Trump wants to reduce capability of newest aircraft carrier.

[Segnosaur]

Maintenance on the steam system is also a bear. I suspect EMALS is superior in many ways that outweigh the drawbacks, I'm not certain in anyway and like I said, the US military tends to be overly optimistic regarding new tech.

I think the big advantage is that EMALS is easier on the planes itself. It can be configured a lot easier to handle planes of different sizes/weights, and the system can provide a smother acceleration. This puts less stress on the air frames, leading to lower maintenance costs and longer lifespans of carrier-based planes.

A few other advantages of EMALS:
- Its "recharge" time is faster than steam, so you can launch planes at a faster rate
- Requires less manpower to operate and maintain
- Its better for the sailors (instead of having to deal with huge steam pipes running throughout the ship, EMALS provides a cooler and quieter environment

 

[I Am The Scum]

There's a 95% chance that this all started because of Trump saying, "Why don't they look like they did in Top Gun?"

 

[ahhell]

There's a 95% chance that this all started because of Trump saying, "Why don't they look like they did in Top Gun?"

Definitely more likely due to idiocy than malice if you ask me. Apparently, he just heard from some rando say that they were better. A normal person would ask someone, say in the navy who knows something about why they switched ask, "how come the switch?" Not trump, he's just, "Like Steam, more steam!"

ETA: When I first read the story, I thought he was going to have them retrofit the carriers that had already been built, at least it isn't that bad.

 

[JayUtah]

I really do have to object to "the right" in that.

Fair enough, not everyone on the right is racist.

Miller is a departure from convention, a perfectly fine one but a departure.

One could say it depends on why Chester Nimitz is the only naval admiral to have a CVN named after him. I'm perfectly okay with the convention for CVNs being "U.S. Presidents and famous battles," although the latter now seems to be limited to battles for which previous aircraft carriers were named. As a Star Trek fan I'm perfectly okay with USS Enterprise. We haven't named carriers after members of Congress since the 1960s, so that's probably a dead end.

Was Nimitz a CVN namesake because he was an admiral or because he was a naval hero? Since he's the only example, I don't think there's an objectively right answer to that question. It's probably both. But if we're going to name capital ships after naval heroes, then Dory Miller is as good a choice as any. I'll underscore your "perfectly fine" comment as at least some degree of agreement with me on that; you clearly don't personally have a problem with it. Miller was awarded the Navy Cross, the highest decoration you can receive as a sailor (surpassed only by the all-branch Medal of Honor) and one medal higher than Nimitz's highest decoration—and it was Nimitz himself who decorated Miller. Obviously Miller and Nimitz had vastly different wartime experiences. But if we can name a CVN after Carl Vinson, who wasn't a President and had no connection with the Navy, then we can certainly name one for an undisputed naval hero even if he was of humble rank.

The point of friction is that this isn't the only case of people in the Trump regime wanting to reverse "woke" ship names. It's incredibly rare to rename a ship. And doing so for such a petty reason as undoing alleged DEI is especially galling. Sec. Hegseth says he is doing it to emphasize the "warrior culture" and choosing new names from military history. However the names he's doing away with all happen to be people from minorities the current regime disfavors.

So it's perfectly reasonable to question whether the delay that might be imposed on the USS Doris Miller's entry into active service might have more to do with minority membership and less to do with "warrior culture." It's hard for me to imagine how someone who drags his wounded captain to safety and then mans a gun in the absence of qualified gunners to defend his ship under heavy fire doesn't fully exemplify "warrior culture." I realize I'm being a bit melodramatic. We don't know if that's the "real" reason for removing EMALS. But I detect a whiff of foulness afoot in the Navy, and as someone who holds tremendous respect for the U.S. Navy and its members, I'm a little concerned.

 

[JayUtah]

Definitely more likely due to idiocy than malice if you ask me.

Probably. I really doubt whether Pres. Trump even knows or cares how aircraft carriers work.

A normal person would ask someone, say in the navy who knows something about why they switched ask, "how come the switch?" Not trump, he's just, "Like Steam, more steam!"

I assume he just signed whatever they shoved under his nose and said whatever his addled brain came up with.

I think the big advantage is that EMALS is easier on the planes itself.

And the other reasons you mentioned. Those are factors that would go into a proper analysis along with a scalar launch success rate. If a mechanism fails at a higher rate but has a faster duty cycle, you might still have the advantage.

 

[ahhell]

Vinson and Stennis were both congress folk and generally described as supporting the navy. Regardless, I don't think anything would keep trump just changing the name, they have a history of doing exactly that in their anti-woke renaming you mention. I think this is exactly what it seems to be, Trump has a hardon for steam catapults. Anything else is in contradiction to both Occam's and Hanlon's razors.

