CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

[Lethe]

Here's the pdf source from US Naval Institute -

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To add, the Ford won't reach her required sortie generation rate either, after the Navy promising that she would. Now they're saying the requirement was unrealistic to "historical levels" to begin with. So they'll just take what they can get during IOT&E and leave it at that. They don't even try anymore...?

CVN 78 is unlikely to achieve its SGR [sortie generation rate] requirement. The target threshold is based on unrealistic assumptions including fair weather and unlimited visibility, and that aircraft emergencies, failures OF shipboard equipment, ship maneuvers, and manning shortfalls will not affect flight operations. During the 2013 operational assessment, DOT&E conducted an analysis of past aircraft carrier operations in major conflicts. The analysis concludes that the CVN 78 SGR threshold requirement is well above historical levels.

Nice to see more support for my previous contention that Sortie Generation Rate is overrated as a measure of carrier capability. Or, as I put it more colourfully at the time, that SGR is a bunch of wank.

Ford's SGR requirement was invented to defend the nuclear-powered supercarrier against its post-Gulf War, post-Cold War critics. Instead of beginning with requirements and then working out how best to address them, they started from the desired solution (the nuclear-powered supercarrier) and worked backwards to find what it could do better than alternative platforms such as smaller, more affordable carriers. Thus SGR was elevated to prime importance not because it was actually that important, but because it was a metric by which smaller carriers could not keep up.

So yeah, the collective shrug about Ford's failure to meet its SGR requirement does not surprise me. The metric has served its purpose and can now be de-emphasised if not outright ignored.

 

[Lime]

Windows are covered.

 

[Helius]

Nice to see more support for my previous contention that Sortie Generation Rate is overrated as a measure of carrier capability. Or, as I put it more colourfully at the time, that SGR is a bunch of wank.

Ford's SGR requirement was invented to defend the nuclear-powered supercarrier against its post-Gulf War, post-Cold War critics. Instead of beginning with requirements and then working out how best to address them, they started from the desired solution (the nuclear-powered supercarrier) and worked backwards to find what it could do better than alternative platforms such as smaller, more affordable carriers. Thus SGR was elevated to prime importance not because it was actually that important, but because it was a metric by which smaller carriers could not keep up.

So yeah, the collective shrug about Ford's failure to meet its SGR requirement does not surprise me. The metric has served its purpose and can now be de-emphasised if not outright ignored.

Bit of a belated and expensive admission on the Navy's part, that one.

That is until Congress orders them to find a way to maintain the SGR anyway like having them to keep the Ticos and the LCS around even as they already outgrew their purposes.

From my observations the Congress OCs have this weird tendency to double down on intangible requirements/rationales in order to justify a programme's continued existence. Undertaking expensive and extensive overhauls are fine; even cancelling entire programmes before project approval despite any enormous R&D that might've gone into them.

When it comes to some preconceived criterion that in their view justifies or defines a project's raison d'etre, however, that's when Congress chooses to stubbornly stick to their guns quite readily for whatever reason.

 

[weig2000]

All these just further demonstrate that America's military-industrial-complex has long taken on a life of its own. Its existence has become not so much to defend the national security and interest against enemies, but that it often needs enemies to defend its very existence in its gargantuan state.

Before WWII, the US military and defense industry were at best second-rate even though the US then was the world's largest industrial nation and had the largest economy, because the nation's security was not threatened and there weren't a lot of people whose vital interest and livelihood depending on the defense industry. In the post Cold War era, the US no longer faced national security threat and challenge from the USSR, yet it found it's been hard to significantly downside he MIC. In order to justify its existence, it had to repeatedly launch wars of choice and set its goal against hypothetical adversaries thus creating weapon programs with artificial and arbitrary criteria. The corruption and ineffectiveness of many post Cold War weapon procurement programs are the results of this phenomenon.

 

[taxiya]

To add, the Ford won't reach her required sortie generation rate either, after the Navy promising that she would. Now they're saying the requirement was unrealistic to "historical levels" to begin with. So they'll just take what they can get during IOT&E and leave it at that. They don't even try anymore...?

As I have said in this post

CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

I think it's better to stick with multiple conventional CV and LHD for PLAN in the next few iterations and perfect them with IEP, EMALs, UAVs, USVs, even SMRs for hotel loads, etc before moving to full CVN. Conventional CVs do have advantages over CVNs based on US Congress and navy analysts...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

In 2016 USN realized that they must have a redesign. In my opinion, it is probably impossible because solution may introduce newer problem than solved because of the unchanged architect.

In 2021 paper, USN basically realized what I said after years of attempt and forced to accept the reality.

Some times, people have to accept the failure and be brave to acknowledge it and restart everything instead of keep patching the leaking bucket. But I think in the US politics, nobody dare to do that.

I think EMALS needs a total overhaul (fundamental redesign) doing in similar way as China before it can be practically useful. This time, it is 003 being watched by USN closely for lessons and references.

 

[davidau]

As I have said in this post

CV-18 Fujian/003 CATOBAR carrier thread

I think it's better to stick with multiple conventional CV and LHD for PLAN in the next few iterations and perfect them with IEP, EMALs, UAVs, USVs, even SMRs for hotel loads, etc before moving to full CVN. Conventional CVs do have advantages over CVNs based on US Congress and navy analysts...

www.sinodefenceforum.com

In 2016 USN realized that they must have a redesign. In my opinion, it is probably impossible because solution may introduce newer problem than solved because of the unchanged architect.

In 2021 paper, USN basically realized what I said after years of attempt and forced to accept the reality.

Some times, people have to accept the failure and be brave to acknowledge it and restart everything instead of keep patching the leaking bucket. But I think in the US politics, nobody dare to do that.

I think EMALS needs a total overhaul (fundamental redesign) doing in similar way as China before it can be practically useful. This time, it is 003 being watched by USN closely for lessons and references.

China has done a lot of reasearch and practical work by the academia Ma and undoubtedly he has analysed failures of the US EMALS. I am convinced that the China EMALS will work as intented to. We will see when the first fighter jet leaves the CV 003, which will be in about two years. The yanks are watching China's first fighter jet take off, like a hawk!

 

[Intrepid]

First jets already took off - from the land test facility.

Problems only become apparent when EMALS has to prove itself in situations that could not be tried with individual launches from an immovable single land facility.

So that takes a little longer than the first tests from the ship.

 

[by78]

Some high-resolution images from the past week. Note that two of these are higher quality versions of previously shared images.

 

[by78]

 

[ACuriousPLAFan]

Is he trying to make a Uniqlo patterned shirt or something?

His trademarking is getting worse over time...