Re: Nuclear powered carriers

On Wed, 1 Dec 1999, Matt Edens wrote:

> I recall reading somewhere that the Navy only continues using nuclear
power
> for carriers not for reasons of propulsion but because the steam
generated
> is a neccessary component of the steam catapults (call it high tech
but the
> business end of a nuclear powered ship is a good old fashioned steam
> turbine - the reactor's just a super-duper boiler).  The article was
> concerning the navy's plans for the next generation carriers (as well
as
> possible design modifications to the remaining two funded units in the
> Nimitz class).  If the magnetic accelerator catapults currently in
> development pan out,	cheaper gas turbines'll likely power the next
gen of
> carriers.

Possibly not. The use of the nuke plant has two other benifits. Higher 
Endurance speed when you need lots of wind across that bow to loft those

heavy aircraft off the cats. And the fact that if you use a gas turbine 
again, you'd be removing the amount of bunkerspace for aircraft armament

and fuel for fuel for your ship. The Nimitz's have lots more space for
JP 
than the Enterprises (with 8 reactors to the Numitz's two @120,000 shp) 
and the preceeding conventional Carriers before.

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- Ryan Montieth Gill	  NRA / DoD# 0780 (Smug #1) / AMA / SOHC -
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