Aircraft Carriers have been obsolete for a long time

It's been awhile since I posted a "Status of the Carriers" report, and since 2 people asked, it is below. There is actually quite a lot of activity going on right now,

* The USS Eisenhower is the sole CVN in the Gulf right now and is on a port visit to Bahrain. The Kearsarge, an LHD, is also in the Gulf area.

* The USS Stennis is at Pearl Harbor and headed to home port Bremerton. This is the carrier that was sent on back to back missions and was subject to one of those "We're escalating" rumors when it left. It's been out 8 months now. People will line the shore when she sails in. If it's the right time (She has to sail in on a high tide and play dodge ball with the ferry boats.) I might see it myself.

* The USS Nimitz is all fixed. They had a serious cooling pump issue, and now it's out in the Western Pacific, probably looking for Chinese fishing boats! BTW, the reason the Nimitz is home ported in Everett rather than Bremerton is because of the high tide issue. Rich Passage is a very narrow and shallow waterway that leads from the main part of Puget Sound into Bremerton and the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard. When a carrier sails through it feels like it's scraping both shores at once. When the Navy wants to move a carrier, they want to do it fast, hence they don't want to wait for a high tide, especially when everyone knows exactly WHEN a high tide is and could act accordingly. But a sprint out of the starting gate at Everett is a piece of cake. There's nothing in the way.

* The USS Truman is in the Atlantic on what is called a "sustainment exercise," and the USS GWH Bush is conducting carrier qualifications, also in the Atlantic.

* Both the LHA Pelelieu and the LHD Bonhomme Richard are in the 7th fleet AOR. Looks like they're hanging off the coast of Korea. The latter is stationed in Japan, so that's normal. The Pelelieu is based in San Diego.

* The USS Washington is undergoing DPIA at Sasebo, Japan and is currently not available.

* The USS Roosevelt was supposed to be deployable late 2012, but as far as I know, it's not out of the shipyard yet at Newport News.

* The USS Lincoln was supposed to begin a four-year refueling operation at Norfolk, but it is just sitting there as part of the "sequesteration issue" engineered by the brightest bulb in the Senate, Senator Patty Murray, D-Washington. It is often listed as available, but I don't think so. It's on empty.

US Navy Carrier Strike Group Deployments: 04/24/13

CVN-68 Nimitz is underway in the Pacific (04/24/13).
CVN-69 Eisenhower deployed to the 5th Fleet AOR (2/22/13).
CVN-70 Vinson is in home port, an Diego (04/24/13).
CVN-71 Roosevelt is at Newport News for RCOH & non-deployable, Avail late 2012.
CVN-72 Lincoln is in home port, Norfolk for RCOH & non-deployable, Avail 2016.
CVN-73 Washington is in home port, Yokosuka, Japan in DPIA (02/04/13).
CVN-74 Stennis is in Pearl Harbor enroute to Bremerton (04/24/13).
CVN-75 Truman is underway in the Atlantic (04/24/13).
CVN-76 Reagan is in home port San Diego (04/24/13).
CVN-77 Bush is underway in the Atlantic (04/24/13).
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CVN-78 Ford construction at Newport News. Avail 2015, replaces Enterprise.
CVN-79 Kennedy construction at Newport News. Avail 2018, replaces Nimitz.
CVN-80 Enterprise, planned, Avail 2024, replaces Eisenhower.

RCOH=Refueling and Complex Overhaul, takes about four years.
DPIA=Docked Planned Incremental Availability, takes six months to a year.
COMPUTEX=Composite Unit Training Exercise, pre-deployment Strike Group coordination.

The above are all Carrier Strike Groups that normally travel with about 7-8 support ships including one cruiser, several destroyers (usually a squadron of 4), a fast attack supply ship, some frigates ,and a fast attack submarine or maybe two. The support ships are designed to protect the carrier. A CVN is about 100,000 tons displacement and can carry approximately 85 aircraft. CVNs are nuclear powered and run 25 years between refueling, which takes three to four years to complete.

Explanation of Areas of Responsibility (AOR)

3rd Fleet AOR – Eastern & Northern Pacific, Alaska, Bering Sea
4th Fleet AOR – Central & South America
5th Fleet AOR – The Middle East, Arabian Gulf, East Africa
6th Fleet AOR – The Mediterranean Sea, Europe
7th Fleet AOR – Asian Pacific. Indian Ocean to International Date Line

Below are the Amphibious Ready Groups/Marine Expeditionary Units. The main ship here is a "baby" carrier that is about half the size or less of a CVN, about 40,000 tons displacement. It is designed to hold helicopters and Harrier VTOL jets. These guys can pull off a minor invasion, if necessary. They usually carry a handful of tanks. Marines, by and large, are light infantry. LHA is a “Landing Helicopter Assault.” LHD is a “Landing Helicopter Dock.”

