but think about the management, do you really want them to give up their 5th house,third boat and 12th car and go back to only having two houses one boat and three cars? That is so inhumane /s
Except that is false, there is a shortage over all in trade work despite pay for it rising fast. Good luck finding an electrician or plumber for cheap.
It amazes me how cheap most employers are nowadays even if its the military/gov. They will spend 60k on a small bag of ball bearings (real & exposed in congress) but can't pay their soldiers/sailors DECENT wages. Same goes with most companies in the US they'd rather get an extra percent or two profits in their quarterlies than pay their employees DECENT wages. It would take the gov to step in at this point but of course the are apart of the problem/ bought out. Yet employers and the military constantly wonder why no one wants to work. Not even that "50k" bonus for the army worked especially since you'd likely only get 10-15k unless you signed up for the Army Rangers.... and it was over time not at once. It's like they hate us and just wanna give us the scraps barely.
@@Ronin.97I know it doesn’t seem to make sense regarding the ball-bearings, but that is one product that is completely under appreciated. For context; bearing was one of the first things embargoed by the US to Russia. To my knowledge, no country that has had its capacity to make them destroyed, has ever won a war. The factories are a very high target for destruction. Bearings quite literally allow your machines to move, and as dumb as it sounds, high quality bearings are not easy or cheap to make. Nothing worse than being deployed to combat and have your machine break down due to a stupid bearing. 😂
Not that I have a lot of experience working on carrier maintenance, but I did do some repair work as a civilian for the Nimitz once. Though I was just a grunt and didn't do any of the logistical work, I did notice it took a while to get things done. We had to get certain permits to do hot work (grinding, cutting, etc), check oxygen levels for small enclosed spaces, and so on. This held us up slightly. We also had to rely on other companies to use their machines such as cranes and genie lifts. Which also added to time and planning concerns. But most of all, we were incentivised to not get done too early. I believe it's because our contract was for a specific time frame. Going under the time allowed was bad for financial reasons (I think). Like it would show the government that we didn't need as much time so we couldn't bill as much time and labor for the job. Again, I'm not part of the contract or financial process. This is just what I was told. So yeah... Just my experience with one job on the Nimitz
@@forddon that's a good point. I think that points to the bigger issue just being the entire process is bloated and inefficient. Like you said, most jobs in are experiencing this. Starting with contractors having to purposely over exaggerate timelines to get paid more. Hard labor jobs are becoming more scarce which means there's going to be less experienced people as they retire or leave the workforce, and more inexperienced people have to fill in. Permits and safety culture (while not necessarily bad itself) prolong and complicate the process. Needing other workers and companies make time in their busy schedules to accommodate you is also a hassle. Like you said, this is a problem everywhere. My quick experience on the job really helped visualize exactly why it takes so dang long to get carriers back into working order
@@Jor0716 One of the biggest problems that causes delay are changes to the project as it is ongoing. Consider your own experience shouldn't the permits and testing have been arranged before the work? But what if the job was changed and the problems with permitting were because the process had to be started all over again? Wouldn't changes to your schedule create conflicts with other contractors? If you were a contractor wouldn't you build extra time into your plans so as not to have to pay a penalty for delays that were the governments fault? I've worked for companies that gouged the customer, and it was always because the customer changed the deal. You are right that many experienced workers are leaving the workforce, but it applies double to naval personal who know how to manage repair operations.
@@forddon the permits he's talking about are safety related. The hot work permit ensures that there's nothing flammable nearby (or on the other side of a metal bulkhead) before welding or making sparks. Since work that precludes hot work takes place in the same area (everything that's welded or ground needs to be painted) you can't just get all the permits at the beginning. Same for the confined space entry permits, the fact that the air in that void was good six months ago doesn't mean it's still breathable. That being said, if work is being delayed by hot work or confined space permits it means that the management for that work team isn't doing its job. Their entire purpose is to look at what work is coming up and make sure all the requirements, like parts and permits, are ready to go when the job is scheduled to start.
@@dirtyblueshirt FYI: I've spent a lot of time on aircraft carriers and other ships, I also have done a lot of work inside permitted confined spaces, and for many years I was a member and later on Captain, of an Emergency Rescue Team, trained and equipped for confined space and Hazmat rescue...So I kinda get it being safety related. When you said “if work is being delayed by hot work or confined space permits it means that the management for that work team isn't doing its job” That's exactly what I was talking about in the previous post and much of what I've experienced in over 40 years working in the trades. The video I guess we all just watched is about how long it takes to get repairs done on aircraft carriers; much longer than it used to take. Jor0716 thought it might be that contractors are causing delays, I'm saying it's much more likely because of inexperience and incompetence on the part of Navy management. The subject of “project management” is something I have a lot of interest in, and an endless supply of personal stories relating to, but the topic at hand is a general one so I try to limit myself to general comments.
Problem is we don't have the money for that. The US is borrowing money just to pay the interest on the deficit. We're already spending close to a TRILLION dollars a year on the military, I don't think throwing more money at the problem is going to fix it. The military needs to completely revamp how it goes about spending other people's money.
@@marcanton5357 why comment news are you serious news do not own the ship yards investors like pension funds venture capital firms do. Take your rasist remark and shove it.
The alien playing The United States on Earth RTS groaning impatiently when the USS George Washington’s generator was busted and needs another 2 years to repair
The USS Boxer has had rudder problems since the start. I was on it's maiden voyage. We had the rudder get stuck for almost a full day. We just cruised in a large circle.
They should rename it USS Bismark. The second benefit would be they would never have a shortage of crew, with every basement Nasi, and keyboard warrior signing up to sail on it.
@@leefster1 Actually, the real reason is that the navy guy needs to have time scheduled to the area to work on it and specific instructions and guidelines when doing so and so does the contractor; generally the two don't mix and if one is there then it won't be approved for the other as it could be a safety hazard since they're 2 different crews per say; Though in honesty only a contractor worker or a enlisted maintenance for navy will ever tell you that real reason since everyone else only gets to look at the giant lists they print out for everyone else to look at when it's quite literally 'oh yeah, turn 2 valves to isolate this area, then unscrew pieces and replace, then after it's secured and put back together deisolate and run tests to make sure it's operational if it's at the end of the maintenance checklist for that project or machinery and all other parts are operable at the time as well; if something doesn't work follow procedure which is generally some form of securing/shutting off said project or machinery and running diagnostics to then check where further maintenance is required to make it work.' So if you wanted to know the real reason why it takes so long from someone who has worked there in person, it's quite literally 'worked hours'(fancy way of saying you should spend x time when you actually spent 70-90% of that time on average but need that full time in case someone inexperienced follows exact instructions to do the same also because 'man hours'=more workers, which are sorely needed and usually is generally very stingy because people complain to government to stop spending money so they do and then the people working for said government reply back saying that aint a fuckin thing and we sincerely need peeps and then unlike the people who complained to the government that too much was being spent, we then need to show our work to get it approved.) and then second reason is making, reporting, then following proper procedure even if you wrote the damn thing.. takes a fuckin bit.. you wouldn't believe how many procedures contain a tighten this bolt pattern down in said order 3-5 times(not joking..) at sometimes pressures that exceed what you actually weigh.. and it's at the end of a several hour procedure with a several hour running at proper pressures test associated after and that's for what most would consider 'light maintenance' once you've worked there for a bit.. So real reason in total and as short as possible? Following safety in every form because a dead man can't fix a living mans problem; reporting everything followed so it can be troubleshot later if needbe to solve other issues with similar problems; and uh.. the interesting one.. greed, man.. good ole greed...Allowes you to do the work in the first place but gives you less manpower to do it with.. Cause apparently sweeping every inch of the floor isn't enough.. it's a timed task so go do it again cause we said so.
Given the shortage of skilled labor in the shipbuilding industry, perhaps Congress should fund a vocational shipbuilding school that is FREE for Navy, Coast Guard and Marine personnel (or maybe for all US military personnel) nearing the end of their service term. Shipbuilders are well paid. (A cursory Google search suggests they make something like $65K to $150K depending on seniority, position level, skill type, location, and performance.) Thus it shouldn't be hard to attract students from a pool of outgoing military personnel who would otherwise be entering the civilian world with no prospect for a lucrative job. Moreover, a free shipbuilding school would likely pay for itself by way of lower costs for the Navy to get its ships built and repaired.
Sweetie. Pipe welders in shipyards get paid a fraction of what nuclear plant pipe welders get paid and the shipyard pipe welders deal with 5times the bs
I love/hate how the deployment of an additonal carrier group to the red sea to protect commercial shipping from missile attacks of a rebel group is literally the opening plot to the 80s nuclear anxiety movie "Countdown To Looking Glass"
The problem is that a country may be an ally today and not one tomorrow. The very same reason countries supporting Ukraine, will not send their best equipment. They do not have to actively use it against you, but they might sell/trade/or give away the technology. R&D is where the lions share of overall cost is encountered. That’s why China steals everything and why the Soviets did it before.
There is a mistake, it was in France in Saint Nazaire, the "Wonder of the Seas", the other Sister-ships were either built in Finland or in France. Moreover, we will soon build a new aircraft carrier of the same size as the American aircraft carriers.
@@gregutdmglaucos3757 Recently the Sun Princess. Laid down in March 2023 and completed in February 2024. 180,000 gross tons and first fully LNG powered cruise ships built in Italy by Fincantieri. Btw Fincantieri Is Building the new constellation class frigates for the US navy inside the US (Marinette, Wisconsin). But the US navy is very hard to work with and they said they would keep most of the modern FREMM frigate design and instead changed the design completely causing delays, increased costs, etc... If the US would be ok with Fincantieri building ships (even just the smaller frigates) for them in Italy, we could definitely do it much faster and much cheaper.
This is why Admiral Zumwalt suggested the US Military have a high-low mix. Nuclear-powered Supercarriers would be the 'High', while smaller carriers (either American license-built _Queen Elizabeth_ class carriers, or _Essex_ sized light carriers), Battleships, and guided missile submarines would be the 'Low'. (And yes, American Supercarriers are so big and expensive that _Battleships_ would be cheaper and more cost-effective.)
Usa really needs to increase from 11 carriers rule, although it's not easy to build carriers as it was back during WW2, carriers today are a lot harder to build and more advance, and more sophisticated
For perspective: WW2 carriers (yorktown class) were 25,000 tons fully loaded. Nimitz class are 97,000 tons, fully loaded. In pure weight terms it's 4 times more carrier, to say nothing of the capability gap between the two.
