The USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) has blasted through its budget cap to the tune of $120 million. The ship’s price has now soared to beyond $13 Billion. It is plagued with problems and currently unable to do anything useful. Its staying afloat but perhaps I shouldn’t jinx it.
The Navy is so desperate now, they are now considering extending the Nimitz-class carriers beyond their original 50 year service life. USS Nimitz is set to deactivate in 2023. They may try to push its service life to 2028.
The carrier program is eating up billions of dollars.
The Virginia and Columbia class-submarines are eating up billions more.
Not sure how they are going to get the rest of the fleet to 355 ships.
They are going to be lucky to find enough money to keep the Ship Battle Force from dropping, let alone trying to increase the number.
It would be nice if we didn’t pay contractors in full until we are fully satisfied that have not unloaded a piece of **** on us. Each ship has a “builder’s trial” followed by an “acceptance trial”, yet somehow, not very long after, the piece of **** breaks down due to a manufacturing defect.
USS John F. Kennedy (CVN-79) reached the 75% structural completion mark on May 1, 2018. USS Enterprise (CVN-80) had its first cut of steel in August 2017, marking the beginning of the fabrication of its parts.
We haven’t figured out the crap on the lead ship and we have two ships barreling along behind it on accelerated construction schedules.
Imagine of we had built our nuclear weapons during project manhattan the same way we do ships now.
12.9 b’s and we get the modern day equivilent of a pinto, and all people can do is be worried about planned parenthood getting some funding for pregnancy tests. Shaking my head.
Imagine if we were building ships during World War II the way we are now.
Sorry, the USS Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri & Wisconsin and the USS Essex and the rest of the Essex-class aircraft carriers won’t be available for a couple of years while were work out engine bearing issues.
The Japanese fleet would be home-ported today in San Diego and we would all be speaking Japanese.
You mean to tell us that a military project is running over budget? Damn, that’s never happened before has it?
It’s unavoidable and always has been due to the length of time involved and the rapid pace of technological advancement.
When you are constantly pushing the very edge of military tech it simply isn’t avoidable.
When projects take years or decades to complete it’s unavoidable.
Carriers are the equivalent of floating cities and military bases combined. They are the most complex weapons delivery system ever developed and we’ve always has similar problems with them.
here’s the paint store that Donald Trump stole money from (didn’t pay). if they’re using them to paint the USS Ford, just have Trump steal from them again…
Ten to one the problems lie not in our inability to design and build an aircraft carrier but instead lie in our inability to put the right people in charge of the project to keep out graft and corruption in order to come up with a cohesive plan coupled with an inability to resist the “gold plating” bullhockey doodads and thingamajigs that add nothing to overall effectiveness.
A part failed. It proved to be out of spec and will be repaired or replaced.
This is the purpose of a shakedown cruise.
Every modern Navy ship ever built has problems identified during trials and shake down cruises that have to be corrected, it is the purpose for which we have them.
You’re talking about the largest and most complex machine ever built, it isn’t even within the realm of possibility to think it could be done without problems and errors.
This is a completely new class of ship with brand new technology that wasn’t even conceived of prior to it’s building, that is going to create additional problems far above and beyond constructing ships with all off the shelf tech.
I seriously think some of you folks need to take a step back and think.
