“Certifying
Lower Stage Weapons Elevator 5 [LSWE 5] is extraordinarily significant, in that
we now have the capability to move ordnance from the aft magazine complex deep
in the ship through the carrier to the flight deck with a speed and agility
that has never been seen before on any warship in any fleet.” (1)
A couple of thoughts, here, Admiral:
- The speed and ?agility? (what the hell is elevator ‘agility’?) of the elevator is utterly irrelevant as the weapon elevators have never been bottlenecks in any previous carrier. This is pure marketing garbage being repeated by the Navy.
- There is nothing ‘extraordinarily significant’ about one more elevator. Talk to me again when you have all the elevators working, as they should have been long ago, and then you’ll have something slightly significant though horrendously overdue.
The delusional Admiral goes on,
“In
just the last few weeks, we’ve seen an increase in the velocity of flight deck
operations and new system certifications aboard Gerald R. Ford that’s beyond
impressive.” (1)
‘Certifications … that’s beyond impressive’????? Impressive would have been installing working
elevators during the ship’s construction, on time, and as specified in the
construction contract. Installing one
more elevator when several still don’t work is not only unimpressive but
downright embarrassing. Even more
embarrassing is you calling a partial achievement that is years late, ‘beyond
impressive’. The reality is that it’s
beyond embarrassing and you, Admiral, are beyond pathetic.
According to the UK Defence Journal article,
In
the past year, Newport News Shipbuilding has turned over four of the ship’s 11
AWEs to the crew … (1)
The shipbuilder has managed to turn over 4 of the 11
elevators in a year???? That’s
horrible! That tells us just how badly
the Navy and the elevator manufacturer misjudged this project.
All of the above is staggeringly bad but there’s an aspect
that is even worse. Worse by far. Here it is,
The
ability to identify and to mitigate issues associated with each elevator’s
unique operational tolerances has generated hands-on physical adjustments and
software refinements, ensuring that future AWE operations are sustainable and
reliable, say the US Navy in a release. (1)
Do you grasp the import of that statement? It’s saying that the elevators are not copies
of each other. Instead, it’s saying that
each elevator is so unique and is so complex and so finicky that they have to
be individually fine-tuned and adjusted and individually programmed. What does that tell us about future
maintenance and repairs - whether due to normal wear and tear or due to battle
damage? It tells us that there is no
hope of repair and that nothing done to one elevator is applicable to another
elevator.
This is the equivalent of every single aircraft in the air
wing being a completely different aircraft and requiring its own unique parts
and maintenance. That would be insane
and yet that’s exactly what we appear to have with these elevators. Nothing that’s done to one can be applied to
the others!
This is beyond scary.
This is stupidity and insanity carried to the extreme. And for what?
There was nothing wrong with the Nimitz class weapon elevators and yet
we opted to create brand new elevators with never before seen technology just
for the sake of new technology. Even
if/when they work, they will have solved no problem because there was no
problem with the existing elevators. We
came up with an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem.
And yet we have clueless Admirals praising this as somehow
noteworthy.
Despicable.
(1)UK Defence Journal, “Fifth Advanced Weapons Elevator
certified aboard USS Gerald R. Ford”, George Allison, 13-May-2020,
https://ukdefencejournal.org.uk/fifth-advanced-weapons-elevator-certified-aboard-uss-gerald-r-ford/
At this rate, they'll have the final elevator in service just in time for the decommissioning ceremony.
ReplyDeleteTwo comments.
ReplyDeleteAdmirals have become politicians, and with the modern world and it's media I don't think that is going to change any time soon.
I assume the real reason for the AWE's was to reduce man power. It is strange that we have an automated system on the new QE class (to save "person" power) which (to my knowledge) hasn't had any problems, yet the Ford's do. Maybe designers should have talked to each other. My perception was the QE system is more complex. Does anyone here know?
I have no idea how the QE system works. I'd love to hear from anyone who knows.
DeleteI am not under the impression that an elevator system - any elevator system - requires many people to operate. I would assume the same number of people are required to break munitions out of storage and load them onto the elevators and the same number of people are required to receive them on the flight deck and load them on the aircraft but are large numbers of people required to actually run the elevators? You push a button and the elevator moves. Am I missing something?
https://www.savetheroyalnavy.org/munitions-handling-on-the-royal-navys-aircraft-carriers/
DeleteA bit partisan, but interesting
"A bit partisan, but interesting"
DeleteFascinating video. Thanks for the link!
