Trump wants 'goddamned steam’ catapults on new aircraft carriers

[Amran20]

The "dangerous" part was sarcasm alluding to the fact that people tend to be scared of things they don't understand.

And the only criticism ever has been uttered by Orange D., because except for much higher electricity consumption, it seems to have nothing but upsides and is actually considered to be more reliable than the old steam piston catapults.

The design suggests that it should be more reliable. Reality is, as of data from 2016, the launcher fails after about 400 launches, and the arresting gear fails after 25 retrievals. Steam catapults and the current hydraulic arresting gears we have typically last for thousands upon thousands of launches before failure.

IMO, we're already making a fuckton of steam anyway. We make it to propel the ship. We make it to create electricity. May as well continue to use steam for the catapults too until something actually more reliable is created.

Edit: Trust me when I say that Trump hasn't been the only one to criticize it. Here's an article from 2016 about the Navy thinking about ditching the new shitty "Advanced" Arresting Gear.

https://news.usni.org/2016/05/24/19801

[Kellhound]

The design suggests that it should be more reliable. Reality is, as of data from 2016, the launcher fails after about 400 launches, and the arresting gear fails after 25 retrievals. Steam catapults and the current hydraulic arresting gears we have typically last for thousands upon thousands of launches before failure.

IMO, we're already making a fuckton of steam anyway. We make it to propel the ship. We make it to create electricity. May as well continue to use steam for the catapults too until something actually more reliable is created.

Edit: Trust me when I say that Trump hasn't been the only one to criticize it. Here's an article from 2016 about the Navy thinking about ditching the new shitty "Advanced" Arresting Gear.

https://news.usni.org/2016/05/24/19801

The AAG has been modified since that time and the modifications have been considered a success in onshore testing. The Ford is about to begin acceptance trials with full aviation testing planned after commissioning.

[Amran20]

The AAG has been modified since that time and the modifications have been considered a success in onshore testing. The Ford is about to begin acceptance trials with full aviation testing planned after commissioning.

Source that it doesn't suck anymore? I'm curious now. I wonder what the Navy considers a "success", and I wonder how far below the old arresting gear that success lies. Lol

Edit: Nvm I found this... https://news.usni.org/2017/04/14/car...elivery-spring

And oh man, that totally fills me with confidence lol.

"This and upcoming test events are meant to prove the ship is ready for delivery and commissioning into the fleet and will not begin to test the ship’s ability to launch and recover real airplanes."

Hope that fucker is working like clockwork on land...

[Kellhound]

Source that it doesn't suck anymore? I'm curious now. I wonder what the Navy considers a "success", and I wonder how far below the old arresting gear that success lies. Lol

Edit: Nvm I found this... https://news.usni.org/2017/04/14/car...elivery-spring

And oh man, that totally fills me with confidence lol.

"This and upcoming test events are meant to prove the ship is ready for delivery and commissioning into the fleet and will not begin to test the ship’s ability to launch and recover real airplanes."

Hope that fucker is working like clockwork on land...

She is undergoing normal acceptance testing, aircraft handling is always a different round of testing.

[ringpriest]

Ridiculously. The "Need" for it has been demonstrably attested to by the US Navy. They are charged with executing a mission. They say they need certain resources to do it. And they should get it.

The problem with the US Navy (and it's a particularly sharp one when it comes to ship procurement) is that the United States Navy lacks strategy and associated doctrine, and for all practical purposes is acquiring ships merely for the sake of acquiring ships. And don't take my word for it, take it straight from the VCNO's mouth:
"Moran: Navy Needs As Much As $150B Extra to ‘Jump-Start’ Path to 355 Ships; Would Buy Mostly DDGs, SSNs, Carriers"

The money would add about 30 ships to the fleet beyond current plans, Adm. Bill Moran said.

The exact size of the future fleet doesn’t matter right now, but rather the Navy just needs to start boosting its investment in shipbuilding quickly – which means buying many more Virginia-class attack submarines, Arleigh Burke-class destroyers and Ford-class aircraft carriers in the next few years, he said.

