The USS Doris Miller (CVN-81) could very well be both the final Ford-class carrier and the final super carrier produced by the United States. Moreover, it could be the final nuclear powered aircraft carrier.
The United States Navy is finally coming to grips with what I have long known. We simply cannot sustain production of these giant boondoggles. They are expensive to build. Expensive to operate. Expensive to dismantle and dispose of.
The Navy is about to commence a major study on the subject and the result will very likely be a shift to smaller conventional powered carriers.
65,000 ton displacement, as opposed to 100,000 ton displacement for the Ford-class.
Obviously less capability, but significantly more carriers can be constructed, so what you lose in capacity you make up in quantity and at a significantly lower total cost.
The lightning carrier concept is also being investigated for use, which is simply a modification of the America-class of Amphibious Assault Ships.
I support this study and clearly we need a change as the Ford-class costs are sucking the Navy dry and inhibiting construction of other necessary surface fleet vessels.
I’d be surprised if they found for a change in direction and guess is that it doesn’t much matter if they do. The constant flow of money is what controls policy.
“Obviously less capability, but significantly more carriers can be constructed, so what you lose in capacity you make up in quantity and at a significantly lower total cost.”
Wouldn’t significantly more carriers require much more funding in terms of personnel, support shps and ashore activities? If they are conventionally powered, you’re going to need a butt-load of fleet oilers.
I would guess it would depend on the life cycle costs of nuclear power, including decommissioning for the United States.
The Royal Navy investigated nuclear power for the Queen Elizabeth carriers but decided against it due to cost. The cost of fueling the ships for their projected life span, even with the necessary increase in numbers of fleet fueling ships, was far less than commissioning, maintaining, and decommissioning a nuclear powered equivalent carrier.
Our situation may be different due to the economy of scale. We typically maintain 10 carriers, the Royal Navy 2 or 3.
Honestly it’s something we need to consider. We could transition to a mixed force. A smaller number of super carriers and a larger number of smaller carriers. That was basically the situation in the 1950s and 60s. The US had a large number of Essex classes (as well as the Midways) operating alongside the much larger Forrestal class and Kitty Hawk class ships. The super carriers didn’t completely take over the fleet until the post Vietnam war era.
The proposed lightning carriers would be about that size, 45,000 tons, the size of our current America-class Amphibious Assault Ships and variants of that class.
However, the smaller carriers proposed would be 65,000 tons, the size of the Royal Navy’s Queen Elizabeth-class carriers. The main difference is that we would almost certainly retain the United States Navy’s preferred CATOBAR design rather than the Royal Navy’s STOVL design.
We could get together with the French. They’re looking for a new carrier in that size range as well. Assuming we build 10 and the French build 2 they could provide 10-15% of the development costs. It would also allow multiple ships to be constructed simultaneously. As of now only one US shipyard can build the supercarriers. A smaller class of carrier could be constructed at multiple locations in both the United States and France.
I would prefer to partner with the British on such a project but while I can see the US adopting a smaller carrier I do not believe for a second that the Navy would accept conventional power. The French are a better partner in that sense because they view nuclear power as necessary for any French carrier.
