US Navy
Task & Purpose: The Navy’s Urinal-Free Brand New Supercarrier Is A Big Fat Mess
The Department of Defense’s fiscal year 2019 budget includes a hefty chunk of cash for a fourth Ford-class aircraft carrier, but the Navy may have to wait a little bit longer to see its dreams of an 11-carrier fleet truly realized.
Among the slew of vessels included in the Navy portion of President Donald Trump’s planned boost to the U.S. armed forces budget are three Arleigh Burke-class destroyers, two Virginia-class submarines, and the “first year of full funding” for the now-unnamed CVN 81 aircraft carrier, a younger sibling to the brand-new $13 billion USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78), which the Navy (and Trump) commissioned last July.
But as it turns out, the Pentagon’s latest technical assessment of the next-generation (and urinal-less) supercarrier reveals a warship currently incapable of performing basic functions during routine operations; the service on Feb. 7 reportedly appealed to Secretary of Defense James Mattis to delay critical shock testing of the new carriers until the second Ford-class hull, USS John F. Kennedy, comes available in 2024 — the same stress-testing for which lawmakers let the Navy off the hook in June 2017.
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WNU Editor: Bottom line .... more money will be needed to fix this mess.