It appears that the individual moving components each have their own electric motors ?connected by flexible, moving cables? If so, that's a world different from the Ford system - and a world more functional and reliable, it would appear!
Hopefully, they have alternate arrangements to allow manual movement in response to battle damage?
This quote from a USNI News article of essentially a year ago seems to get to the heart of the problem, except for the part where noone thought this was a problem.
Delete“AWE is a first-of-kind developmental system without a land-based prototype. Due to the concurrent nature of AWE development and construction, the shipboard AWEs have been test beds for discovering many of the remaining developmental issues that have delayed the scheduled turnover to the crew,”
It appears that the US Navy is only now in the process of developing a facility for full-scale land-based testing of these systems prior to installation aboard ship. Hopefully the prototype sea-based integrated testing and development facility will provide useful input for the construction of the land-based facility.
In fact it appears to increasingly be the Navy line that the messy process of getting the AWE to work aboard ship is actually beneficial, which might lead a casual observer to make troubling inferences about the Navy's procurement and design mentality.
Which seems a trifle cart before the horse after the horse has bolted (if you will pardon the mutilated metaphors).
I try to be supportive of the Navy, but the content of this article, from last year, just depresses the heck out of me.
https://www.defensedaily.com/carrier-elevator-test-site-will-procure-new-elevator-ford-accepts-second-elevator/navy-usmc/
In other news from ADM Downey, he took delivery of his new Lincoln Navigator. The ADM was amazed to learn that all 4 wheel of his vehicle could rotate at delivery. And all 4 doors could open and close without vendor technical assistance. The ADM was flabbergasted when it was explained to him this was normal automotive industry practice.
ReplyDeleteWhy do we need software for a weapons lift? You push one button it goes up. You push another button it goes down. How hard is that?
ReplyDeleteRemember that this is, essentially, an EMALS elevator using sequential motors. Presumably, the software is sequencing the motors with the proper timing and force (different elevator load weights presumably cause different motor loads and timing and all the motors have to perform within split second timing or the magnetic forces misalign and the whole thing breaks down). We're still trying to work the software bugs out of the EMALS and I assume the same degree of complexity is true for the elevators.
DeleteBut why do you need that? It's a weapons lift. You push one button and it goes up; you push another button and it goes down. Why do you need software? To adjust the weight so you extend the life of the motor? If it never works, who cares? Why do you need split-second timing on an elevator?
DeleteThis strikes me as the ultimate Rube Goldberg contraption. You take the simplest process imaginable--up, down, nothing else--and are using software to run it.
I think you need the software for all the doors, make sure open/closed/sealed. I remember reading somewhere the doors were a problem when running the elevators. Really makes one wonder what happens when they go out of alignment with battle damaged....
DeleteThis is the equivalent of every single aircraft in the air wing being a completely different aircraft and requiring its own unique parts and maintenance. That would be insane and yet that’s exactly what we appear to have with these elevators.
ReplyDeleteThat is to a lesser extent what happened to the F-35's due to concurrency. The earlier models are slightly different in each block. At least they got the LCS's right. Well maybe...
With the SeaHunter we won't even hear about the mishaps. Heck even congress might not.
For something that has "Advanced" in its name, it doesn't seem very advanced, much less fully functional.
ReplyDelete"For something that has "Advanced" in its name, it doesn't seem very advanced, much less fully functional."
DeleteBut why on earth does it need to "Advanced" in the first place. All it does is go up and down. That's not an advanced concept.
As I understand it, this is linked in with the EMALS catapults (and possibly the "Advanced" arresting gear as well). One implication, again as I understand it, is that if one component goes down, you have to take the whole system down ton fix it. If that understanding is correct, then this whole thing is so preposterously stupid as to defy belief.
It is also my understanding that, for the QE/POW, the RN took a commercial warehouse product movement system and adapted it. What is so hard about that? Theirs appear to be working.
We went several bridges too far into techno world with the Fords.
"the RN took a commercial warehouse product movement system and adapted it."
DeleteThat's certainly a better approach than what the US Navy did but I still wonder how combat damage resilient the RN system is. Looking at the video in the link, the system looks susceptible to damage and does not appear to have any easy manual mode.