Learn about the US debt issue. The more US spends, the more it goes into debt. It already has 35 trillion debt. And the more the debt, the more interest they have to pay. By 2030, US will have to pay 2 trillion dollars every year in interest payments. It will increase to 5 trillion every year by 2045 The moment US says I don't have the money to pay the interest, it's over. US will default, the countries will sell US treasury bonds, stock market will crash, dollar will crash and economy will be ruined. That's when the economists predict a civil war or purge like situation
Yeah and the military is only the 3rd largest expense. At least the military is capable of ensuring international peace. (The current administration just doesn't want to)
@michaelusswisconsin6002 but will the USN have sufficient personnel to man that ship? And the air wing and the cruiser(s) and destroyers and the supply ship and the submarine that deploy with that ship when it's time?
As the Super-Hornet was validated for the DeGaulle which already uses the Hawkeye too, IMHO, since the French one has 75% availability vs. 50% for the US CVNs and 25% for the Brit VSTOL ones because BAe tried to blackmail the French and force them into buying a full carrier from the UK while the French were supposed to build the third of each of 3 ships and they actually did the blue prints, have the IP on these ships and had the dry docks to make the ships while the UK had to build such dry docks... Guess what? All French military blueprints are with rotten eggs, that's even why the Tupolev Tu-144 sucked... I can tell you that BAe shouldn't have played this little game with the French : they're not finished with overcosts and features that suck!
@@Stewpot-p5l If you knew aviation for long, you would knew that BOTH acronyms are in use and stop bullshitting when you know shit on the subject! I bet you never had your butt in a cockpit
@@lamchunting856 We're not russia, I mean I know you are but we aren't. We don't need to skim. The money that's made is done transparently and on the up and up. When we pay 3x what we should it's because we know exactly who's palms are getting greased. It's not like in Russia where you order 10 battalions of tanks and by the time the order arrives you're lucky to have a single battalion.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusketpentagon can’t pass an audit. Retired generals become defense contractors board members. Ceos make billions. What transparency
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket And our Ukrainian friends can compete at the world turret tossing championship... BTW, by thinking out of the box, it's absolutely feasible to get CVNs for €1.5bn by modifying some of Naval Group's modular designs. A few years ago, a DoD spox said "In the future, we'll need more and more weapons designs from our European allies"... Well, that's obvious : ALL your defense contractors overcharge the tax payers as hell! Gosh, the French can deliver a SSN for €1.3bn and a SSBN for €3.1bn and if converted into a SSGN, there'd be 208 cruise missiles : the M51.3 diameter is larger than the Trident since it's an Arian space rocket 2nd stage... Gen CQ Brown once declared that the F-35 will never be able to replace the F-16 and USAF needs a "5th gen minus" aircraft... Well, the French can deliver: the Rafale does the job (it has active stealth features), moreover, Rafale-M is already validated for US-Navy CVNs then... Since Safran proposes e 100kN dry thrust version of its engine with 115kN afterburner... Just add a ski-jump to the LHA/LHDs, add an angled deck plug on sponsons as it was done in the 50's on the Essex-class then arresting cables then you have freaking STOBAR aircraft carriers! Rafale-M is already validated for STOBAR use in India with up to 5.5 tons payload and the standard 50/75kN engines... 100/115kN is more than what the F-15C has while the MTOW is only 1 ton over the F-18 Hornet... BTW, F-35 allows only 2 missions a week, Super-Hornet allows 4 missions per 24h in intensive use for 2 months... Rafale in intensive use allows 11 missions per 24h in intensive use or 12 hours straight.... Every year, a squadron takes-off from Bordeaux with the A-330MRTT tankers, do a stopover in Fullerton, CA (nope, they won't buy Fender guitars, France has Vigier that does better ones for cheaper), then they drill naval strikes on Tahiti/polynesia as the scenario is about an invasion of Polynesia by an hostile navy, and they land in New Caledonia, a French island near Australia/New-Guinea... All this into 28 hours... 20,000km raid!!! Sending an aircraft carrier would take about a month! Well, I wouldn't like to have to clean the cockpit after such a flight, the smell must be terrible.
Golden rule: pay workers according to the demand and train them! And we need to build couple of a new (or revive the old ones) naval shipyards to relieve the pressure on these four public shipyards.
Without the US guarding the free sea lanes and keeping terrorists and dictators in check, wars and chaos would errupt everywhere. Just think of what China would do to Taiwan or Iran to Israel if no one would be ready to stop them for example. The global economy would break down too.
We should build some smaller light carriers or helicopter carriers. Non-Nuclear, Diesel Powered. They’d hold a small amount of aircraft but it’d give us the ability to be in more places at once with less maintenance and resources.
I have a feeling the Ike is gonna outlive me by my 80th birthday. If I live that long. Senile old me: yup. That the Ike. I was on it for two miserable tours with no ports.
Not covered in this video is the fact the US Navy adopted a new deployment policy only a couple of years ago where some carriers would only be out 6 months, some a year, and some 18 months or longer, and to make matters a little more fun, the ability to recall a carrier to it's home port early and redeploy a different one. This is the real reason why there are only two carriers deployed at the moment. Videos like this are possible because deployment lengths and rotations have become so easily predicted. So the change in deployment strategy is to keep near peer adversaries off balance in being able to determine deployment rotations. For example, in the past, if you knew US carriers would be on year long deployments, a near peer adversary could use that information to calculate when the best time to carry out "activities" is. Wait for when one should be headed back to port in a few weeks, and then do your thing, so when the Navy sends them, they're disgruntled about not being able to be going home like what they were looking forward to. This morale killer can and does affect operations. If the deployments can be any length, only known to the admirals who plan the rotations before the deployment, it makes it harder on enemies to plan accordingly. Add in the fact the admirals may have said a year deployment and they recall the carrier after nine months and deploy another one in it's place for a time period only known to that crew once they're deployed, you can see how this creates problems for adversaries. They cannot predict rotations, which means they have no idea if when their "activities" are ready to be acted upon, a new fresh carrier group may have just left port, causing them to either delay to some unknown time that may put them right back in the same situation they're in now, or deal with a crew ready and eager for action.
Awful comparison, the Yorktown was pretty much flight deck and hangar, the modern behemoths are innumerable layers of small/big machinery then the nuclear reactor, is like comparing repairing a toy car to repairing an smartphone.
Not really. A CVN deployment schedule is split roughly into thirds, but in the middle of her projected lifespan she's going to bow out for several years for refueling. Well, more accurately refueling the reactors and also doing major upgrades and repairs. The Ford's A1B reactors may not need to be refueled during her operational service life, but its very likely she'll be out of the rotation for several years as her systems get major work done. So, although the law says the US Navy is limited to 12 flattops during peacetime, a more sustainable number would be something like 13.
@@mikehammer4018carrier cycles are in quarters, not thirds. Approximately 6 months for planned maintenance, with adjustments for unplanned repairs. About six months of shakedown and crew certification. About six months of carrier quals for squadrons, and 6 months for deployment. The lengths of cycles may change, but there are always 4 parts.
@@mikehammer4018also, US law says 11 carriers is a minimum. The maximum is purely based on how much money is needed to be spent and the ability to crew them.
@@mikehammer4018also, US law says 11 carriers is a minimum. The maximum is purely based on how much money is needed to be spent and the ability to crew them. The Ford will be refueled just like the Nimitz class, once.
It’s not only the shortage of carriers it’s an acute shortage of Airgroups. The Roosevelt was actually on a Westpac deployment when it was extended to go to the Red Sea. It’s finishing an eight month deployment right now. Lincoln is now deployed to the Middle East. Next up from the West coast will be Vinson followed by Nimitz
Good report! There are a few ways the USN could fix these issues: (1 A designated Training Carrier/Test Bed. The USS Nimitz is going to retire. This while expensive would be helpful as a deadicated training carrier would allow Reserve Sailors and Airmen to stay trained. That would ease loads on Active CVN crews and cycles. It would also allow testing of new systems and modifications without again taking CVNs off of the line. 2) Stand up a full Reserve Carrier Air Wing. This also would cost the Navy and Marine Corps but again, it would ease retention, add options to new Enlistees and Officers and would maintain a continued pool of trained Sailors, Airmen and Marines. If need be, Squadrons or Detachments could support the Active Duty Carriers or in case of a surge the entire Reserve Air Wing. 3) Stand up one or two more Active Duty Air Wings. The Air Wing brings over 2500 Sailors Airmen and Air Crews along with various Squadrons and Detachments flying H-60,F-35,F/A-18E/F,E-2,C-2 and E/A-18Gs. Currently there is one Reserve Squadron flying E/A-18Gs. The other Squadrons in the Reserve Tactical Support Wing do not deploy and fly F-5E/Fs or F/A-18Echos as Adversary Training Aircraft. There are no Reserve E-2,H-60 or F-35 Squadrons. 4) The USMC fielded F/A-18A,A+ or C Hornets as part of a number of CVWs. This will continue with F-35Cs but there is only one USMC Reserve Strike Fighter Squadron. Options for Reserve F-35C Squadrons should be considered.
from what i've heard, at the time the entire shipyard poured into her hull to make the repairs needed for her to reach combat capable not combat effective.
@@sgtrpcommand3778 it's undeniable that tehy were more fruggle tech-wise. but hoinestly, a huge part of it isn't that much more complicated. out of teh 100k tons maybe 65k tons or more is just steel and wires just like back then.
@@Netscape-kd6mg The mindset was really the main problem here I would say, during that time, they are on war against a nation that can actually reach them and is consider one of the most powerful naval power at the time and defeated a european superpower, so both the citizen and the government are more focus on their military capability, but now, both the government and citizen stagnant and think they are safe so they couldn't careless about their military, iz why most american have some weird outlook toward their military.
@@LoveKoSiVanessa well it's undeniable. the US at teh time were at war with japan for teh last 6 months and were getting their asses kicked at most corners. even teh last battel during which the Yorktown was heavily damaged that had lost a carrier aswell (the Lexinghton if i recall) while sinking none of the opposing ones though one was heavily damaged and the other had no aircraft left so was basically useless after the battle. So the mentality was obviously not teh same. basically the US was in full defense mode and desperatly trying to find a way to get teh initiative. At teh time tehy had allready started hearing about the attack on midway even if they didn't know it was the real target yet. they still knew a big assault was in the oven. So teh desperate need for all the carreirs they could possibly have even if it destroyed teh kheel of the ship for the win was a risk to take. When they ordered teh repairs midway was the known target and tehy knew the compoisition of the attacking force so they did all they could possibly could to get as even as possible if not try to get the advantage in the njumber of aircraft. it's a bit like in WW1 and the french with teh battle of Verdun. they threw every last ounce of forces they could to repel the assault because they couldn't let it fall
in 1942 the Carrier USS Yorktown was badly damaged in the battle of the Coral Sea, she was towed to Pearl Harbor Hawaii, and there repaired and back out fighting in 48 hours at the battle of Midway.!!!
