Sneak peek at US Navy's new $13B aircraft carrier

[Photon440]

Would it be safe to say much of Chinese technology (aircraft, warfare systems, naval assets...etc) is technology stolen or received thru misbegotten means from the West?

It would seem likely that at least some of it comes from espionage, which is not to say that western countries don't also try to spy on those countries in return. But until recently, the majority of Chinese military was outright purchased from Russia, Egypt, India and other countries either as complete weapons or, like their aircraft, as locally manufactured copies.

And if they need to acquire advanced technology, they don't have far to go. Remember, all those nifty gadgets that people like to use, like an iPhone, are now made in China in the first place.

 

[69a100]

And this here is why the ship will fail: "This ship can basically drive itself," Triana said, pointing to a touch-screen navigation display that has replaced the traditional throttle system used to power and steer the US Navy's older carrier classes.

"The one-of-a-kind control system is just one of many state-of-the-art upgrades aboard the $13 billion USS Gerald Ford that will be commissioned into active duty on July 22 after eight years of construction, development and testing."

Folks are continually forgetting that military equipment isn't meant to sit around and be cool or look pretty. It's meant to fight in combat and sustain damage.


All this tech is cool, but tech is not designed to survive having holes blown in it, and over-reliance on it can be disastrous.

Yeah, just like I would hate to have the computer take a dump while refueling on the new KC-46, loosing your cameras and all visuals along with everything else. Sometimes old school is better.

 

[ChrycoDUDE]

It would seem likely that at least some of it comes from espionage, which is not to say that western countries don't also try to spy on those countries in return. But until recently, the majority of Chinese military was outright purchased from Russia, Egypt, India and other countries either as complete weapons or, like their aircraft, as locally manufactured copies.

And if they need to acquire advanced technology, they don't have far to go. Remember, all those nifty gadgets that people like to use, like an iPhone, are now made in China in the first place.

yeh, good point.

 

[Bruzilla]

Ok Point well taken. However were it not for the constant March of "technology" we would STILL be sailing your 19th century ships; and I wouldn't want to be on that ship were it to engage say..maybe a Ticonderoga class guided miss destroyer. The AEGIS radar system would see the sailing ship far over and past the horizon. Ok and extreme comparison yes, but technology is an invaluble asset. There will be "hiccups" along the way (and the one you state concerning the Enterprise is a HUGE hiccup indeed, but a hiccup none the less). IMO I would not go as far as to say the Navy has an "over reliance" on it's tech. They clearly have very knowledgeable professionals within it's ranks maintaining the technological effectiveness of every device they run and/or deploy.

The problem is the Navy, like a lot of militaries, is developing weapons systems that are so advanced, humans can't deal with them. We now have five aircraft (F-16, F-19, F-35, F22, and B2) that are inherently aerodynamically unstable. These planes are constantly "crashing" every second they are in the air. The only reason they don't crash is they have computers that keep making constant control surface inputs to counter what instability is currently befalling the plane. On a comparative, you could blast the crap out of an F-4 or F-14 and it would make it home, but with these planes, any damage to that computer and it's ejection time. Their instability gives them amazing agility, but it comes at the price of sustainability in combat.

Same deal with this carrier. Yes, the Yorktown was more advanced than the Langley, and the Saratoga was more advanced than the Yorktown, and the Nimitz was more advanced than the Saratoga, but all four vessels were designed to make use of technology to support redundant manual systems, not replace them. This Ford actually replaces these systems, so when it goes "dark", like the Enterprise did, there are no backups to keep the ship in the fight.

I remember being at a Pentagon meeting in 2001 or so where a bunch of captains and admirals were discussing replacing the little green notebooks most sailors carry around with PDAs. They were all going on and on about how wonderful PDAs are, and how productive everyone would be if they were issued one, and I finally had to stand up and toss the BS flag. I asked how many times have you slipped going down a ladder and landed on your *** aboard ship? How many times have you been banged into a bulkhead in heavy seas? How many times has someone shoved you into equipment during GQ drills? None of those occurrences hurts that cheap little notebook, but they will bust the crap out of a lot of expensive PDAs and you better plan on replacing everyone's units two or three times during a cruise. That was the end of that discussion.

At the end of the day in combat, you have to be able to fight or you are worthless, and if you have to eject over indian country because a computer got shot out, or you can't cycle aircraft because your central computer went off line, or your PDA with your procedures on it got busted in a fall, you're not much good to anyone.