While adapting civilian equipment is tempting, it's civilian for a reason and milspec exists for a reason. We need to firmly keep combat damage in mind when we look at civilian systems. One of the major problems with modern warship design is that they aren't designed to absorb damage and keep fighting. Sometimes (all the time) that means accepting a less advanced and less efficient system that can degrade more gracefully in the face of combat damage and be repaired more easily and has viable manual modes. We've forgotten that in our pursuit of business efficiencies in warship design. The QE appears to be an example of a ship that can't operate damaged (complicated, automated systems and a very small crew for damage control and attrition).
"That's certainly a better approach than what the US Navy did but I still wonder how combat damage resilient the RN system is."
DeleteYes, I had the same thought. But I wonder 1) how combat damage resilient the Ford system is (I'm guessing not very) and 2) what did we do before and why was it so terrible? Worst case, I guess I'd rather have something that is susceptible to combat damage than something that doesn't work when it is not damaged.
I guess I still wonder exactly what problem they were trying to solve with this.
"One of the major problems with modern warship design is that they aren't designed to absorb damage and keep fighting. "
DeleteThe Brits really learned this lesson, or should have, in the Falklands. They took a mix of old ships built to navy damage control standards and fully crewed along with a mix of newer ships with reduced crews and relaxed damage control standards. Some ships in both groups were hit. The old ones all stayed afloat and continued fighting. The new ones all went to the bottom.
I'm a huge believer in damage control. I think the record is fairly clear that we had better damage control than the Japanese in WWII, and that contributed in no small measure to our success in the Pacific war. If you can fix it and keep fighting, you are okay. If you can't fix it and it sinks you, you're not.
And I'd like to add, keeping the ship afloat when damaged, even if it can't fight anymore, saves lives. Maybe I'm old-fashioned in thinking that's important, given current navy trends.
DeleteR
Anonymous....if you think for a moment that an potential enemy would allow a ship to stay afloat after they have effectively "killed" it from doing its mission......Ships can be repaired. They cannot be repaired if they are clinging to the bottom of the ocean. Besides, if it were floating, that means the "potential enemy" could take it for themselves. Why we sank our own vessels in WWII
DeleteTwo quotes from usni news, not examples of the best in practical engineering
ReplyDeleteOctober 30, 2019
"One of the problems was we have to get a two pound pressure differential in each deck on the three ton doors"
April 16, 2020
"With each of the 11 being somewhat unique"
"One of the problems was we have to get a two pound pressure differential in each deck on the three ton doors"
DeleteYeah, I remember seeing that and I was completely baffled by what it meant. Usually a couple pound pressure differential between areas is used for dealing with pathogens or in ultra-clean applications (air lock, for example, in a circuit manufacturing facility). I have no idea what the purpose is in a weapon elevator. If you have an idea, let me know!
Seems a bit weird but Im assuming carriers have to be somewhat air tight for NBC security requirements? Can't really think of anything else, I don't think it would matter for fire barriers/breaks? So NBC ventilation/air tight requirements?
DeleteI recall that being a standard test for certifying compartments watertight/airtight integrity. Even aux ships pressurized compartments after yard periods to check door seals, bulkhead passthrough packing, etc...
DeleteBeing a weapons elevator, Im guessing there are multiple doors that must open/close as the elevator passes in order to keep an explosion from breaching into multiple decks and/or down to the magazine. Id imagine those need to seal to a certain pressure standard, but not sure how door sealing relates ir is an "elevator" issue per se...
Delete"I recall that being a standard test"
DeleteI get the idea of watertight compartments but during normal operations aren't there LOTs of hatches and scuttles open between decks? So how could there be a requirement of a pressure differential to operate the elevator? I think we're still missing something, here.
At this rate, something with the word ":advanced" in it in the US armed forces will be synonymous with "doesn't work".
ReplyDeleteIn which case, the new trend word will be "functional"
eg "modern functional elevators.
Functional F-35
Functional Super Hornet
<>
Andrew
Suppose we have a war tomorrow. What does this behemoth do?
ReplyDeleteSail to cities and promote war bonds!
DeleteUnfortunately.
DeleteWe can only hope that the Ford and the Zumwalts and the LCSs can sell a lot of war bonds.
It seems possible that the Admiral is merely trying to curry favour by using the President's style of language.
ReplyDeleteIf we have admirals whose focus is currying favor then everything I've been complaining about on this blog is confirmed! Not there was much doubt to begin with ...
