Carrier Costs Climbing Considerably

February 29, 2012: The first of the new Ford class aircraft carriers keeps getting more expensive. The price for the first one has gone up $161 million in the last ten months. The USS Gerald R Ford (CVN 78) was originally supposed to cost $8 billion, plus $5 billion for R&D (research and development of new technology and features unique to this class of ships). Now it appears that the cost of the Ford will not be $13 billion, but closer to $15 billion. The second and third ships of the class will cost less (construction plus some additional R&D). Thus the first three ships of the Ford class will cost a total of about $40 billion.

The current Nimitz-class carriers cost about half as much as the Fords. Both classes also require an air wing (48-50 fighters, plus airborne early-warning planes, electronic warfare aircraft, and anti-submarine helicopters), which costs another $3.5 billion. Three years ago, the USS George H.W. Bush (CVN 77), the last of the Nimitz class carriers, successfully completed its sea trails and was accepted by the U.S. Navy. The Bush was ready for its first deployment in 2010.

The first Nimitz entered service in 1975, and is currently set to serve for 49 years before decommissioning. All of the Nimitz class carriers are similar in general shape and displacement. But over four decades of use, each new member of the class received recently developed equipment. This stuff was installed in older Nimitzs eventually, as they went in for maintenance. The Bush, the last of the Nimitz class, has a lot of new gear that wasn't even thought of when the first Nimitz entered service. The first ship of next class of carriers, the USS Ford will be about the same length and displacement of the Nimitz ships, but will look different. The most noticeable difference will be the island set closer to the stern (rear) of the ship.

While the Fords are much more expensive, the navy expects to reduce (by several billion dollars) each carrier's lifetime operating expenses because of greatly reduced crew size. Compared to the current Nimitz class carriers, the Fords will feel, well, kind of empty. There will be lots more automation, computer networking and robots. The Bush has a lot of this automation already.

By the time the Ford enters service in 2015, even more of the crew will be replaced by robots than is the case in the Bush. The Ford will have as few as half as many sailors on board. Carrier based UAVs are also on the way. Work on flight control software for carrier operations is well underway. Combat UAVs (UCAVs) weight about 20 percent less than manned aircraft, and cost 20-30 percent less. They use less fuel as well. The Ford can take advantage of UCAVs, because it is built to handle more sorties each day (about 150), and surge to about 50 percent more for a day or so.


http://www.strategypage.com/htmw/htnavai/articles/20120229.aspx

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I dont see how they come up with 40 billion number.

If you take 15 is cost of first but 5 billion is RD that leaves 10 billion to build carrier. Second and third should cost less to build then first simply because there will be a several billion $ cost to get shipyard ready to build carrier that would show up in cost of first carrier. So cut around 2 billion of 10 billion then add a billion back for finishing RD on second and third carriers.

That should come out to around 33 billion not 40 billion the extra 7 billion should be very close to the cost of forth carrier. To compare the Nimitz class costs were in the 5 billion per ship range while Fords should average 7-8 billion.

It's SP ... don't expect to much

With all the automation these days, are navy assets hardening against EMP enough? Seems like the automation to replace labor is a double edge sword with a high level of risk against nuclear armed navies.

^^ Yeah, I was thinking the same thing...

... and for some reason imagining the Harry S. Truman sometime in the distant future, about to be decommissioned and converted into a museum, with a wing of old, worn out Hornets, being the only carrier left to lead a "rag tag" fugitive fleet after the computers we've turned over everything to figure out that God wants them to kill us...

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This isnt 1960. Electrical engineering had progressed a good long way since the days when EMP protection required you stick everything in a Faraday cage. All it takes to "harden against EMP" today is a the introduction of a single fault switch called an ovonic threshold switch ahead of your main circuit. It is not a complex or even expensive thing to do.