LHA-5 Pelelieu is in the 7th Fleet AOR (04/24/13).
LHD-1 Wasp is in home port, Norfolk (11/21/12).
LHD-2 Essex is in home port, San Diego in drydock – non-deployable (11/28/12).
LHD-3 Kearsarge is in 5th Fleet AOR (04/24/13/13).
LHD-4 Boxer is in home port, San Diego (11/21/12).
LHD-5 Bataan is in home port, Norfolk (04/24/13).
LHD-6 Bonhomme Richard is underway in 7th Fleet AOR (02/06/13).
LHD-7 Iwo Jima is in home port, Norfolk (12/20/12).
LHD-8 Makin Island is in home port, San Diego (11/21/12).
------
LHA-6 America, under construction, Avail. 2014, Northrop Grumann, Pascagoula.
LHA-7 Tripoli, contracted Avail. 2018, HII Ingalls, Pascagoula. $2.3B

Official Status of the Navy: www.navy.mil... (This is not always accurate.)
Carrier Locations: gonavy.jp... (Usually very accurate.)

Recent decommissioned/inactivated carriers:

CV-59 Forrestal, 1955—1993, Newport, RI, Fate: scrap or sink
CV-60 Saratoga, 1956—1994, Newport, RI, Fate: scrap or sink
CV-61 Ranger, 1957—1993, Bremerton, WA, Fate: scrap or museum
CV-62 Independence, 1959—1998, Bremerton, WA, Fate: scrap or sink
CV-63 Kitty Hawk, 1961—2009, Bremerton; WA, Fate: reserve until 2015
CV-64 Constellation, 1961—2003, Bremerton, Fate: scrap or sink
CVN-65 Enterprise, 1962-2012, Norfolk, Fate: scrap
CV-66 America, 1965—1996, Fate: scuttled in live fire exercise, 2005
CV-67 John F Kennedy, 1968—2007, Philadelphia, Fate: donation hold

reply to post by schuyler


From what I've heard they found the money for Lincoln to undergo refueling, but it's going to push everyone after her back by at least several months if not more.

reply to post by schuyler

Who needs radar or satellites? We have the internet. There, every target location / status identified. Thanks...

Oh wait, this is common knowledge. They will be safe to roam and bomb the world for now, I guess.

Global Force

reply to post by intrptr


In a time of war there location will be hidden. And when I mean war I mean a REAL war against a nation that either isnt land locked or has a 3rd rate navy that consists of poorly mantained world war 2 ships.

That means a war with:
Russia
China
France
UK
Japan

And I dont think the UK will be trying to take our colonies back....at least in the next 100 years. And I think France and Japan are pretty benign too.

And and for the time being it would take all five of the above countrys to band together anyway as the US navys is 20 times bigger than the next best navy on that list the Royal Navy.

reply to post by crazyewok

In a time of war there location will be hidden. And when I mean war I mean a REAL war...

Me too. But how can they are already be hidden when the war starts?

And and for the time being it would take all five of the above countrys to band together anyway as the US navys is 20 times bigger than the next best navy on that list the Royal Navy.

That is the concern. That nations would form an ally base to defeat the Empire. You know who I mean. Its been done before, during WWII.

reply to post by intrptr


They're already pretty well hidden. WestPAC is a pretty big place. It's pretty much from around the Date Line west. That's still a huge area. And off the coast doing workups is still a few thousand miles, which translates into hundreds of thousands of square miles if not more.

Add India to that list. The US Navy already considers them adversarial. Of course, a Trident submarine will run from a Canadian Coast Guard vessel just for the exercise, too.

IMO the demise of the US Navy will not be on account of someone else blowing it up. It will come about as a deterioration of capabilities. The USSR, for example, had the biggest submarine force ever and it's surface Navy was quite capable, but when the USSR fell apart, so did its Navy, which is now rusting in port. If the US is on the brink of a severe financial crisis, which seems to be the majority opinion these days, then simply not spending the money would do the trick.

