Politics

Calliban · 2025-03-12 05:15:33

Robert, the problem is decay heat. A lot of that 3 months is spent waiting for decay heat generation to decline to levels where it is safe to depressurise the plant and begin fuel handling. This is why refuels tend to be included as part of a general overhaul period for the ship. The maintenance crew won't be sitting on their hands for those three months. They will be maintaining other areas of the ship.

It is possible to refuel at high decay heat, but risky. Heat removal will be heavily reliant on pumped flow using systems like ECCS. Any loss of power for pumped flow or loss of heat sink and the water covering the fuel will start to boil off. The higher the decay heat, the less grace time you have for water makeup. The safety case ends up being difficult and the more redundancy you need for things like power supply, the more expensive the operation becomes. This risk is probably why the Russians do what they do at sea. I am not familiar with their operations. But you may find they also have to wait for decay heat levels to decline, especially if they are removing fuel from water to some sort of dry storage. The refuel itself may take only 3 days, but the cooldown period preceding it will probably be measured in months.

Calliban · 2025-03-12 06:02:37

The other option to consider is avoiding refuel altogether. This means building a whole-life reactor core. Design the core to last for the intended operational life of the ship and then scrap the whole ship when the core is depleted. At least one nuclear navy does this already. It means that maintenance periods are shorter and easier. When time comes to scrap the ship, there is no problem just laying up in a basin for a decade, letting decay heat decline to low levels before removing the fuel.

There are pros and cons to this arrangement. It is tricky to do. The problems with this approach are: (1) It tends to necessitate high burnup, which can cause fuel swelling or even bowing of fuel elements. This is less of a problem if using oxide fuels. (2) To avoid excessive burnup of the central core, it is necessary to zone fuel enrichment and include burnable poisons, so that power generation is flat across the core. That makes the core more expensive. (3) Core chemistry control is more important. The coolant will carry more soluble neutron absorbers to counteract the reactivity introduced by more heavily enriched fuel. The fuel cladding will be exposed to neutron flux and oxidative attack from radiolytic oxygen for much longer. So tight control of dissolved oxygen is necessary. (4) A whole life core is safer in some ways as there are fewer intrusive operations that can potentially disrupt decay heat removal. But the core also carries a greater liad of fission products making the consequences of an accident worse.

On balance, this is probably the best approach for your ice breakers. Their mode of operation exposes the hull to a lot of flexural and shearing stresses. So replacing the boat every 20 years with a new one isn't a bad idea. It allows your navy to avoud the costs of refuelling and reduces the need for heavy maintenance periods. Although 20 year lifespan means higher capital costs, a more regular build schedule achieves economies of scale and better quality control.

There are a number of ways that the Canadian Navy could do this. Canada never invested in enrichment capability, because the CANDU can burn natural uranium. A CANDU is a less desirable option for a ship because core volume is large and online refuelling would be difficult at sea. The uranium market is well established now, so Canada could simply buy enriched U from the US, Russia or Europe. Or it can develop its own enrichment capability. Not a huge problem, its just time and money. The other option would be to reprocess spent CANDU fuel and make MOX for your ship reactors. That would cost a bit more, but it also reduces the spent fuel stockpile and puts in place a technology that could support wider Canadian nuclear industry. If Canada has reprocessing, it is a service that US nuclear operators will probably be interested in buying. Especially if they start building things like the natrium fast neutron reactor. Nuclear engineering is an area where there could be a lot of cross border trade.

Last edited by Calliban (2025-03-12 06:19:12)

kbd512 · 2025-03-12 15:26:25

RobertDyck,

If Canada is serious about operating aircraft carriers while remaining within its limited military budget, then it should operate conventionally powered carriers that don't require spending any precious defense dollars on all the support activities required to operate naval nuclear reactors. There's no clear military justification for nuclear power on surface warships, unless all the ships in the battle group are nuclear powered, because an aircraft carrier would never leave its escorts behind. Nuclear power is an extravagance that most nations cannot afford. Since all the other ships in the battle group and the aircraft themselves are still conventionally powered, adding nuclear reactors to the carrier doesn't economize on very many underway refueling events.

The high fuel burn rates associated with historical conventionally powered American aircraft carriers were due to the poor thermal efficiency of WWII era steam boilers, which was about 16.5% according to empirical data collected for speeds of 20 knots and 30 knots from the Kitty Hawk class, which were the last class of conventionally powered American aircraft carriers. Modern gas turbines, such as the latest versions of the LM2500, when run at max output / max thermodynamic efficiency, fall between 36% and 39%. Supercritical CO2 gas turbines would be 50% thermally efficient.

