-35C, as the F-35C had yet to touch an aircraft carrier. The timeline just wasn't practical for giving the Ford itself F-35C compatibility from the start.
 
sferrin said:
Cordy said:
The Ford Atlantic deployment was for training, Ford was not assigned to the 2nd Atlantic fleet combatant commander, no doubt the training was to allow it to work out its operational concepts and procedures and its new equipment, understand the first operational deployment planned for sometime this year.

Why were Ford and Kennedy not planned to have F-35C capability built in from the start, (the Navy initially ordered F-35Cs back in 2009 as part of LRIP-4 so plenty of time to build in capability) my guess is that Navy was so over the original $10 billion Ford budget and coming in for stinging critism from Congress and the late Senator McCarthy in particular for its incompetence, they cut the F-35C capability to save costs, it will be much easier for Navy to hide the costs of a F-35 capability upgrade in a future O&M budget than the Procurement budget (usually always much more expensive to retrofit than build in from start). As said when Congress found out in 2019 no F-35C capability it was too late for Ford but they ordered the Navy to incorporate into the build of Kennedy (the first Nimitz class with F-35C capability installed was the Carl Vinson during a 17-month docking planned incremental availability in 2019/20 at Puget Sound Naval Shipyard).

PS The Ford holds the dubious world record as the most expensive navy ship, the CBO An Analysis of the Navy’s Fiscal Year 2020 Shipbuilding Plan said " The Navy’s current estimate of the total cost of the USS Gerald R. Ford, the lead ship of the CVN-78 class, is $13.1 billion (now raised to $13.3 billion) in nominal dollars appropriated over the period from 2001 to 2018. CBO used the Navy’s inflation index for naval shipbuilding to convert that figure to $16.2 billion in 2019 dollars, excludes the R & D of ~$6 billion.
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Can you explain why the USS Ford wouldn't be the most expensive navy ship?
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Would assume benchmark target of costs would be Nimitz which Wikipedia claims $10.1 billion in 2022 dollars, need to be treated with a grain of salt but so do the costs of Ford, to keep the within the Congress cost cap, Navy used a sleight of hand by splitting costs of build into Phases 1 and 2, Phase 2 was for Ford's mission equipment, never seen any figures for Ford's Phase 2 costs, lost in the O&M budget spend, presume the mission equipment was fitted after its shakedown cruise when it went straight into a 15 months pierside for 'repairs' at NNS before sailing again in October 2019, if remember correctly Congress has now closed that loophole and banned Navy using different build Phases on future ships.

Why should the Ford cost more than Nimitz which for its time had state of the art tech.

https://news.usni.org/2019/10/25/wo...-sea-trials-after-more-than-a-year-of-repairs>
 
Cordy said:
Why should the Ford cost more than Nimitz which for its time had state of the art tech.
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The Nimitz didn't have state of the Art Tech.

Most of its tech, like the Catapults, elevators, Radars, and like were basically an modification of what was found on the last Carrier.

The JFK.

The newest Tech on the Nimitz was the reactors and eyeah no actually just the reactors.

The Rest of the Nimitz was basically JFK Nuclear boat.

Nimitz basically had the same radars as the JFK, the same Elevators, the same catapults, the same computers, the same power systems, same self defense fitout, mostly the same insides...

Compare that to the Ford that has New Cats, Elevators, Radars, Selt Defense, Computer systems, power systems, a comprehensive redesign of the fucking Insides....

Eyeah dont see any possible reason why the Ford will cost more./sarcasm
 
Firefinder said:
Cordy said:
Why should the Ford cost more than Nimitz which for its time had state of the art tech.
Click to expand...
The Nimitz didn't have state of the Art Tech.

Most of its tech, like the Catapults, elevators, Radars, and like were basically an modification of what was found on the last Carrier.

The JFK.

The newest Tech on the Nimitz was the reactors and eyeah no actually just the reactors.

The Rest of the Nimitz was basically JFK Nuclear boat.

Nimitz basically had the same radars as the JFK, the same Elevators, the same catapults, the same computers, the same power systems, same self defense fitout, mostly the same insides...

Compare that to the Ford that has New Cats, Elevators, Radars, Selt Defense, Computer systems, power systems, a comprehensive redesign of the fucking Insides....

Eyeah dont see any possible reason why the Ford will cost more./sarcasm
Click to expand...

Yes the Ford the new tech has worked out just brilliantly, no problems with the new AAG, AWE, EMALS, radars, self defense / extreme sarcasm

The Ford radars being replaced by SPY-6 on Kennedy, self defense came in for severe criticsm by the DOT&E and many reams been written on the problems with AAG, AWE and EMALS which are all years late and massivly over budget.

Ford a classic case of concurrency, systems installed before being tested and proven (mention that AAG on its the third fitted to Ford) its the reason why Ford way over budget and years late.
Navy seem to have taken the lessen to the heart with the new Constellation frigate saying no new systems will be fitted.

 
Cordy said:
Why should the Ford cost more than Nimitz which for its time had state of the art tech.
Click to expand...
Because it didn't have state of the art tech? The C13 steam catapult is a 1950s design, the reactors are an early to mid 60s design. Even their current radar suite is all from the 70s and 80s.
 
As far as tech goes (for supercarrier classes) regarding propulsion, cats, arresting gear, weapons elevators, radars and associated electronics were a constant evolution from CV-59 (Forrestal) all the way through to CVN-77 (H.W. Bush) but not that much evolution, primarily going from boilers to reactors and of course shipboard electronics. I may be wrong but the 16 cylinder, emergency diesel backup generators used in CVN-78 probably go back to CV-59, these generators were bulletproof and reliable as hell. If I am wrong, someone please correct me.
 
Ford class was a major transformation that clearly wasn’t derisked enough. But it was a much greater change than the Nimitz, outside propulsion.
 

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