ETA: Having read a few articles this really seems to be a thing he cares about and not just signing some paperwork without knowing what it is. Which, in my opinion, is even crazier.

ETA: I mean, that he believes things that are wrong and basicaly counter to all the expert opinions, nothing new. But aircraft carrier catapults? Why?

 

[Ziggurat]

Trump orders the Navy to return to an older system of launching jets off aircraft carriers

Not exactly. First, here's the full executive order:

Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF WAR THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

www.whitehouse.gov

Here's the relevant section:

Sec. 2. Restoring Steam and Hydraulic Systems to Carriers. Within 60 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall provide to the President, through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81, including timelines and resourcing requirements.​

The order only explicitly demands that the SecWar give him a plan for what would be involved in switching back to steam, including how long it would take and what it would cost. The executive order does not actually commit to following that plan. Whether or not they do could easily depend on how expensive and how time-consuming such a change would be.

 

[Mojo]

They will tell him that they will get right on it, but it will take a couple of years.

"Two weeks" will do, he'll have forgotten all about it again by then.

 

[JayUtah]

ETA: Having read a few articles this really seems to be a thing he cares about and not just signing some paperwork without knowing what it is. Which, in my opinion, is even crazier.

Wow. Yes that's even crazier. I guess it's not surprising that Pres. Trump would choose to die on every hill, but I have no explanation for why he's especially interested in aircraft carrier catapults.

Whether or not they do could easily depend on how expensive and how time-consuming such a change would be.

It's encouraging to read that the question is actually being pursued sensibly.

Meh, I think I'll abandon my conspiracy theory. The Miller's keel hasn't even been laid yet and it wouldn't have entered service until long after the Trump regime is gone anyway. It's not likely that a change of catapult implementation will materially affect its construction, launch, and deployment schedule.

 

[ahhell]

Not exactly. First, here's the full executive order:

Rebuilding the United States Navy and America's Shipbuilding Industrial Base

MEMORANDUM FOR THE SECRETARY OF WAR THE DIRECTOR OF THE OFFICE OF MANAGEMENT AND BUDGET THE ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT FOR NATIONAL SECURITY AFFAIRS

www.whitehouse.gov

Here's the relevant section:

Sec. 2. Restoring Steam and Hydraulic Systems to Carriers. Within 60 days of the date of this memorandum, the Secretary of War, in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, shall provide to the President, through the Director of the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) and the Assistant to the President for National Security Affairs (APNSA), a plan on the required measures to replace the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Weapons Elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81, including timelines and resourcing requirements.​

The order only explicitly demands that the SecWar give him a plan for what would be involved in switching back to steam, including how long it would take and what it would cost. The executive order does not actually commit to following that plan. Whether or not they do could easily depend on how expensive and how time-consuming such a change would be.

That is better than I thought. Still inexplicable why he cares.

ETA: @JayUtah There are some significant design changes needed. The steam is produced in the engine/reactor plant at the bottom of the ship, the catapults are not there. So, routing all that pipe is no simple task. That's also no small part of the maintenance. Maintaining pressurized steam pipes is significantly more time consuming than maintaining wires.

Side note, reactor power follows demand, the more draw on the steam boilers the more energy the reactor puts out. The catapults were the only things you could see impacting reactor output. Everything else was gradual. IIRC, the catapults were about 5-10% or reactor demand when used.

 

[Ziggurat]

That is better than I thought. Still inexplicable why he cares.

Purely speculation on my part, but my first thought was that this might be just a negotiating tactic, to try to force the contractor(s) responsible for EMALS to get their ◊◊◊◊ together and keep costs under control. A sort of threat of no, we don't actually have to pay you whatever you say it costs.

 

[Planigale]

there is no real problem with magnetic catapults, unless you want to launch planes at extremely short intervals. The idea being that a carrier would have to oppose an incoming fighter/bomber fleet.
Since every destroyer now has the anti-air capability of many, many fighter jets, this is no longer a serious scenario: planes are used primarily against ground, not air targets.
The number of planes in the air at any given moment is no longer the bottleneck, the number of available missiles and militarily relevant ground targets is.

The real current threat would be a drone swarm, (perhaps with synchronous hypersonic ballistic missiles), and launching manned fighters is not an appropriate response.

 

[JayUtah]

ETA: @JayUtah There are some significant design changes needed.