 

[Photon440]

The problem is the Navy, like a lot of militaries, is developing weapons systems that are so advanced, humans can't deal with them. We now have five aircraft (F-16, F-19, F-35, F22, and B2) that are inherently aerodynamically unstable. These planes are constantly "crashing" every second they are in the air. The only reason they don't crash is they have computers that keep making constant control surface inputs to counter what instability is currently befalling the plane. On a comparative, you could blast the crap out of an F-4 or F-14 and it would make it home, but with these planes, any damage to that computer and it's ejection time. Their instability gives them amazing agility, but it comes at the price of sustainability in combat.....(edit)...........

At the end of the day in combat, you have to be able to fight or you are worthless, and if you have to eject over indian country because a computer got shot out, or you can't cycle aircraft because your central computer went off line, or your PDA with your procedures on it got busted in a fall, you're not much good to anyone.

I have to ask, what's the F-19? I don't think I've seen much (actually, nothing) on that.

Good points on over reliance on computers. Now, if you do have to eject because of a computer malfunction, is the ejection sequence tied into the same computer?

 

[Bruzilla]

I have to ask, what's the F-19? I don't think I've seen much (actually, nothing) on that.

Good points on over reliance on computers. Now, if you do have to eject because of a computer malfunction, is the ejection sequence tied into the same computer?

LOL... sorry, still a holdover from the 1980s/1990s. I didn't even notice I was still doing that. Just as some Inside Baseball stuff, the F-117's nomenclature was highly classified for years, and Testors came out with a model of what they thought the Stealth fighter looked like and dubbed it the F-19. At NAVAIR we knew there was such a plane, but not the nomenclature for it, so everyone just started calling it the F-19 and we kept calling it that even after the -117 designation was released. Just out of habit.

Tom Clancy in his book Red Storm Rising, which I think is still the best modern warfare book I've ever read, dubbed the planes "Frisbees", but that never caught on. The F-19 sure did though.

 

[GrabberOrange69]

...We now have five aircraft (F-16, F-19, F-35, F22, and B2) that are inherently aerodynamically unstable. These planes are constantly "crashing" every second they are in the air. The only reason they don't crash is they have computers that keep making constant control surface inputs to counter what instability is currently befalling the plane. On a comparative, you could blast the crap out of an F-4 or F-14 and it would make it home, but with these planes, any damage to that computer and it's ejection time. Their instability gives them amazing agility, but it comes at the price of sustainability in combat...At the end of the day in combat, you have to be able to fight or you are worthless, and if you have to eject over indian country because a computer got shot out, or you can't cycle aircraft because your central computer went off line, or your PDA with your procedures on it got busted in a fall, you're not much good to anyone.

The F-16 was the first mass produced fly-by-wire fighter aircraft, and it's 4 redundant flight control computer have never been the causal factor in the loss of the aircraft. While every aircraft have "golden BB kill points" that will take out the aircraft, modern aircraft have more, but there's no way I'd rather go to combat against a first world adversary with an F-4/14/16 over an F-22.

Hardware, however, is only part of the equation; the other is the training, tactics, and proficiency of the crews, maintainers, and pilots. Wars are fought and won by people. During the cold war, we (the west) were outnumbered 6:1 in the air, 3:1 on the ground vs the Soviet block. Our technology and intense focus on training and tactics were developed during that period, and in every air and Naval engagement vs a peer or near peer adversary during, and since that time, has resulted in our victory. Our advantage is highly trained and committed personnel equipped with the best technology we can afford. It's what makes us so lethal.

I hear what you are saying, but you can't put the technology Genie back in the bottle.

 

[ChrycoDUDE]

The F-16 was the first mass produced fly-by-wire fighter aircraft, and it's 4 redundant flight control computer have never been the causal factor in the loss of the aircraft. While every aircraft have "golden BB kill points" that will take out the aircraft, modern aircraft have more, but there's no way I'd rather go to combat against a first world adversary with an F-4/14/16 over an F-22.

Hardware, however, is only part of the equation; the other is the training, tactics, and proficiency of the crews, maintainers, and pilots. Wars are fought and won by people. During the cold war, we (the west) were outnumbered 6:1 in the air, 3:1 on the ground vs the Soviet block. Our technology and intense focus on training and tactics were developed during that period, and in every air and Naval engagement vs a peer or near peer adversary during, and since that time, has resulted in our victory. Our advantage is highly trained and committed personnel equipped with the best technology we can afford. It's what makes us so lethal.

I hear what you are saying, but you can't put the technology Genie back in the bottle.

Plus the rooskies fly with open vodka in the cockpit.

