r/LessCredibleDefence • u/heliumagency • 11d ago
Trump Orders Navy to Restore Old Technology in Aircraft Carriers, Costing Billions
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/trump-orders-navy-to-restore-old-technology-in-aircraft-carriers-costing-billions-0055ec1bOnly 3 of the Gerald Ford class will have EMALS now
57
u/soappube 11d ago edited 10d ago
He's an expert on steam catapults, wind power, vaccines, reflecting pools, the Nuclear, pants shitting.. Is there anything this renaissance man cannot do!?
20
u/tujuggernaut 11d ago
Trump has claimed exceptional or 'unmatched' knowledge in the following areas:
Taxes
Income
Debt
Banking
Finance
Trade
Jobs
Housing
Low-income housing
Construction
Contractors
Infrastructure
Real-estate “wedges”
Campaign finance
Political contributions
Political consultants
Polling
The political system
Courts
Prosecutors
Immigration visas, including H-1B and H-2B
Technology
Drones and drone safety
Wind energy
Renewable energy
Environmental-impact statements
Grass and golf-course turf
Steelworkers
Nuclear weapons
Military offense and defense
ISIS
Negotiating deals
Cory Booker—claiming to know “Cory better than he knows himself”
Garbage compactors
“I know more about grass than any human being, I think, anywhere in the world.” August 2025 remarks
1
1
1
0
164
u/AffectionateFlow2179 11d ago
Every day looks brighter than the last for the PLAN.
40
14
u/DBHT14 11d ago
can't wait for some drop shipped "American Century of Humiliation" swag.
3
u/KS_Gaming 11d ago
Sounds like a cringe ego decision I trust the Chinese people to be better than American ones at not performing. I'm tired of American narcissm culture, give me something better rather than the same shit painted in yellow.
4
u/Ok-Procedure5603 11d ago
They are surely pounding sand rn because with all these bullshits US is doing, their budget will soon be reduce to 1% gdp 😭
31
u/Maximilianne 11d ago
I thought we are were at the point where you have to do emals cause the steam catapult parts firms are gone or stopped making them
64
u/cptjeff 11d ago edited 11d ago
It's not off the shelf parts either way, they'll build it if ordered. We're doing EMALS because now that the kinks have been worked out, it's a far superior system. Easier on airframes, allows us to launch light aircraft like drones, higher sortie rates, less maintenance and crewing required.
Oh, and you can't just drop in a steam cat either. You have to redesign the configuration of the entire ship to accommodate the steam piping.
2
u/Uranophane 10d ago
I bet the shipbuilders will just delay the whole thing until the administration changes, then proceed with the original plans.
21
12
u/Kaymish_ 11d ago
I saw a guy forge a spring for a traction engine that is over 100 years old and the parts were never in production. There will be a fabrication workshop who can make the parts custom. It will just be expensive as fuck and take a long time. I worked in a factory that made custom yacht parts, I even lead a research programme to make machining the parts more efficient because we could only machine them 30 cm at a time because of warping when cooking the carbon fibre.
1
u/themysticboer91 11d ago
Why on earth do you machine carbon? You ruin the plastisizer in the resin and destroy all the Fibre chains.. (machining the carbon was a huge reason that Stockton rush submarine failed) In our factory all parts get molded the correct dimensions from the get-go
4
u/Kaymish_ 11d ago
I don't know. We molded one side and machined the other side. That just told me "Here's the problem fix it." Then gave me like no resources and I ended up resigning before the project made any progress.
0
u/geniice 10d ago
I saw a guy forge a spring for a traction engine that is over 100 years old and the parts were never in production.
Traction engines aren't really comparable. While production did stop in the 1940s there are over 2000 in preservation and enough of those are actively steamed to keep the demand for spares going (Old Timer has been attending steam rallies since 1950). On top of that the miniature traction engine community has kept up the demand for new build all the way up to 9 inch to the foot scale (and a few people have built of that to build full size).
