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The Navy’s next-generation aircraft carrier, USS Gerald R. Ford, is a monument to the Navy’s and defense industry’s ability to justify spending billions on unproven technologies that often deliver worse performance at a higher cost.
[...] The Navy had expected to have the ship delivered in 2014 at a cost of $10.5 billion.
Instead, because the Navy tried to develop more than a dozen new and risky technologies at the same time it was building the ship, the schedule has slipped by more than three years. And, the cost has increased to $12.9 billion -- nearly 25 percent over budget.
For all this time and money, a 2015 Defense Department operational testing report concluded that “poor or unknown reliability” of the newly designed catapults, arresting gear, weapons elevators and radar could affect the Ford’s ability to generate sorties, make the ship more vulnerable to attack, or create limitations during routine operations.
The problems with the ship’s systems, including the catapult, are well-known.
But President Donald Trump still caught virtually every Pentagon watcher off guard when he told Time magazine in May that he had directed the Navy to abandon the new “digital” aircraft catapult on future Ford-class carriers. Instead he wants the Navy to revert to the proven steam catapults, which have been in use for decades. The president is correct when he says there are significant problems with the Ford’s “digital” catapult, but abandoning it in future ships will pose significant problems.
The Ford’s “digital” catapult is, in fact, the Electromagnetic Launch System, or EMALS. In the long run, it is intended to be lighter, more reliable, and less expensive than the steam system. Unfortunately, EMALS is immature technology. So far, the program has not lived up to the promises made.
Steam-powered catapults, though said to be maintenance-intensive, are proven technology. They have been in service with continuous upgrades and satisfactory reliability for more than half a century.
-- submitted from IRC
(Score: 2) by mendax on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:37AM (10 children)
The USS Ford is the first in its class of ships, one with loads of new technologies. There are bound to be bugs and problems to be worked out. The electromagnetic catapults, for example, are a great idea and, in theory, are going to reduce maintenance issues and increase reliability in the long run. It's not a boondoggle like, for example, the new F-35 fighter, the plane that is supposed to do it all but in fact does nothing well.
It's really quite a simple choice: Life, Death, or Los Angeles.
(Score: 1, Insightful) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:49AM
25% over budget in pentagon weapons development practically under budget.
(Score: 5, Funny) by driverless on Saturday June 10 2017, @11:04AM (4 children)
The HMS Vasa is the first in its class of ships, one with loads of new technologies. There are bound to be bugs and problems to be worked out. The shallow hold and high double gun deck, for example, are a great idea and, in theory, are going to reduce maintenance issues and increase reliability in the long run. It's not a boondoggle like, for example, the new use of combined musketry with cavalry, the military concept that is supposed to do it all but in fact does nothing well.
(Score: 2) by deadstick on Saturday June 10 2017, @12:50PM
Hey, first thing learned today. I didn't know Sweden used "HMS" until I looked it up...
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 10 2017, @02:25PM (2 children)
Thank you for the lead. I had never heard of the Vasa. Would you say that this is a fair summary? chrome-extension://oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm/http://faculty.up.edu/lulay/failure/vasacasestudy.pdf
It resembles our own shipbuilding today. The USS Nimitz is known to have a higher center of gravity than conventional destroyers or cruisers. Her righting arms are reduced by about 15%, and effectively disappear when the ship has rolled past 80 degrees. Naysayers, like myself, point out that the ship will be unable to weather severe storms. Supporters say that ships today can avoid storms. But, I'm reminded that we often hid inside of storms. And, I'm also reminded that our most likely maritime adversary only possesses ports in stormy seas - THEIR ships will be seaworthy.
(Score: 2) by Runaway1956 on Saturday June 10 2017, @02:26PM
*sigh* Did it again. The real link is contained within my non-working link above. http://faculty.up.edu/lulay/failure/vasacasestudy.pdf [up.edu]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @06:18PM
Runaway1956 and a small group of people know exactly what he meant by oemmndcbldboiebfnladdacbdfmadadm.
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @12:23PM (2 children)
The Ford class has horrendous issues beyond just the cats. The arresting gear is unreliable, the SSTG's (ship service turbo generators) suck, and the whiz-bang toys in CIC (Combat Information Center) are proving difficult to integrate into existing NTDS (Naval Tactical Data System) frameworks. The weps elevators don't work either.
All of this adds up to too much unreliable "disruptive" "game-changing" "bleeding edge" tech in a very expensive package.
The practically guaranteed failure of these ships is inevitably going to lead to longer deployments for the remaining Nimitz's as the older ones are deactivated.
Then there's the little matter of combat capability and survivability. The new stuff cannot maintain the cyclic sortie rate expected of a fleet carrier.
But most importantly, besides the Fords being all buck and no bang, when things go wrong on a carrier, people die.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @04:11PM (1 child)
the USS Enterprise ended up being a one-off. Unique reactor. Unique radar system. Unique, iconic superstructure (ultimately refactored though to one similar to Nimitz class). Yet it served for 50 years...
The US Navy occasionally builds what end up being one-off ships...
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 10 2017, @05:24PM
True, but luckily the Big E used the (proven) cats and traps as the Forrestals. Nuclear propulsion was also a proven technology. The only break-through tech, her fancy new radars, the AN/SPS-32/33 SCANFAR (which was a precursor of today's phased arrays) were always buggy and eventually scrapped. The Big E had issues, but cost, at the time, was the major driver behind Enterprise's being a one-off.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by khallow on Saturday June 10 2017, @04:32PM
Yea, it ought to make for a really sexy, high tech reef when an anti-ship missile gets through.
Sure. All I can say here is that the military-industrial complex needs a gutting top to bottom because this is the success story.