Te faltó agregar que el 6 de junio, el Yorktown, fue localizado por un avión de exploración del Chikuma y su posición fue señalada por el submarino japonés de Primera Clase I-168 que lo localizó cuando era remolcado .El submarino disparó cuatro torpedos, uno de los cuales dio de lleno en el destructor USS Hammann partiéndolo en dos, y dos de ellos impactaron en el Yorktown sentenciándolo. El Yorktown se hundió el 7 de junio de 1942.
So the U.S. government sold off ship yards to foreign countries to promote "competition" with native ship yards? Maybe I am missing something, but that sounds like decreasing the wages of the native ship builders, which they are already having a hard time replacing and giving access to the countries most advanced equipment to a foreign power.
No, what happened is that congress has been cutting the fleet for decades to the point there was no work for the shipyards (add to this government regulations that hinder construction of civilian ships) The shipyards just went out of business, some get turned into waterside parks...some get bought by foriegners
As someone who builds these, it comes down to the quality control / approved contractors and the delays of components held up when they aren’t right and need more engineering.
Those ship yards companies are monopolies who are lazy. They haven't kept up with modern manufacturing such as larger ship yards, advanced robotics, advanced training, and other modular designs.
It is almost impossible to keep young workers these days. I worked in the environmental field and we did hazardous waste remediation. It was hot, dirty, strenuous work that required a lot of experience and education to do well. Out of the entire crew I was the youngest at 55 years old. It is not that we didn't hire young workers, but none ever stayed in the 8 years of doing this position for more than a week. The work was hot and difficult, just like working in the shipyards. Also, they never did raises and most of us made now less than what you could make working fast food in California. How are you supposed to ever get the skilled workers if the work is difficult and the pay is low?
I remember a carrier that was damaged so bad that it was listing bad, couldn’t maintain power and was towed the long trip back to port. Port maintenance crews were given three days to get the job done so the ship could get back into the fight. With the repairs completed in record time, she was headed back into the fight. With all the man power employed at the repair facilities these days, Theres absolutely no reason why it should take a year to finish the job and get the ship repaired, fully stocked back to sea.
That can be done in a war scenario where there is a war economy going on, America currently is not in war and it cannot take up a whole shipyard for itself.
We need to outsource to allied nations that have strengths in shipbuilding. For example, Japan and South Korea are building modern warships at a competitive price scale. In particular, Japan is independently designing and constructing Aegis-equipped destroyers compatible with the U.S. Navy, while South Korea has extensive experience in constructing large-scale industrial ships and is also building Aegis destroyers. Although the U.S. Congress is already discussing outsourcing construction, the current pace is far too slow, raising doubts about whether adequate support can be provided in the event of a crisis in Taiwan.
in the Us we love paying Big men to get welfare, amd love having a lot of over Paid fed gov workers, there is a Fed Gov worker per 600 people, the TVA gets by with 1 worker per 2000, Avg private sector pay 60k Avg fed Gov worker pay 95k
This video got the reason wrong. The real reason: We tend to stick our nose where it’s not our business. If we stop doing that, we wouldn’t have a carrier shortage.
This is an international conflict, many nations send their cargo ships there, but very few countries send forces to defend their own ships, leaving the burden to the Americans who are the ones who have completely shot down most of the missiles. and Huties drones in defense of foreign vessels....
I really think the USN should bring back diesel carriers, not to utterly replace CVNs but to augment them. A 70-80,000 tonne CATOBAR diesel carrier could cost less than half, if not one third that of a CVN, whilst still providing 70-80% of a CVNs capabilities... 13 billion a pop for a 100,000~ tonne Ford, vs 6 billion a pop for a 75,000~ tonne CATOBAR diesel... that's setting aside the higher availability rates of diesel carriers, lower manning requirements, and lower operating and through-life costs... 6 CVNs off the west coast augmented by 2 diesels, 4 CVNs off the east coast augmented by 4 diesels - something like that.
With the f35 stvol capability, could smaller amphimbous assault ships not be more flexible and cheaper? You could build more for the price of one supercarrier, and could switch them between missions?
@puntmannoor3403 That is definitely an option, though I think it to be a lesser ideal one. They're slower and still require a similar core crew; they generate fewer sustained sorties, and take longer to muster a weaker alpha-strike. Furthermore, onboard avgas stores and spare parts stores are also severely limited for amphibs pressed into the carrier role. More consequentially is the fact that Amphibs lack fighter catapults, severely degrading weapon loads and endurance for launched aircraft. That also means no E-2D, meaning a new, lower-performance rotary AEW platform would need to be developed. Amphib carriers would also have considerably fewer aircraft than proper aircraft carriers as well, the America-class pressed for carrier ops is only capable of embarking about 20 F-35s and 2 MH-60s maximum. That is opposed to 36~ F-35s and 12~ helicopters that the 72,000 tonne STOVL Queen Elizabeths could comfortably carry. Two amphib carriers would cost about the same as one CATOBAR diesel carrier both to procure and to maintain through-life, but would just be accumulatively inferior for carrier ops than diesel carriers.
@@arakami8547 Well I guess if you have 800 billion dollars, you might as well crank out all the options. A nuclear carrier + diseal carrier + amphibious for different needs and purposes. The diesal carrier would probably fill out the middle gap. How many do you think the US navy would need in order to complete it's strategic objectives?
@@puntmannoor3403 F35s are crap. too costy to flight and maintain and the number of flaws they currently have is longer then the arm. You are better of sticking to F18s and similar as they are much easier to have high availiability with
manning will be a problem. Those extra carriers will soak up some 18,000 more sailors assuming 3,000 crewmembers per ship. To add to the extra personnel costs you'll need to procure more F-35s to fill them, fuel costs over the next 35-50 years, and most importantly more escort vessels will need to be built to protect those extra carriers and our current fleet is already run ragged with the missions that they do have. Compound that with the Navy's inability to build a cost-effective ship (LCS which is being retired with less than 10 years of service and what sounds like a mess with the Constitution class) and things become unaffordable. Keep in mind too that the Federal budget has to cope with the loss of revenue from retiring boomers and increased SS/Medicare payouts to those same folks. The military in general needs to find some good-enough platforms that are cost effective because in the near-term and outward funding is going to get tighter and tighter.
I also think a lot of the issues with shipyard capacity is also related to a lack of civilian jobs as overseas shipyards drasticly outperform us based ones on price and speed.
TLDR; currently the US has 2 carriers. Not more. They cannot patrol as much as they used to, they cannot project force that much that they used to. As a last resort, they are trying to make their "alies" (i.e. subordinates) to fill the gaps, but that is hardly enough. If China + Iran + Russia starts some nasty things, we're screwed, and they know this. I just hope this may not lead to WW3...
They are not subordinates at all, that is just anti-american propaganda. Their interests simply allign with american interests; no one wants the houthi pirates to cut off trade between europe and Asia for example.
@@abraham2172 I know of a certain pet dog of US which has been quiet even though it's pipeline has been blown up by one of its supposed ally, looks subordinate enough to me
Is a super carrier needed in every crisis? Having more America class assault ships' purpose built for longer duration around a submarines reactor with larger air wings might be advantageous. Having 6 of those instead of 1 means 2 could be sent to cover off a hot spot for a long duration until and if an S.C. needed. Plus, they're cheaper to build. Just thinking out loud.
The problem of those smaller ships is that they could only do what a super carrier does for a very short amount of time and with that specific mission it wasn't just a few week thing is was a many month operation
The US military is simply too overstretched and somehow involved in all the conflicts in the world, which over time decomposes all the material that was still operational, and now the reserves are slowly running out
Maybe there wouldn't be a carrier shortage if the US didn't meddle ineverything possible. Only the Houthi thing is semi-legitimate as it affects US shipping
You'd be surprised how rarely carriers do anything at sea but train. They're mostly used for deterrence, and you can't do that tied up to a pier. The Houthi thing is the only place the navy is launching air strikes right now and it's only been a few. The primary mission of the navy is and always has been freedom of the seas for all. Even for our enemies in time of peace.
not to mention carries have a certain shelf life like all ships. they will all eventually need to be replaced. overtime the structure will sufer degradation from the ocean.
No we don't.. we need to stop the corruption in the defense sector. We pour billions into it and we don't get anywhere what we should.. the Chinese are building 5 or more times as many ships as we are. The US struggles to build even 2 destroyers a year..
We're already spending nearly a trillion dollars a year on the military, how much more do they need? I think it's less a money problem and more a corruption/poor planning problem.
@@sogmalukem2745 It's not even that, the US is doing an impressive job maintaining a world wide military force... the problem IS that it's maintaining a world wide military force. That's a ridiculous task for any nation to undertake, no matter how badass your logistics are.
I think other western nations really misjudged the situation in recent years. I'm grateful that the US didn't. If the US would draw back, you can definitely expect another, less nice nation filling that power vacuum that would be left. And they would never give that back. This also provides soft power across the entire world. As a german I'm being thankful for the US carrying the western world, but I'm also disappointed in our government for not doing enough to provide support that alliance. And from the looks of it, it won't get better in the future at all. Not to mention our way too popular russian and chinese puppet parties that would seize control dumpster everything if they got enough power.
Sooo what you're saying is.... we need to quadruple the number of shipyards we have and start paying the ship builders and navy recruits more, as well as ramp up the naval budget 10-fold for a 30-carrier operational fleet. Sounds fantastic.
Perverse economic insentives for subcontracting companies is a surefire way to cause shortages, quality issues and delays. Monopoly has a harder time demanding premium price for continued high standards compared to keeping contracts while saving that and more by letting the quality slip. Thats why monopolies typically don’t often produce skyhigh prices, but piss-poor products and services. One is easier to negotiate, for the same level of profit. If lack of productivity can be pushed upwards in the supply chain, there really is no reason to pay good wages and train enough staff. You can make the government do that for you, if there is no competitive shipyard, let alone a separate pool of trained workers. If the supply chain is so locked that no other company can make a competitive offer on upgrading stuff you installed, why would you not cut corners when you get the upgrade contract? That is just leaving profitable bargaining friction on the table. There really isn’t a price worth doing the job properly for, if for any given price point you can half-ass the job. And delays? Your workforce is the only feasable one to do the job to begin with - the Navy has no real leverage to make you spend on the overtime bonuses let alone weekend rates. The best approach for a company in such position is to act like they are working really hard on solving these issues, demanding help for solving the issues, while never spending their own resources to solve said issues. Its a good reason in negotiations to appeal to whenever expectations are not met, as technically the issues are outside of the companys control. All these things would be devastating for the business if there was a competitor who could provide the same services without the continuous ”unforseen” or ”inevitable” issues. Even for a strictly higher price. Thats basic economics. Only if you are the only game in town does it makes sense to be a crap, malfunctioning game.
