We have just had our Fujian-class ship return after completing its seventh sea trial, and it is now on the verge of being commissioned, which has left the United States completely unnerved as the USS Kennedy, after 14 years of construction, has been further delayed.

The Ford-class aircraft carrier's second vessel, the USS Kennedy, has been floating around since its launch in 2019 without finishing its outfitting work. What makes matters worse for the U.S. is that if they continue to use the electromagnetic catapult and arresting system, it would be like building another useless ship. The USS Ford still cannot launch F35 fighters. There is a report from the U.S. Congress about the Ford, roughly stating that out of 8,175 launches and recoveries, the electromagnetic catapult was designed to operate with a fault cycle of 4,000 times but has only reached 272, meaning it malfunctions every 272 operations.

The theoretical maximum takeoff weight for the electromagnetic catapult was expected to be 41 tons, but in reality, it can only launch loads of less than 25 tons. This means that the USS Ford cannot launch F35 fighters, not even F/A-18 Hornets fully loaded with fuel and armaments.

Compared to the electromagnetic catapult system, the Ford’s electromagnetic arresting system is even more problematic, creating an embarrassing record of "malfunctioning on average every 20 arrests," rendering its combat capability virtually zero.

What adds to the U.S. military's headache is that the Ford-class carriers' electromagnetic systems are highly unreliable. The four electromagnetic catapults share one flywheel energy storage system, which is akin to having four crickets tied to one string—if one catapult malfunctions, all four will stop working because checking the fault requires stopping the flywheel. Why not install one or two energy storage systems per catapult?

This is because the U.S. uses an outdated medium-voltage AC circuit design, unlike Fujian’s medium-voltage DC solution, which requires additional large-scale equipment such as inverters and voltage stabilizers. Carrier space is extremely precious; there’s no room to house these extra three sets of equipment. After all, they can't make the carrier-based aircraft sleep on the streets and convert the hangar into storage space!

Besides the electromagnetic systems, ammunition elevators frequently experience mechanical failures and electrical control issues, resulting in an inability to meet operational requirements for weapon ammunition delivery.

Given this situation, it might as well be put aside. After all, an unserviced aircraft carrier is essentially the strongest carrier. Even more hilariously, this month, the Kennedy was reported to be 95% complete, but next month, it might drop to 93%.

What? Can this thing regress? Because the U.S. military is dismantling parts to install them onto the Ford! Many of the parts suppliers for U.S. aircraft carriers went bankrupt during the pandemic.

Therefore, regarding the Kennedy aircraft carrier, which has problems in various systems, the U.S. military doesn’t even have a clear idea when it will be commissioned. Moreover, due to the insufficient number of aircraft carriers, the U.S. has to debug the reliability of the systems after commissioning. As a result, the Ford has been in service for 79 months without forming combat capability.

The Kennedy was cut steel in 2011. With this construction timeline, China has already completed two aircraft carriers consecutively, Shandong and Fujian, and Fujian is nearing commissioning. Knowing that the Kennedy is the second ship of the Ford class and already has prior experience, while Fujian started from scratch, it’s no wonder that American media themselves say that Fujian and Kennedy can be seen as a microcosm of the shipbuilding capabilities of the two countries. China is fully capable of having 16 aircraft carriers by 2035.

Now American media themselves admit that the exorbitant cost of $14 billion and the unsustainable supply chain mean that the U.S. currently lacks the ability to build new aircraft carriers.

This gap stems from fundamental differences in industrial foundations. The scale of America's shipbuilding workforce has shrunk from 180,000 in 1980 to 75,000 in 2023, with an average age of 54. In contrast, data from the China Association for Shipbuilding shows that in 2022, China had 35 dry docks over 100,000 tons, with a total of 320,000 shipbuilders, of which 62% were under 40 years old in technical workers. In the field of digital manufacturing, the Jiangnan Shipyard's application of the shipbuilding management system (HZ-JCIMS) kept the Fujian's construction cost at $5.5 billion, only 39% of the budget for the Kennedy ($14 billion).

The comparison in key subsystem research and development capabilities is also significant. General Atomics, the U.S. supplier of the electromagnetic catapult system, admits that its system has an energy conversion efficiency of only 60%, whereas the medium-voltage DC integrated power system developed by Academician Ma Weiming's team achieved a 78% energy utilization rate on the Fujian. In terms of aircraft compatibility, the J-35 stealth fighter and KJ-600 early warning aircraft have completed over 500 electromagnetic catapult tests, forming a complete carrier aircraft system, while the integration testing of the U.S. F-35C with the Ford has yet to achieve the expected results.

By 2026, when the Nimitz retires and the Ford lacks combat capability, the Stennis remains under major repairs, leaving the U.S. theoretically with only eight aircraft carriers, far below the legally mandated 11. This means that after losing air superiority due to the absence of sixth-generation aircraft, the U.S. military will also lose maritime supremacy due to the insufficient number of aircraft carriers.

And it's not just aircraft carriers. By 2025, almost none of the U.S. Navy's current fleet projects, from the Columbia-class nuclear submarine to the Constellation-class frigate, will be delivered on time.

Given the situation where the Kennedy lacks parts, its ammunition elevators have defects, and its electromagnetic systems are flawed, the third electromagnetic catapult aircraft carrier to enter service could very well be our 004 instead of the U.S. Kennedy. When that happens, the U.S.'s predicament will be even more severe.

Original source: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7492823948137103923/

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