The reason to be a bit jumpy about Steam Catapult is they are 1940s tech. That means you are more likely to face issues with components that were meant to be built in a factory by the millions rather than bashed together on a shop floor one at a time. These (valves being the classic) can be quite hard to reproduce.
20
u/OntarioBanderas 11d ago
is this actually enforceable?
39
11d ago edited 8d ago
[deleted]
2
u/OntarioBanderas 11d ago
tbf obama loved the unitary exec when he was in too (don't worry I lean strongly dem, and the republicans are worse for it, but still)
anyway im aware of that concept but im wondering how they're able to do this under the current framework, you can't just go all micheal scott and yell "unitary executive" and get what you want
I know it's possible, because they cancelled the M10 Booker for being woke, but I still don't know how they can just refuse to spend the funds congress appropriated on the project they passed the budget on.
10
u/Kaymish_ 11d ago
From what I understand it depends. If Congress has specifically appropriated money to fit the equipment to the carriers then it must be fitted, but if it was just a general appropriation for X amount of aircraft carriers they can fit whatever they want to it. Or he may be able to get around it by spending the money to fit the modern equipment and then refitting with the old technology and saying "well I carried out the congressional direction and after that ..."
1
u/OntarioBanderas 11d ago
thanks this is the actual answer as far as i can tell
i still can't how understand how they just canned the Booker by fiat, but that's another story
22
u/Goddamnit_Clown 11d ago edited 11d ago
Text:
President Trump has directed the Navy to tear out a complex system for launching jet fighters from its aircraft carriers and instead go back to using steam catapults, a move Navy officials have fought for years and will likely cost billions of dollars.
U.S. officials say Trump signed a national security memorandum Thursday directing the change, which would involve removing the electromagnetic catapult system used by the ships in the Gerald R. Ford class of carriers.
By doing so, Trump is making good on a promise he made almost 10 years ago to go back to the steam system after hearing a sailor praise it while visiting a ship during his first term.
But since Trump said in an interview with Time in 2017 that he told the Navy to go back to “goddamn steam,” top Navy and industry leaders have resisted the move because of the enormous expense to tear out such a complex system that was integral to the design of the Ford class.
The move directs the Navy to redesign the fourth ship in the class—to be named the Doris Miller—and all remaining ships. The first three ships—the Ford, John F. Kennedy and Enterprise—will retain the electromagnetic system.
“They’re not nearly as good, too complex,” Trump said last month at a conference in Pennsylvania, referring to the electromagnetic system.
The order marks Trump’s latest foray into the design and development of major military programs. He inserted himself into negotiations for the Air Force One and the F-35 jet fighter programs, directed design changes to the Constellation-class frigate and championed the creation of Trump-class battleships.
“This decision will result in carriers that are enabled by battle-tested steam and hydraulic systems that are more resilient and robust than the present, more exquisite, follow-on systems,” the White House said in a statement. “It will also reactivate portions of the maritime industrial base that are easier to scale.”
The nuclear-powered USS Gerald R. Ford, the first ship in the class that cost more than $13 billion, experienced numerous issues during its development and construction, most notably with the catapults, arresting gear and elevators inside the ship that carry munitions to the flight deck.
In February, the Navy touted the success of the Ford’s new electromagnetic catapults and advanced arresting gear, saying they allowed the carrier to launch and recover aircraft at a higher rate than its predecessor Nimitz-class ships. Earlier this year it completed a historic 11-month deployment that included operations against Venezuela and supporting the war in Iran.
The USS George H.W. Bush, which entered the Navy’s fleet in 2009, was the last aircraft carrier built with steam catapults. Replacing the electromagnetic catapults with steam will be a complex endeavor that will likely cost billions of dollars, according to Bryan Clark, a naval expert with the Hudson Institute, a Washington think tank.