Kitty Hawk class cruising range / operating hours at 20 knots / 23mph, by propulsion plant technology:
Foster-Wheeler or Babcock and Wilcox Marine Boilers: 13,800 statute miles (600 hours)
LM2500s: 30,109 statute miles (1,309 hours)
Supercritical CO2 gas turbines: 41,818 statute miles (1,818 hours)

Kitty Hawk's longest operational deployment covered 62,000 statute miles. That means you'd need to refuel the ship once per 6 month deployment, or perhaps never if you only deploy your carriers for 3 months.

If Canada operated navalized variants of Textron AirLand's Scorpion, equipped with the latest sensors and weapons, they'd have more real combat power than most other navies. These fighters would be drastically cheaper to operate than all the heavy fighters operated by other western navies, so several squadrons could be purchased and deployed. Their simplicity, economy of operation, and range matters a lot more than how fast they are. The Scorpion is a twin-engine subsonic ISR / attack jet with 2 crew members and an internal weapons bay. Naval fighters benefit greatly from the ability to loiter at significant distances from their carrier. Modern heavy fighters cannot loiter for any significant period of time because they require so much power to remain aloft.

Numbers of combat jets matter far more than theoretical capabilities. In real life you launch with 2 primary weapons to perform your mission, because that's what you can land with. If you can launch with a pair of 2,000 pound class munitions and 2 to 4 defensive missiles, that's as heavy a loadout as you need. Anything more than that rapidly becomes impractical nonsense.

Let's say you field 2 air wings with 48 Scorpions per air wing, and deploy with half of the air wing at any given time on 3 month deployments, so you deploy twice per year. Let's assert that 18 of the 24 jets can fly each day on a single 4 hour mission.

18 jets * 4 flight hours per day * 130 flight ops days per year * $3,000 per flight hour = $28.08M per half air wing per year

Each crew receives approximately 390 hours of operational flying from the carrier per year (similar to the number of hours our squadron's air crews were accumulating during Operation Enduring Freedom), plus maybe 50 to 70 hours of flying back at a naval air station for recurrent training / work-ups. That makes them highly proficient aviators in at least one mission area, with enough spare flight hours for a secondary specialty, because they're getting a lot more hours than virtually any other western flight crews receive during peace time. All of this is possible because Canada selected a fighter with modest CPFH, so the money saved on airframe maintenance can instead be devoted to far more training hours with high quality sensors / weapons.

$56.16M per air wing per year, or $113.32M total cost to maintain 2 carrier mobile air wings. That's the purchase price for 1X F-35C, but instead of spending that amount of money merely to purchase stealthy heavy fighters, you're fielding 2 complete air wings embarked aboard 4 CATOBAR aircraft carriers deployed over non-consecutive 3 month deployment periods per year to increase sailor retention and to reduce the toll exacted on the equipment that would otherwise be associated with 6+ month deployments. There should also be fewer problems with complacency killing people. Around the 3 to 4 month mark, the younger American sailors seem to become complacent to the danger they're in on the flight deck. Maybe Canadian sailors are different, but I doubt it. This is mostly a "young man" problem.

Since the carriers are conventionally powered, one ship can have a skeleton crew aboard while in-port undergoing repairs / refurbishment while the other carrier is at sea. That provides 24/7/365 at-sea defense of the Atlantic and Pacific Canadian coastlines, in order to get between any potential aggressor and the Canadian homeland. If Canada has something equivalent to a Defense Logistics Agency, those are the people who would be refurbishing the carrier in port, so that most of your sailors can fully crew the operational carrier.

One of the key features of conventionally powered carriers is that you truly can "walk away" from them if you need to. If one of the four carriers requires complex overhaul, that ship doesn't need her crew present to babysit the reactor. There is no such thing as walking away from a nuclear powered ship. You're married to her.

If you're smart about how you design the electronics suite and defensive weapons, the possibility exists for anything classified to be entirely removed from the ship and stored separately, such that even fewer crew members need to remain aboard, perhaps limited to a handful of engineering officers overseeing the repair activities. At that point, it's functionally no different from a civilian ship. If the officers and a yard crew need to take her out for a shakedown, they can do that with minimal fuss.