Yes it will be expensive but they need to build a big new ship yard on the west coast and also see if they can safely extend the service lives of the Nimitz class carriers so they can get to 13-14 total supercarriers at once.
Maybe something more like an armored missile rack with laser and CIWS/RAM should be developed with the same size as an aircraft carrier. Make it sit low in the water with only the absolute minimum superstructure exposed. Design it to tunnel through storm waves as a semi-submersible sort of ship. Build 12 of them and rotate them with the carrier groups. Add 2 more flight 3 destroyers to stay with them in case there is a "stay Behind" tasking like you would find when dealing with pirate like threats. Maybe even have company of Marines and tiltrotors aboard for raiding bases or launch sites the missiles come from.
I get why we have the largest carriers in the world but perhaps a smaller class of carrier is needed. Cheaper to crew and maintain that can be deployed to areas where a large Carrier may be considered overkill? Could take the stress off the the larger ships and even cut the costs. The recent military efforts to build a single plat form systems that do it all (IE F-35) it seems to really increase costs beyond what having 2-3 platforms that specialize would cost.
14 aircraft carriers is not a shortage. The nearest any country comes is china with three and two of them arent blue water carriers. They aren't ocean worthy.
The questions of workforce and proper salaries have always been everywhere (not only the military) an issue. It seems that stakeholders hate giving decent wages and training well enough while having good relationships with their employees. They wish for more robots, AI and automation but this will not be enough. We need to respect highly educated and highly skilled people. We need to keep the capacity in the country well enough. For example, in the UK, we have lost too much capacity thanks to the Tories policies that left the industry without support.
At the end of WWII the navy listed 101 aircraft carriers, about 7,000 freighters and thousands of combat ships. These were weapons platforms with many still viable today. The B52h is going through a critical update after 70 years in service, but plans are being made to scrap the Nimitz. Italy's has an aircraft carrier than is 40 years in service. Our navy must reexamine the rather quick scrapping when real naval threats exist.
I served on a Nimitz carrier several decades ago. Even then, the limitations of the design were apparent; especially electrical power generation. There is also the issue of repeated upgrades approaching the point of diminishing returns. As it stands, Nimitz was commissioned in 1975, which means she'll be 52 when she starts decommissioning in 2027; a long life indeed for a warship.
@@haolepirate Both are good points. Most people don't get just how harsh the oceans are, nor how unrelentingly demanding it is to maintain combat effectiveness in an ever-evolving paradigm. The latter point is interesting. A larger crew increases operational expense and strain on the total force, but it does have one huge benefit. More manning means more extensive damage control and simultaneously more redundancy in the event of a casualty. A warship, especially a capital ship, is going to take hits; and the difference between limping home for an extended drydock stay and sinking may be the quality and extent of the ship's damage control. See IJN Taiho specifically.
Just think about the costs of the weapons fired to stop cheap Hutie weapons. The USA achieved nothing but showing its developing inability of the USA to project power as it has in the past. Maintenance is crippling the number of vessels within the US navy including the submarine fleet. It’s got so stupid within the US Navy that two cruisers that have been undergoing maintenance upgrades for over six years costing 500 million on each ship will now be decommissioned before being returned to service. That’s a lot of dollars wasted. The US Ford carrier is a hidden money pit not discussed by the media. Its designed contract cost was 13 billion. Launch cost 17.4 billion and actual commission cost 23 billion. That was bad enough but it was built on borrowed money gained by selling US treasury notes on 30 year terms at 4.89% interest on average, adding another 20 billion in interest costs so it’s a 43 billion cost to taxpayers.
"Carrier strike groups are expensive to buy and to operate. Factoring in the total life-cycle costs of an associated carrier air wing, five surface com- batants and one fast-attack submarine, plus the nearly 6,700 men and women to crew them, it costs about $6.5 million per day to operate each strike group." Soo, just so we are all on the same page. That is about 1 BILLION in operating cost in 6 months. That does NOT include the actual cost of the strike group. We have 6 at sea at any time. That is 6 Billion in operating cost per year. How can we afford any of this?
Maybe they shouldn't retire Nimitz as they have planned. Im cool with retiring Enterprise it was a one of a kind ship it will be harder to maintain that but there are 10 nimitz class so they should not retire Nimitz yet.
"Because simply asking others for help is boring and won't convince congress to approve more funding for fancier gear." -To be fair, it's difficult to convince congress to approve more funding for anything but themselves.
The F-35 has changed the game for the navy. Its now possible to equip light amphibious warships with fixed wing aircraft now, and it being the newest stealth planes is beyond revolutionary. The newest carriers should definitely be closer to this. The gerald r ford is amazing, but it represents a financial and personnel investment that is too great to put at risk. The US should be scaling down, not up. A single carrier strike group represents about 75 billion in assets. Thats too much to be that centralized
I didn't know about the frequent maintenance, that's quite impressive what carriers consume in time and man-power. I thought indeed they can go ahead a while at sea. Plus problem of shipyards ... didn't the speaker mention they allow shipyards to be bought by foreign companies? That's the first issue, then wages, availability of spare parts ... But no lessons learned from huge cruise ships? They are huge too...
After pearl harbor we refloated 2 battleships, 1 cruiser, and 2 destroyers along with 6 other ships and had them back in the war in under 2 years. Let someone pop off with the US and see how fast things turn around on them.
Shortage? Triple the defense budget!
increase defense budget to 300 gazillion dollars 🤑
nah, take the entire GDP for offense budget
💀
Need efficient worker? Quadruple the DEI hires.
Money isn't the issue. Corruption is.. our shipyards are falling apart
Any "worker shortage" in dockyards is just a shortage in wages. If they pay more they will have more staff almost instantly.
Same with the military recruiting crisis
but think about the management, do you really want them to give up their 5th house,third boat and 12th car and go back to only having two houses one boat and three cars? That is so inhumane /s
Just create enough homeless people 👍 @@Doug_Dimmadome
@@bergerniklas6647this guy gets it
Except that is false, there is a shortage over all in trade work despite pay for it rising fast. Good luck finding an electrician or plumber for cheap.
TLDR; it's caused by a crew/contractor shortage.
Solution: Pay a decent wage to hard working crews to be trained and retain them.
The realities of engineering continue to be impossible to ignore, despite the best efforts of the top minds in managerial and executive positions
Yup. There is no such thing as a labor shortage; only a wage shortage and obstacles to migration.
It amazes me how cheap most employers are nowadays even if its the military/gov. They will spend 60k on a small bag of ball bearings (real & exposed in congress) but can't pay their soldiers/sailors DECENT wages. Same goes with most companies in the US they'd rather get an extra percent or two profits in their quarterlies than pay their employees DECENT wages. It would take the gov to step in at this point but of course the are apart of the problem/ bought out. Yet employers and the military constantly wonder why no one wants to work. Not even that "50k" bonus for the army worked especially since you'd likely only get 10-15k unless you signed up for the Army Rangers.... and it was over time not at once. It's like they hate us and just wanna give us the scraps barely.
Imagine how many gifted people are currently driving Uber or delivering big macs
@@Ronin.97I know it doesn’t seem to make sense regarding the ball-bearings, but that is one product that is completely under appreciated. For context; bearing was one of the first things embargoed by the US to Russia. To my knowledge, no country that has had its capacity to make them destroyed, has ever won a war. The factories are a very high target for destruction. Bearings quite literally allow your machines to move, and as dumb as it sounds, high quality bearings are not easy or cheap to make. Nothing worse than being deployed to combat and have your machine break down due to a stupid bearing. 😂
Not that I have a lot of experience working on carrier maintenance, but I did do some repair work as a civilian for the Nimitz once. Though I was just a grunt and didn't do any of the logistical work, I did notice it took a while to get things done. We had to get certain permits to do hot work (grinding, cutting, etc), check oxygen levels for small enclosed spaces, and so on. This held us up slightly. We also had to rely on other companies to use their machines such as cranes and genie lifts. Which also added to time and planning concerns. But most of all, we were incentivised to not get done too early. I believe it's because our contract was for a specific time frame. Going under the time allowed was bad for financial reasons (I think). Like it would show the government that we didn't need as much time so we couldn't bill as much time and labor for the job. Again, I'm not part of the contract or financial process. This is just what I was told. So yeah... Just my experience with one job on the Nimitz
Everything you mentioned is part of non government maintenance projects, every job has those problems
@@forddon that's a good point. I think that points to the bigger issue just being the entire process is bloated and inefficient. Like you said, most jobs in are experiencing this. Starting with contractors having to purposely over exaggerate timelines to get paid more. Hard labor jobs are becoming more scarce which means there's going to be less experienced people as they retire or leave the workforce, and more inexperienced people have to fill in. Permits and safety culture (while not necessarily bad itself) prolong and complicate the process. Needing other workers and companies make time in their busy schedules to accommodate you is also a hassle. Like you said, this is a problem everywhere. My quick experience on the job really helped visualize exactly why it takes so dang long to get carriers back into working order
@@Jor0716 One of the biggest problems that causes delay are changes to the project as it is ongoing. Consider your own experience shouldn't the permits and testing have been arranged before the work? But what if the job was changed and the problems with permitting were because the process had to be started all over again? Wouldn't changes to your schedule create conflicts with other contractors? If you were a contractor wouldn't you build extra time into your plans so as not to have to pay a penalty for delays that were the governments fault? I've worked for companies that gouged the customer, and it was always because the customer changed the deal. You are right that many experienced workers are leaving the workforce, but it applies double to naval personal who know how to manage repair operations.
@@forddon the permits he's talking about are safety related. The hot work permit ensures that there's nothing flammable nearby (or on the other side of a metal bulkhead) before welding or making sparks. Since work that precludes hot work takes place in the same area (everything that's welded or ground needs to be painted) you can't just get all the permits at the beginning. Same for the confined space entry permits, the fact that the air in that void was good six months ago doesn't mean it's still breathable.
That being said, if work is being delayed by hot work or confined space permits it means that the management for that work team isn't doing its job. Their entire purpose is to look at what work is coming up and make sure all the requirements, like parts and permits, are ready to go when the job is scheduled to start.
@@dirtyblueshirt FYI: I've spent a lot of time on aircraft carriers and other ships, I also have done a lot of work inside permitted confined spaces, and for many years I was a member and later on Captain, of an Emergency Rescue Team, trained and equipped for confined space and Hazmat rescue...So I kinda get it being safety related.
When you said “if work is being delayed by hot work or confined space permits it means that the management for that work team isn't doing its job” That's exactly what I was talking about in the previous post and much of what I've experienced in over 40 years working in the trades.
