Please note the highlights from the new report from CRS below on the Ford-class carrier fiasco speaks to “welding issues”, call me Captain Obvious but in shipbuilding or the building of any exquisite platforms, the identification of welding issues infers a complete welding inspection of the entire ship. That ain’t cheap but then again when you build these future fish apartments on the taxpayer’s dime, the pursuit of excellence is always optional.

Procuring more of the incredibly poorly designed and executed new nuclear super-carriers is not only martial malpractice but a death warrant for the thousands of sailors assigned to these if employed during a peer conflict in this century.

The U.S. Navy Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) underway in the Atlantic Ocean on 4 June 2020, marking the first time a Gerald R. Ford-class and a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier operated together underway. Gerald R. Ford is underway conducting integrated air wing operations, and the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group remained at sea in the Atlantic as a certified carrier strike group force ready for tasking in order to protect the crew from the risks posed by COVID-19, following their successful deployment to the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operation.

Read the full report at your own peril of bubbling anger issues and remove all sharp objects from the room.

Oversight issues for Congress for the CVN-78 program include the following:

– faulty welds on certain new Navy ships, including Ford-class carriers, that were first reported in late September 2024;

– whether to procure CVN-82 in FY2030 (as proposed in the Navy’s FY2025 budget submission), in FY2028 (as scheduled in prior-year Navy budget submissions), or in FY2029;

– whether to procure CVN-82 and a subsequent aircraft carrier (which would be CVN-83) as a two-ship buy that would similar to the two-ship buy that was used for procuring CVN-80 and CVN-81;

-the future aircraft carrier force level;

-CVN-78 program issues that were raised in a January 2024 report from the Department of Defense’s (DOD’s) Director of Operational Test and Evaluation (DOT&E) and a June 2023 Government Accountability Office (GAO) report on DOD weapon systems; and

-the procurement of aircraft carriers after CVN-81 or CVN-82.

https://news.usni.org/2025/01/17/report-to-congress-on-ford-class-aircraft-carrier-program

Stop building these things!