Minimal complexity that doesn't sacrifice real combat capability is the name of the game here. You get 2 limited capability carrier battle groups that have the most important features of an American blue water carrier battle group, at a fraction of what America pays for the pointless techno-gadgets that may have some theoretical advantage in some specific scenario, but aren't doing much for anyone at all other times.

AIM-174 - Fleet air defense against sea-skimming and ballistic missile threats
AIM-120 - General purpose air superiority
AIM-9 - Defensive missiles

JDAM-ER - Precision all-weather stand-off bombing with data-link
Harpoon / SLAM - All-weather stand-off anti-ship or land attack cruise missiles
AARGM-ER - Stand-off anti-radiation missile for SEAD

Bay-mounted ISAR Pod - Organic mini-AWACS capability
Bay-mounted Camera Pod - Organic photo-recon / bomb damage assessment capability

I think that provides a good mix of capabilities that cover most missions an air wing attached to a limited capability carrier battle group could realistically be tasked to perform. The weapons selected are adequate for their intended use cases. No specialty weapons such as Hellfire or APKWS or SDB or bunker busters were included because they're inappropriate for a blue water naval force primarily focused on interdicting enemy bombers, tactical fighters, and ships, with the odd land-based target of opportunity that may appear. You can still clobber the snot out of any tank with a JDAM. It's cheaper than a Hellfire, can potentially fly much farther, and there won't be much left after it hits. It will require off-board data link guidance to hit a moving target, but it works.

kbd512 · 2025-03-12 18:11:32

RobertDyck,

US DLA FY2024 list price for F76 diesel / distillate fuel for ships, is $3.54 per gallon:
Defense Logistics Agency - Standard Fuel Prices in Dollars - FY 2024 Budget Estimate - Fuel Short List - FY 2024 Fuel Price

Over 50 years, all 4 carriers would burn approximately 1.2 billion gallons of F76 marine fuel oil, which works out to $4.248B, or $84.96M USD per year.

Ignoring refueling costs, the price to construct and decommission the pair of reactors for an aircraft carrier works out to around $2B USD per ship, using costing figures from 28 years ago. I can promise you that it costs more money now.

Cost-Effectiveness of Conventionally and Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carriers - GAO/NSIAD-98-1 - August 1998

LIFE-CYCLE COSTS FOR NUCLEAR-POWERED AIRCRAFT CARRIERS ARE GREATER THAN FOR CONVENTIONALLY POWERED CARRIERS
A nuclear-powered carrier costs about $8.1 billion, or about 58 percent, more than a conventionally powered carrier to acquire, operate and support for 50 years, and then to inactivate. The investment cost for a nuclear-powered carrier is more than $6.4 billion, which we estimate is more than double that for a conventionally powered carrier. Annually, the costs to operate and support a nuclear carrier are almost 34 percent higher than those to operate and support a conventional carrier. In addition, it will cost the Navy considerably more to inactivate and dispose of a nuclear carrier (CVN) than a conventional carrier (CV) primarily because the extensive work necessary to remove spent nuclear fuel from the reactor plant and remove and dispose of the radiologically contaminated reactor plant and other system components.
Life-Cycle Costs for Conventional and Nuclear Aircraft Carriers (based on a 50-year service life)
(Fiscal year 1997 dollars in millions)
Cost category CV CVN
Investment cost
Ship acquisition cost $2,050 $4,059
Midlife modernization cost $866 $2,382
Total investment cost $2,916 $6,441
Average annual investment cost $58 $129
Operating and support cost
Direct operating and support cost $10,436 $11,677
Indirect operating and support cost $688 $3,205
Total operating and support cost $11,125 $14,882
Average annual operating and support cost $222 $298
Inactivation/disposal cost
Inactivation/disposal cost $53 $887
Spent nuclear fuel storage cost n/a $13
Total inactivation/disposal cost $53 $899
Average annual inactivation/disposal cost $1 $18
Total life-cycle cost $14,094 $22,222
Average annual life-cycle cost $282 $444

Tell me if you think Canada can afford costs like those, or if you think your nation's money is better spent on conventional alternatives that provide like-kind capabilities for a lot less money. Whenever you don't have an unlimited amount of funding that you're willing to devote to any single national priority, you become very shrewd about analyzing costs, and then you make pragmatic decisions that give you both capabilities and costs that you can live with.

Operating an aircraft carrier is never going to be cheap, but an air base that can be wiped off the map in a single surprise attack is pennywise pound-foolish. Mobile airfields have their place in a modern military, just as tanks and infantry rifles do.

