The return of the light carrier?

[MiddleAgedKen]

Yep. That's why I asked how many UNREPs we could stage at one time.

Edit to add: Excuse the brain fart -- by "avgas," I meant "JP," or whatever the hell the stuff is that F-35s can't leave home without.

[Vonz90]

How much avgas would a light carrier lug along? How many UNREPS can we sustain at once?

Neglecting that Avgas no longer exists in the US Navy, any carrier UNREPS at least daily when in a heavy operational cycle, even the nukes. They could go longer if course, but everyone freaks if fuel and ordnance levels drop below 90% or so.

[Langenator]

I don't think there's any reason it couldn't be done...they built several nuclear cruisers back when (see Wiki, and the technology is better now. And nuclear subs exist.

My guess is that they determined the economics didn't work for ships smaller than fleet carriers. Maybe the political economics, as well - people getting all wiggy about nuclear after 3-mile Island, etc. Small surface combatants as home ported in a lot more places than the nuclear carriers.

[Precision]

The micro gen3+ nuke plants would be a huge win for anything smaller than a Nimitz class. Put 2,3,4 of them in as needed and off you go. replace them in their entirety every 3-5 years.
In other words, leverage the knowledge of the private sector to improve military.gov. Then when the tech is proven there bring it to my neighborhood to run my lights and fridge.

[Vonz90]

The micro gen3+ nuke plants would be a huge win for anything smaller than a Nimitz class. Put 2,3,4 of them in as needed and off you go. replace them in their entirety every 3-5 years.
In other words, leverage the knowledge of the private sector to improve military.gov. Then when the tech is proven there bring it to my neighborhood to run my lights and fridge.

I am a former nuke SWO, did both my EOOW and SWO on a nuclear cruiser (CGN-37 USS South Carolina). Those reactors were basically what you would want, but don't go there. The costs are prohibitive, including both the up front and the maintenance, the life cycle costs go through the roof.

[Langenator]

Like I said, I'm sure someone at Big Navy has done the accounting and decided nukes didn't work, cost/benefit wise, for smaller surface ships. (Subs are a different matter - the ability to stay under until they run out of food is a HUGE benefit, worth the costs, at least for blue water subs.)

My question is, when did they last re-look the numbers, in light of newer reactor tech?

[MarkD]

Like I said, I'm sure someone at Big Navy has done the accounting and decided nukes didn't work, cost/benefit wise, for smaller surface ships. (Subs are a different matter - the ability to stay under until they run out of food is a HUGE benefit, worth the costs, at least for blue water subs.)

My question is, when did they last re-look the numbers, in light of newer reactor tech?

Or they got the promise of a nice job to say so in the last couple decades navy .

But I'm skeptical about politicians disguised as officers.

[Vonz90]

Like I said, I'm sure someone at Big Navy has done the accounting and decided nukes didn't work, cost/benefit wise, for smaller surface ships. (Subs are a different matter - the ability to stay under until they run out of food is a HUGE benefit, worth the costs, at least for blue water subs.)

My question is, when did they last re-look the numbers, in light of newer reactor tech?

Or they got the promise of a nice job to say so in the last couple decades navy .

But I'm skeptical about politicians disguised as officers.

Whatever. The money out the door showed the difference, which is why the nuke cruiser went away (and Rickover basically fought to ensure they had less firepower than the conventional ones).

The biggest difference is manpower. A gas turbine or diesel ship has about half of the crew requirements. It was not a big deal on the 50-60's but these days crew are as expensive as ships.

[D5CAV]

I have a particular bone to pick with the F-35. We were prepping to field them when I was a young AF Capt., specifically charged with coming up with the by-career-field-and-year-group RIF numbers for the officer side of the house. To meet the reduced endstrength on the enlisted side, they literally just turned off accessions for almost 6 months.

The F-15 took 4 years from 1st flight to entering service. The 35 took 10, and they're currently arguing over who's going to pay to fix the corrosion problems with the smaller-than-advertised fleet currently in the inventory. The damn things require network access to push system updates, and known network vulnerabilities haven't been addressed. And that's just the open-source issues.


AF leadership pushed and pushed and pushed to get their toy, and overall capability, manning, and morale suffered because of it.

I know nothing about the F-35, but it is in the news today: https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2019-04- ... er-pacific

Again, I'm an old horse soldier, so maybe "disappeared from radar" is good from a "stealth" perspective, but I'm pretty sure not returning to base is a bad thing.