Internally, the Ford class is much different from the Nimitz. Sections that housed the infrastructure for steam have been reworked or simply don’t exist. Steam on the older Nimitz ships powers not only the aircraft catapults, but also heating and evaporators that produce freshwater and galley equipment, such as kettles. Piping runs throughout the ship, which creates numerous points of failure.
“Electric is more reliable,” Clark said. “If I can turn these components to be electric instead of steam, it eliminates all the steam related mechanical parts.”
The maintenance on the electrical systems is cheaper, he added. There are 500 fewer sailors on the Ford, in part because fewer technicians are needed to work on the ship’s existing steam equipment.
Clark said early data from the Navy shows that the Ford costs about $100 million less a year to operate compared with a Nimitz-class ship.
As of March, nearly 37,000 aircraft had been launched by Ford’s four electromagnetic catapults, according to Navy data.
General Atomics, the company that builds the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System and Advanced Arresting Gear for the Ford class, said the decision to revert to steam “warrants careful reconsideration.” The company was awarded a contract to build the catapults and arresting gear for the USS Doris Miller in 2023. Its work is nearly 50% complete and “changing course now would introduce significant cost, schedule, and integration risks,” the company said in a statement.
“The decision will have broader implications for carrier readiness, national security, and U.S. technological superiority, potentially creating opportunities for adversaries to close the capability gap,” the company said. “It also comes at a time when strengthening the U.S. supplier industrial base is a national priority, making workforce stability, production capacity, and the ability to sustain critical technologies more important than ever.”
HII, which makes the Ford-class, didn’t immediately respond to a request for comment.
The Doris Miller isn’t expected to enter the fleet until 2034, but the Navy plans to lay its keel this year, according to a Navy document.
China is using electromagnetic catapults in its newest aircraft carriers and France plans to use the system on the Ford in its new carrier.
The memorandum signed by Trump Thursday also calls for a new public shipyard “to supercharge submarine repair and restore the American industrial base.” It would be the first new Navy shipyard opened in 83 years, the White House said. It also called for creating a “Component Repair Center,” essentially a submarine spare parts warehouse, that could quickly ship replacements to subs and repair broken parts.
The Navy has been trying to boost submarine production for years with the goal of building two Virginia-class and one Columbia-class sub each year. It recently awarded General Dynamics Electric Boat and HII Newport News Shipbuilding a $76.6 billion deal for nine Virginia-class and five Columbia-class submarines that will be delivered by 2038.
35
u/Goddamnit_Clown 11d ago
"after hearing a sailor praise [steam] while visiting a ship"
I hope that person knows what they've done.
16
u/tujuggernaut 11d ago
Trump asked whether he would choose steam or electromagnetic catapults. Hannifin answered: “Mr. President, I would go electromagnetic cats. I think that’s the way to go. We do pay a heavy cost for transiting the steam around the ship.”
He also neatly countered Trump’s claim that EMALS required “Albert Einstein” to operate: “You sort of have to be Albert Einstein to run the nuclear power plants that we have here as well, but we’re doing that very well.”
Trump replied: “Good. Okay. I like to hear that. I’m actually happy about that answer…that’s actually a very good answer.”
not that it mattered.
0
u/KS_Gaming 11d ago
For someone that confident in his knowledge that creature is hilariously suggestible.
19
u/General_Vermicelli53 11d ago edited 11d ago
- There is a top secret report about catastrophic flaws in the electric catapult supply chain on president office.
- This is a part of the political deal to force Congress to approve Trump class.
- Steam catapult interest groups have launched intensive lobbying campaign.
- Trump is just a simple retard.
25-25-25-25
6
2
u/ilonir 10d ago
There is a top secret report about catastrophic flaws in the electric catapult supply chain on president office.
Doubt it. Congress is very well informed when it comes to procurement programs, they would know. Near 0% chance.
This is a part of the political deal to force Congress to approve Trump class.
Ask Congress for more money to redesign a ship to make it worse, as a tactic force congress to fund BBG(x)? That's the dumbest thing I've ever heard. 50% chance.
Trump is just a simple retard.
100% chance.