The video I guess we all just watched is about how long it takes to get repairs done on aircraft carriers; much longer than it used to take. Jor0716 thought it might be that contractors are causing delays, I'm saying it's much more likely because of inexperience and incompetence on the part of Navy management.
The subject of “project management” is something I have a lot of interest in, and an endless supply of personal stories relating to, but the topic at hand is a general one so I try to limit myself to general comments.
Seems like we need to triple the defense budget
Jews.
we are already suffering from a deficit
@@marcanton5357why?
@@agentzyter8937 okay and?
Problem is we don't have the money for that. The US is borrowing money just to pay the interest on the deficit. We're already spending close to a TRILLION dollars a year on the military, I don't think throwing more money at the problem is going to fix it. The military needs to completely revamp how it goes about spending other people's money.
It should also be noted: working on shipyards sucks. They care so very little about their people.
Typical whine from the industry or military... "Oh no we have a shortage of people..." Well what about pay? Training? Working conditions?
There is a reason why shipyards kept downsizing. They solely rely on military contracts nowadays. US builds little commercial shipping these days.
Holy shit did you re-skin the Ukrainian pig meme to be Russian lmfaoooooooo what a khazarian move
Rich people don't care, they lobby politicians for contracts and pocket the money leaving the workers to be basically serfs.
@@JvmCassandra Meanwhile China is the largest civilian shipbuilder in the world by far...
We really need to invest more into ports in partner/ally countries. There's lots of stuff that could be done in Japan, for example.
Jews.
We have a giant presence in Japan.
@@marcanton5357
Yep.
Have you heard of Okinawa?
@@marcanton5357 why comment news are you serious news do not own the ship yards investors like pension funds venture capital firms do. Take your rasist remark and shove it.
The alien playing The United States on Earth RTS groaning impatiently when the USS George Washington’s generator was busted and needs another 2 years to repair
LMAO bro right before I read your comment I was thinking to myself "I love playing games managing things like this, like Tropico, Stellaris, etc."
That generator was damaged over 20 years ago, the repairs weren't planned to happen until refueling.
I guess my Netflix, Amazon prime, Spotify subscription prices are going to increase now 😅😔😢
Lol is this the reason why my ship is having issues
The USS Boxer has had rudder problems since the start. I was on it's maiden voyage. We had the rudder get stuck for almost a full day. We just cruised in a large circle.
I can't believe they don't use Mermaid pods... oops, NIH syndrome!
They should rename it USS Bismark. The second benefit would be they would never have a shortage of crew, with every basement Nasi, and keyboard warrior signing up to sail on it.
@@TayebMCBismarck stood its ground tho.
US Navy: We need faster turnaround!
Military Contractors: Yeah no. We get paid by the hour.
A Corveta de Taiwan é a melhor, pequena e de baixo custo.
@@miisefabraziiian1002how is this reply relevant to the comment?
@@TheBabyCaleb And who asked you something?
The main reason for the slow turnaround is that repairs and maintenance aren't as profitable as making new ships, so shipyard put them on back burner
@@leefster1 Actually, the real reason is that the navy guy needs to have time scheduled to the area to work on it and specific instructions and guidelines when doing so and so does the contractor; generally the two don't mix and if one is there then it won't be approved for the other as it could be a safety hazard since they're 2 different crews per say; Though in honesty only a contractor worker or a enlisted maintenance for navy will ever tell you that real reason since everyone else only gets to look at the giant lists they print out for everyone else to look at when it's quite literally 'oh yeah, turn 2 valves to isolate this area, then unscrew pieces and replace, then after it's secured and put back together deisolate and run tests to make sure it's operational if it's at the end of the maintenance checklist for that project or machinery and all other parts are operable at the time as well; if something doesn't work follow procedure which is generally some form of securing/shutting off said project or machinery and running diagnostics to then check where further maintenance is required to make it work.'
So if you wanted to know the real reason why it takes so long from someone who has worked there in person, it's quite literally 'worked hours'(fancy way of saying you should spend x time when you actually spent 70-90% of that time on average but need that full time in case someone inexperienced follows exact instructions to do the same also because 'man hours'=more workers, which are sorely needed and usually is generally very stingy because people complain to government to stop spending money so they do and then the people working for said government reply back saying that aint a fuckin thing and we sincerely need peeps and then unlike the people who complained to the government that too much was being spent, we then need to show our work to get it approved.) and then second reason is making, reporting, then following proper procedure even if you wrote the damn thing.. takes a fuckin bit.. you wouldn't believe how many procedures contain a tighten this bolt pattern down in said order 3-5 times(not joking..) at sometimes pressures that exceed what you actually weigh.. and it's at the end of a several hour procedure with a several hour running at proper pressures test associated after and that's for what most would consider 'light maintenance' once you've worked there for a bit..
So real reason in total and as short as possible? Following safety in every form because a dead man can't fix a living mans problem; reporting everything followed so it can be troubleshot later if needbe to solve other issues with similar problems; and uh.. the interesting one.. greed, man.. good ole greed...Allowes you to do the work in the first place but gives you less manpower to do it with.. Cause apparently sweeping every inch of the floor isn't enough.. it's a timed task so go do it again cause we said so.
Given the shortage of skilled labor in the shipbuilding industry, perhaps Congress should fund a vocational shipbuilding school that is FREE for Navy, Coast Guard and Marine personnel (or maybe for all US military personnel) nearing the end of their service term. Shipbuilders are well paid. (A cursory Google search suggests they make something like $65K to $150K depending on seniority, position level, skill type, location, and performance.) Thus it shouldn't be hard to attract students from a pool of outgoing military personnel who would otherwise be entering the civilian world with no prospect for a lucrative job. Moreover, a free shipbuilding school would likely pay for itself by way of lower costs for the Navy to get its ships built and repaired.
A major portion of the shipyard workforce is Sailors who got out. They're already trained on the systems and have the basic knowledge.
Thats wishful thinking
@@dirtyblueshirt sadly thats just not true. Id say maybe 1/8th of them are ex military
Shipbuilder wages start out at about 45k a year starting at the moment
Sweetie.
Pipe welders in shipyards get paid a fraction of what nuclear plant pipe welders get paid and the shipyard pipe welders deal with 5times the bs
I love/hate how the deployment of an additonal carrier group to the red sea to protect commercial shipping from missile attacks of a rebel group is literally the opening plot to the 80s nuclear anxiety movie "Countdown To Looking Glass"
I need to watch that again, thank you for that.
That is one of my favorite films
There is a shipyard in Italy that built the world’s largest cruise ship in record time and under budget. I’m sure they would welcome the work
The problem is that a country may be an ally today and not one tomorrow. The very same reason countries supporting Ukraine, will not send their best equipment. They do not have to actively use it against you, but they might sell/trade/or give away the technology. R&D is where the lions share of overall cost is encountered. That’s why China steals everything and why the Soviets did it before.
There is a mistake, it was in France in Saint Nazaire, the "Wonder of the Seas", the other Sister-ships were either built in Finland or in France.
Moreover, we will soon build a new aircraft carrier of the same size as the American aircraft carriers.
@@gregutdmglaucos3757And we are building the nuclear aircraft carrier of future, like our submarines
@@gregutdmglaucos3757
Recently the Sun Princess. Laid down in March 2023 and completed in February 2024.
180,000 gross tons and first fully LNG powered cruise ships built in Italy by Fincantieri.
Btw Fincantieri Is Building the new constellation class frigates for the US navy inside the US (Marinette, Wisconsin). But the US navy is very hard to work with and they said they would keep most of the modern FREMM frigate design and instead changed the design completely causing delays, increased costs, etc...
If the US would be ok with Fincantieri building ships (even just the smaller frigates) for them in Italy, we could definitely do it much faster and much cheaper.
Its weird how new workers lack the experience. Wonder how they get experience.
Just another way of saying the boomers have all retired xD
12-years ago the Puget Sound Naval Shipyard was hiring them by the thousands ! Still are !
by making errors and learn from them i suppose
This is why Admiral Zumwalt suggested the US Military have a high-low mix.
Nuclear-powered Supercarriers would be the 'High', while smaller carriers (either American license-built _Queen Elizabeth_ class carriers, or _Essex_ sized light carriers), Battleships, and guided missile submarines would be the 'Low'.
(And yes, American Supercarriers are so big and expensive that _Battleships_ would be cheaper and more cost-effective.)
Usa really needs to increase from 11 carriers rule, although it's not easy to build carriers as it was back during WW2, carriers today are a lot harder to build and more advance, and more sophisticated
For perspective: WW2 carriers (yorktown class) were 25,000 tons fully loaded. Nimitz class are 97,000 tons, fully loaded. In pure weight terms it's 4 times more carrier, to say nothing of the capability gap between the two.
Also very vulnerable vs a worthy opponent come war they will be the top target to destroy its like Bismark story
And useless too
Not really. Or perhaps build light carriers that can act fast and serve as a first vanguard force before the fleet carrier arrives
Not really.
There isn’t any enemies anymore.
It's still crazy to me that 800 billion dollars is only 4% of USA's GDP.
Learn about the US debt issue. The more US spends, the more it goes into debt. It already has 35 trillion debt. And the more the debt, the more interest they have to pay. By 2030, US will have to pay 2 trillion dollars every year in interest payments. It will increase to 5 trillion every year by 2045
The moment US says I don't have the money to pay the interest, it's over. US will default, the countries will sell US treasury bonds, stock market will crash, dollar will crash and economy will be ruined. That's when the economists predict a civil war or purge like situation
Crazy man, it's just mind blowing
@@suryanshsagar2677so slash welfare and entitlements.
@@suryanshsagar2677as an American I really don't see what the big deal is. We'll just print more money.. (sarcasm)
Yeah and the military is only the 3rd largest expense. At least the military is capable of ensuring international peace. (The current administration just doesn't want to)
Funding needs to match the mission, either increase funding or scale back the mission
If we had THAT USS Enterprise, we wouldn't need any aircraft carriers.
Yeah we’d just phaser sweep any opposing nation or something.
Oware da?
We are getting USS Enterprise CVN-80 real soon
Anti-matter bombs being the best diplomat!
@michaelusswisconsin6002 but will the USN have sufficient personnel to man that ship? And the air wing and the cruiser(s) and destroyers and the supply ship and the submarine that deploy with that ship when it's time?
Wow, that’s a lot of weapons expended turning a rather dusty place into a rather dusty place..
…but I digress.
Excellent video mate!
The empire is already in decline, it reached its peak twenty years ago, the curve of its growth has ended.
....And almost all empires since the beginning of recorded time seem to have lasted shorter and shorter amounts of time.
Use allies navies to deploy.
