USS Enterprise to be decommissioned

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Well if that was the case, crew wouldn't even be allowed on, right?

 

[Captain X]

Along with manned combat aircraft, carriers may be obsolete soon. I've seen proposals to replace them with large numbers of UCAVs and cruise missiles based on strategic islands.

That would be stupid- carriers are far more flexible in deploying air power, and the thing with UAVs is that if they are remote operated, they could potentially be jammed, and if they don't have a human operator that is just asking for trouble since our enemies have already figured out how to send guided munitions off course.

Once her reactor is removed, would there be any great impediment in the Enterprise being preserved? The one struck from the registry, she could be sold for a $1 and turned over to a preservation?

No, someone would need to outbid the scrap yard, and as much metal there is in her, she'd be worth a lot of money just in her weight in scrap.

One final note: Carriers are designed with a lifespan of at least 50 years. With the mission of the Navy changing, plus the one-off design that the Enterprise is, she's too costly. Also, she has speed screws whereas the others have torque screws. Torque screws are the best

So wouldn't it cost less to refit the Big E instead of scrap her and build an entirely new ship?

You need to wake up and realize that the 21st Century is vastly different than the 20th. I would not be surprised if the carrier fleet drops to half by the year 2030. The enemy and fighting tactics have changed. Also note the Wasp class mini carriers. That's where the future has been headed.

I'm awake enough to realize that you don't make yourself militarily weaker and less capable if you can help it.

 

[Wally]

Well if that was the case, crew wouldn't even be allowed on, right?

One would hope. It's not like the reactors wouldn't be sealed off from the public anyways, the immeadiate area would be the only issues. Otherwise, especially with such an old ship, it's probably extremely heavily shielded.
Let's not forget how long it took Chekov to get through the shielding.

 

[Tomalak]

A lack of such retarded naming conventions is why the Royal Navy will forever be superior to the US Navy.

I kind of like it. It gives a sense of organization and class.

The Royal Navy does have naming conventions for that purpose, in many cases the first letter of the name of each vessel in the class is taken from that of the name of the lead vessel. For example the Vanguard-class submarines are named Vanguard, Victorious, Vigilant and Vengeance respectively; whereas the Astute-class submarines are named Astute, Artful, Ambush and Audacious.

There's also HMS Enterprise, which has "azimuth thrusters" (which sound awesome, whatever they are), and she can be piloted with a joystick.

There you go, absolute confirmation that the scene with Riker's joystick in Insurrection was neither silly, nor superfluous.

 

[John Picard]

One final note: Carriers are designed with a lifespan of at least 50 years. With the mission of the Navy changing, plus the one-off design that the Enterprise is, she's too costly. Also, she has speed screws whereas the others have torque screws. Torque screws are the best

So wouldn't it cost less to refit the Big E instead of scrap her and build an entirely new ship?

Nope. Her design is obsolete and inefficient. Why do you think there is only one of her class. The Nimitz class, to date, is the best design of carrier that has been further refined by the CV-X class.

You need to wake up and realize that the 21st Century is vastly different than the 20th. I would not be surprised if the carrier fleet drops to half by the year 2030. The enemy and fighting tactics have changed. Also note the Wasp class mini carriers. That's where the future has been headed.

I'm awake enough to realize that you don't make yourself militarily weaker and less capable if you can help it.

Really? Then are you also advocating that the Iowa class be brought out of mothballs? Those have been rendered obsolete by the newer destroyers and guided missile cruisers.

Think about it -- many of the aircraft sorties flown in Iraq and now in Afghanistan were by drones operated by people half the globe away. They're cheaper, just as deadly, and just as accurate in their bombing missions. How many dogfight sorties were flown from the carrier fleets during the Iraq campaign? None. The carrier was developed to fight the Soviet threat which no longer exists. Sorry, but your thinking is far outmoded. The military knows what it's doing.

 

[John Picard]

Are you kidding me? That is completely incorrect. The Enterprise, in a bid for something "fancy" was outfitted with eight reactors designed for destroyers just to prove carriers could be nuclear powered; otherwise, she was to have been a conventional carrier. The Kennedy wasn't a nuke due to budget shortfalls. Once the Nimitz class was designed, it was decided that twin reactors could provide plenty of power, plus they act in a redundant fashion -- i.e. One reactor is always on standby.

So they went for 8 smaller reactors then decided the two much larger ones would do the trick?

I can understand the need for security etc etc but it gets in the way of seeing interesting things - I'd love to see the reactor setup on say a CVN but it's secret shit

There was a nuclear sub built that had to reactors it wouldn't of been about the same time (i.e was there a point where the USN had a bit of fetish for building multiple power sources).