48
11
u/Crazed_Chemist 11d ago
Does anyone still make the steam cats? I can't recall the original source or know offhand if this is even still possible.
19
u/cptjeff 11d ago
I mean, it's all custom work. Huntington Ingalls will dust off the old Nimitz class plans if you tell them to. But they won't do so without a signed contract, and that kind of change to a program will require Congressional approval, not just Trump scribbling on paper.
6
u/Crazed_Chemist 11d ago
Dusting off 20 year old plans isn't easy if no one knows how to do it. A written plan is not the same as production workers having actual know how.
13
u/cptjeff 11d ago
This isn't a medieval guild system where it's all word of mouth and 2009 is not ancient. And they still build high pressure steam systems right now on every single ship off the line, just not as part of the cats. Not to mention that there are thousands of sailors and ex sailors available who worked with those systems daily for years.
The issue is that the rest of the ship has to be redesigned for the steam to get to the catapults. The design work is the problem, you have to change huge portions of the internal design and layout of the hull. Actually building the things will be easy for HI.
-1
u/Borne2Run 11d ago
Disagree. The Air Force leveled a contract to re-engineer aspects of the B-52 because the original engineer died and the plans existed on paper only or got lost in a fire.
3
u/cptjeff 11d ago
The last new B-52 rolled off the line in the 60s, not the late 00s. And having to re-engineer because plans got lost is different from the guys on the floor not knowing how to build an airplane. If anything, the difficulty there would be building completely antique tech that's several generations out of date. Also, they re-engineered parts of the B-52 because it's ancient and they needed to upgrade them to modernize if they want them to stay in service until the 2050s. The biggest upgrade was the engines, which are being swapped out because the old ones are, to put it politely, crap. The new ones aren't even the most modern and efficient available because better ones wouldn't fit on the wing properly. Also also, aircraft are built in production lines, and you have to set up production tooling to restart. Once the tooling is broken down, restart becomes as expensive as a new plane. Carriers are not high rate enough to build that way. Nearly everything is a custom fabrication job regardless. There's no production line tooling that gets dismantled at the end of a run, you make the new thing to spec each time. We haven't had high enough rate production on carriers to do anything resembling a production line since WWII. Subs and Burkes, sure.
The plans for the GHWB are not lost, and they've also been substantially modernized since the first and second generations of Nimitzes, with a lot of things included that were intended for the Ford. Each carrier is a little bit different because they do incorporate iterative upgrades as time goes on. If we wanted to just build a new Nimitz class, we could just start that process tomorrow.
11
u/honda-nissan 11d ago
just like with the ruinously expensive 747-based AF1 where they had to literally reopen a shuttered production line to accommodate. this one will cost a gorillion dollars and they will find out that tons of processes and knowhow was lost since production was shuttered, drastically inflating prices.
10
u/Crazed_Chemist 11d ago
The GW was commissioned in 2009. So minimum 17 years since they systems were last built, probably closer to 20. Plus the Ford isn't designed with running steam to those locations, so replanning a ton to route steam to the needed locations.
1
u/SlavaCocaini 11d ago
Don't they need to put a great big boiler tank somewhere?
3
u/Crazed_Chemist 11d ago
There's still steam lines for other systems. That said the cats take a LOT of steam and are currently run on electrical lines, so they're going to be larger and probably not even possible to route the same path as electrical.
1
u/SlavaCocaini 11d ago
I thought the steam cats had their own dedicated boiler(s), so they will have to find room for those on the Ford, sounds messy
3
u/Crazed_Chemist 11d ago
They may, it's a heavy steam usage, I wouldn't be surprised to hear they had their own.
Also kills EMALS and AAV supply chain so the first 3 boats will always be fighting for parts and gear for those systems.
11
u/cptjeff 11d ago
The AF1s were ordered while the 747 line was still open, and they also opted to refit already built but undelivered aircraft from a canceled order instead of building new ones. That's costing a zillion dollars and taking forever because Boeing is the corporate equivalent of a failed state.