Royal Navy: don’t look at me😂
As the Super-Hornet was validated for the DeGaulle which already uses the Hawkeye too, IMHO, since the French one has 75% availability vs. 50% for the US CVNs and 25% for the Brit VSTOL ones because BAe tried to blackmail the French and force them into buying a full carrier from the UK while the French were supposed to build the third of each of 3 ships and they actually did the blue prints, have the IP on these ships and had the dry docks to make the ships while the UK had to build such dry docks...
Guess what? All French military blueprints are with rotten eggs, that's even why the Tupolev Tu-144 sucked...
I can tell you that BAe shouldn't have played this little game with the French : they're not finished with overcosts and features that suck!
@@harounel-poussah6936
VSTOL ? you mean STOVL get your facts correct and stop telling lies
@@Stewpot-p5l If you knew aviation for long, you would knew that BOTH acronyms are in use and stop bullshitting when you know shit on the subject!
I bet you never had your butt in a cockpit
That wasn’t what I thought. Thanks for this vid. I may be Army, but i appreciate the insights to the Navy.
what about the us navy pilot shortage? a video about pilot shortage ? great video
Less ways to skim money, asking for more carriers is an easier infinite money glitch
@@lamchunting856 We're not russia, I mean I know you are but we aren't. We don't need to skim. The money that's made is done transparently and on the up and up. When we pay 3x what we should it's because we know exactly who's palms are getting greased. It's not like in Russia where you order 10 battalions of tanks and by the time the order arrives you're lucky to have a single battalion.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusketpentagon can’t pass an audit. Retired generals become defense contractors board members. Ceos make billions. What transparency
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket And our Ukrainian friends can compete at the world turret tossing championship...
BTW, by thinking out of the box, it's absolutely feasible to get CVNs for €1.5bn by modifying some of Naval Group's modular designs.
A few years ago, a DoD spox said "In the future, we'll need more and more weapons designs from our European allies"...
Well, that's obvious : ALL your defense contractors overcharge the tax payers as hell! Gosh, the French can deliver a SSN for €1.3bn and a SSBN for €3.1bn and if converted into a SSGN, there'd be 208 cruise missiles : the M51.3 diameter is larger than the Trident since it's an Arian space rocket 2nd stage...
Gen CQ Brown once declared that the F-35 will never be able to replace the F-16 and USAF needs a "5th gen minus" aircraft... Well, the French can deliver: the Rafale does the job (it has active stealth features), moreover, Rafale-M is already validated for US-Navy CVNs then... Since Safran proposes e 100kN dry thrust version of its engine with 115kN afterburner... Just add a ski-jump to the LHA/LHDs, add an angled deck plug on sponsons as it was done in the 50's on the Essex-class then arresting cables then you have freaking STOBAR aircraft carriers! Rafale-M is already validated for STOBAR use in India with up to 5.5 tons payload and the standard 50/75kN engines... 100/115kN is more than what the F-15C has while the MTOW is only 1 ton over the F-18 Hornet...
BTW, F-35 allows only 2 missions a week, Super-Hornet allows 4 missions per 24h in intensive use for 2 months... Rafale in intensive use allows 11 missions per 24h in intensive use or 12 hours straight.... Every year, a squadron takes-off from Bordeaux with the A-330MRTT tankers, do a stopover in Fullerton, CA (nope, they won't buy Fender guitars, France has Vigier that does better ones for cheaper), then they drill naval strikes on Tahiti/polynesia as the scenario is about an invasion of Polynesia by an hostile navy, and they land in New Caledonia, a French island near Australia/New-Guinea... All this into 28 hours... 20,000km raid!!!
Sending an aircraft carrier would take about a month! Well, I wouldn't like to have to clean the cockpit after such a flight, the smell must be terrible.
@@GeorgeWashingtonLaserMusket hahaha Duele la realidad?
Golden rule: pay workers according to the demand and train them! And we need to build couple of a new (or revive the old ones) naval shipyards to relieve the pressure on these four public shipyards.
Either we triple the budget, or we stop getting involved in other nation's business. And we all know our politicians can't mind their own business.
Without the US guarding the free sea lanes and keeping terrorists and dictators in check, wars and chaos would errupt everywhere. Just think of what China would do to Taiwan or Iran to Israel if no one would be ready to stop them for example. The global economy would break down too.
@@abraham2172dont give a shit when our own country is suffering right now
This would "work" if the US became self sufficient
@@yabmoz The us is
@@Kkk-cc1iy not fully
Saying the US has a carrier shortage is like saying Italy has a pasta shortage
Stronzo
We should build some smaller light carriers or helicopter carriers. Non-Nuclear, Diesel Powered. They’d hold a small amount of aircraft but it’d give us the ability to be in more places at once with less maintenance and resources.
Yeah, we have those. Lots of them. (CVS, LHD, LHA, LPA)
I have a feeling the Ike is gonna outlive me by my 80th birthday. If I live that long.
Senile old me: yup. That the Ike. I was on it for two miserable tours with no ports.
Not covered in this video is the fact the US Navy adopted a new deployment policy only a couple of years ago where some carriers would only be out 6 months, some a year, and some 18 months or longer, and to make matters a little more fun, the ability to recall a carrier to it's home port early and redeploy a different one. This is the real reason why there are only two carriers deployed at the moment. Videos like this are possible because deployment lengths and rotations have become so easily predicted. So the change in deployment strategy is to keep near peer adversaries off balance in being able to determine deployment rotations.
For example, in the past, if you knew US carriers would be on year long deployments, a near peer adversary could use that information to calculate when the best time to carry out "activities" is. Wait for when one should be headed back to port in a few weeks, and then do your thing, so when the Navy sends them, they're disgruntled about not being able to be going home like what they were looking forward to. This morale killer can and does affect operations. If the deployments can be any length, only known to the admirals who plan the rotations before the deployment, it makes it harder on enemies to plan accordingly. Add in the fact the admirals may have said a year deployment and they recall the carrier after nine months and deploy another one in it's place for a time period only known to that crew once they're deployed, you can see how this creates problems for adversaries. They cannot predict rotations, which means they have no idea if when their "activities" are ready to be acted upon, a new fresh carrier group may have just left port, causing them to either delay to some unknown time that may put them right back in the same situation they're in now, or deal with a crew ready and eager for action.
Yorktown, patched up between Coral Sea and Midway...
Such capability was lost decades ago.
Awful comparison, the Yorktown was pretty much flight deck and hangar, the modern behemoths are innumerable layers of small/big machinery then the nuclear reactor, is like comparing repairing a toy car to repairing an smartphone.
Government needs to acknowledge this and pay some money for ship builder's. Send our $ to others when we need the jobs and people need the pay
They use a rule of thirds, but picked a non-divisible by 3 number of carriers to require. Just one more and we would have been golden. XD
Lol, ikr 😂 - that's exactly where my OCD brain that prefers round numbers went as well!
Not really.
A CVN deployment schedule is split roughly into thirds, but in the middle of her projected lifespan she's going to bow out for several years for refueling. Well, more accurately refueling the reactors and also doing major upgrades and repairs. The Ford's A1B reactors may not need to be refueled during her operational service life, but its very likely she'll be out of the rotation for several years as her systems get major work done.
So, although the law says the US Navy is limited to 12 flattops during peacetime, a more sustainable number would be something like 13.
@@mikehammer4018carrier cycles are in quarters, not thirds. Approximately 6 months for planned maintenance, with adjustments for unplanned repairs. About six months of shakedown and crew certification. About six months of carrier quals for squadrons, and 6 months for deployment. The lengths of cycles may change, but there are always 4 parts.
@@mikehammer4018also, US law says 11 carriers is a minimum. The maximum is purely based on how much money is needed to be spent and the ability to crew them.
@@mikehammer4018also, US law says 11 carriers is a minimum. The maximum is purely based on how much money is needed to be spent and the ability to crew them. The Ford will be refueled just like the Nimitz class, once.
It’s not only the shortage of carriers it’s an acute shortage of Airgroups. The Roosevelt was actually on a Westpac deployment when it was extended to go to the Red Sea. It’s finishing an eight month deployment right now. Lincoln is now deployed to the Middle East. Next up from the West coast will be Vinson followed by Nimitz
1:55 SAY THE LINE BART
Good report! There are a few ways the USN could fix these issues:
(1 A designated Training Carrier/Test Bed. The USS Nimitz is going to retire. This while expensive would be helpful as a deadicated training carrier would allow Reserve Sailors and Airmen to stay trained. That would ease loads on Active CVN crews and cycles. It would also allow testing of new systems and modifications without again taking CVNs off of the line.
2) Stand up a full Reserve Carrier Air Wing. This also would cost the Navy and Marine Corps but again, it would ease retention, add options to new Enlistees and Officers and would maintain a continued pool of trained Sailors, Airmen and Marines. If need be, Squadrons or Detachments could support the Active Duty Carriers or in case of a surge the entire Reserve Air Wing.
3) Stand up one or two more Active Duty Air Wings. The Air Wing brings over 2500 Sailors Airmen and Air Crews along with various Squadrons and Detachments flying H-60,F-35,F/A-18E/F,E-2,C-2 and E/A-18Gs. Currently there is one Reserve Squadron flying E/A-18Gs. The other Squadrons in the Reserve Tactical Support Wing do not deploy and fly F-5E/Fs or F/A-18Echos as Adversary Training Aircraft. There are no Reserve E-2,H-60 or F-35 Squadrons.
4) The USMC fielded F/A-18A,A+ or C Hornets as part of a number of CVWs. This will continue with F-35Cs but there is only one USMC Reserve Strike Fighter Squadron. Options for Reserve F-35C Squadrons should be considered.
A bit of a different situation to when they managed to scramble the Yorktown back into action after only 48 hours.
from what i've heard, at the time the entire shipyard poured into her hull to make the repairs needed for her to reach combat capable not combat effective.
@@Netscape-kd6mg yeah that’s what I heard too. Makes sense, it was a war, and the ships themselves were probably a lot less complicated than now.
@@sgtrpcommand3778 it's undeniable that tehy were more fruggle tech-wise. but hoinestly, a huge part of it isn't that much more complicated. out of teh 100k tons maybe 65k tons or more is just steel and wires just like back then.
@@Netscape-kd6mg The mindset was really the main problem here I would say, during that time, they are on war against a nation that can actually reach them and is consider one of the most powerful naval power at the time and defeated a european superpower, so both the citizen and the government are more focus on their military capability, but now, both the government and citizen stagnant and think they are safe so they couldn't careless about their military, iz why most american have some weird outlook toward their military.