Zaphod, I did find that the Lincoln contract has been awarded, something like $2.6 billion for the first phase was awarded to HII. There's a story here that covers the Lincoln as well as the future schedule of the other carriers in the fleet up through 2040. So although pundity may predict its demise, the US Navy plans to be around for awhile.

reply to post by schuyler


It'll be interesting to see what some of those upgrades are going to be. I know EMALS isn't even close to ready, so they aren't replacing the cats with that, but I wonder what upgrades are being installed to them. Probably to make them more efficient, with less steam required.

Antiquated, maybe. Obsolete, sort of. A massive target, no doubt.

China has one but the words going around saying they are going to have more and with their new found wealth and their industrial capability, that is nothing, I bet they will at least going for parity but add that to their inherent propensity for superlatives...

In a few years, their military budgets are going to be really massive just base on the percentage of their GDP.

They have been modernising for the best part of 20 years, untested, but the amount of legworks that used to be associated with running a carrier seems to be like everything else lately, that most things could be simulated and in reality, nothing takes as long as whatever took even 20, 30 years ago.


Carriers are not obsolete in term of procurement as newer ones are still being built but their lofty title as Lords of the seas will be on trial at the next shooting war.

"China will have more than one aircraft carrier ... The next aircraft carrier we need will be larger and carry more fighters," Xinhua quoted Song Xue, deputy chief of staff of the PLA Navy, as saying at a ceremony with foreign military attaches.
Link

China Plans New Generation of Carriers as Sea Disputes Grow

“This only adds publicly to what many believed to be the case: that the Liaoning is a training or ‘starter’ carrier and eventually China would build larger and more capable ones,” Taylor Fravel, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology who focuses on China’s relations with its neighbors, said by e-mail. “It suggests that today’s PLA is much more confident than in the past regarding its willingness to talk about future military programs.”

Originally posted by totallackey
reply to post by Jepic

 

Common misconception...top overall published speed for the modern Nimitz-class carrier is 70 knots PLUS...actual TOP SPEED IS CLASSIFIED! There is NO SHIP at sea that can outperform the nuclear carrier...

On my last carrier I have been in combat systems watching the speed as we crossed the Atlantic and I can tell you first hand that you are correct. Imagine a ship that is literally the size of the Empire State Building moving at that speed.

CVN-74 John Stennis arrived at home port, PSNS (Puget Sound Naval Shipyard, Bremerton) today at 12:45 pm (high tide). Though it's a bit hard to see, the sailors are standing on the deck in review in their dress blues. They've been gone 8 months after having been home only three months from their prior deployment.



In this next pic you can see Mt. Rainier in the background. They'll be a lot of parties tonight, and probably an increase in births in nine months. The houses in the background are in Port Orchard, Washington. I didn't go see it. I got stuck painting the deck.

reply to post by OptimusSubprime


You are either sadly misinformed or outright lying sir!

There is a little thing called thermodynamics and specifically hydrodynamics that directly dispute your assertions!

Even if you coated the entirety of the hull of a modern nuke carrier from end to end with a nanotech coating that reduced hydrodynamic drag magically to zero... you still would not be able to accelerate to and maintain that speed with even 3 times the shaft horsepower and double the actual number of shafts carriers are known to have... Especially if you make the fairly realistic assumption that the props we see on the carriers when in drydock are the props used for deployments! (which is a pretty safe assumption beings as they weigh dozens of tons and ... yeah NVM it's just a safe bet)

If you don't understand why this is... chances are you are severely lacking in knowledge of basic concepts such as cavitation, aerodynamic drag, inertia, boundary layer effects, all 3 of newtons laws, the laws of thermodynamics, the concept of inertia, and the idea that the ocean does not hold still and allow the aircraft carrier to skim along it's surface with it's hull uniformly at the same depth and experiencing the same forces from the ocean at all times!

Oh and then there is the little fact that it's pretty easy to extrapolate roughly the speeds carriers routinely operate at even during crises by the simple expedient of looking up easy to get carrier sightings along their route!

While there is nothing wrong with being proud of your country and it's military might... this whole thing with supposed ex naval personnel telling wildly tall tales about how fast carriers can go just makes Americans in general look like stupid overconfident heavy handed xenocentric goons!

In other words... you don't just make yourself look stupid when you say stuff like that ... you make ALL OF US look dumb... so STOP IT!!

I'm not really sure how bragging about the speed of a ship turns Americans into xenocentric goons. Trading one bot of hyperbole for another doesn't make sense to me. You also don't prove your case. You just throw some fancy words around. Can you do the math on what you claim? Somehow I doubt it.