“I’m not here to argue that 355 or 350 is the right number. I’m here to argue that we need to get on that trajectory as fast as we can. And as time goes on you start to figure out whether that number is still valid – 10 years from now, 20 years from now 355 may not be the number,” Moran said today at the annual McAleese/Credit Suisse “Defense Programs” event.

“Our number, give or take, to get to 355, or just to get started in the first seven years, is $150 billion. That’s a lot of money.”

For those who may not be familiar with post-Age of Sail naval operations, this is insane - force structure and size are inseparably tied to strategy which then outlines operational needs which in turn set fleet size and composition; lacking any coherent strategy, the USN is just making up arbitrary numbers for fleet size and composition and hoping it works out (or, more likely, looking at their post-retirement bribes and hoping that their malformed fleet never faces a serious challenge and can spend the next 15 years like the last 15 - dealing with pirates and providing support to land forces fighting adversaries who are vastly out-matched technologically and logistically). The "oh, don't worry, we'll figure out the details later" mindset and methodology the USN has adopted has birthed the LCS, the Ford, and the Zumwalts; that the USN is smart enough to recognize that they cannot effectively design new warships and is instead frantically building designs created before they were overtaken by insanity is not enough; the purpose of a great-power Navy (as opposed to a Coast Guard, who do a great deal of under-appreciated and very difficult and necessary work every day) is to prepare to fight and win high-intensity wars at and from the sea - the 21st Century USN has abandoned that focus in favor of corporate gibberish and buzzwords like "network-centric warfare" and "distributed lethality".

[Allybeboba]

How many countries in Europe have Aircraft carriers?
What about countries in Africa? How many of those countries have aircraft carriers?

[Sinew]

The only president who's age is higher than his IQ? Oh wait, there was W... but my god he at least had to sense to hide his bullshit instead of parading out.

W's IQ was actually over 120 iirc. Regardless though, IQ isn't everything. A low one is probably bad, but a high one doesn't necessarily mean you're well-rounded

[ringpriest]

Source that it doesn't suck anymore? I'm curious now. I wonder what the Navy considers a "success", and I wonder how far below the old arresting gear that success lies. Lol

Edit: Nvm I found this... https://news.usni.org/2017/04/14/car...elivery-spring

And oh man, that totally fills me with confidence lol.

"This and upcoming test events are meant to prove the ship is ready for delivery and commissioning into the fleet and will not begin to test the ship’s ability to launch and recover real airplanes."

Hope that fucker is working like clockwork on land...

She still blows as of the DOT&E's most recent assessment,

DOT&E’s assessment of CVN 78 remains consistent with
the DOT&E Operational Assessment report submitted in
December 2013. Poor or unknown reliability of the newly
designed catapults, arresting gear, weapons elevators, and
radar, which are all critical for flight operations, could affect
CVN 78’s ability to generate sorties, make the ship more
vulnerable to attack, or create limitations during routine
operations. The poor or unknown reliability of these critical
subsystems is the most significant risk to CVN 78. Based on
current reliability estimates, CVN 78 is unlikely to be able to
conduct the type of high-intensity flight operations expected
during wartime.

There are perfectly good reasons to want EMALS - the problem is that the United States Navy (with the hammer-to-head lack of foresight has plagued it for all the 21st Century) decided to build it into their next super-carrier without already having a working system, under the magical-thinking assumption that they could "make it work", and thus skip any testing (equivalent to the student who decides he can skip class and quizzes under the assumption that the final will be easy and he'll get 100%). And they didn't do it with just one system, they did it with a good half-dozen and have built themselves a $20 billion dollar lemon - what they should have done is built a one-off light-carrier explicitly as a test bed, but the modern USN hates unique test ships (for everything from this to Aegis) and basically refuses to build them (in this particular case doubtless also motivated by a desperate desire to avoid giving the light-carrier proponents any ammunition, ever, despite operating nine of them quite effectively); it's very much a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach, but (again) such is the nature of the 21st Century USN - they've made this particular mistake again (Zumwalt), and again (LCS), and again (Ford).

