Belesarius 1,476 Posted June 18, 2015 Report Share Posted June 18, 2015 http://www.military.com/daily-news/2015/06/16/navy-plans-to-fire-lasers-from-carriers.html USS Ford to have triple the Nimit'z power generation ability so it can be equipped with Laser weaponry for missile defense, and possilby even eventual offensive use. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
FaustianQ 38 Posted June 18, 2015 Report Share Posted June 18, 2015 "Enemy rebels within range sir!" "Fire the port turbolaser batteries. Release the TIE fighters." *Chinese Su-27s explode, the rest scattered by F-18s.* Mogensthegreat and Belesarius 2 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Khand-e 1,911 Posted June 18, 2015 Report Share Posted June 18, 2015 "Enemy rebels within range sir!" "Fire the port turbolaser batteries. Release the TIE fighters." *Chinese Su-27s explode, the rest scattered by F-18s.* *The Millennium J-20 then flies in the rear cargo bay of the carrier, firing on it's reactor and escaping before the ship explodes* Tied 1 Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Xlucine 331 Posted June 19, 2015 Report Share Posted June 19, 2015 With this future in mind, the Ford-class carriers are built with three times the electrical power generating capacity compared to Nimitz-class carriers, Moore said. The USS Ford is able to generate 13,800 volts of electrical power, more than three times the 4,160 volts that a Nimitz-class carrier generates, said Rear Adm. Thomas Moore, Program Executive Officer, Carriers. The words they are using do not mean what they thing they mean Also, I'm pleased by the name of the USS Ponce Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Collimatrix 3,748 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 But how many joules of force can they generate? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Khand-e 1,911 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 But how many joules of force can they generate? Depends on how many trash can sized reactors they're backed up with. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Collimatrix 3,748 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 This article is pretty confused about reactor technology in general. I'm not sure where they got that the Ford will have four reactors; every reference I can find says it will have two A1B reactors. There are three power parameters we're interested in with an aircraft carrier. The first parameter is how much thermal power output the reactor or reactors have. This is the measure of how much heat is generated per second in the reactor core(s). The next parameter is how much shaft horsepower the steam turbines can output. At optimal settings a steam turbine can convert about 30% of the thermal energy going into it into shaft horsepower, which is then delivered to the props. In a nuclear-powered ship, the propulsion is provided by these nuclear-fired steam turbines. There is also an upper limit on how much power the steam turbines can take, and this is usually less than what the reactors can produce. Finally, there's the output of the electrical generators. I'm not exactly sure how these are set up, but I'm guessing they're steam turbines too, just attached to generators instead of propellers. It's probably safe to assume that these are around 30% efficient at converting thermal power into electrical power. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Collimatrix 3,748 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 The reason that the Ford-class will have greater electrical generation capacity is that a lot of the steam-powered accessories will be replaced with electrically-powered ones. The catapult, for example, will be electromagnetic instead of steam powered. This and the other changes are supposed to reduce maintenance requirements compared to the Nimitz. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jeeps_Guns_Tanks 1,100 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 The reason that the Ford-class will have greater electrical generation capacity is that a lot of the steam-powered accessories will be replaced with electrically-powered ones. The catapult, for example, will be electromagnetic instead of steam powered. This and the other changes are supposed to reduce maintenance requirements compared to the Nimitz. Foxtrot Alfa has had a few stories on how unreliable the new cats are. I wonder how many F-35s and F-18s are going to go swimming. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Collimatrix 3,748 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 That's alarming. Hopefully they're the sort of problems that get resolved. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Jeeps_Guns_Tanks 1,100 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 That's alarming. Hopefully they're the sort of problems that get resolved. Yeah, they were saying a failure every 240 shots under testing conditions. I wonder how much it will cost if they have to tear out the new electromagnet cats and funky recover gear and put the proven stuff in… Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Belesarius 1,476 Posted June 20, 2015 Author Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 Yeah, they were saying a failure every 240 shots under testing conditions. I wonder how much it will cost if they have to tear out the new electromagnet cats and funky recover gear and put the proven stuff in… A crapton of $$$$$. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
xthetenth 259 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 Yeah, they were saying a failure every 240 shots under testing conditions. I wonder how much it will cost if they have to tear out the new electromagnet cats and funky recover gear and put the proven stuff in… Hahaha, you've got jokes now. Those space savings got cashed in. Redesigning ships like that is problematic in the extreme. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Collimatrix 3,748 Posted June 20, 2015 Report Share Posted June 20, 2015 Uh oh. Redesigning the catapults to revert to steam would be seriously complicated. You'd need to have high-pressure steam lines running from the boilers to the cat, which is an awful lot of specialized plumbing to throw back in at the last minute there. And there are all sorts of secondary considerations, like all the crew bunkerage needed to maintain the steam catapult. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Donward 3,063 Posted June 21, 2015 Report Share Posted June 21, 2015 It sounds like the USS Ford is more like the SNL Chevy Chase character. Quote Link to post Share on other sites
Collimatrix 3,748 Posted June 23, 2015 Report Share Posted June 23, 2015 How hard can it be to make a giant fucking linear induction motor? Quote Link to post Share on other sites
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