While contemplating what the RCN could do if they had real aircraft carriers, also think through what the RCAF might be able to accomplish with pure air power, provided that their jets had the range and missile tech required. Any good military strategist considers all practical options before choosing a course of action. Naval air power may or may not be the most practical option for Canada.

First, develop a solid concept of operation for how Canadian defense against surprise attack should work. Identify the likely adversaries, avenues of approach they would take during a sneak attack, and then evaluate what they're most likely to be equipped with. From that exercise stems fighting doctrine, which informs purchasing decisions regarding the equipment, tactics, and training necessary to apply the fighting doctrine, pursuant to the concept of operation for a Canadian defense force.

RobertDyck · 2025-03-12 19:11:36

The OK-900A reactor on Arktika class icebreakers has a reactor core that can be lifted out by a crane. No cutting the hull. A series of hatches above the reactor to the topside of the ship. The reactor fuel is the bottom of a module that is lifted out by crane. No cutting, just open several hatches, and use a crane to lift it out. The spent fuel rod is placed in a radiation shielded containment sleeve. This makes refuelling less expensive and faster.

Yes, I would design a Canadian reactor inspired by the Russian one, but not exactly the same. Canada owned/operated 2 light carriers after WW2. When they wore out, Canada owned/operated 1 light carrier until 1972. That was controversial: it went through a major mid-life refit, then was immediately scrapped. Why scrap it after spending money for a refit? That decision was made by Prime Minister Pierre Trudeau, Justin Trudeau's father. My point is yes, we could afford 1 aircraft carrier battle group. One. Just one. Not a light carrier, a full carrier with twice the displacement of a light carrier. Yes, with a nuclear reactor. Also realize Canada has committed to increase military spending from 1.36% of GDP to at least 2%.

kbd512 · Yesterday 13:44:30

RobertDyck,

I'm not sure what you had in mind, but a ship the size of a super carrier would require 8 OK-900A reactors to provide 208MW of propulsive power. The 8 reactor compartments carried by Enterprise weighed about 13,208t. To that figure you must add the weight of the geared steam turbines. 4,000,000 gallons of F-76 weighs about 12,882t for reference purposes. Unlike a nuclear reactor, that weight will be situated in the lowest portion of the ship's hull, where it aids in maintaining stability in rough weather. Most or nearly all of Enterprise's reactor weight was situated below the waterline, so that's good, but still not as good as fuel in the fuel bunkers. At least some ships of the Nimitz class, interestingly enough, have a slight list due to a weight distribution problems, although I don't think the reactors were the cause of the list, but I can't recall.

USS Nimitz covered 100,395 statute miles during 321 consecutive days at sea while the COVID pandemic was in full swing. To the best of my knowledge, that represents the greatest total number of miles covered during a single carrier battle group deployment. There was every incentive to minimize at-sea replenishment activities to slow or prevent the spread of COVID.

100,395 / 7,704 hours = 13.0315mph / 11.332 knots <- average speed of travel

Q: Why did USS Nimitz travel at that speed?
A: Her escorts don't have nuclear power, so she had to deliberately keep her speed slow enough that her escorts wouldn't require constant fuel replenishment.

At that cruising speed, a SCO2 powered Kitty Hawk class aircraft carrier would burn 2,355,241.2 gallons of fuel, or a little more than half of her 4,000,000 gallon diesel fuel load. The historical steam boiler powered Kitty Hawk class would burn 7,065,723.6 gallons of fuel, so she would require at least one UNREP event to replenish her fuel oil bunkers, probably two since they don't like it when the ship's fuel load drops below 50%. That said, if you have SCO2 power and you're going to travel that slowly, then the carrier doesn't need any fuel replenishment for a very long time.

My brain still understands how to count, so it can't concoct a reality-based scenario where a carrier either leaves all her escorts behind to prove that she can sail off at 30 knots ('cause nuclear power, man!), and it also understands that making every ship in the battle group nuclear powered is a total non-starter on cost alone. If I'm more than doubling the cost of the carrier, then I want to know what it is that I'm actually "saving" by switching to nuclear power. I have a capability I cannot use for double the cost of the alternative. Maybe that made perfect sense to Admiral Rickover, but it makes no sense to me, because I'd rather have 2 CV-63s (with drastically more efficient propulsion) for the price of 1 CVN-68. I can purchase 7 CV-63s for the price of 1 CV-78. There is no capability that 1 CVN-78 possesses which makes it worth the price of 7 CV-63s.