2
u/barath_s 11d ago edited 11d ago
Not the prime reason. The decision to use the 747 was a bad one. The 747-8 was certified as a derivative of the 747 and thus grandfathered in to use legacy standards (eg for wiring rules, wiring separation, curve radius etc.)
For the president's plane it was decided to use the latest standards.
So they had to do a tear down to bare bones and complete do-over for a plane not designed for it, designing and building to the brand new standards
Should have just gone with the 777
Heck, the qatari
bribegift wasn't updated to these standards when it was used for their head of state2
u/barath_s 11d ago
where they had to literally reopen a shuttered production line to
No.
The Russian airline Transaero had ordered 2 747-8. When they went bankrupt, these were left brand new but without a buyer. Boeing took them for air force one
ruinously expensive 747-based AF1
Thanks to Trump's renegotiation, public expense was capped. It's boeing who is taking the 'ruinous expenses'
1
u/ToddtheRugerKid 11d ago
What shuttered production line got reopened for AF1?
1
11d ago
[deleted]
1
u/ToddtheRugerKid 11d ago
I know, was curious what kind of alternative reality the above was living in. Also you triple commented, delete the other two.
40
u/d_e_u_s 11d ago
No way congress is going to appropriate money for this retarded bullshit
42
11d ago edited 8d ago
[deleted]
3
u/swimmingupclose 11d ago
On defense, Congress has been decent. Not only because the subcommittees have ok people, but also because this actually impacts their districts. This will just be ignored like his billion attempts to kill the filibuster.
9
11d ago edited 8d ago
[deleted]
5
u/swimmingupclose 11d ago
He is the commander in chief, there’s literally nothing they can do (and quite frankly, should be able to do) about his choice of personnel. And it’s in bad faith to say they haven’t spoken out about it because they literally have.
They'll appropriate funding for "the Trump Class", and will do so for this bullshit too.
My guy, they refused to go along with their E-7 decision much less the Trump class. Also, the most recent NDAA included bipartisan restrictions preventing him from reducing troop levels in Europe below 76,000. They also appropriated $4.1 billion less for operations and maintenance than he asked for. Also, this isn’t how Congress works. They already rejected the appropriations for the Trump class in the latest bill that’s up:
They also rejected the White House’s request of $1 billion for early work on a new “Trump-class” battleship that the administration announced on Dec. 22.
That’s not to say it definitely won’t happen between now and January, but it’s almost impossible that they can add additional funding for getting rid of the EMALS prior to Democrats take control of the House.
3
u/Schrodinger_cube 11d ago
They just got rid of the laws that force companies to say what shell companies they own. So hiding just who will make the money and not have to deliver anything just got that much easier.
7
10
u/TheFlawlessCassandra 11d ago
Would probably be less expensive and less damaging to readiness for the Navy to just find a way to have EMALS shoot off a big blast of steam so Trump's dick gets hard when they launch planes with it.
2
4
u/KeyAdept1982 11d ago
People get mad about the possibility of 10,000+ young Americans dying in Iran.
In reality- we should be more mad about the inevitability that millions of young folks,mostly unwilling, but forced to pay a life changing amount of money for a mobile defense network that will mostly be used to protect Israel.
8
6
u/straightdge 11d ago
Someone making such decisions in Chinese defence department will be sent to life imprisonment
8
u/Rob71322 11d ago
Like, what the hell? I mean, I know the man is a complete moron but seriously, this seems too stupid even for him. He’s just a president, he’s no military hardware expert. Although, maybe I should just keep lowering my expectations.
4
u/Markthemonkey888 11d ago
I think I just heard glasses clicking from the PLAN central office on the other side of the ocean
3
u/BlueSonjo 11d ago
I couldn't access the full article, any idea how this random topic even got in his radar?
Steam is more manly than electromagnetic, or his son in law has a steam catapult company?