 

[ChrycoDUDE]

Kidding

 

[monaco66coupe]

On a lighter note, I showed my wife a picture of the ship trying to describe the total size. it didn't mean much. But then I said, Imagine that the rear of the ship was on the highway in front of our house, and the front was back to our property line, and 275 feet wide(our property is 300 ft)Our property is seven acres! 1100x300. She got the idea. As compared to the newest British Carrier?
Very striking!

 

[Darius]

Plus the rooskies fly with open vodka in the cockpit.

No NOT kidding!! In '94 i was flying some Humanitarian support missions in Africa. We stopped in at Entebbe for gas and parked right next to a Russian IL74 transport. The crew came out of crew rest for preflight as we were refueling. They invited us over to have a look at their airplane and the FIRST thing they did was the Navigator climbed down into his compartment under the flight deck and opened what resembled a bathroom medicine cabinet above his station. He produced a bottle of Vodka and 6 shot glasses, one for each crew member. They all had a shot and went to work on the preflight!! We all just stood there dumbstruck!

 

[ChrycoDUDE]

On a lighter note, I showed my wife a picture of the ship trying to describe the total size. it didn't mean much. But then I said, Imagine that the rear of the ship was on the highway in front of our house, and the front was back to our property line, and 275 feet wide(our property is 300 ft)Our property is seven acres! 1100x300. She got the idea. As compared to the newest British Carrier?
Very striking!

the newest Brit carrier (queen elizabeth class or something such) is approx 65,000 tons I believe....big, but a bit over half sizel less than a Nimitz or Ford class.

 

[snakeyes]

USS Ford

 

[snakeyes]

 

[snakeyes]

 

[Budnicks]

Cool freaken' ship

 

[Bruzilla]

The F-16 was the first mass produced fly-by-wire fighter aircraft, and it's 4 redundant flight control computer have never been the causal factor in the loss of the aircraft. While every aircraft have "golden BB kill points" that will take out the aircraft, modern aircraft have more, but there's no way I'd rather go to combat against a first world adversary with an F-4/14/16 over an F-22.

Hardware, however, is only part of the equation; the other is the training, tactics, and proficiency of the crews, maintainers, and pilots. Wars are fought and won by people. During the cold war, we (the west) were outnumbered 6:1 in the air, 3:1 on the ground vs the Soviet block. Our technology and intense focus on training and tactics were developed during that period, and in every air and Naval engagement vs a peer or near peer adversary during, and since that time, has resulted in our victory. Our advantage is highly trained and committed personnel equipped with the best technology we can afford. It's what makes us so lethal.

I hear what you are saying, but you can't put the technology Genie back in the bottle.

Yeah, that's mainly 1980s thinking when the Soviets were wayyyyy behind in the technology department. We had some really crappy training. Great planes, but crappy pilots, and it showed. Then they came out with Red Flag and Topgun and corrected a lot of the training issues and the pilots got to be as good as the planes. That's no longer the case. The current crop of Russian and European fighter is every bit as good as any US fighter.

As for the F-16, the matter I discussed was it's inherent instability in the air, not its control systems. Like the other planes I mentioned, the plane cannot stay in the air without computer assistance. There have been dozens of F-16s lost due to loss of the flight control systems. The only problem that's more persistent is engine failure, which was a point I made to the government when I was working on the JSF program and they kept insisting on a single-engine design. The bean counters won that debate.

I would also point out that in every battlefield simulation run where US F-35 and F-22 are pitted against Gen 4/5 Russian aircraft, we've lost.

 

[Wizard]

Decent looking boat....any chance that the boys do any fishing off the side during quiet times?

Just a bit of advice. You don't ever want to call a Navy ship a "Boat" to a Navy guy. It's a insult to them. The only time you want to call a boat a boat to a Navy guy is a submarine. A lot of people don't know this. I was not in the Navy but I was in the Air Force/ANG for 23 years. Just a little information putting it out there for courtesy to other branches.

Wizard

 

[ChrycoDUDE]

Just a bit of advice. You don't ever want to call a Navy ship a "Boat" to a Navy guy. It's a insult to them. The only time you want to call a boat a boat to a Navy guy is a submarine. A lot of people don't know this. I was not in the Navy but I was in the Air Force/ANG for 23 years. Just a little information putting it out there for courtesy to other branches.

Wizard

haha..yeh, I learned that the hard way up in Maine at BIW. NEVER made that mistake again. Dumbass I was.

 

[kiwigtx]

Just a bit of advice. You don't ever want to call a Navy ship a "Boat" to a Navy guy. It's a insult to them.

'Twas a joke.