DeleteCan somebody explain what was wrong with the Nimitz weapons lifts?
ReplyDeleteFrom The Navy Times, March 3, 2019:
Delete"And that’s why the yard and the flattop’s crew has worked so hard to get the elevators humming. The lifts are expected to ferry 24,000 pounds of ordnance at a rate of 150 feet per minute from the ship’s magazines to the flight decks."
"Using hydraulic cable and pulleys, Nimitz-class elevators top out at 10,500 pounds and move weapons at only 100 feet per minute."
Based on that, the increased throughput, probably to match the supposed increase in sortie rate, seems to be the reason for the new elevators. The new lifts would be able to upload ammo for several planes as opposed to one or two and do so in less time.
"a rate of 150 feet per minute from the ship’s magazines to the flight decks."
Delete" only 100 feet per minute"
Wiki lists the height of the Ford as 250 ft. I don't know where that measurement is (keel to flight deck? keel to top of island? keel to top of mast?) but let's use 250 as the magazine to flight deck distance although that's assuredly too big …
Doing the arithmetic, the Ford takes 100 sec to move munitions from mag to flight deck. That's a huge improvement over the Nimitz type elevator which requires 150 sec to move munitions the same distance. That means that if the elevators are the limiting factor, the Ford can generate sorties 50 seconds faster. Hmmm … does 50 seconds seem enough of an improvement to justify the billions of dollars poured into the elevators and the years of schedule overrun?
Now, as far as weight capacity … IF TRUE (big if), that's an improvement. HOWEVER, munitions are not flung off the elevators like a catapult and landing finned, fused, and attached onto the aircraft. The reality is that the munitions are laboriously prepped by hand, moved around the flight deck by hand, and loaded by hand in a very slow and labor intensive exercise. In fact, in the Nimitz class, munitions are piled up on the flight deck in the 'bomb farm' while they wait to be loaded. THUS, THE ELEVATORS ARE NOT THE LIMITING FACTOR IN SORTIE PREP - NOT EVEN CLOSE. Even if the munitions could be magically, instantaneously dematerialized and transported in a split second to the flight deck, they'd just sit there for an extended period while they waited to be loaded … by hand.
The elevators are an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem.
Just for fun, Did some surfing... It appears the hull is 9 or 10 decks. So if magazine is in the lowest deck, it needs only travel 100ft.
DeleteSurfed online and found costs for heavy commercial elevators that travel over 500ft/min, including installation. I know this is apples to oranges somewhat, but if we just round up, then quadruple it just because, then round up again, we still end up with 11 conventional, functional, faster elevators for under $90M...!!!!
Again, accuracy here is questionable, but clearly weve wasted so much time and money on this transformational nonsense when its absolutely not necessary!!!
For all the money and time wasted on Ford's electromagnetic elevators, youd think there'd be lots of old USNI articles about how the then-new Nimitz class carriers are handicapped by their slow, underperforming weapons elevators... Anybody remember any of those???
Delete"The elevators are an unnecessary solution to a non-existent problem."
DeleteMy understanding is that the Nimitz-class are good for 120 sorties in 12 hours and the Ford-class are designed for 160 sorties in the same time frame. Crunching the numbers, that is a 90 second difference (1 sortie every 6 minutes for the Nimitz-class versus the 1 sortie every 4.5 minutes for the Ford-class) in favor of the Ford-class. Maybe elevator throughput is important after all.
There isnt a 4.5 OR 6 min gap between launches real world. Trying to average or manipulate the numbers shows nothing. The numbers are "design" numbers...meaningless!! While a peer war might be handled differently, I dont believe those sortie rate levels were ever close to being seen on any carrier since Vietnam, if even then. Current smaller airwings, maintenance, and attrition make those numbers very unlikely to ever happen. With the exception of CAP rotations, there will be pulses in launches and recoveries, separated by inactivity, with the exception of deck crews preparing for the next strike. The elevators alone do NOT set the notional sortie rate by any stretch...
Delete"it needs only travel 100ft."
DeleteI think the reality is less than that. As I understand it (someone correct me if I'm wrong), there is not elevator that travels straight up from a magazine to the flight deck. For various (?safety?) reasons, the elevators each cover only a portion of the total lift. Hence, the reference to 'upper' and 'lower' elevators.
"Ford-class are designed for 160 sorties"
DeleteGAO long ago exposed the Ford sortie rate as a fraudulent claim. Go back and read the GAO annual reports. Ford has no hope of meeting its sortie spec.