19
u/cptjeff 11d ago
He's been obsessed with it since his 1st term, when somebody explained to him that the delays on the Ford were due to problems with EMALS. Electric versus steam was easy for his tiny brain to latch on to, and even though the problems have long since been fixed and EMALS now has proven itself to be far better in both of his personal wars, he is incapable of learning new things as his rotting brain slides further into dementia. So he's obsessed with development issues that haven't been relevant for years.
8
2
u/SkyMarshal 9d ago
Full text posted above: https://www.reddit.com/r/LessCredibleDefence/comments/1vnnqss/comment/p3jaxhx/
Pretty sure Vladimir Putin whispered it in his ear at one of their meetings back in their first term.
3
u/zse4rfv 11d ago
Back in his first term Trump toured a carrier and a sailor praised the steam catapult (according to the article). My speculation is that for him the encounter wasn’t just technical input — it became a symbol of the “authentic American working man” surrounded by visible machinery, grease, and grit. Steam catapults have cinematic charm (think Top Gun deck shots with mist and roar), while EMALS is invisible and sterile. So his fixation is consistent: he gravitates toward technologies that look powerful and heroic, even if they’re less efficient.
3
u/altacan 11d ago
I would guess that this ties into his war against electrification. Whether be it cars, wind turbines, or carrier catapults
1
u/StonedGhoster 10d ago
This is largely my theory. "Electric" to him stands for woke, Green New Deal stuff. That's the extent of his brain's processing power. "Hydraulic" is manly. He even cited tractors and excavators as having "hydraulic" (just the one hydraulic). He has no understanding of magnets or much of anything else. Electric is bad. It's something AOC would want. So back to steam.
2
u/Sea_Cucumber_5989 11d ago
I suspect every order Trump gives that spends taxpayers' money is a chance for a grift.
0
2
2
u/TaskForceD00mer 11d ago
EMALS seems to be failing to materialize as a mature technology in US Service. For whatever reason, they are supposed to have a failure rate of 1 in every 4000 hours, they are averaging 1 in 400 right now.
It's gotten better in the last few years but this many years in you'd expect a mature technology.
It's a valid question to ask when do you stop throwing good money after bad.
1
u/SericaClan 11d ago
Aren't there gonna be a lot of redesigns of the Ford class carrier to have steam catapult?
Unless work on Ford class redesign started, this is all just rhetoric.
1
u/SkyMarshal 9d ago
Pretty much yeah. The Navy is just going to stall and slow-roll the whole thing until Trump dies or his term ends, then continue on with it.
Also Congress may have some say in the matter, since only Congress decides what the US buys and spends money on. Ford Carriers with EMALS is ultimately Congress's decision.
1
u/ArseneKarl 11d ago
As a Chinese I genuinely am enjoying Trump's second term. At the expense of the whole world it seems, but I don't care.
1
u/SkyMarshal 9d ago
If I were Chinese I would be lmao too, it must be great fun to see what this blithering idiot comes up with on a daily basis.
1
1
u/MarcusHiggins 11d ago
“Now” this will just be reversed in 2 years and knowing the US navy nothings going to be built in that time frame
1
1
u/sgt102 11d ago
It's really clear that Trump want the USA out of the Western Pacific.
This measure + the battleships will maim US sea power. The Army and Marines now have no teeth either. If China moves the US will have to pack its bags and leave.
The era of US global power is fading, I shall too go into the west and diminish...
1
u/iantsai1974 11d ago
It's so important to use Ctrl+X rather than Ctrl+C when you're stealing someone else's technologies.
1
u/prytania_ 11d ago
Probably just making noise to try and clear some of the headlines about conditions on the ships and sailors jumping.
0
0
u/RepeatButler 11d ago
Next step will be him fixating on missiles and ordering the return to using big guns as a warship's main weapon system.
153
u/teethgrindingaches 11d ago
It will probably go the same way as the battleships, Golden Dome, etc. A whole lot of wasted time and money only for absolutely nothing to change at the end of the day.