re: #269 Gus

The new Ford Class is running about $13 billion. The Navy figures that they’ll save money over buying a new Nimitz class because it’ll take fewer people to operate (and personnel costs are an area where the military can cut via technology).

But the Navy has 10 carriers, plus a bunch of Wasp-class amphibious assault ships that have a deck as long as most foreign carriers, and each of those ships has to be accompanied by a range of support ships (destroyers, cruisers, and subs, to provide escort duties). Carriers do, however, serve a humanitarian purpose after natural disasters - they can do airlift like nothing else - and that’s a plus side on that ledger. Allow older carriers to retire without replacement, and you’d still have blue water domination.

Going up-thread, one of the reasons that the F-14 was phased out was costs to maintain, and it was easier to expand the role of the F/A-18 (either the C/E, or the Super Hornet), than try to extend its life service. Now, the Navy is looking at the F-35 JSF as the successor, even though that bloated program is a mess - every service wanted its own variation, and own requirements, even though the mission profiles have significantly changed, and potential enemies with even close capabilities are nonexistent.

I get the idea of pushing new tech, but these are costs that the nation can’t afford - not when a comparable amount of money would go to building durable infrastructure that lasts another 100 years and improves economic efficiencies.