The US Navy is ramping up production of Ford-class aircraft carriers despite concerns about the growing vulnerability of the nuclear-powered massive ships to missile attacks, shortfalls in American shipbuilding capability and a seemingly outdated focus on obsolete design concepts.
This month, Naval News reported that the US Navy is increasing deliveries of its new Ford-class aircraft carriers amid a perceived growing need for their capabilities. Justin Meyer, executive director of the US Navy’s Program Executive Office (PEO) Carriers, is quoted in the report highlighting the benefits and importance of buying, building and operating the carriers in “twos.”
The report notes that US demand for aircraft carriers has never been greater, with USS Carl Vinson, USS Ronald Reagan, USS Gerald R Ford, and USS Dwight D Eisenhower operating in dual-carrier operations in the Eastern Mediterranean.
The USS Gerald R Ford, commissioned in 2017 and operating since 2022, is the first of a new class of carriers procured to replace in-service Nimitz-class ships. The next Ford-class carrier to be deployed will be the USS John F Kennedy, with over 90% of construction complete and the carrier’s combat systems undergoing testing.
Naval News says that testing of the ship’s aircraft launch and recovery equipment, Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS) and Advanced Arresting Gear (AAG) will begin in the second quarter of 2024. The report says the carrier is delivered with core capabilities like its F-35 aircraft operations ready to go.
The USS Enterprise and USS Doris Miller Ford-class carriers are being procured under a “two-ship buy” strategy. The USS Enterprise is now 35% complete, with over 20,000 tons assembled in dry dock, while the USS Doris Miller is 13% complete, with keel laying scheduled for 2026.
Aircraft carriers are an enduring component of America’s naval strategy and vital to its global power projection capabilities that underpin US conventional military superiority and economic dominance.
Along those strategic lines, a 2019 Lexington Institute study mentions that since the US is increasingly dependent on goods manufactured abroad from sources close to near-peer adversaries like China and Russia, it is essential for the US to secure the air and sea lanes around those sources.
The study notes that the US Navy needs to be constantly forward deployed with sufficient firepower to sustain a high rate of operations against such threats and survive combat despite operating near adversary centers of military power.
It stresses that US aircraft carriers are likely to play a role in that strategy, as they enable the continuous forward deployment of US airpower in areas where competing nations are most likely to seek military gains. That includes the Western Pacific, which is now the heartland of the global industrial economy.
The current US maritime strategy, known as Advantage at Sea 2020, mentions the crucial role of US aircraft carriers in a potential great power conflict with China.
According to the strategy, carriers, surface action and expeditionary strike groups supported by unmanned vehicles would carry out powerful air and missile strikes from unexpected directions in a conflict.
It says the Ford-class carrier wings with improved weapons ranges, modernized aircraft and unmanned refueling capabilities will extend their strike range deep into contested areas.
However, a separate 2016 study by the Lexington Institute suggests that the US’s 11 nuclear-powered carriers may not be enough to meet military needs should there be an increase in threat levels.
The study adds that while US aircraft carriers are nearly impossible to sink with anything short of nuclear weapons, there must be some room for attrition in US war plans given the long lead time associated with aircraft carrier production.
The study recommends the US accelerate production of the Ford-class carriers for a fleet of 12 ships allowing for the deployment of at least four carrier strike groups simultaneously.
An August 2022 US Congressional Research Service (CRS) report mentions that the USS Gerald R Ford has faced significant delays despite being commissioned in 2017.
The CRS report notes that challenges regarding the construction, testing and certification of the ship’s 11 weapons elevators were first identified in November 2018, with final checks completed in December 2021. The carrier finally entered service in October 2022.
Despite those delays, lessons from building the USS Gerald R Ford could accelerate subsequent ships’ production and testing times.
However, China’s growing anti-access/area-denial (A2/AD) arsenal, shortfalls in US shipbuilding capability and US focus on large traditional warships may wed the US to obsolete naval strategies and ship designs, which concentrate too much capability into a few vulnerable ships.
That could force a radical rethink of the aircraft carrier concept in the near future.
In a November 2023 Naval News article, Scott Savitz notes that the US Navy needs to shift to unmanned platforms to maintain its edge over near-peer adversaries, following the distributed lethality concept to reduce vulnerability.
Savitz says that future aircraft carriers with completely unmanned air wings could be made smaller than current carriers.
That, in turn, would remove the limitations of human pilots, allow for smaller crews, exploit the advantages of AI and shipboard 3D printing, and disaggregate critical units among different ships to make carrier strike groups less vulnerable to a single point of failure.
He envisions future carrier strike groups as built around multiple, smaller drone carriers instead of one traditional carrier. These drone carriers, Savitz argues, would be supported by offboard storage from unmanned supply vessels organic to the carrier strike group.
Savitz also notes that since drone carriers are smaller than traditional carriers, they have less power, cooling and space requirements, giving them enough upgradability over their lifespans as new drone technologies come online.