I agree it's non-trivial. But I'm measuring that against a hypothetical desire to keep the Miller from going to sea, using the catapult change as a pretext for something more nefarious. The more I think about it, the less plausible that appears. It's more likely a bee in Trump's bonnet, not some racist conspiracy to thwart an aircraft carrier named after a minority member.

ETA: Having now recalled that the entire Ford class was designed around EMALS I'm realizing that it would take significant engineering resources to build the as-yet unbuilt Ford-class carriers to use steam catapults. Only one is commissioned but I believe one or two others are completed. These won't be retrofitted, as I understand it.

Purely speculation on my part, but my first thought was that this might be just a negotiating tactic, to try to force the contractor(s) responsible for EMALS to get their ◊◊◊◊ together and keep costs under control. A sort of threat of no, we don't actually have to pay you whatever you say it costs.

I can see it going that way, and also as a relief for the contractor. On the one hand, "Get your act together or we'll cancel the contract." On the other hand, "We can see you're close and just need more time, so we'll put you off for a few years."

 

[Ziggurat]

there is no real problem with magnetic catapults, unless you want to launch planes at extremely short intervals. The idea being that a carrier would have to oppose an incoming fighter/bomber fleet.
Since every destroyer now has the anti-air capability of many, many fighter jets, this is no longer a serious scenario: planes are used primarily against ground, not air targets.
The number of planes in the air at any given moment is no longer the bottleneck, the number of available missiles and militarily relevant ground targets is.

Anti-aircraft missiles have a limited range. The SM6 can only hit targets at 150 miles, for example. You do not want an enemy aircraft to get within 150 miles of your carrier, that's far too close for comfort. An F-35C has a combat radius of about 600 miles, well beyond the range of any anti-aircraft missiles our destroyers have. It's much better to engage enemy aircraft with your own jets further out, and use the destroyers as backup against aircraft and defense against long range cruise/ballistic missiles. So in a scenario where our carrier fleet has to worry about enemy aircraft (such as war with China over Taiwan), the idea of using our jets to protect our fleet is very much still relevant.

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

Per Google AI:

President Donald Trump explicitly rejected the U.S. Navy's focus on stealth ship architecture, famously remarking that "an ugly ship is not necessary in order to say you're stealth".

So at least they won't be ugly drone fodder.

 

[Ziggurat]

ETA: Having now recalled that the entire Ford class was designed around EMALS I'm realizing that it would take significant engineering resources to build the as-yet unbuilt Ford-class carriers to use steam catapults.

Probably.

Only one is commissioned but I believe one or two others are completed. These won't be retrofitted, as I understand it.

Ford is commissioned. Kennedy was launched in 2019, meaning they put it in water to float, but I wouldn't necessarily call it complete at that point. Commissioning is expected next year, so it's at least close to complete. Enterprise has not launched yet, but it's far enough along in construction that they aren't considering removing EMALS even as a hypothetical exercise. The Dorris Miller (CVN-81) has not officially begun construction, so in principle design changes can still be made without having to unmake anything. Easier said than done with a complex design, of course, but still possible in principle. There are two more scheduled carriers after the Miller, the William J. Clinton followed by the George W. Bush. So if they did decide to revert to steam for the Miller onwards, you could have half the Ford class with EMALS and half with steam.

I can see it going that way, and also as a relief for the contractor. On the one hand, "Get your act together or we'll cancel the contract." On the other hand, "We can see you're close and just need more time, so we'll put you off for a few years."

Too much inside baseball for me to comment on.

 

[Andy_Ross]

Supposedly steam is seen as 99.5% reliable (according to google AI). Right now, EMALS is seen as around 98%.

I think its seen as "this catapult is available to launch a plane".

Another issue though, is time to repair. If something breaks on a steam catapult, it can potentially be a much more difficult problem to fix than a magnetic launcher.

Steam catapults are mature technology, they have had 70 years of development and experience in service. They were first fitted to a HMS Perseus a Colossus-class light fleet aircraft carrier in 1950. It was needed to launch the new jet aircraft coming in to service. Existing pneumatic designs weren't powerful enough.
They are at the limit of their development potential, the EMALS will be needed if heavier, larger aircraft are going to be used.

EMALS are still at the start of their development, we can expect performance and reliability to improve.

 

[jimbob]

dupe

I like to think that's a commentary about your President

 

[Gord_in_Toronto]

And those fancy automobiles will never replace Dobbin and his buggy.

 

[carlosy]

Can't you see how smart Donnie is?

Obviously the decision is made because if there is an EMP due to a nuke, the magnets wouldn't work anymore. But steam machines will still work.