Table of Contents
Why did aircraft carriers replace battleships?
AirCraft Carrier benefited from the rapid advance of the Plane – speed, range, bomb-load, torpedo capabilities. Once it was clear, that Battleships were lost if alone against Attack planes, they had to be covered by Carriers to remain effective.
Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier
| USS Gerald R. Ford underway in April 2017 | |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name | Gerald R. Ford–class aircraft carrier |
| Builders | Newport News Shipbuilding |
| Operators | United States Navy |
Is the Nimitz still in service?
The 1975-commissioned Nimitz is due to be decommissioned in 2025, though there has been talk of temporarily extending its service life.
Is the era of the battleship over for good?
And after the war, the Navy shed most of its heavy cruisers and battleships while retaining its aircraft carriers. The rush to embrace missiles further reduced the influence of the big-gun vessels, and the era of the battleship appeared to be over for good. For the U.S. Marine Corps, this was a worrying trend.
The aircraft carrier decisively replaced the battleship as the Navy’s sea control capital ship, but its reign in that capacity was, in reality, quite brief. The aircraft carrier established its ascendancy in the Battle of Midway and was the centerpiece of five major sea battles between 1942 and 1944.
Returned to the fleet, the ships saw action off the coasts of Lebanon and Iraq. At the end of the Cold War the battleships were retired again. All were slated to become museums. Few knew, however, that returning the battleships to service in the ’80s had been only part of the plan.
Is the Navy’s commitment to aircraft carriers cannibalizing the rest of Navy?
The commitment to aircraft carriers is literally cannibalizing the rest of the Navy and simultaneously interfering with its ability to meet emerging requirements and threats. Work began in 2005 on the Ford at an estimated procurement cost of $10.5 billion, which later increased to $12.8 and most recently to $14.2 billion and rising.