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| Maintenance cost for the Big E rises |
| 2009-05-04 |
| The cost of maintaining the world's first nuclear aircraft carrier has gone up again. The USS Enterprise is undergoing a 16-month dry-dock maintenance at Northrop Grumman Corp.'s shipyard in Newport News. The Navy said Wednesday that a contract modification for "emergent and supplemental" work will increase the project's cost by $6 million. It's the third contract modification for the maintenance project, which initially was to cost $453.3 million. The price tag is now $480.9 million. Commissioned in 1961, the Enterprise is on schedule to be re-delivered to the Navy in September. The project will extend the carrier's life until at least 2013. |
| Posted by:Steve White |
| #7 Because in the era of highspeed anti-ship missiles, submarines, and Pershing-class anti-ship missiles, a carrier is an anchronism just like the battleship in 1942. Just add it to the obsolete pile with the tank, infantry grunt, et al, all of whom have been declared passe since the events in Japan around August 1945. Strangely enough, they're still around. Even though we gone through budget cutting games to kill them one way or another, only to find out in the 'next' conflict, by golly, we still need them. Carrier based air still constitutes asset project places in the world while we negotiate with local governments for basing and fly over privileges. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-05-04 20:44 |
| #6 Because in the era of highspeed anti-ship missiles, submarines, and Pershing-class anti-ship missiles, a carrier is an anchronism just like the battleship in 1942. Heck, most of America's "Carriers are God" syndrome comes from a naval battle from that same year. The only reason that carriers still lurch about the sea, zombie-like, is there hasn't been a Big Shooting War since the big one. |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-05-04 16:21 |
| #5 I think everyone is delusional to think the big deck carrier is obsolete. Just about the time we mothball those big guys we'll find ourselves in a shooting war with someone and we'll need the rapid deployment of significant air power to fight it. A big carrier brings overwhelming force to the AO and I believe that you should give the men on the ground overwhelming firepower no matter whether you are fighting a technological equal in say Russia or a bunch of goat herders with RPG's in Afghanistan. The big deck carrier is a huge force multiplier and a huge tactical advantage for us. The Chicoms and the Russians don't have anything like it and we have an advantage because of it. Why would you take a trump card off the table? |
| Posted by: James Carville 2009-05-04 15:29 |
| #4 Good. The big-deck CVN is an obsolete dinosaur that needs to go away. Hopefully China will waste a lot of its resources on useless but chest-beating relics like aircraft carriers. |
| Posted by: gromky 2009-05-04 10:39 |
| #3 It's the third contract modification for the maintenance project,.. I have no problem with such mods if they fire the top two or three levels of uniform management with each 'new' mod since they pull this crap routinely. The problem is that we've allowed this for so long that its become custom/ritual and the behavior continues and becomes more frequent. |
| Posted by: Procopius2k 2009-05-04 08:38 |
| #2 ...The work is too far along to cancel, which the USN would do if it could. Look for Enterprise to do one more deployment and then decom perhaps as early as 2011. There's the distinct possibility that the Gerald R. Ford, being built a few yards down from Big E, may be the USN's last big deck CVN. The wave of the future could well be the America class LHAs: http://www.lha6ussamerica.org/ Mike |
| Posted by: Mike Kozlowski 2009-05-04 05:34 |
| #1 HMMMMMM, since the USDOD does not foresee any pre-and post-Cold War "great power" war thru 2050 at minima, pwerhaps the USN should consider making ENTERPRISE into its first big Big BIG B-I-G BBBIIIIIIGGGGG MULTI-ASSET OR HYBRID, OFFENSIVE AND DEFENSIVE, EXPERIMENTAL "ARSENAL/FIRE SHIP"??? Lest we fergit, 1980's NASA > IIRC used the then "ENTERPRISE" SPACE SHUTTLE for Astro-Training and as a Hi-Technology Demonstrator, to the angst of many STAR TREK fans??? |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2009-05-04 01:47 |