The problem with Trump's off-the-cuff recommendation of course is that it is a "stopped clock" moment from an ignorant idiot - yes, EMALS doesn't work, but ripping it out and replacing it with steam is, 1) stupidly expensive, and 2) doesn't get the electromagnetic launch capability you want (maybe the USN can just wait a decade or two and license or steal a Chinese design ). A better (if far from optimal) solution at this point is probably 1) turn the Ford into the necessary test vessel, and then 2) clean house over at NAVSEA, with lots of rolling heads and an appropriate number of courts martial, followed by 3) rationalizing CONOPS and bringing it back into ship design and procurement, instead of doing whatever the contractors and their pet congresscritters want (especially if it results in more ships, and thus more line officer command berths). All of which has less chance of happening that the proverbial snowball in hell.

The actual "plan" for the US admirals at this point is probably closer to: 1) lie to congress a lot, 2) build lots of combat hulls, no matter how ineffective they actually are, and 3a) pray to the sea gods that the US never gets into a shooting war with China, the EU, or anyone else with a working Navy, along with 3b) if 3a does happen, pray that they never get held responsible.

[Adam Jensen]

"What is this? Why are the ships made of steel? Steel sinks! I want my goddamn ships made out of wood!"

He is such a f**king moron. I can't even imagine how hard the admirals are facepalming him in private.

- - - Updated - - -

No worries Donny, the people operating this dangerous new tech actually know what they're doing, unlike some.
Just looked up some basic info about the new system here.

My guess is he's frustrated because someone gave him papers with some info about it, but the workings couldn't be conveyed on a single page with nothing but pictures, so it was too complicated for him.

No one drew him a diagram in crayon?

[Cosmic Janitor]

Now if he would just go back on this new fangled digital communication and would instead start using the good old smoke based one.

[Mormolyce]

“It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated, you have to be Albert Einstein to figure it out."

Technologically speaking, he hasn't quite caught up to the digital watch yet.

[Cosmic Janitor]

Every time I read something he's said I feel measurably dumber.

Strange, I always feel smarter in comparison .

[Elim Garak]

No worries Donny, the people operating this dangerous new tech actually know what they're doing, unlike some.

No one is operating it right now as it is not finished yet.
There are no people in the navy who know how to operate it.
There are no people who can maintain it - they will need to be hired because the people who maintain and operate the current steam version don't have the required qualifications to maintain and operate the "digital" one.
And you cannot just fire all the "steamers" because you have a fleet of "steam" ships that you need to operate and maintain.
So adding this new "digital" system will require new people, hired on top of current personnel, thus inflating the expenses.
And the system itself is a Godzilla of expenditure that wants even more.
And the Navy does not really need it.

It's a business and Trump is a businessman.

[Kellhound]

How many countries in Europe have Aircraft carriers?
What about countries in Africa? How many of those countries have aircraft carriers?

5 countries in Europe have carriers: UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Russia.
In Africa only Egypt has flat-deck amphibs.

- - - Updated - - -

She still blows as of the DOT&E's most recent assessment,


There are perfectly good reasons to want EMALS - the problem is that the United States Navy (with the hammer-to-head lack of foresight has plagued it for all the 21st Century) decided to build it into their next super-carrier without already having a working system, under the magical-thinking assumption that they could "make it work", and thus skip any testing (equivalent to the student who decides he can skip class and quizzes under the assumption that the final will be easy and he'll get 100%). And they didn't do it with just one system, they did it with a good half-dozen and have built themselves a $20 billion dollar lemon - what they should have done is built a one-off light-carrier explicitly as a test bed, but the modern USN hates unique test ships (for everything from this to Aegis) and basically refuses to build them (in this particular case doubtless also motivated by a desperate desire to avoid giving the light-carrier proponents any ammunition, ever, despite operating nine of them quite effectively); it's very much a penny-wise, pound-foolish approach, but (again) such is the nature of the 21st Century USN - they've made this particular mistake again (Zumwalt), and again (LCS), and again (Ford).

