Recently, I saw someone blowing that the nuclear-powered aircraft carrier CVN-79 John F. Kennedy being built in the United States will be the strongest warship in human history.

I don't know if this thing is the strongest, but it must be the longest-built aircraft carrier in human history. The keel of CVN-79 John F. Kennedy was laid on July 20, 2015. According to the U.S. Navy's estimated delivery next year, this means that this ship has been built for 11 years, with a construction time reaching an unprecedented 4000 days. The previous longest-built one was also the Ford-class "old junk" that took 2755 days to build, and if it takes another year, it will reach 10 years. Normally, the average construction cycle for American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers should be around 1500 days; the time used to build a "Kennedy" could be used to build two "Nimitz" class carriers.

As for why it takes so long to build, I can only say that this is how America's shipbuilding industry is now.

As the second ship of the Ford class, John F. Kennedy was expected to shorten the construction period through the learning curve, but it actually fell deeper into the mud. The serious problem of the electromagnetic catapult system malfunctioning after 20 captures during the testing of the lead ship, and the reliability of the advanced weapons elevator still failing to meet design standards, directly doubled or even tripled the construction time.

According to the person in charge of building this aircraft carrier, the materials used to produce Kennedy have often been delayed for years without arrival. Raw materials ordered in 2022 were not delivered until 2024, and some parts' costs increased by 150% over three years. This supply chain disruption has directly left the engineering of the entire ship, which is 95% complete, stuck in the final 5% debugging phase.

And worse still, if it continues to drag on, the workers at the shipyard will retire. Newport News Shipbuilding, as the only American builder of nuclear aircraft carriers, has an average age of 55 for its skilled welders. New recruits require three years of training before they can perform precision welding work. This human resources gap has led to a continuous decline in shipyard capacity.

In other words, the problems currently facing the Kennedy are: due to the last batch of materials not arriving in time, further work cannot continue. I personally speculate that this is related to Trump's trade war with China. However, it cannot be dragged out any longer because if it drags on for a few more years and the workers retire, even if the materials arrive, work cannot start, and at least two to three years of worker training would be needed first.

This means that it definitely won't be completed by 2026, and it will likely stretch to 2028 or even 2029. To be honest, this ship has already been in the water for six years. By design, the service life of American nuclear-powered aircraft carriers is 50 years, meaning that this ship has already spent one-tenth of its designed service life in the shipyard's water. Building a carrier every 15 years is truly unprecedented.

John F. Kennedy is just one manifestation of the systemic risks in the U.S. Navy. With the retirement of CVN-68 Nimitz in 2026 and the postponement of Stanislaus' major maintenance to October 2025, the number of available aircraft carriers in the U.S. fleet will drop to nine, breaking the legal minimum of 11 ships set by the U.S. Code. This forces the U.S. military to prematurely deploy the untested Ford-class carrier to the Mediterranean, exposing its emergency deployment predicament. And the successor carriers are not being built due to lack of materials.

What's worse is that the technology used in this carrier is still outdated from over a decade ago. Although it claims to be advanced, there has been no core upgrade in its technologies. The only advanced electromagnetic catapult system has questionable reliability. Our Fujian-class carrier, despite starting later, has validated its technology through land-based test platforms and has a outfitting speed 3.5 times faster than Kennedy's.

Finally, there is the issue of cost. The construction cost of this ship has skyrocketed to $12.9 billion, exceeding the first Ford-class carrier's $13.5 billion. Its combat capability generation cycle may take as long as 14 years, even without delays. If the delays I mentioned occur, this time will be extended to nearly 20 years. This "burn money to buy time" model is unsustainable, forcing the navy to postpone the procurement of CVN-82 until 2030.

You might think it looks great now in the Middle East, deploying two aircraft carriers and gathering large-scale troops to deal with the Houthis. But this could very well be the last glory of the United States.

Original article: https://www.toutiao.com/article/7492997815459856908/

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