laststandonzombieisland

Looking like 1944 is calling and sending an Essex class fleet carrier into a time warp, the newest Amphibious Assault Ship, PCU
USS America (LHA6) is on her builders trials.

“The amphibious assault ship America (LHA 6), built by Ingalls Shipbuilding in Pascagoula, MS, sails the Gulf of Mexico on
builder’s sea trials, Nov. 7-9, 2013″

Built without a floodable well dock like the 8 LHDs that came before her, or even the Tarawa class LHAs, the America is a strait
aviation-only ship. She’s similar in concept to the old 15,000-ton USS Iwo Jima (LPH-2) amphibious assault ships of the 1960s– just nearly three times as large.

The LHA6 class is optimized to operate a couple squadrons of the new F-35 Joint Strike Fighter, making the ship basically an aircraft carrier when not jam packed full of a Marine Battalion Landing Team and its attached MAU of helicopters and CV-22 aircraft.  The Navy wants 11 of these to replace the LHAs and LHDs currently in service. This class investment means the F-35C variant *has* to be built as these ships would recover their fixed wing birds (AV-8, F-35, CV-22) by vertical landing only.

Lets compare 1944 with 2014

Essex class fleet carrier

• 36,960-ton full load
• 888-feet overall
• 147.5 feet of beam at widest point of deck (only 94 at the waterline)
• 27.5 feet max draft
• 150,000 shp to make 32.7kts at full speed/20,000 knot range at 15 on boiler-fired steam turbines
• 2170 ships crew, 870 airwing
• 90 WWII propeller driven aircraft, 40-modern jets in 1960s/70s.

America class LHA

• 45,693-ton full load
• 844 feet overall
• 106-feet of beam (at waterline, no figure for widest point of deck)
• 70,000 shp to make ’20+’ knots on gas turbines. Range undisclosed but thought to be 9500nm+ at 20kts.
• 1060 ships crew, upto 1600 marines or airwing embarked
• 22-31 modern aircraft

Still, this ‘ambib’ is a more capable aircraft carrier than just about any other ship outside of a NATO navy. It should be noted that
the only other purposely built warship named USS America ever completed was CV-66, commissioned in 1965 and decommissioned in 1996,– was a KittyHawk-class attack carrier.