Having said that, you're still correct. This issue has been around since before the Nimitz was launched. I first heard it in 1966 when a retired Chief Petty Officer told our high school class this bit of rumor. Though I've seen some pictures of some very hairy turns, and a rooster tail higher than the flight deck, to go 70 miles an hour would require the ship to plane, and since it displaces 100,000 tons, it simply does not have the horsepower to do it. Here's a very good article that actually explains the issue.

One of the prevailing myths of the modern fleet is that the US Navy's nuclear-powered aircraft carriers are capable of extraordinary maximum speeds. As is quite common with Urban Myths, these keep growing with each retelling of the basic story. It started with speeds of "over 40 knots" being alleged. This has risen by stages to 45 knots then to its current level of 50 knots. The story invariably ends with an officer turning off the speed readout for "security reasons." Sadly the truth is much more prosaic.

Now, the fact is that carriers never travel alone. They shouldn't because they need the protection of the destroyers, cruisers, frigates, etc. around them, all of which are conventionally powered. So except for a sprint, they are not going to be going faster than those other ships, all of which can make it to 30 knots or so and no more.

Yet these rumors persist. I'm friends with a radioman 1st class who worked on the USS Camden, a fast attack supply ship, which was part of a Carrier Strike Group doing a Westpac when, he said, they got permission to "burn some oil" and travel at flank speed. He said the carrier easily outdistanced the other ships. Now that doesn't mean it was going 70 (nor was he ever claiming that), but it is an indication that a carrier can go a bit faster than advertised. A difference of just a few knots can stretch into what looks like great speed in just a few minutes on the open ocean.

So my conclusion here, after listening to this rumor for nearly half a century, is that yes, a carrier can go faster than advertised, but not at the rumored speeds such as we see here. Of course, there is no way to grill someone under oath on the interwebs, so just take claims like that with a grain of salt and move on. There's no need to call someone jingoistic just because he says a carrier can go fast.

What use also is having a carrier being able to lets say go twice the speed of its escorts? So the carrier is leaving its protection in the mist behind it....what does it really gain these days as missiles will go faster than a carrier can move by many times and if it thinks its out running one predator there could be another sat on the sea floor waiting for you to sail into its torpedo range and going full out with no escort its pretty much game over versus the enemy sub especially given even the turning circle at max speed is going to be massive and easy to calculate for any enemy sub captain.

Slow and steady is much better as at least you'll turn up than pulling up at the destination with 2-3 massive holes and needing a months worth of emergency repairs before you can be of much use other than somewhere for the admiral to lay out his charts and plans

reply to post by schuyler


While you are right that I am not a nautical engineer that specializes in large ship design and nuclear propulsion I submit to you that it does not take someone skilled in those fields to call BS on the idea that american aircraft carriers can go 70mph!

I would also like to point out that when I first ran across these rumors years ago I did sit down and take the time to consult forums of professional nautical engineers and I did in fact take a look at the math involved rather than just let a self proclaimed "expert" tell me what I should think!

Edit to Add: Honestly at this point in my education if I were so inclined I could actually do the calculations to prove this myself. It would take me awhile but I could do it! In order to do it though I would have to heavily consult several sites to get the right formula and put them in the right order but I could definitely do it! And I didn't really appreciate the insulting comment in your post flat out saying that I couldn't do so!

While you are free to disapprove of my reaction to their post I would just like to point out that assertions like that really do make americans look bad in a myriad of ways! I mean for the love of god we're one of two country's in the entire world that even runs nuclear super carriers and the only other operator has a whole 1 carrier! The myriad of advantages and power projection options our super carriers give us are staggering as it is without any sort of wild fish tale of 100,000 ton behemoths traversing the ocean at freeway speeds! Although I do appreciate your pointing out of my misuse of the term xenocentric... I was searching for a term taht fit my thoughts and just couldn't find the right one!

Actually schuyler I am about two years into a mechanical engineering bachelors degree as we speak and realistically the calculations it would take to disprove a 70mph carrier top speed are pretty trivial considering we have the total shaft horsepower output of the carrier, the weight, the number of screws, and the approximate diameter of the screws... and realistically all of this information isn't needed either!

The simplest way to disprove a 70mph aircraft carrier top speed would be to crunch the numbers on the cavitation threshold of it's props... From what I can tell the propeller design for aircraft carriers is not classified which means with some digging and maybe the donation of a six pack or two to the right shipyard worker you could get enough basic information to spitball a fairly accurate cavitation threshold (let's say plus or minus 20% since most of us do not have access to the pretty sophisticated software required to do all of the hydrodynamic modeling involved and will not be willing to pony up the five or six figure package price to get the software) But with this plus or minus 20% it would become readily apparent that even if you could generate the type of shaft horsepower required you'd need different props to generate that kind of speed!

