The USS Gerald R. Ford will deploy and operate alongside a coalition of allied forces in the Atlantic Ocean next week.
Ford is the flagship of the Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group (GRFCSG) and their first operational deployment will include air, maritime, and ground assets from NATO Allies and partner nations. The strike group will set sail from Norfolk, Virginia, and will operate in the Atlantic Ocean.
“The USS Gerald R. Ford Carrier Strike Group will deploy, integrating with Allies and partners, to demonstrate its unmatched, multi-domain, full-spectrum lethality in the Atlantic,” said Adm. Daryl Caudle, commander, U.S. Fleet Forces Command.
“This trans-Atlantic deployment will strengthen our relationships, capacity, and trust to forge a more peaceful and prosperous world by leveraging the ‘One Atlantic’ Command and Control Concept.”
The U.S. Navy say that along with Allies and partners, the GRFCSG will focus training on air defence, anti-subsurface warfare, distributed maritime operations, mine countermeasures, and amphibious operations.
“This deployment is an opportunity to push the ball further down the field and demonstrate the advantage that Ford and Carrier Air Wing (CVW) 8 bring to the future of naval aviation, to the region and to our Allies and partners,” said Rear Adm. Gregory Huffman, commander, Carrier Strike Group (CSG) 12.
The deployment involves approximately 9,000 personnel from nine nations, 20 ships and 60 aircraft. The nine participating nations are: U.S, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, the Netherlands, Spain, and Sweden.
You can read more on this here.
Nice she is finally putting it sea, Ford class somes up everything that was wrong with US shipbuilding post 2001. Hopefully they start to see sense. LCS, Zumwalt and Ford were all a disaster.
At least Ford will be useful once the problems are overcome. LCS and Zumwalt were just flawed concepts that have produced ships whose capability will never justify their costs. At least the Constabulary class is am admission of the stupidly of abandoning frigates.
Ford class CVNs will prove to be very useful, once all of the innovative technology incorporated has an opportunity to mature, stabilize and achieve operational efficiency and reliability. The same learning curve occurs w/ all innovative designs, either naval, air or land platforms. Zumwalt class will continue as technology testbeds, as well as being hypersonic missile carriers and eventually directed energy weapon platforms. Ships are presumed to be long term capital assets, and are modified throughout lifecycle to adapt to changing requirements. Generally as simple as that. Some aircraft follow the same lifecycle (e g., B-52, F-15, F-16, etc.)
Yes, those Ford’s will be very useful and will shape world events for the next 50 years. Once the second on is in shake-down the issues from the first will be a distant memory. I wish the UK could afford two of those and their supporting units. Well down America, may she sail calm waters.
Umm, we have two super-carriers, already.
The UK has two carriers. If I am not mistaken the program called for four carriers but was cut. The UK carriers are not nuclear powered. This saved money but created some limitations. They lack basic Cat and trap equipment. This strikes me as short-sighted. This is not intended as a slight to the pride of the UKRN but I don’t consider the UK’s carriers to be “super-carriers”. I wish the RN had gotten the four carriers that they wanted. As a USA American I consider the UK to be an important ally. I respect the quality of people serving… Read more »
Constitution class. FFG-62
Umm…believe you intended to write Constellation class of USN FFGs. It is unfortunate that the criteria for the tender effectively excluded T-26 from the competition. Would have proven to be a spirited and revealing contest w/ FREMM.
Little Crappy Ships (LCS) are an aberration and abomination. USN would probably be willing to sell RN a couple dozen on very favorable terms. Any interest? 🤔😉
No ta mate, they spend more time out of service than our T45s and that’s saying something.
😁
LCS is an undeniable disaster. Zumwalt as well but to a lesser degree as the USN seems to now hold the view that they are best served as technology demonstrators. Lots of pioneering tech in power generation, radar and hypersonic missiles and directed energy weapons will be first fielded on these.
The Zumwalt destroyers are not being retained as “technology demonstrators.” They are being modified as hypersonic missile carriers and all three will be so modified by 2025.
HII Set to Install First Hypersonic Missiles on USS Zumwalt, USS Michael Monsoor During Repair Period – USNI News
Perhaps I should have been more clear. Although the USN no longer describes them that way, they did exactly so in the past after they decided to cancel the development of the gun. It is clearly the the case that the majority of new tech introduced in the zumwalts will continue to be developed and refined, and their concept of operations using these ships.