Not a fetish, it's called "redundancy". The twin reactors are always run in such a way that Reactor #1 is the main reactor for the day/week, and then they switch to Reactor #2. That way, preventative maintenance is performed on the down reactor while the other one is given a chance to operate. Also, while at sea, "Reactor scram" drills are a constant. That's when the nukes practice and emergency shutdown of one reactor and switch everything over to the other.

In a worse case scenario, carriers have a third means of propulsion, which is the diesels; however, they can only propel the ship ~5 knots, which is technically Dead-In-The-Water.

Now, by the late-1980's, the Enterprise was down to six (AFIK) reactors. One hadn't been lit off in over 10 years, while another was always hit-and-miss. She was scheduled to undergo SLEP (Ship's Life Extension Program) whereupon a complete refueling would take place. Bear in mind that carriers are typically refueled every 5-7 years even though the reactors can supposedly go 30 years without refueling. So, the Enterprise has been refueled several times.

Any particular rationale to that? I could understand if was to make sure he reactor was always fueled up if she needed to see combat but if the fuel is only 1/6 the way through it's life.

Then again I guess if they've got the ship in for major overhaul you might as well do the reactor fueling while you're at it.

[/quote]

Somewhat, but it doesn't make sense. I think it boils down to lucrative contracts to keep people employed. I have a friend who completed Nuke school and when asked even he didn't understand why they're refueled with such frequency.

Is there any possibility they may have to dispose of the hull of the Enteprise because of its 50-year exposure to nuclear reactors, even though they were obviously shielded?

Did you know that the people who work in the reactor spaces are subjected to less radiation than you are when you go outside on a sunny day? There is no danger of the hull being contaminated as the reactors are shielded.

 

[J.T.B.]

So they went for 8 smaller reactors then decided the two much larger ones would do the trick?

It was simply the limits of the reactor technology at the time. They wanted 280,000 total shaft horsepower, 20,000 more than the Forrestal class got out of eight boilers. That's 35,000 shp per A2W reactor, pretty good compared to the 15,000 shp S5W fleet submarine reactor of the day, but a supercarrier needs a lot of power.

By the time the Nimitz class came along, capabilities had progressed and they could build bigger reactors with a lot more power. At the time, those A4W reactors were said to have some of the biggest precision-machined parts ever built.

There was a nuclear sub built that had to reactors it wouldn't of been about the same time (i.e was there a point where the USN had a bit of fetish for building multiple power sources).

USS Triton SSRN-586 had two S4W reactors and was built in 1958 mainly as a test-bed to experiment with (a) operating multiple-reactor plants (for eventual use in large surface ships) and (b) doubling the horsepower (and raising the speed) for submarines. She circumnavigated the globe submerged (under the command of Capt. Ned Beach, author of Run Silent, Run Deep) with much Cold War publicity.

--Justin

 

[ShamelessMcBundy]

Well if that was the case, crew wouldn't even be allowed on, right?

One would hope. It's not like the reactors wouldn't be sealed off from the public anyways, the immeadiate area would be the only issues. Otherwise, especially with such an old ship, it's probably extremely heavily shielded.
Let's not forget how long it took Chekov to get through the shielding.

Damn wessels.

 

[Marc]

USS Triton SSRN-586 had two S4W reactors and was built in 1958 mainly as a test-bed to experiment with (a) operating multiple-reactor plants (for eventual use in large surface ships) and (b) doubling the horsepower (and raising the speed) for submarines. She circumnavigated the globe submerged (under the command of Capt. Ned Beach, author of Run Silent, Run Deep) with much Cold War publicity.

--Justin[/QUOTE]

Obviously we saw the introduction of multiple reactors on the surface ships but never in subs - was there any particular reason?

 

[ProwlAlpha]

The first carrier Enterprise was decommissioned, because the refitting of the vessel into an angled deck and to make room for the jets, would have been too costly, and the fact that Air Force pushed that they were the future of warfare, also, ended the USS United States.

 

[nx1701g]

I saw a special on the new carriers on the military channel, and Enterprise is one of the names under consideration for the next generation carrier.


-Chris

It has already been announced that the next generation carrier is to be named after Gerald Ford. CVN-79 is under proposal in Congress to be named Arizona. The final one (CVN-80) under proposal to be named America.

 

[Captain Ice]

^ You might be thinking of the USS Hornet in Alameda. There might be others, though... That's the first one that came to mind when I read your post.

That's sad to hear about the Big E -- she'll definitely be missed.

Cheers,
-CM-

He's more likely to be thinking of the USS Midway in San Diego.