@@LoveKoSiVanessa well it's undeniable. the US at teh time were at war with japan for teh last 6 months and were getting their asses kicked at most corners. even teh last battel during which the Yorktown was heavily damaged that had lost a carrier aswell (the Lexinghton if i recall) while sinking none of the opposing ones though one was heavily damaged and the other had no aircraft left so was basically useless after the battle. So the mentality was obviously not teh same. basically the US was in full defense mode and desperatly trying to find a way to get teh initiative. At teh time tehy had allready started hearing about the attack on midway even if they didn't know it was the real target yet. they still knew a big assault was in the oven. So teh desperate need for all the carreirs they could possibly have even if it destroyed teh kheel of the ship for the win was a risk to take. When they ordered teh repairs midway was the known target and tehy knew the compoisition of the attacking force so they did all they could possibly could to get as even as possible if not try to get the advantage in the njumber of aircraft. it's a bit like in WW1 and the french with teh battle of Verdun. they threw every last ounce of forces they could to repel the assault because they couldn't let it fall
Krass was mit KI Übersetzungen bei den Videos jetzt schon möglich ist. Und das wird nur noch besser🤯
in 1942 the Carrier USS Yorktown was badly damaged in the battle of the Coral Sea, she was towed to Pearl Harbor Hawaii, and there repaired and back out fighting in 48 hours at the battle of Midway.!!!
Te faltó agregar que el 6 de junio, el Yorktown, fue localizado por un avión de exploración del Chikuma y su posición fue señalada por el submarino japonés de Primera Clase I-168 que lo localizó cuando era remolcado .El submarino disparó cuatro torpedos, uno de los cuales dio de lleno en el destructor USS Hammann partiéndolo en dos, y dos de ellos impactaron en el Yorktown sentenciándolo. El Yorktown se hundió el 7 de junio de 1942.
Thank You
A very interesting video, 👍 along with the many wonderful comments, learning a lot 🧐 📚📚📚
So the U.S. government sold off ship yards to foreign countries to promote "competition" with native ship yards? Maybe I am missing something, but that sounds like decreasing the wages of the native ship builders, which they are already having a hard time replacing and giving access to the countries most advanced equipment to a foreign power.
No, what happened is that congress has been cutting the fleet for decades to the point there was no work for the shipyards (add to this government regulations that hinder construction of civilian ships) The shipyards just went out of business, some get turned into waterside parks...some get bought by foriegners
As someone who builds these,
it comes down to the quality control / approved contractors and the delays of components held up when they aren’t right and need more engineering.
Those ship yards companies are monopolies who are lazy. They haven't kept up with modern manufacturing such as larger ship yards, advanced robotics, advanced training, and other modular designs.
Maybe building some naval bases/docks in other countries capable of doing maintenance and repairs on carriers would be a good idea.
The question ist why our industries were able to build such huge warships in large numbers 100y ago.
Die Staatsausgaben für die Träger müssen unbedingt erhöht werden.
Dafür hat Amerika immer Geld.
It is almost impossible to keep young workers these days. I worked in the environmental field and we did hazardous waste remediation. It was hot, dirty, strenuous work that required a lot of experience and education to do well. Out of the entire crew I was the youngest at 55 years old. It is not that we didn't hire young workers, but none ever stayed in the 8 years of doing this position for more than a week. The work was hot and difficult, just like working in the shipyards. Also, they never did raises and most of us made now less than what you could make working fast food in California. How are you supposed to ever get the skilled workers if the work is difficult and the pay is low?
We should refit a few decommissioned Aircraft Carriers to supplement our carriers and add a supportive smaller carrier grouos
Thanks!
Thanks very much for your support!
"Satan's Pier" , never heard that one. any time spent in a shipyard is far better than any time spent at sea. -Ex Squid here.
I remember a carrier that was damaged so bad that it was listing bad, couldn’t maintain power and was towed the long trip back to port. Port maintenance crews were given three days to get the job done so the ship could get back into the fight. With the repairs completed in record time, she was headed back into the fight. With all the man power employed at the repair facilities these days, Theres absolutely no reason why it should take a year to finish the job and get the ship repaired, fully stocked back to sea.
Yes there is a reason. For the same reason your car is not like a 1939 Dodge.
yeah but for that they literally stopped everything else at the shipyard to put every single man on the repairs. don't think that's viable nowadays
It’s bureaucratic bullshit and everything’s only getting worse!
That can be done in a war scenario where there is a war economy going on, America currently is not in war and it cannot take up a whole shipyard for itself.
you are not talking about the Admiral Kuznetsov
We need to outsource to allied nations that have strengths in shipbuilding. For example, Japan and South Korea are building modern warships at a competitive price scale. In particular, Japan is independently designing and constructing Aegis-equipped destroyers compatible with the U.S. Navy, while South Korea has extensive experience in constructing large-scale industrial ships and is also building Aegis destroyers. Although the U.S. Congress is already discussing outsourcing construction, the current pace is far too slow, raising doubts about whether adequate support can be provided in the event of a crisis in Taiwan.
이론적으로 그렇다는 것이고 실제로는 미국은 항모를 20척을 보유해야 지구를 순환배치가 가능하다는 말.
승무원들만 수리 중 다른 배에 승선하여 계속 활동하면 좋을텐데...
Bro changed the goofy looking thumbnail 😂, sneaky. Great video as always!
Great? There was little right about it.
330,000,000 Americans and we can't find a workforce? It's gonna suck when China is hired to maintain the carriers we would use against China.
in the Us we love paying Big men to get welfare, amd love having a lot of over Paid fed gov workers, there is a Fed Gov worker per 600 people, the TVA gets by with 1 worker per 2000, Avg private sector pay 60k Avg fed Gov worker pay 95k
This video got the reason wrong.
The real reason:
We tend to stick our nose where it’s not our business.
If we stop doing that, we wouldn’t have a carrier shortage.
This is an international conflict, many nations send their cargo ships there, but very few countries send forces to defend their own ships, leaving the burden to the Americans who are the ones who have completely shot down most of the missiles. and Huties drones in defense of foreign vessels....
Important locations such as military ports need more attention.
I really think the USN should bring back diesel carriers, not to utterly replace CVNs but to augment them. A 70-80,000 tonne CATOBAR diesel carrier could cost less than half, if not one third that of a CVN, whilst still providing 70-80% of a CVNs capabilities... 13 billion a pop for a 100,000~ tonne Ford, vs 6 billion a pop for a 75,000~ tonne CATOBAR diesel... that's setting aside the higher availability rates of diesel carriers, lower manning requirements, and lower operating and through-life costs...
6 CVNs off the west coast augmented by 2 diesels, 4 CVNs off the east coast augmented by 4 diesels - something like that.
With the f35 stvol capability, could smaller amphimbous assault ships not be more flexible and cheaper? You could build more for the price of one supercarrier, and could switch them between missions?
@puntmannoor3403 That is definitely an option, though I think it to be a lesser ideal one. They're slower and still require a similar core crew; they generate fewer sustained sorties, and take longer to muster a weaker alpha-strike. Furthermore, onboard avgas stores and spare parts stores are also severely limited for amphibs pressed into the carrier role.
More consequentially is the fact that Amphibs lack fighter catapults, severely degrading weapon loads and endurance for launched aircraft. That also means no E-2D, meaning a new, lower-performance rotary AEW platform would need to be developed.
Amphib carriers would also have considerably fewer aircraft than proper aircraft carriers as well, the America-class pressed for carrier ops is only capable of embarking about 20 F-35s and 2 MH-60s maximum. That is opposed to 36~ F-35s and 12~ helicopters that the 72,000 tonne STOVL Queen Elizabeths could comfortably carry.
Two amphib carriers would cost about the same as one CATOBAR diesel carrier both to procure and to maintain through-life, but would just be accumulatively inferior for carrier ops than diesel carriers.
@@arakami8547 Well I guess if you have 800 billion dollars, you might as well crank out all the options.
A nuclear carrier + diseal carrier + amphibious for different needs and purposes.
The diesal carrier would probably fill out the middle gap. How many do you think the US navy would need in order to complete it's strategic objectives?
@@puntmannoor3403 F35s are crap. too costy to flight and maintain and the number of flaws they currently have is longer then the arm. You are better of sticking to F18s and similar as they are much easier to have high availiability with
manning will be a problem. Those extra carriers will soak up some 18,000 more sailors assuming 3,000 crewmembers per ship. To add to the extra personnel costs you'll need to procure more F-35s to fill them, fuel costs over the next 35-50 years, and most importantly more escort vessels will need to be built to protect those extra carriers and our current fleet is already run ragged with the missions that they do have. Compound that with the Navy's inability to build a cost-effective ship (LCS which is being retired with less than 10 years of service and what sounds like a mess with the Constitution class) and things become unaffordable. Keep in mind too that the Federal budget has to cope with the loss of revenue from retiring boomers and increased SS/Medicare payouts to those same folks. The military in general needs to find some good-enough platforms that are cost effective because in the near-term and outward funding is going to get tighter and tighter.
I also think a lot of the issues with shipyard capacity is also related to a lack of civilian jobs as overseas shipyards drasticly outperform us based ones on price and speed.
Feels like we’ve reached a point with capitalism where the military relying on private industry is going to end very badly
The person who lives life fully, glowing with life's energy, is the person who lives a successful life.
TLDR; currently the US has 2 carriers. Not more. They cannot patrol as much as they used to, they cannot project force that much that they used to. As a last resort, they are trying to make their "alies" (i.e. subordinates) to fill the gaps, but that is hardly enough. If China + Iran + Russia starts some nasty things, we're screwed, and they know this. I just hope this may not lead to WW3...
They are not subordinates at all, that is just anti-american propaganda. Their interests simply allign with american interests; no one wants the houthi pirates to cut off trade between europe and Asia for example.
@@abraham2172 "They are not subordinates at all..." As one of the subordinate nations: LoL!
@@MrEnyecz Wow, I admire how well thought out your many arguments are. LoL!
@@abraham2172 I know of a certain pet dog of US which has been quiet even though it's pipeline has been blown up by one of its supposed ally, looks subordinate enough to me
As an organizer I start from where the world is, as it is, not as I would like it to be.
New Carriers will be mostly automated and carry more drones than jets.
As long as they are not running Windows I don't see any issues.
Those extended deployments are strenuous for the crews. Other countries need to help more or help the US pay for keeping the sealanes open.
Is a super carrier needed in every crisis?
Having more America class assault ships' purpose built for longer duration around a submarines reactor with larger air wings might be advantageous.
Having 6 of those instead of 1 means 2 could be sent to cover off a hot spot for a long duration until and if an S.C. needed.
Plus, they're cheaper to build.
Just thinking out loud.
