Quote:
Originally Posted by gunnut
I figure if the JFK is to be sold, she would be refurbished here, with the new owner's sailors along side for training purposes. She would then head back under her own power.
Taiwan just did that for the 4 Kidd class destroyers. Their sailors were here for training and the refurbishing process. They then went back to Taiwan under their own power.
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*Lots* of differences between refurb of the Kidd-class (aka Ayatollah) DDGs and the JFK, beginning with a powerplant that is more modern and readily replaced/serviced (gas turbines) vice the steam plant on JFK, and work on the catapults alone is enough to make the stoutest of hearts quake and faint away
Look, overhauling a CV, even one in good condition, is an extraordinary job and rife with opportunities for problems (just ask the Russians about their work on the ex-Gorshkov for India...). I've done time in the yard on a nuke COH (not refuel, thank goodness) and even a year after the overhaul (which by most observations was a good one) we were still dealing with maintenance issues that weren't fixed until she went in for her refuel/COH.
A conventional CV is maintenance/manpower intensive and requires extensive shore support facilities as well. We didn't jump from the Langley to Nimitz overnight and it is going to be a long, deliberative process for any other nation to develop, build, deploy and operate a conventional (catapults & arrest. gear) carrier. Every nation that has sought to add this capability to their fleets has encoutered this lesson -- some gave up, some opted for a lesser capability and others have chosen to make/continue the investment because fo the real value and flexible power this big beasts bring to the table. India and China, like Russia, Britain, France, the US and others before them, will become intimately acquainted with this cost/benefit equation as well...
- SJS