That aside, I've posted about the fraudulent nature of even suggesting that sortie rates are a factor in combat. Carriers simply don't fight that way. Carriers operate in cycles or strike packages. A cycle or package is assembled, prepped, launched, and then the carrier 'stops' for a while until the landing cycle begins. In war, this is even more pronounced. Sortie rate is a total fiction.
"Maybe elevator throughput is important after all."
DeleteOne, I don't think sortie rate is the critical measure that some seem to think it is. Two, I don't think they do just-in-time inventory. The weapons come up the lifts, are accumulated in an area of the flight deck, and then mounted on individual aircraft by hand. The occurrence of a situation where the time on the lift was significant would be few, if any, and very far between.
I wonder how much better things might have been if we had phased in all these wonderful "improvements." As I understand it, that was the original plan. Build a series of three ships. Put part of the new stuff on the first one, then add more on the second one, and finish up the whole lot with the third one. Apparently Rumsfeld killed that idea so they ended up putting everything on one ship.
ReplyDeleteSay you put the EMALS on the first ship, but keep everything else like Nimitz. Then maybe put the "advanced" arresting gear on the second, and the Rube Goldberg weapons lifts on the third one. Anybody got any thoughts on how that might have gone?
Thats certainly the way it should have been done!!! At least incremental changes are more maneageable... But frankly, any system that hasnt been tested hundreds or thousands of times with an acceptable failure rate has no business being slated for inclusion on any warship!!! Its a waste of time, billions of dollars, and these systems will put sailors at risk and cost lives in combat. This whole Ford program, along with others, is criminal!!!!
Delete"Say you put the EMALS on the first ship"
DeleteEMALS would still have been a monumental problem that is still not meeting reliability specs and the first ship would still be unusable.
"But frankly, any system that hasnt been tested hundreds or thousands of times with an acceptable failure rate has no business being slated for inclusion on any warship!!!"
DeleteYou've got it!
"But frankly, any system that hasn't been tested hundreds or thousands of times with an acceptable failure rate has no business being slated for inclusion on any warship!!!"
DeleteIt was my understanding that it was tested hundreds, if not thousands, of times ashore, I believe at Dahlgren. Again, my understanding is that they thought it was okay until they got it on ship and found out it had a few problems that they hadn't considered when they were firing deadweights into the Potomac. Perhaps the better answer, as with the Zumwalts, would have been to build one, work out all the details, keep building predecessor ships (Nimitz, Burke) until you get all the bugs worked out. The Navy has been criticized for taking a business approach to a military problem, but a fundamental rule of business expansion is, "Don't replicate until you make the first one work perfectly."
"EMALS would still have been a monumental problem that is still not meeting reliability specs and the first ship would still be unusable."
My thought is that maybe if you can focus on only one problem at a time, you can devote all your resources to that issue and maybe solve it a whole lot quicker. When nothing works, it's overwhelming, but solving one thing at a time is easier. Right now it's kind of like the old, "If we had some eggs, we could have ham and eggs, if we had some ham." The Navy doesn't have ham or eggs in this case, and doesn't seem to be making great progress on either.
I guess another point I have is that I can at least see some justification for the EMALS. It opens up the possibility of using propulsion systems that don't require steam (although super carriers will probably all be nuke steam for a while). And from a damage control standpoint, you'd prefer not to have hot steam circulating around any more spaces than is absolutely necessary. I guess what concerns me most about the decision is that the Navy's two big considerations seem to be that it takes fewer people to maintain, meaning fewer people to man damage control teams if needed, and it works better with unmanned aircraft, meaning we may be shifting to them faster than is sensible. I guess both of those reflect manpower concerns--shortages of both sailors and trained pilots. But I showed earlier that you can get a lot more of both simply by cutting down the number of folks in admin/overhead jobs.
Putting any of these systems--EMALS, arresting gear, weapons lifts--on one ship is a huge challenge. Putting all three on one ship is proving to be quite overwhelming.
And I go back to my original question about all three. What was so wrong about the Nimitz?
"if you can focus on only one problem at a time, you can devote all your resources to that issue"
DeleteWhat more resources could the Navy have devoted than they did. One of the problems is that the technology is so complex that only the manufacturer's tech reps can work on it. The Navy has no, for example, sequential linear motor propulsion experts laying around waiting for a project to work on. The Navy had every available EMALS tech rep working on it. Whether EMALS was being installed on one carrier or 50, there were no more resources to add to it. You can't just turn to a bunch of idle sailors and form an EMALS work party!