Very pleased to see her out on her maiden deployment. She is the first of class, and there’s a lot of new technology onboard, with all the usual teething issues that have needed to be worked through. I wish USS Gerald R Ford and her Ship’s Company all the best. 🇺🇸🇬🇧⚓
Well said. Despite the bumbling efforts of sleepy joe to throw spanners in the works. The long awaited asset has taken to the ocean. Now she needs something to cut her teeth on and fully test the new EMALS. Which with any luck, will eventually find its way onto our carriers too.
😆
Yes, and the RN may reap the benefit of a proven, reliable EMALS, if it chooses to install the capability during a later refit. Amazing, the benefits of a little patience will yield… 🤔
…benefits a little…🙄
Agreed about that and some F-18s for air defence and growlers. A Hawkeye or 2 just to finish off it nicely
UK can wait and see how EMALS plays out. conditions have to be better than for STOL launch plus cost of maintaining pilot proficiency
Unfortunately the machinery spaces originally designed into the QE Class for EMALS have been used up or were designed out as the design matured around a STOVL capability, hence the rather embarrassing double u-turn after the 2010 strategic defence review where the government opted for CATOBAR on the understanding it was still possible only to be told by the contractor that it wasn’t.
🤔😳☹️
I hope we don’t waste our money on that. The French are spending $1.3bn on two catapults and arresters for their one carrier. If we fitted out both our carriers it would cost us double. That’s over £2bn and for what? We aren’t getting E2-Ds.
That could be true but what if our F35B airframes cannot be upgraded with the new engines and other goodies intended for the other variants A&C. Have you seen how game changing they will be. In that scenario alone, being able to supplement/replace with F35C would be worth it. In addition, maybe Tempest would be built in a naval version if our carriers could launch it. Now that would be money well spent. What do you think Jon? In the absence of a crystal ball, this is all hypothetical speculation. As we have no idea what will happen over the… Read more »
Will it break?
I think it’s been broken for a long time previously…oh I see what you did there…hill-hairy-arse .
A US carrier (their newest) is doing a deployment exercise (evolution) with ships from 8 other countries.
Will we still hear some of our posting colleagues maintain that all escorts to our own new carriers must/should be British?
Probably. Some moan for a living.
No I think moaning is their idea of fun…
bit sad really 🤷🏻♂️
Exactly, GM.
How many carriers have the yanks got?
Wiki reports:
20 carriers commissioned, 2 in reserve (Tarawa class – STOVL), 1 undergoing trials (Ford class – JF Kennedy).
Specifically:
10 Nimitz-class supercarriers – all commissioned
2-Ford class supercarriers – 1 commissioned, 1 on sea trials
2 America Class LHA ie helo carrier – both commissioned
7 Wasp Class LHD – all commissioned
2 – Tarawa class – in reserve.
Was there a question?
Yes..hence the question mark at the end of it…..you answered . However my implication was that they have loads (20 apparently) and cannot be expected to have a full flotila of national ships to accompany each and every one of them..We on the other hand have 2 and personally I feel we should be able to field our own group for at least one of em..at least some of the time.
I am sure we can find enough escorts for one QE-class battle group out of our 12 frigates and 6 destroyers.
Apparently Nimitz has managed to contaminate their Potable water supply with Aviation fuel. She cannot go anywhere until that’s fixed. Various scenarios have been put forward such as valves in the wrong position which is unlikely as they are two separate systems.
. Probably a fuel tank/water tank bulkhead fractured which will need welding up, NDT, pressure test then full system flush and Super Chloro before being usable again
For those that don’t know fuel contaminated water doesn’t just taste bloody awful it gives you the S**ts for days…
Presumed correlation or causation of issue w/ fact that Nimitz is the oldest carrier in the fleet (197X?)? Metal fatigue is an unfortunate reality, regardless of level of TLC lavished on a vessel.
They are Supposed to be separate, Eh?
Have we noted that the sailor accused of setting fire to the USS Bonhomme Richard has been found innocent.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2mx5FKQH2jA
I did notice and thought the case was very dodgy from the start. Whether he did it or not was not the main issues I saw. It was the way the investigations were done, statements, witnesses etc etc etc. The list of stupidity was long and whether he did it or not, any conviction would of been unsafe and not reliable.
I’m a firm believer in innocent until proven guilty. It’s up to the prosecution to use all the tools correctly available to them to prove guilt.
Society must have that standard of fair and due process
It was quite odd wasn’t it? As far as I can tell there was no physical evidence and all they had against him was a witness statement saying he’d been seen within 50m of where the fire started within 30 minutes of it starting? That and they said the accused had motive because was ‘pissed’ at the Navy failed the SEALS course and was assigned to deck duty. Even more of a farce when you consider that a judge at an earlier preliminary hearing said there was not enough evidence for a court martial but the former commander of the… Read more »