Quote:
Originally Posted by pxmcc
so our 4 star decision makers have, in their infinite wisdom, reduced our flat-tops in action to 10.
dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb..
and a gift to China..
https://thehill.com/opinion/national...tical-mistake/
what do you think? do we need to be retiring our carriers now? if we're short personnel, is there any reason not to fill those gaps with so-called "illegals" who would love nothing better than to fight for America, and if needed, die for America? |
i typically agree with Gordon Chang but i'm going to somewhat disagree here. first how much power reserve does the Nimitz have left? enough for several years of operation? maybe, maybe not. the Navy certainly knows what the reactor status is and if Nimitz is low on fuel putting it into what could be a prolonged engagement could be a disaster. the ship could run so low on power not only could it not make fleet speed but also not be able to operate at 100 percent.
we have 10 carriers. and that's just the nuclear powered super carriers. something Chang neglects to mention is we still outnumber China by 3 to 1. we also have 8-10 conventional assault carriers
now we have a 6 to 7 to 1 ratio.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Mort Watt
And how many hypersonic missiles does it take to send one to Davey Jones' locker?
Technology is only making Carriers more vulnerable over time. Soon, any 3rd-world despot will be able to take one out.
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hyper-sonic weapons are largely untested in battle and if the Russians are any indication recently in Ukraine they are unreliable. theirs anyway and probably China's as well.
one of the technical issues with these missiles is the sheer speed produces both extreme heat and shock waves that can interfere with guidance systems especially gps data from satellites.
what good does it do if the missile can't hit it's target? with conventional warheads the missile becomes useless. even with nuclear warheads close enough might not be good enough to take out a carrier.
your claim "any 3rd-world despot" could take out a carrier is flawed. only a handful of nations on either side (Russia/China vs the US/UK and probably Israel) have the tech and expertise to build hyper-sonic weapons. where would some despot get one? from Russia or China? probably not because they don't want their tech in the wrong hands.
also carriers never sail alone they always have a battle group of frigates and destroyers to provide cover.
one of the reasons why the first nuclear carrier the Enterprise had 8 reactors is because the engineers on paper said 4 should be enough but since this had never been done before they used an old engineering rule .. "when in doubt double it". the Navy balked but after the engineers pointed out that if 4 weren't enough to power all the systems and make fleet speed you can't just cut it open and add more. the engineers won.
as it turns out the Enterprise was overpowered. using that real world data the Nimitz class has two reactors of improved design. the real top speed of the Enterprise/Nimitz carrier is far greater than 35 knots fleet speed. they can in fact reach speeds of up to 50 knots. the reactors aren't the limit, it's the shaft bearings.
the Nimitz class has plenty of power but was not designed for more modern weapons like rail guns and more importantly laser based weapons. a laser based weapon can intercept a hyper-sonic weapon. again, you can't just cut open a carrier and add a reactor. could you add extra convention power? probably but these designs are highly optimized with little room to spare.
this is why we need the new Ford class. it was designed from the ground up to have the power to run these new weapons systems.
Decommissioning the Nimitz is a Huge Mistake..