Work on the EMALS did not suffer because the arresting gear was also new, and vice versa. They were totally different technologies that had no overlap and, therefore, no competition for resources. The arresting gear tech reps could not have helped with EMALS and vice versa. They were two separate technologies being implemented (badly) in parallel.
" works better with unmanned aircraft"
No it doesn't! This is another marketing fraudulent claim and I did a post disproving this, some time ago.
"One of the problems is that the technology is so complex that only the manufacturer's tech reps can work on it."
DeleteOne principle is that if it is so complex that only manufacturer's tech reps can work on it, then it has no business on a warship. Until you make it sailor-proof, it belongs only on test platforms.
"They were two separate technologies being implemented (badly) in parallel."
Whether they were separate systems or required separate tech reps, at some level there is a management issue, and managing two simultaneous disasters is a lot harder than managing one.
"This is another marketing fraudulent claim and I did a post disproving this, some time ago."
I don't recall that post. I'll go back and look for it.
But back to my original question. What was so wrong with the Nimitz?
"I don't recall that post. I'll go back and look for it."
DeleteSorry, I should have supplied the link. Here it is:
EMALS Myths
Look at the 'Range of Aircraft' section, in particular.
OK, the supposed claim is that steam catapults tend to be more "one size fits all" and while they can handle a large range, at the extremes of that range they can put additional stress on the airframe. I'm not a catapult of airframe expert, so I can't evaluate that claim, but it does sound like something that might make sense.
Delete"it does sound like something that might make sense."
DeleteNo, it doesn't. I've posted on this, too, in the 'Life Spans' section of the previous link. Carrier aircraft life spans are NOT limited by catapult launch stress. They're limited by cumulative g-force and wing stress which goes into the calculated allowable flight hours of an aircraft. When we extend life spans we generally rewing the aircraft which demonstrates that it is the wing life span, not catapult stress that matters. The claim that EMALS is 'gentler' on aircraft may be technically true (no proof of that, yet, and, in fact, the opposite is true, at the moment) but is utterly irrelevant.
The people making that claim know more about the situation than I do. My understanding has always been that it is the shock of trap landings, and not catapult launches, that are the real killers for aircraft life, in which case the EMALS would be only a minor factor, at most. But as I say, I'm no expert, and the experts are telling me things that may or may not be true.
DeleteThe shock of landing is probably more severe than launching but - and this is the key point - the aircraft are DESIGNED TO HANDLE IT. It's the cumulative wing stress that determines the aircraft life.
DeleteIf you're interested, read about the Hornet life extension or the A-6 or A-10 rewinging. They're not replacing landing gear, they're replacing wings or the center barrel section in the Hornet.
DeleteHere's a decent description of the Hornet service life factors and relative importance: Service Life
As an aside, I believe it is the wings on the Canadian CF-18's that are limiting their life. Hence they do not do high G manoeuvres to try and keep them flying for as long as possible.
DeleteMost people don't realize that many (most?) planes operate under g-limits well below their capabilities to avoid stress on the aircraft. Not exactly helping with realistic training!
DeleteCan the Ford be converted to an arsenal ship?
ReplyDeleteIf elevators don't work, the carrier function is gone.
So, what other use could be made of a nuclear powered 330m long warship?
If enough can missiles can be built, install hundreds of vls through, or on top of the deck, put hundreds of deck mounted lrasm, essm, SeaRam.
Put several 5 inch guns at each corner.
I know this reads like armchair fantasy, but imagine during the last month of peace, you station this offshore near Taiwan.
China's missile advantage partially negated!
Want to target Xi or the CCP? Now you have dozens of tomahawks to spare!
And these missiles exist now.
Ok, I'm going to leave my dream here. ( Because reality is quite depressing)
Andrew.
"I know this reads like armchair fantasy"
DeleteWell, you did stop short of calling for 16" guns so I guess we'll let it slide! :)
I haven't given up on my dream of mounting caterpillar tracks on this and using it as a massive AAV.
DeleteDeploy from 50 miles offshore?
No problem! We're nuclear powered.
