The United States military has a problem. OK, it has a lot of problems, but the problem I’m specifically referring to is the trend as of late of acquiring unfinished or flawed technology. From a $1 trillion jet that doesn’t seem capable of doing anything well to stealthy destroyers with flawed engines to fancy new aircraft carriers with nonfunctional munition elevators:
The $13 billion Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier, the U.S. Navy’s costliest warship, was delivered last year without elevators needed to lift bombs from below deck magazines for loading on fighter jets.
Previously undisclosed problems with the 11 elevators for the ship built by Huntington Ingalls Industries Inc. add to long-standing reliability and technical problems with two other core systems — the electromagnetic system to launch planes and the arresting gear to catch them when they land.
The Advanced Weapons Elevators, which are moved by magnets rather than cables, were supposed to be installed by the vessel’s original delivery date in May 2017. Instead, final installation was delayed by problems including four instances of unsafe “uncommanded movements” since 2015, according to the Navy.
I guess when the deck is used to launch $1 trillion jets that don’t function reliably, getting munitions to the desk isn’t terribly important.
The modern United States military is addicted to high-tech bells and whistles. While those bells and whistles look great on paper, they are often plagued with problems in real world testing and on the battlefield.
At the rate things are going the United States’ military will win the war for its enemies.
Yeah I never saw the reason steam power(of which a nuclear aircraft carrier has infinite use of) and standard pulleys was too much to continue using given their oh 60+ years of proven use on said aircraft carriers.