During operation "prove that a nuclear ship doesn't require at-sea fuel replenishment", aka "Operation Sea Orbit", in 1964, USS Enterprise, USS Long Beach, and USS Bainbridge (all nuclear powered) sailed 30,216 miles during 57 consecutive days at sea, which means their speed was 22.09mph, or slightly less than 19.21 knots.

Could a SCO2 powered Kitty Hawk class sail at 19 knots for 1,368 hours without fuel replenishment?

Basic math says it could, for a lot less money.

What, then, is the actual point of having a singular all-nuclear carrier battlegroup or a battlegroup where only the carrier is nuclear powered?

Sea Orbit was a theatrical stunt concocted by Vice Admiral John S. McCain, Jr, who wanted to "prove" that nuclear powered ships don't require replenishment oilers. This is facially absurd, though, since all the aircraft were still powered by jet fuel. No actual warfighting capability is added by such stunts. While those ships were all quite capable for their era, leaving your sub chasers and radar picket ships behind is a better than average way to get your carrier sunk.

What military problem are you solving for by equipping a singular ship with a nuclear reactor?

Edit:
Apologies, RobertDyck, but I used the fuel burn rate data for the wrong ship in my above calculations. It was late when I first wrote that and I had a headache. I realized my error almost as soon as I posted it, but decided to leave it there. My data comes from a research paper from the Naval Postgraduate School in Monterey, entitled "Predicting Ship Fuel Consumption: Update, by David A. Schrady, Gordon K. Smyth, Robert B. Vassian, July, 1996". The code for the paper is "ADA313847.pdf".

Kitty Hawk's historical burn rate at 11.1 knots was 2,482gph, so a SCO2 power plant would burn approximately 827.33gph, which means 4,835hrs of plant operation at 13.0315mph. That implies 63,004 statute miles of range, so 1 UNREP even to replenish the ship's fuel bunkers would be required to travel 100,395 statute miles at 13.0315mph, using a SCO2 power plant. Even so, I think that accurately illustrates how silly the "range anxiety" problem is. When Nimitz made her record deployment, she did take on fuel for her air wing many times, though, so the idea that a nuclear powered ship requires no fuel replenishment remains a fantasy. There is no such thing as operating a super carrier (as a mobile airfield) without underway fuel replenishment.

Last edited by kbd512 (Yesterday 17:05:31)

RobertDyck · Yesterday 23:35:35

The Canadian carrier idea probably will never happen. But to answer your question, I was thinking of 40,000 metric tonne displacement. The last Canadian carrier was Bonaventure, a light carrier at 20,000 tonne. Britain considers a "full" carrier to be 40,000 tonne. The French carrier Charles de Gaulle is 42,500 tonne. But an American supercarrier is 100,000 tonne. The Russian icebreaker "50 Let Pobedy" was the last and largest of their nuclear icebreakers, still in service, 25,168 tonnes. It has 2 OK-900A reactors, so a Canadian icebreaker aircraft carrier should work with 3 or 4 such reactors. The cube-square rule applies to ship design. Volume increases as the cube of the length of a ship, and mass (weight) increases directly with volume. However, surface area of the hull increases as the square. Drag is proportionate to surface area, so the larger the ship the more efficient it is.

Each OK-900A produces 171 megawatts thermal, the pair of reactors delivers 54 MW at the propellers. An American Ford class supercarrier has 2 A1B reactors, each of which produce 125 megawatts (168,000 hp) of electricity, plus 350,000 shaft horsepower (260 MW). That's estimated, the Wikipedia article took specs from the A4W and added 25%. That's enough power to operate all 4 propellers from just one reactor.

Yes, one of the features I suggested was a "dual acting hull". That means a hurricane bow at the front that cuts through the waves like a knife. That permits operation in deep seas during a bad storm, including a hurricane. Instead of a squared off stern, an icebreaker bow. So when the ship encounters ice, it just turns around a drives backward. Ships like this are already built. Finland designed a new, more efficient, icebreaker bow. "50 Let Pobedy" uses it. An icebreaker bow is rounded to slide onto the ice like a sled, use the weight of the ship to break ice. An icebreaker bow is not safe in deep ocean in heavy seas, so...both. They use azimuthing pods for propulsion. Propellers have to be deliberately designed strong enough to chop up ice.

