Indholdsfortegnelse for Issue 10 i War at Sea

Of all the names of American warships, one has truly become a legend. USS Enterprise. Two of the nine ships named Enterprise have been aircraft carriers and each served with distinction. The first of these aircraft carriers – CV6 – became the most decorated American warship of all time serving across the Pacific campaign and seeing action in almost all of the major battles against the Imperial Japanese Navy. The next USS Enterprise – CVN-65 – became the world’s first nuclear powered aircraft carrier and, for a time, was the world’s largest and most powerful warship. The carrier served during the Cuban Missile Crisis and the Vietnam War throughout its 50 plus year career. Then, on 24 August 2017, Olympic Gold medallists Simone Biles and Katie Ledecky signed their names, not…

This component is just one of thousands of similar pieces of construction that has in the months and years that followed, been forged into larger and larger blocks that will all come together within the shipyard’s massive construction dry dock where the future USS Enterprise’s sister ships USS Gerald R Ford and USS John F Kennedy have been built before. The ship’s keel was laid on 5th April, 2022 and work will continue on the new aircraft carrier until around 2025 with an expected in-service date by 2028, following months of sea and acceptance trials by the US Navy. When the previous USS Enterprise decommissioned from service after 50-years of sterling service it was a forgone conclusion that there would be another USS Enterprise and on 1 December 2012, then…

The first six USS Enterprise’s, were small schooners plus a 1919 motor patrol boat, but it was the seventh ship of the name that was destined to become a legend. In the mid-1930s the US Navy placed orders for the construction of three Yorktown-class aircraft carriers that were ahead of their time in terms of design and operational flexibility. Two of the class would become victims during the Second World War, but the third survived and earned more battle stars than any other US Navy warship in history, it was the Enterprise. The Yorktown-class design evolved throughout the late 1920s until 1933 when the US Congress authorised the construction of the new carriers. The detailed design work began in May 1931 and two years later, on 3 August 1933, contracts…

CARRIERS provide military forces with the ability to project combat aircraft. These floating airfields can operate anywhere in the world to demonstrate political intent, support humanitarian operations and if needed launch a kinetic attack on an adversary. Few countries have the capability to mount such operations. The United States and the United Kingdom field the newest and biggest carriers in the world. China has joined the carrier club and is building more along with India, France, Egypt, Australia, Brazil, Italy, Japan, South Korea, Turkey and Spain. Thailand retains a carrier in service but it is not regarded as an operational platform. Russia has a powerful naval air force, but its sole carrier, the Kuznetsov, is out-dated and limited in its operational delivery. Th is 40-year-old vessel has been in repairs…

Nuclear propulsion offered many advantages over oil propulsion. Harnessing the power could mean virtually limitless endurance for ships so fitted and deployments could be tailored around the limits of the crew only. There would be no need for constant fuel and food supply replenishments to be co-ordinated into the ship’s schedule and from a military viewpoint the ships could be on station for longer than with conventionally powered contemporaries. But atomic power in the 1950s was in its infancy, it offered a brave, bright new future, but under the umbrella of the mushroom clouds over Hiroshima and Nagasaki. The biggest disadvantage of building ships with nuclear powerplants was the staggering cost and only one nation on the planet had the wherewithal to even consider such audacious schemes, the United States…