Also there's the simple logic of the absurdity of statements such as the 70mph carrier myth if you've spent much time operating and working on watercraft... I mean while 70mph does not seem like alot to people that probably set their cruise control for 80mph on the freeway every day if they have a long commute, but on the water... 70mph is not only damn fast but also damn hard on equipment! This brings up a couple issues that blow the 70mph myth out of the water right away...

1. in order to make a 100,000 ton aircraft carrier capable of going 70mph even in a sprint you'd have to absurdly reinforce the ship's superstructure especially near the bow! Since we don't hear about the 2 foot thick frontal hull plates on carriers that's strike 1! Not only would you have to reinforce the actual hull but also the bulkheads and other internal structures pretty extensively to a degree that would be VERY noticeable ... strike 2! Also because the ocean is not flat you'd need to really reinforce your equipment anchors for everything to a level that would also be quite noticeable! The difference between plowing head on into a 20 foot wave at 30 knots and 70 mph would be immense from the perspective of how much force would be exerted on the ship and it's contents... strike 3!

2. Also if you've been around watercraft you will realize that it's pretty difficult to build small watercraft that can achieve speeds like that, and the difficulty does not scale in a linear fashion as your boat gets bigger but instead it scales exponentially! Bluntly it would have cost the US navy way too much money to make it happen for what would be extremely dubious potential benefits!

While you are right that I am not a nautical engineer that specializes in large ship design and nuclear propulsion I submit to you that it does not take someone skilled in those fields to call BS on the idea that american aircraft carriers can go 70mph!

The aircraft carrier is pretty much a portable airfield with fast turnaround anywhere the ocean is deep enough for it to go. That's the most simple stupid reason for having it really. That allows enforcement of an "it flies it dies" policy, which in turn gives air superiority and capability to keep any surface movement in check. Missiles on their own and drones currently in use still can't do that.

Also keep in mind that it's a tool of diplomacy, not just a weapon of war. In some times of need, many naval weapons platforms are practically useless. But who can clear out the hangar bays and supply holds of weapons and replace them with food, tents, medical gear? Load up the topside with helicopters needed for rescue operations and distribution of relief materials? Help out hurricane or tsunami victims? Not the missile cruisers or subs. This is something either a carrier or LHA (essentially a mini carrier) can do. Yes it's also excellent for pummeling an opponent into non-existance, but sometimes you're remembered more for those times you help somebody in need instead.

As for top speed? I'd say those rumors are in the ballpark. It's surprising what they do in churn and turn exercises. And at full bell they can and do run past cavitation. (Those ratings are more of a guideline. Keeping a low acoustic signature is not a concern of a large, noisy, and visible ship like a carrier.) Everything shakes, rattles, and rolls. Not good for a ship in terms of wear and tear, so it's not normally an extended period manuever. (Yet the kind of running they do, it's still likely the screws are grooved and pitted to hell by the time it makes it to shipyard.) Full bell operation is different than normal cruising speed, but it's usually enough to get out of the way of most unguided ballistic weapons launched towards your last position.

I think it is more realistic to put the speeds at 40-45 Knotts maximum.

Anything highers is just wishfull BS. It just not phycicaly possible.

reply to post by roguetechie


as a sort of addenda to your reply - anyone who beleves that CVNs can achieve 70kt - should examine CAREFULLY the real craft that can do 70kt , ie :

RHIBs [ ridgid hull inflatable boats ]
racing craft and " cigarette boats "
hydofoil craft


etc etc etc - and it will quickly become apparent why , and most important HOW they achieve 70kt + which explains why a 100 000 t CVN cannot

A drone the size of a fighter jet took off from the deck of an American aircraft carrier for the first time yesterday in a test flight that could eventually open the way for the US to launch unmanned aircraft from just about any place in the world.
The X-47B is the first drone designed to take off and land on an aircraft carrier, meaning the US military would not need permission from other countries to use their bases.
"As our access to overseas ports, forward operating locations and airspace is diminished around the world, the value of the aircraft carrier and the air wing becomes more and more important," Rear Admiral Ted Branch, commander of Naval Air Forces Atlantic, said after the flight off the Virginia coast.

"So today is history."


and so is your thread !