I used to work as a cost estimator for military contracts. A life cycle cost estimate is supposed to be based on the cost of R&D through disposal. If a plane has a 30 year life cycle and they were looking at inflation adjusted dollars over the life of the system, it is not that ridiculous that it could end up in the…

Well, that’s because Mr. Turton knows this better than you. It’s too bad you won’t update your stupid comment to reflect that you’re wrong, Turton’s right, and the cost is what Turton claims.

That $4B probably includes 15-20 years of technical support and maintenance assistance from Boeing.

The Kirov would probably never get that close to a US carrier. Battleships and carriers didn’t even get that close in WWII.

Radio waves definitely travel at the speed of light. They’re a form of invisible light. Sure, the sound waves coming out of the speaker on the end are moving at the speed of sound, but it’s traveling at the speed of light the rest of the way.

That Mig-29K pilot probably got tired of waiting in a holding pattern and switched off both engines. “Screw this, I need to go to the head!”

The Kirov outranges and outguns everything in NATO. A full salvo would wipe out an entire carrier group in seconds.

I figured someone beat me to this. My backup joke: “More like aircraft mis-carrier, amiright?!”

Most modern warships eschew large ammunition stores for good reason. A modern naval engagement is not the multiday slugging match of the past. A modern naval engagement is one of gamesmanship and once metal starts flying it’s over in minutes one way or the other. Frankly the Kirovs don’t stand up well to most modern…

Only 10, much to the Navy’s dismay (plus 9 Wasp/America class LHD/LHA, which with a full load of F-35Bs will be potent carriers in their own right). Ford is scheduled to be commissioned next year, which will bring us back to 11.

No, not really. Think of the Kuznetsov as the carrier equivalent of... a 1952 Chevrolet pickup truck. The Russians are out running with the original straight 6, three on the tree, manual drums on all 4 corners, armstrong steering, etc.

Not with a cruise missile; American missile tech is massively dated, much more so than Russia’s CIWS tech. A subsonic Tomahawk is basically useless for ship-to-ship actions, and the Harpoon is too short-ranged. Contrast this to things like the SS-N-22 Shipwreck, a Mach 3 freight train loaded up with 1,500 pounds of…

You know what? I was kind of feeling sorry for them for a minute, but then I remembered that they’re there to dumb-bomb urban targets and keep Assad in power.

Nothing like that. The Russian carrier is not actually that old (newer than five of our 10 Nimitz class carriers), and while not as large as an American super carrier or the UK’s new Queen Elizabeth class, it’s bigger than anything else out there.

Are we sure we do not want to ENCOURAGE Russia to send more of its navy out? At its current rate of deterioration, entropy would destroy the Russian Navy before we ever need to fire a shot.

“The plumbing is so bad many of the toilets cannot be used.”

Just a few clarifications here. The Mig-29K that crashed a few weeks ago was circling waiting to land rather than in the process of landing. It was in a holding pattern waiting for, you guessed it, the arresting wire system to be repaired when it suffered a dual engine failure. It was initially believed to have run…

“That Russian aircraft carrier is under attack!”
“Negative, sir; it just does that.”
“Oh.”

As seen from Gore’s presentation to Trump.