Short answer: There were a lot of new carriers, but not a lot of fast battleships. Post-war budgets didn't allow the navy to keep an old carrier, and no one had the money to turn it into a museum ship at the time.

In addition to your short answer, the Missouri was also a more modern ship at the end of the war.

 

[J.T.B.]

Obviously we saw the introduction of multiple reactors on the surface ships but never in subs - was there any particular reason?

Reactors take up a lot of room, and space is at a premium on a submarine. SSBNs are big, but the missiles take up a lot of that. Better to build a more powerful single reactor.

The first carrier Enterprise was decommissioned, because the refitting of the vessel into an angled deck and to make room for the jets, would have been too costly [...]

Not really. CV-6 was decommissioned in 1947, SCB-125 angle-deck conversions on Essex class carriers didn't begin till 1952. There were plenty of newer wartime carriers to convert without spending money on a smaller pre-war design.

It has already been announced that the next generation carrier is to be named after Gerald Ford. CVN-79 is under proposal in Congress to be named Arizona. The final one (CVN-80) under proposal to be named America.

"America" has already gone to LHA-6.

--Justin

 

[John Picard]

The first carrier Enterprise was decommissioned, because the refitting of the vessel into an angled deck and to make room for the jets, would have been too costly [...]

Not really. CV-6 was decommissioned in 1947, SCB-125 angle-deck conversions on Essex class carriers didn't begin till 1952. There were plenty of newer wartime carriers to convert without spending money on a smaller pre-war design.

Also, the Essex class were too small for the larger jet aircraft, so an upgrade was pretty much out of the question. I was shocked that the Coral Sea was in service for as long as she was. A shipmate of mine took me to his folks' for a weekend (1989) and I was amazed to learn that his dad was a plank owner of the Coral Sea. It was quite a treat to see his plank owner's certificate with the outline of a straight deck ship on it.

 

[Captain X]

Nope. Her design is obsolete and inefficient. Why do you think there is only one of her class. The Nimitz class, to date, is the best design of carrier that has been further refined by the CV-X class.

The Big E isn't that much different from the Nimitz class, so there's nothing especially obsolete and inefficient about her.

Really? Then are you also advocating that the Iowa class be brought out of mothballs? Those have been rendered obsolete by the newer destroyers and guided missile cruisers.

Wow, that was a real LOLWHUT? moment, seeing as how the battleships don't have much to do with retiring aircraft and attempting to foist their mission profiles onto a single plane, or retiring a perfectly good ship so they have an excuse to build a new one.

Think about it -- many of the aircraft sorties flown in Iraq and now in Afghanistan were by drones operated by people half the globe away. They're cheaper, just as deadly, and just as accurate in their bombing missions.

Actually the only "advantage" they have is that they are somewhat cheaper. They are not particularly deadly and fail pretty badly against even light ground fire or the most inexperienced pilot in air to air combat. They strapped Hellfire missiles to Predators in an attempt to make them slightly more useful, but they still kept getting shot down because they fly low and slow, are loud, and the camera doesn't provide very good visibility in situations like that. At least one of them got shot down by an Iraqi MiG prior to the second war after it fired two missiles at it in an attempt to shoot it down - both missed. The thing is only good for shooting stationary targets and that's it.

How many dogfight sorties were flown from the carrier fleets during the Iraq campaign? None. The carrier was developed to fight the Soviet threat which no longer exists. Sorry, but your thinking is far outmoded. The military knows what it's doing.

I was in the military, the Air Force to be exact, and it's a bureaucracy like any other branch of the government. They literally replaced one of the best fighter wings in the country with Predator UAVs, and they regularly order way more shit than they need, a good chunk of which gets written off for disposal before its even delivered. The JSF is like their ultimate wet dream now, too, but apparently they forgot that the Germans already learned what happened when they tried to make an aircraft Jack of too many trades. Just because our airmen aren't engaging in as many dogfights anymore doesn't mean that the amount of airpower a carrier can provide isn't necessary anymore, especially for things like air-to-ground attacks and providing air support for our people on the ground.

 

[Plecostomus]

Is there any possibility they may have to dispose of the hull of the Enteprise because of its 50-year exposure to nuclear reactors, even though they were obviously shielded?

Alot of the "fetish" the Navy has with frequent refuelling comes from the fact that we haven't quite perfected long-term high-power fuel cladding. They ran the first generation of nuke ships (the first three subs and the Long Beach) at high power and they had a very contaminated reactor at the end of the first cycle.

Very contaminated. Severe exposures levels for the repair/refuel crews.

Also, the configuration of cores is constantly being optimized. The Navy has perfected a core design that can be stopped, cooled down and restarted in a quarter of the time that a civilian power plant can. Also power outputs are always being increased.