The problem with Trump's off-the-cuff recommendation of course is that it is a "stopped clock" moment from an ignorant idiot - yes, EMALS doesn't work, but ripping it out and replacing it with steam is, 1) stupidly expensive, and 2) doesn't get the electromagnetic launch capability you want (maybe the USN can just wait a decade or two and license or steal a Chinese design ). A better (if far from optimal) solution at this point is probably 1) turn the Ford into the necessary test vessel, and then 2) clean house over at NAVSEA, with lots of rolling heads and an appropriate number of courts martial, followed by 3) rationalizing CONOPS and bringing it back into ship design and procurement, instead of doing whatever the contractors and their pet congresscritters want (especially if it results in more ships, and thus more line officer command berths). All of which has less chance of happening that the proverbial snowball in hell.

The actual "plan" for the US admirals at this point is probably closer to: 1) lie to congress a lot, 2) build lots of combat hulls, no matter how ineffective they actually are, and 3a) pray to the sea gods that the US never gets into a shooting war with China, the EU, or anyone else with a working Navy, along with 3b) if 3a does happen, pray that they never get held responsible.

And on the flip side, they made the DDG-51s (76 planned) and the Virginias (48 planned). Thus the backbone of the USN is made up of proven systems. The Navy hates unique test ships because they are logistical nightmares.

- - - Updated - - -

No one is operating it right now as it is not finished yet.
There are no people in the navy who know how to operate it.
There are no people who can maintain it - they will need to be hired because the people who maintain and operate the current steam version don't have the required qualifications to maintain and operate the "digital" one.
And you cannot just fire all the "steamers" because you have a fleet of "steam" ships that you need to operate and maintain.
So adding this new "digital" system will require new people, hired on top of current personnel, thus inflating the expenses.
And the system itself is a Godzilla of expenditure that wants even more.
And the Navy does not really need it.

It's a business and Trump is a businessman.

Actually, the Ford is fully manned with a USN crew already. And unlike Russia, the USN actually trains its sailors to maintain the equipment.

[announced]

i think Trump was just given reports that the EMALS system has a very low success rate so he thought just keep the STEAM versions till either the success rate of EMALS goes up or something better comes along.

[Crispin]

It's like Trump is a king from the dark ages, who went forward in time and is trying to force the "let's not advance in anything" mindset from his time. It would be pretty crazy if all new inventions worked from day 1.

[Krawu]

It's a business and Trump is a businessman.

Thanks for the laugh. Trump is many things, but Businessman is not a word I'd use to describe him. I've seen him talk about business, it's always in the same vague terms he talks about anything else he knows nothing about.

It's comical, he's like a kid in school that didn't read the assignment and is unsuccessfully trying to talk himself out of an F.

[Allybeboba]

5 countries in Europe have carriers: UK, France, Italy, Spain, and Russia.
In Africa only Egypt has flat-deck amphibs.

- - - Updated - - -



And on the flip side, they made the DDG-51s (76 planned) and the Virginias (48 planned). Thus the backbone of the USN is made up of proven systems. The Navy hates unique test ships because they are logistical nightmares.

- - - Updated - - -



Actually, the Ford is fully manned with a USN crew already. And unlike Russia, the USN actually trains its sailors to maintain the equipment.

So, five out of 50 plus? Not even 10%.

[W1sp]

http://thehill.com/policy/defense/33...craft-carriers



He is so out of touch
A trebuchet would be able to throw a 90kg stone 300m away

100% love the trebuchet memes.

[Kellhound]

So, five out of 50 plus? Not even 10%.

Its 5 of the most powerful European navies. Most of Europe has little to no blue water fleet.