Tools of War: Nimitz-class Aircraft Carrier

Power-Projection.

Nothing, and I mean NOTHING comes even remotely close to projecting power like a Carrier Strike Group. Park a Carrier Strike Group off someone's coast, and you are making one heck of a statement. And at the heart of that is, of course, the Aircraft Carrier itself.

Over 100,000 tons in displacement. Nearly four football fields long. Speed of 30+ knots via 260,000 shaft horsepower. A whole array of advanced sensor systems that you could do an entire separate blog about. 20 years between refuels.

And around 90 aircraft.

Pause for a second....let that sink in. N-I-N-E-T-Y. Holy Crap....

Sure, a few of them are mail-carriers, ASW helicopters, etc. But the vast majority of them are aircraft built for one purpose: Puttin' the smack down.

Carrier Air Wings are centered around the very capable and versatile F/A-18 Hornet platform (which deserves, and later will get, its own article...I promise). The F/A-18 provides the capability to provide long range patrols in protection of the carrier, come back, land, reconfigure armament, and then head out on a strike mission against land targets. Depending on the model, each one can carry between 13,700lbs and 17,750lbs of external ordnance. And there are over FIFTY of them on the carrier!

Beyond the air wings, modern carriers have very little in the manner of defensive capability. Just a few medium-range Sea Sparrow missiles and the very cool Phalanx CIWS. Beyond that, the carrier relies on the other members of the Carrier Strike Group to handle force protection.

I'm really just providing a brief overview of the Nimitz-class carrier. They really are floating cities, with massive capabilities, especially when viewed in conjunction with the other members of the Carrier Strike Group. And a carrier NEVER goes anywhere without the rest of the strike group.

Speaking of capabilities, not sure how true this is, but it surely paints a picture.

Then there was a conference in France where a number of international engineers were taking part, including French and American. During a break one of the French engineers came back into the room saying 'Have you heard the latest dumb stunt Bush has done? He has sent an aircraft carrier to Indonesia to help the tsunami victims. What does he intended to do, bomb them?' A Boeing engineer stood up and replied quietly: 'Our carriers have three hospitals on board that can treat several hundred people; they are nuclear powered and can supply emergency electrical power to shore facilities; they have three cafeterias with the capacity to feed 3,000 people three meals a day, they can produce several thousand gallons of fresh water from sea water each day, and they carry half a dozen helicopters for use in transporting victims and injured to and from their flight deck.
We have eleven such ships; how many does France have?'
You could have heard a pin drop.

Nimitz Aircraft Carrier


By: Steve


EDIT: Added by Brant, the list of currently-active Nimitz-class carriers.

• USS Nimitz
  
• USS Dwight D. Eisenhower
  
• USS Carl Vinson
  
• USS Theodore Roosevelt
  
• USS Abraham Lincoln
  
• USS George Washington
  
• USS John C. Stennis
  
• USS Harry S. Truman
  
• USS Ronald Reagan
  
• USS George H. W. Bush