Aircraft Carriers?

[Mao]

So what do you think is the future of the modern Nimitz-class-esque super-carrier? Will it eventually go the way of the battleship? Is it completely necessarily for American power projection, in its current numbers? Do we need more? Are Ticos and smaller carriers the wave of the future? Or are carriers a permanent part to a naval force the foreseeable future?

[VetLegion]

I forsee a brilliant future for them. At least 50 more years of US sea domination with carriers.

[reds4ever]

How much do they cost to make? (and run for that matter!)

I suppose from the USAs point of view they are great because you don't have to butter up some other country to get them to let you launch airstrikes from their territory.

[Kontiki]

Originally posted by reds4ever
How much do they cost to make? (and run for that matter!)

The current class runs about $4.5 billion a pop to build. Here's a good link that lays out the operating and lifetime costs:

http://www.fas.org/man/dod-101/sys/ship/cvn-68.htm

[binTravkin]

Scrap them all and have more money for social programs, healthcare, research etc..

[BeBMan]

Smaller carriers, more drones.

[Kuciwalker]

Originally posted by binTravkin
Scrap them all and have more money for social programs, healthcare, research etc..

Latvia is perfectly free to scrap all of its aircraft carriers so that it has more money for social programs, healthcare, and research

[CerberusIV]

The current carriers will probably see out their lives but a lot of the strike capability is likely to be taken over by sub-orbital high speed strike aircraft that operate at the edge of the atmosphere. You only need a few bases scattered around the globe then.

So things may well change 20-30 years down the line.

Of course, the USN won't take being supplanted by the USAF lying down so there will be a lot of politics and arguments (and tears and money) to go through first.

[Dis]

Very necessary for the next 50 years. After that, they may not be so necessary. But they will still be around. It will take a major war to prove they aren't useful anymore. Just like ww2 did with the battleships.

[Frozzy]

IIRC the United Kingdon is replacing it's Invincible class of carriers with Nimitz-sized carriers over the next 10-20 years.

[Dis]

Originally posted by reds4ever
How much do they cost to make? (and run for that matter!)

I suppose from the USAs point of view they are great because you don't have to butter up some other country to get them to let you launch airstrikes from their territory.

5 billion and around 150 million a year to operate.

[pchang]

Originally posted by Kalius
IIRC the United Kingdon is replacing it's Invincible class of carriers with Nimitz-sized carriers over the next 10-20 years.

In that case, the US should just sell them their old ones.

[Frozzy]

Yep... here we go.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Royal_Navy_CVF_programme

[Sava]

Originally posted by VetLegion
I forsee a brilliant future for them. At least 50 more years of US sea domination with carriers.

I agree.


The only thing that could potentially change things is a new jet engine technology that could change the range of fighters (and multi-role fighter-bombers). But even with that, it would require pilots to log longer flight times and still it might just mean carriers would be used in different roles... that sort of thing.

[BeBMan]

Originally posted by Kalius
IIRC the United Kingdon is replacing it's Invincible class of carriers with Nimitz-sized carriers over the next 10-20 years.

They are still significantly smaller than a Nimitz class carrier - wiki just said they are closer to the Nimitz class than the former carriers (description of one of the pics there).

The article says "65,000 tonnes displacement and a length of 274m (900ft)" for those new carriers while the Nimitz is over 100,000 tonnes and over 330m.....