Don't know if this got noticed but the sec navy seems to doubling down on the Ford
ReplyDeletehttps://www.thedrive.com/the-war-zone/33434/navy-shelves-review-that-might-have-cut-ford-class-of-supercarriers-to-just-four-ships and will not consider even looking at alternatives.
You got a love an organization so invested in a solution it won't even try to think about an alternative. As far as I can tell that does not usually end well. Oh and we lost another F-22. To bad we can't make them anymore.
Somebody needs to get everybody responsible for this together and fire them all en masse.
Delete"Somebody needs to get everybody responsible for this together and fire them all en masse."
DeleteAnd that's one of the major systemic problems with Navy project management: the original people are all long gone. For example, the original program manager, whom I just recently did a post on, is retired. He didn't see the project through. There have been several admirals assigned to oversea the program but they just keep coming and going. Multiple SecNavs and CNOs have come and gone. The responsibility reunion would be a mighty big gathering!
FYI, despite never having deployed and not yet being functional as an aircraft carrier, the Ford has had at least three Captains, that I'm aware of.
Delete"FYI, despite never having deployed and not yet being functional as an aircraft carrier, the Ford has had at least three Captains, that I'm aware of."
DeleteGot to get that command at sea box checked before the next promotion board.
With the backlog of ship and sub maintenance, we're seeing the phenomenon of Captains and crews who never put to sea on their ship before their tour is up. And yet, as you note, there are now two Captains (potential admirals) who now claim carrier command experience despite never putting to sea beyond a quick out and back ship trial. Someday, those admirals are going to be responsible for formulating carrier operations and tactics with no actual experience to help them. No wonder I keep documenting idiotic operations and tactics problems. We're developing too many admirals who don't actually have FUNCTIONAL command experience.
Delete"with Navy project management: the original people are all long gone"
DeleteI think its deeper than that. Married to and know enough government scientists who took on long term projects without a problem. I think its the culture of simply not caring because money never stops coming in and nobody is ever retroactively held responsible.At the USDA spouse got to define the time line for two new fungus resident small grains (3-4 years) ARS defined 2 papers a year... it was right their in the contract failure was grounds for being fired with cause. If any of the papers ever turned out to be fake data - fired with cause. And of course even if you moved on a discovery that you were faking data will will harm you immensely.
For the navy once you move on seems no mistakes follow you.
I found a brief description of the Ford's weapon elevator at Business Insider. In part, it reads:
ReplyDelete"Seven lower-stage elevators will move ordnance between the lower levels and main deck. Three upper-stage elevators move it between the main deck and the flight deck. A utility elevator can move injured personnel, allowing the others to focus on weapons. The upper-stage and utility elevators are the ones that have been certified and turned over."
Even in the future nothing works!
ReplyDeleteWe really, really need to stop building this class. Ford is in the water but she's such a pig it might make more sense in a national security sense to strip her of any real valuable military stuff and give her to the Chinese. 'Don't forget to flush the toilets once a month...'
ReplyDeleteHere is something to compare. https://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=112982
ReplyDeleteIf the stores elevators work just fine, why not use the same type of elevators for the weapons. Just saying. Chief Torpedoman
Question ComNavOPs:
ReplyDeleteWould EMALS be better on a larger aircraft carrier then the Ford's, with the associated increase of plane numbers?
Better in what way? I can see no benefit to EMALS other than the option to use electricity rather than steam. I see no reason why EMALS would be any better on a larger carrier than it is on Ford. Did you have something in mind?
DeleteI mean, wouldn't steam lose efficiency the further away from the source?
ReplyDeleteLikewise, the minor decreases in time that are gained from the elevators and maybe the EMALS, only make sense if the number of aircraft being serviced and launched was greater.
Lastly, maybe the issues both systems are suffering are trying to fit them within the specifications of a Nimitz sized ship. Besides incompetence, a engineering necessity explains all the EMALS being linked.
At what size would a CVN and its airwing have to be to make these systems preferable to steam?
I have a theory, but I'm still fleshing out the details, so bear with me.
@ComNavOPS
ReplyDeleteWith the expansion of the Jiangnan and cancellation of the 005 & 006 CVNs, would it be crazy to think they could build a significantly larger carrier then us?
The reason given was "cost" and "technical issues," yet expansion of facilities, size of dry docks, and housing facilities continue.
This is just a pause in the program while they absorb lessons from the first few carriers. Their cultural psyche simply can't allow them to not have the biggest carrier in the world.
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