Arktika-class icebreakers can break 2.2 metre thick multi-year ice. "50 Let Pobedy" can break 3.0 metre multi-year ice. Due primarily to its new bow. The ship needs a lot of power to break that ice.

Hmm, let's see. Charles de Gaulle has a beam at waterline of 31.5 m. "50 Let Pobedy" has a beam of 30 m. Could a Canadian aircraft carrier get away with 2 reactors? I did say they would use a new Canadian design inspired by the Russian one. Perhaps a bit more power per reactor?

kbd512 · Today 11:01:22

RobertDyck,

The smaller French aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle, may not require refueling at-sea, but they only have 45 days of food onboard, so irrespective of whether or not they need to refuel, they still require UNREP every 2 weeks or so to remain at sea for any significant period of time, even when they're not burning any jet fuel by conducting flights ops.

I consider 40,000t to be the lower limit for useful aircraft carrier capability when operating at least 3 squadrons of jet aircraft, although 60,000t provides significant better capability, and an 80,000t to 110,000t full load displacement provides full super carrier capabilities, because the mass allocation increase allows the carrier to be large enough to store significant amounts of food, fresh water, fuel, aviation ordnance, spare parts, and of course, multiple squadrons of jet aircraft. Smaller aircraft carriers make a lot more sense if the aircraft are smaller and burn less fuel. That is why I suggested repurposing Textron AirLand's Scorpion. If heavy fighters will be operated, then you really need a larger carrier. The Phantom, Tomcat, Rafale, Super Hornet, Lightning II, various navalized Flanker derivatives produced by Sukhoi or Shenyang, and the new Shenyang J-35 are all heavy fighters which require extreme logistical support. I use the term "heavy fighter" to describe any fighter aircraft with a MTOW similar to or greater than a Boeing B-17 or Consolidated B-24 bomber from WWII, both of which had MTOWs of 65,000lbs. The Scorpion's MTOW is 22,000lbs, so it's literally a third of the weight of those other fighters.

Fully laden modern combat jets are around 1/3rd fuel by weight, because they have to be, as a function of their extreme weight and the requirement for extreme amounts of thrust to push them through the air. A B-17 or B-24 carries a similar number of gallons of internal fuel to a heavy fighter, and their cruising range with a modest ordnance load is remarkably similar, even though they travel at slower speeds. This is an indicator that you can do lots of things to optimize aerodynamics when you have a high thrust-to-weight ratio power plant and optimized airframe, but you're not going to "cheat" basic flight physics. Carrying a given payload to a specific distance, whether done using lower speeds / larger airframes / less engine power or much smaller airframe (reduced wetted area) with far greater engine power, your total fuel burn for an optimized airframe and flight profile is remarkably similar across WWII radial piston engines to turboprops to primitive turbojets to modern afterburning turbofans. Modern fighter jet climb rate / turn rate / acceleration performance greatly exceeds that of a B-17, but you end up burning just as much fuel as a WWII era strategic heavy bomber to achieve that performance.

The net net is that operating the consumption-equivalent of WWII era strategic heavy bombers off of aircraft carriers either requires a lot of fuel and space to put those heavy fighters, or very few jets can be carried. I feel like the ship size comparisons below will provide a visual perspective regarding how large of a ship we're talking about.

USS Enterprise (CVN-65) and Charles de Gaulle steaming in the Med, for size comparison purposes, 16 May 2001:

USS John C. Stennis (CVN-74), USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), Charles de Gaulle, and HMS Ocean, 18 April 2002:

This is what the French are planning to build to replace Charles de Gaulle (75,000t full load displacement):

What the world thought of as "the first super carriers" (the Forrestal class), were in fact the smallest ships realistically capable of extended duration blue water operation.

USS Forrestal (CV-59), 31 May 1962:
USS_Forrestal_%28CVA-59%29_underway_at_sea_on_31_May_1962_%28KN-4507%29.jpg

USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63), 23 April 1964:
USS_Kitty_Hawk_%28CVA-63%29_and_USS_Turner_Joy_%28DD-951%29_refueling_from_USS_Kawishiwi_%28AO-146%29_on_23_April_1964.jpg

USS Harry S. Truman (CVN-75) and USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78), 4 June 2020:
USS_Gerald_R._Ford_%28CVN-78%29_and_USS_Harry_S._Truman_%28CVN-75%29_underway_in_the_Atlantic_Ocean_on_4_June_2020_%28200604-N-BD352-0199%29.JPG

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