Building an aircraft carrier takes generations of experience, hundreds of thousands of man-hours,
years of planning and steady determination. USS Gerald R. Ford or (CVN 78) is the product
of years of construction, and before that, years of planning and design. Five thousand
shipbuilders in Newport News and thousands of suppliers across the United States contributed
to this first-in-class ship. Hello everyone, welcome back again with us
in another episode of Military TV. Today we are about to discuss “The USS Gerald R.
Ford defense systems ", as the most advanced aircraft carrier in the world. So sit back,
relax and enjoy this video! The USS Gerald R. Ford is $13 billion futuristic
ship complete with a gigantic flight deck and a new electromagnetic system to launch
aircraft. The state-of-the-art tech and operational systems mean aircraft will be able to take
off faster to get to the fight quicker. At 1,100 feet, the new Ford carrier is about
the size of three football fields. This carrier is named after former U.S. President Gerald
R. Ford to pay tribute to his lifetime of service to the nation in the Navy and the
U.S. government. During World War II, Ford was a Navy lieutenant commander serving on
the light carrier USS Monterey. The class, with a planned total of ten ships,
will replace the Navy's current carriers on a one-for-one basis, starting with the lead
ship, Gerald R. Ford replacing Enterprise, and then eventually taking the place of the
existing Nimitz-class carriers. The new vessels have a hull similar to the Nimitz class, but
introduce technologies since developed with the CVN(X) or CVN-21 program, such as the
Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System (EMALS), as well as other design features intended
to improve efficiency and reduce operating costs, including sailing with smaller crews.
That's why the combat systems ship’s qualification trials are an important step to be sure the
warship can defend itself against a variety of threats such as drones and missiles.
So what kind of defense systems does this new carrier have?
The Navy’s flagship USS Ford aircraft carrier attacked and destroyed enemy rocket-propelled
drones, aircraft and surface threats with interceptor missiles, sensors and other ship
defenses in a series of warfare preparation exercises designed to move the ship closer
to major maritime warfare. In the Atlantic Ocean, the Ford recently completed what’s
called Combat Systems Ship’s Qualification Trials (CSSQT), a combat preparation phase
involving simulated and actual live threats to assess the extent to which a large Ford-class
carrier could defend itself in a great power ocean war scenario.
The USS Ford faced off against rocket-propelled drones capable of speeds in excess of 600
miles per hour; towed drone units that simulate rockets; and remote-controlled, high-speed
maneuvering surface targets. Demonstrating this kind of defensive capability is both
timely and extremely significant from a tactical perspective given ongoing discussions about
the potential “vulnerability” of aircraft carriers in an increasingly high-tech, major
power threat environment. However, much of the discussion, which is largely based upon
the existence of extremely long-range Chinese “carrier killer” anti-ship missiles, regularly
seems to overlook the growing technological sophistication of layered ship defense systems.
Newer kinds of integrated sensor networking, longer-range ship-based radar and things like
artificial intelligence-enabled targeting technology or even emerging laser weapons,
are fast changing the equation when it comes to protecting carriers and other larger surface
ships at sea. The recent CSSQT, as its called, seems specifically directed toward preparing
the Ford for an entirely new sphere of enemy attacks using recently upgraded systems such
as the Rolling Airframe Missile, Evolved Sea Sparrow Missiles and the “Mk-15 Phalanx
Close-In Weapon System [CIWS] to fire armor-piercing tungsten bullets,” according to the Navy
report. The crew crushed it, firing off four missiles,
consist of two RIM-116 and two ESSM, and all of them were conducted with precision control
by combat direction center watch teams, they executed perfectly. Interestingly, some of
the specific ship defense weapons mentioned in the Navy report have gone through substantial
upgrades in recent years. This is part of an effort entirely aligned with the Navy’s
multi-year effort to better arm its surface fleet with weapons able to destroy highly
sophisticated enemies amid open ocean or “blue water” maritime combat. The now combat-ready
upgraded Sea-Sparrow ESSM Block II missile, for example, is engineered with a special
“sea-skimming” mode enabling the interceptor to descend close to the surface to destroy
enemy anti-ship missiles traveling parallel to the ocean just above the water. Instead
of operating with purely an upward trajectory, the ESSM Block II can “skim” across the
surface to take out an entirely new sphere of attacking enemy threats.
The Navy’s CIWS was, as mentioned, also used in the combat qualifications, another
weapon which has undergone substantial upgrades in recent years. The CIWS system, which fires
hundreds of small metal projectiles a minute toward incoming threats such as enemy drones,
missiles, or helicopters, has historically operated primarily as a counter air weapon.
However, as far back as six years ago, the Navy has been working on a “1b” CIWS variant
able to track and destroy approaching surface threats such as swarming small boats or even
some approaching enemy missiles. The upgrades greatly expanded the ship’s defensive mission
envelope to fight off newer kinds of attacks. CIWS is a last-line of defense, meaning it
is expected to be used when other longer-range elements of a ship’s layered systems are
no longer effective. As reported by Seapower, sailors aboard the
aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) successfully completed Combat Systems Ship’s
Qualification Trials (CSSQT) on April 16, 2021, representing a major milestone in validating
the ship’s capability to defend itself and the crew. The trials, which commenced in February,
consisted of five phases. The completion of the final phase, 2C, and CSSQT overall, is
the culmination of years of planning, training, ingenuity and thousands of working hours for
the ship’s current and previous crews. In addition, key components of the CVN 78
Ship Self Defense System ICS include dual-band radar (DBR), cooperative engagement capability
(CEC), Ship Self Defense System, Evolved SeaSparrow missile (ESSM), and rolling airframe missile.
DBR searched for, located and tracked the target and subsequently provided radar illumination
to the ESSM to support missile guidance. The CEC, which provides a single, integrated air
picture, fusing data from multiple sensors to improve track accuracy, processed the data
for the Ship Self Defense System, which then passed launch commands to the missile and
scheduled DBR support for the engagement. In the final stage, the ESSM successfully
engaged and defeated the target. This integrated combat system success brings Ford one step
closer to operational testing and deployment. On January 2019, the US Navy awarded a CVN
78 accepted its first advanced weapons elevator (AWE) last month, which will allow it to move
up to 24,000lb of ordnance at 150ft per minute. So, Carriers are often protected by destroyers
and other warships traveling in a carrier strike group, yet they are also themselves
increasingly being prepared as platforms capable of heavy combat on the open ocean with advanced
technology. Thanks for watching, and as always if you
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