The problem of those smaller ships is that they could only do what a super carrier does for a very short amount of time and with that specific mission it wasn't just a few week thing is was a many month operation
The US military is simply too overstretched and somehow involved in all the conflicts in the world, which over time decomposes all the material that was still operational, and now the reserves are slowly running out
Maybe there wouldn't be a carrier shortage if the US didn't meddle ineverything possible. Only the Houthi thing is semi-legitimate as it affects US shipping
You'd be surprised how rarely carriers do anything at sea but train. They're mostly used for deterrence, and you can't do that tied up to a pier. The Houthi thing is the only place the navy is launching air strikes right now and it's only been a few. The primary mission of the navy is and always has been freedom of the seas for all. Even for our enemies in time of peace.
What factors are contributing to America's aircraft carrier shortage, and how is it impacting the Navy's overall operational capabilities?
Some would argue America needs to reassess the size of it's sphere of action, in order to reduce this "shortage".
This is the Correct answer.
Jews.
No, the issue is domestic. Too much welfare and entitlement spending.
@@marcanton5357 *Zionists.
The world isn't going to get smaller.
not to mention carries have a certain shelf life like all ships. they will all eventually need to be replaced. overtime the structure will sufer degradation from the ocean.
The US need to up the defence budget. We cant have them looking like some second grade navy, airforce or army
No we don't.. we need to stop the corruption in the defense sector. We pour billions into it and we don't get anywhere what we should.. the Chinese are building 5 or more times as many ships as we are. The US struggles to build even 2 destroyers a year..
We're already spending nearly a trillion dollars a year on the military, how much more do they need? I think it's less a money problem and more a corruption/poor planning problem.
It's more of inefficient spending.
@@sogmalukem2745
It's not even that, the US is doing an impressive job maintaining a world wide military force... the problem IS that it's maintaining a world wide military force. That's a ridiculous task for any nation to undertake, no matter how badass your logistics are.
I think other western nations really misjudged the situation in recent years. I'm grateful that the US didn't. If the US would draw back, you can definitely expect another, less nice nation filling that power vacuum that would be left. And they would never give that back. This also provides soft power across the entire world. As a german I'm being thankful for the US carrying the western world, but I'm also disappointed in our government for not doing enough to provide support that alliance.
And from the looks of it, it won't get better in the future at all.
Not to mention our way too popular russian and chinese puppet parties that would seize control dumpster everything if they got enough power.
Superb IA youtube channel
Shortage? Weve got more than any other country. Not to mention the plethora of Amphib Assault Carriers...
Tell me you didn't watch the video, without telling me you didn't watch the video 🤓
We also have F35s that can take off from amphibious assault carriers
Perhaps you should watch the video? I have a feeling that he answers this question.
@@NotWhatYouThink lmao, comment posted 2 minutes ago, video was posted 4 minutes ago and is 15mins long :D
4:12
Sooo what you're saying is.... we need to quadruple the number of shipyards we have and start paying the ship builders and navy recruits more, as well as ramp up the naval budget 10-fold for a 30-carrier operational fleet. Sounds fantastic.
Perverse economic insentives for subcontracting companies is a surefire way to cause shortages, quality issues and delays.
Monopoly has a harder time demanding premium price for continued high standards compared to keeping contracts while saving that and more by letting the quality slip. Thats why monopolies typically don’t often produce skyhigh prices, but piss-poor products and services. One is easier to negotiate, for the same level of profit.
If lack of productivity can be pushed upwards in the supply chain, there really is no reason to pay good wages and train enough staff. You can make the government do that for you, if there is no competitive shipyard, let alone a separate pool of trained workers.
If the supply chain is so locked that no other company can make a competitive offer on upgrading stuff you installed, why would you not cut corners when you get the upgrade contract? That is just leaving profitable bargaining friction on the table. There really isn’t a price worth doing the job properly for, if for any given price point you can half-ass the job.
And delays? Your workforce is the only feasable one to do the job to begin with - the Navy has no real leverage to make you spend on the overtime bonuses let alone weekend rates.
The best approach for a company in such position is to act like they are working really hard on solving these issues, demanding help for solving the issues, while never spending their own resources to solve said issues. Its a good reason in negotiations to appeal to whenever expectations are not met, as technically the issues are outside of the companys control.
All these things would be devastating for the business if there was a competitor who could provide the same services without the continuous ”unforseen” or ”inevitable” issues. Even for a strictly higher price. Thats basic economics. Only if you are the only game in town does it makes sense to be a crap, malfunctioning game.
DEI priority has had a direct affect on missing our recruiting.
Yes it will be expensive but they need to build a big new ship yard on the west coast and also see if they can safely extend the service lives of the Nimitz class carriers so they can get to 13-14 total supercarriers at once.
Fascinating subject.
Maybe something more like an armored missile rack with laser and CIWS/RAM should be developed with the same size as an aircraft carrier. Make it sit low in the water with only the absolute minimum superstructure exposed. Design it to tunnel through storm waves as a semi-submersible sort of ship. Build 12 of them and rotate them with the carrier groups. Add 2 more flight 3 destroyers to stay with them in case there is a "stay Behind" tasking like you would find when dealing with pirate like threats. Maybe even have company of Marines and tiltrotors aboard for raiding bases or launch sites the missiles come from.
Mucho poderío, pero también mucha exigencia y ya se sabe, quien mucho abarca, poco aprieta.
I get why we have the largest carriers in the world but perhaps a smaller class of carrier is needed. Cheaper to crew and maintain that can be deployed to areas where a large Carrier may be considered overkill? Could take the stress off the the larger ships and even cut the costs. The recent military efforts to build a single plat form systems that do it all (IE F-35) it seems to really increase costs beyond what having 2-3 platforms that specialize would cost.
14 aircraft carriers is not a shortage. The nearest any country comes is china with three and two of them arent blue water carriers. They aren't ocean worthy.
Question: looking at current global situation why not allocate resources from Airforce and Army to Navy while keeping a steady workforce in shipyards?
Im inmigrant from Honduras, i imigrated when i was little to the United States.
The questions of workforce and proper salaries have always been everywhere (not only the military) an issue. It seems that stakeholders hate giving decent wages and training well enough while having good relationships with their employees. They wish for more robots, AI and automation but this will not be enough. We need to respect highly educated and highly skilled people. We need to keep the capacity in the country well enough. For example, in the UK, we have lost too much capacity thanks to the Tories policies that left the industry without support.
At the end of WWII the navy listed 101 aircraft carriers, about 7,000 freighters and thousands of combat ships. These were weapons platforms with many still viable today. The B52h is going through a critical update after 70 years in service, but plans are being made to scrap the Nimitz. Italy's has an aircraft carrier than is 40 years in service. Our navy must reexamine the rather quick scrapping when real naval threats exist.
I served on a Nimitz carrier several decades ago. Even then, the limitations of the design were apparent; especially electrical power generation. There is also the issue of repeated upgrades approaching the point of diminishing returns. As it stands, Nimitz was commissioned in 1975, which means she'll be 52 when she starts decommissioning in 2027; a long life indeed for a warship.
It would cost more to make the Nimitz class go for another 25-50, than it would to build a new carrier. Plus, the new ships have smaller crews.
@@haolepirate Both are good points. Most people don't get just how harsh the oceans are, nor how unrelentingly demanding it is to maintain combat effectiveness in an ever-evolving paradigm.
The latter point is interesting. A larger crew increases operational expense and strain on the total force, but it does have one huge benefit. More manning means more extensive damage control and simultaneously more redundancy in the event of a casualty. A warship, especially a capital ship, is going to take hits; and the difference between limping home for an extended drydock stay and sinking may be the quality and extent of the ship's damage control. See IJN Taiho specifically.
Just think about the costs of the weapons fired to stop cheap Hutie weapons. The USA achieved nothing but showing its developing inability of the USA to project power as it has in the past.
Maintenance is crippling the number of vessels within the US navy including the submarine fleet. It’s got so stupid within the US Navy that two cruisers that have been undergoing maintenance upgrades for over six years costing 500 million on each ship will now be decommissioned before being returned to service. That’s a lot of dollars wasted.
The US Ford carrier is a hidden money pit not discussed by the media. Its designed contract cost was 13 billion. Launch cost 17.4 billion and actual commission cost 23 billion. That was bad enough but it was built on borrowed money gained by selling US treasury notes on 30 year terms at 4.89% interest on average, adding another 20 billion in interest costs so it’s a 43 billion cost to taxpayers.
"Carrier strike groups are expensive to buy and to operate. Factoring in the total life-cycle costs of an associated carrier air wing, five surface com- batants and one fast-attack submarine, plus the nearly 6,700 men and women to crew them, it costs about $6.5 million per day to operate each strike group."
Soo, just so we are all on the same page. That is about 1 BILLION in operating cost in 6 months. That does NOT include the actual cost of the strike group.
We have 6 at sea at any time. That is 6 Billion in operating cost per year.
How can we afford any of this?
On connaît ca en France, quand on n'a besoin du charle de Gaulle il est toujours en cale sèche 😅
USS Boxer is currently deployed, rudder repairs only took a few months. A bit misleading to mention it needs repairs into 2026 .
He didn't say that it 'needs repairs into 2026', he said that the Navy was putting out contracts for repairs that could last all the way into 2026.
That’s why I said it’s misleading. The way it was stated makes it sound it is out of service due to the rudder failure.
Fixin our shipyards and shipbuilding capability should be america's number one priority we're not gonna win a major war if these issues aren't fixed
Maybe they shouldn't retire Nimitz as they have planned. Im cool with retiring Enterprise it was a one of a kind ship it will be harder to maintain that but there are 10 nimitz class so they should not retire Nimitz yet.
"Because simply asking others for help is boring and won't convince congress to approve more funding for fancier gear."
-To be fair, it's difficult to convince congress to approve more funding for anything but themselves.
depends on how much of that money gets funneled back as campaign contributions i.e ukraine
We must become the change we want to see.
The US had 5 museum ship aircraft carriers that can be brought back into service if needed as well as carriers in the reserce fleet
The F-35 has changed the game for the navy. Its now possible to equip light amphibious warships with fixed wing aircraft now, and it being the newest stealth planes is beyond revolutionary. The newest carriers should definitely be closer to this. The gerald r ford is amazing, but it represents a financial and personnel investment that is too great to put at risk. The US should be scaling down, not up. A single carrier strike group represents about 75 billion in assets. Thats too much to be that centralized
I didn't know about the frequent maintenance, that's quite impressive what carriers consume in time and man-power. I thought indeed they can go ahead a while at sea. Plus problem of shipyards ... didn't the speaker mention they allow shipyards to be bought by foreign companies? That's the first issue, then wages, availability of spare parts ... But no lessons learned from huge cruise ships? They are huge too...
After pearl harbor we refloated 2 battleships, 1 cruiser, and 2 destroyers along with 6 other ships and had them back in the war in under 2 years. Let someone pop off with the US and see how fast things turn around on them.