No one wants to have "yesterday"'s core aboard hence the 10 year refuling cycles.

Also: As the core ages there is a drop off in power. You might be able to get 20 knots at half power when the core is new but 20 years from now you have to run at 90% to get that speed. Better to have a "full tank" or "fresh load" as it was.Alot of the "fetish" the Navy has with frequent refuelling comes from the fact that we haven't quite perfected long-term high-power fuel cladding. They ran the first generation of nuke ships (the first three subs and the Long Beach) at high power and they had a very contaminated reactor at the end of the first cycle.

Very contaminated. Severe exposures levels for the repair/refuel crews.

Also, the configuration of cores is constantly being optimized. The Navy has perfected a core design that can be stopped, cooled down and restarted in a quarter of the time that a civilian power plant can. Also power outputs are always being increased.

No one wants to have "yesterday"'s core aboard hence the 10 year refuling cycles.

Also: As the core ages there is a drop off in power. You might be able to get 20 knots at half power when the core is new but 20 years from now you have to run at 90% to get that speed. Better to have a "full tank" or "fresh load" as it was.

 

[Danoz]

The name enterprise will continue, we dont need a bunch of nerdy sci-fi fans asking for a multibillion $ ship to be named 'Enterprise"

Those "...Bunch of Nerdy Sci-Fi Fans..." (including myself) got NASA to name the first Test Shuttle ENTERPRISE...

So say we all!

 

[John Picard]

Nope. Her design is obsolete and inefficient. Why do you think there is only one of her class. The Nimitz class, to date, is the best design of carrier that has been further refined by the CV-X class.

The Big E isn't that much different from the Nimitz class, so there's nothing especially obsolete and inefficient about her.

This is my last comment to you so get ready.

I served aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and had the misfortune of having to cross the pier to board the Enterprise at one time. The ship is vastly different than the Nimitz class in overall design, construction, and layout. On top of it, back in the 1980's many people were calling it what it is -- I GIANT PILE OF SHIT.

Have you served in the Navy? Have you any military experience at all? I doubt you do; otherwise, you'd stop pulling your answers out of the 20th Century playbook. Our forces were getting beat in Iraq because they were trained to fight an enemy they would know. Since then, we've learned that the battlefield of the future is going to be fought in mostly urban areas, which means tactics have to change.

Sorry, but your thinking and logic are not applicable for future fighting. Even when I left the service, the word was to do more with less, meaning the ships of the future had to be designed for variable missions with smaller crews on board. Guess what? The US Navy is headed in that direction. So, get with the future, because you're going to be left in the past.

 

[Gil T.Azell]

Will there be another? The Navy has taken to naming its carriers after Presidents (next up is the Gerald Ford).

1) Which Bush will they name one affter?
2) Will Clinton get one named after him?, what will the specialized weapons be on this one?

...as the world's first nuclear powered carrier, will also be the first to be decommissioned.

Where will the nuclear waste go? there will be a lot of it I would think?

 

[Captain X]

This is my last comment to you so get ready.

If only...

I served aboard the USS Carl Vinson (CVN-70) and had the misfortune of having to cross the pier to board the Enterprise at one time. The ship is vastly different than the Nimitz class in overall design, construction, and layout. On top of it, back in the 1980's many people were calling it what it is -- I GIANT PILE OF SHIT.

So maybe some ship pride getting in the way there?

Have you served in the Navy?

Nope, that was the branch my father, uncle, and several cousins went into.

Have you any military experience at all?

Have you seen my profile pic? Air Power!

I doubt you do; otherwise, you'd stop pulling your answers out of the 20th Century playbook.

Go swab the deck, squid.

Our forces were getting beat in Iraq because they were trained to fight an enemy they would know. Since then, we've learned that the battlefield of the future is going to be fought in mostly urban areas, which means tactics have to change.

Sorry, but your thinking and logic are not applicable for future fighting. Even when I left the service, the word was to do more with less, meaning the ships of the future had to be designed for variable missions with smaller crews on board. Guess what? The US Navy is headed in that direction. So, get with the future, because you're going to be left in the past.

Ever notice that every time any military branch has tried to be the "new" Air Force/Army/Navy/Marine Corps it doesn't really turn out to well, mostly due to certain attitude problems? There isn't much thought or logic being put into very many of the "updates" the different military branches are undergoing, and I find that disturbing, because they are giving up capabilities they now have before whatever they plan on replacing or exceeding those capabilities with is really ready to take its place - witness the F-22 and the F-35. Speaking of attitude problems, I'll never understand the attitude that some people have for vehemently defending whatever "official" decision is made, seemingly without thought.