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| USS Ronald Reagan to be commissioned tomorrow |
| 2003-07-11 |
| The carrier Reagan - Ahead of its class Greatly edited for length. Great article though, go and read the whole thing. The huge $5 billion warship, being readied for its commissioning Saturday at the Norfolk Naval Station, is the product of a long struggle. The Reagan is the ninth ship in a class of carriers begun in 1975 with the commissioning of the Nimitz. The ships look alike to the untrained eye -- each is about 1,000 feet long and displaces 97,000 tons of seawater -- but the Reagan has about 1,300 significant design changes from its immediate predecessor, the Harry S. Truman. After the next carrier, the George H.W. Bush, the Navy intends to unveil a new design; it will be roughly the size of a Nimitz-class ship but with automated systems that could cut the ship’s company of 3,200 by one-third or more and a new reactor able to power electromagnetic catapults and directed-energy weapons. The first of those carriers, CVN-21, is projected to cost about $12 billion. It should reach the fleet around 2014. Though they tout the Reagan as far more powerful than any threat it might face, Navy leaders insist that the massive cost of an even more powerful ship is easily justified. Retired Rear Adm. Bryan W. Compton Jr., the first skipper of the Nimitz, said he knew immediately when he boarded his ship, years before its commissioning, that he had charge of the signature vessel of the Navy. But, he said, it’s beyond dispute that a new design is now needed. The cost, bulk and complexity of the Nimitz ships have discouraged imitators. Other nations operate aircraft carriers, but the largest of those has perhaps half the firepower and two-thirds the bulk of a Nimitz. Even at the height of the Cold War, when it challenged American superiority in submarines, destroyers and cruisers, the Soviet Union never fielded a carrier that could seriously compete with a Nimitz. But while big carriers have been the centerpiece of the Navy and perhaps the world’s most recognized symbols of American military power since World War II, struggles like the Reagan’s have marked their history. In the 1980s, as President Ronald Reagan oversaw a massive peacetime expansion of the U.S. military, a group of reformers argued that carriers were easy targets. Unfortunately, no mention of Secretary John Lehman - the guiding force and "father" of the "600 ship Navy" which gave the USA maritime supremacy in the 1980’s and beyond. ``It has been reported in the press that aircraft carriers may be vulnerable, that their survivability might be in question. Some day that may be true. But it’s not true today,’’ Adm. Vern Clark, the chief of naval operations, asserted last year. ``For now and the near term, there is no more powerful, no more capable platform, anywhere in the world, than America’s large deck aircraft carrier.’’ The performance of the carrier fleet in wars in Afghanistan in late 2001-02 and Iraq this spring has at least temporarily quieted carrier critics. The Navy cleared its fighters from the decks of the Kitty Hawk, a Nimitz-sized but conventionally powered flattop, to make it a base for Marine helicopters and troops operating in Afghanistan, then used other carriers to launch strike missions on targets more than 500 miles inland. For the war in Iraq, carriers in the eastern Mediterranean gave the United States the ability to hit enemy targets from the north as well as from the usual land bases and carriers to the south in Kuwait and in the Persian Gulf. Air Force advocates note that while the Navy flew the most sorties into Afghanistan, Air Force bombers dropped more bombs. But in Iraq, the Navy’s ability to operate at will, from neutral waters, contrasted sharply with the tough and not-always-successful negotiations the United States had to conduct with Iraq’s neighbors for permission to fly land-based aircraft across their territory on the way to the war zone. The carriers’ endurance -- their reactors run for 20-plus years without refueling -- and their flexibility are the real keys to their value, said retired Vice Adm. Dennis McGinn, a former director of air warfare for the Navy. McGinn said the ships’ awesome size and power also give them and their sailors a certain swagger, valuable when policymakers want to demonstrate to potential foes that America means business. When a Nimitz carrier shows up off a foreign shore, everyone understands that America ``cares enough to send the best,’’ he said. Love that last line. |
| Posted by:ColoradoConservative & Domingo |
| #4 I vote they name the CVN-21 the Robert Heinlein. Equipped with lasers and rail guns, it would make an old naval officer with vision proud. |
| Posted by: Chuck 2003-7-11 2:24:01 PM |
| #3 FYI: To clarify The Bush would be the last Nimitz class CVN. Not the Reagan. The Reagan may not even be the jump that's expected with the George H.W. Bush, the carrier that the yard is now ramping up production on. The Bush, also known as CVN-77, is set for completion in 2008 and is expected to be the last of the Nimitz-class ships. |
| Posted by: Domingo 2003-7-11 2:11:40 PM |
| #2 Damn, you beat me to the posting. Check out my posting above this one. A link to a very good article on the commissioning. |
| Posted by: ColoradoConservative 2003-7-11 2:01:05 PM |
| #1 CO.Con, "Jinx" |
| Posted by: Domingo 2003-7-11 2:00:32 PM |