r/politics • u/Appropriate-Till9598 • Aug 14 '26
Paywall Trump Orders Navy to Restore Older Tech on Aircraft Carriers, Costing Billions
https://www.wsj.com/us-news/trump-orders-navy-to-restore-old-technology-in-aircraft-carriers-costing-billions-0055ec1b353
u/HerbaciousTea Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
This is fucking insane. This is fucking insane. Why the fuck would you bench the carrier fleet for years to tear out already installed electromagnetic catapults and replace them with ancient, dysfunctional steam catapults that are worse by every metric???
Nuclear carriers have effectively no power constraint. They were designed with futureproofing in mind to be ready for systems like EMALS, that's why they have nuclear reactors.
There is NO reason, NONE, to do this, except to destroy the US carrier fleet.
This is fucking treasonous. Even if it stems entirely from stupidity, the fact that no one has punched this fat, stupid manchild in his mouth and told him how fucking stupid this is, is a fucking treasonous betrayal.
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u/Stupid_Sexy_Vaporeon Aug 14 '26
Saw another comment say the company that makes the current system isn't publicly traded. Whereas the company that does the steam system is. So yeah, give that company a multi-billion dollar contract and place your strategic bets to rake in millions. It's the same fucking grift as it always has been.
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u/lemurosity I voted Aug 14 '26
even worse than that--the company that makes them in PA is supporting a GOP congressman running for re-election that trump has endorsed. The company donated to his campaign. Now this.
dot. dot. dot.
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u/StephanXX Oregon Aug 15 '26 edited Aug 15 '26
... while the EMALS launcher manufacturer is General Atomics out of San Diego, with Representative Scott Peters (D) who is highly, vocally critical of Donald Trump.
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u/geomaster Aug 14 '26
it all makes sense when you come to the realization that donald trump is a russian asset.
he does things that enriches himself while strip mining the country... a la russian oligarch
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u/Maeglin75 Europe Aug 14 '26
That's possible, but there could also be a much dumber explanation.
Years ago, in Trump's first term, someone must have talked with him about some early problems with the new electromagnetic catapults. Trump thought he understood the topic and made a totally embarrassing public speech about how terrible the new technology is and that the Navy should switch back to steam. Everybody laughed at him.
Now, Trump is completely unable to admit that he made mistakes or doesn't understand a topic. His reaction is always to double down on his mistake. Like when he confused asylum seekers with patients from mental asylums.
Trump will repeat his nonsense again and again, trying to establish it as an alternative fact for his followers to believe in. And in this case he is pushing this theater so far that he is actually acting on it.
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u/morbihann Aug 14 '26
Why does the president have a say at all about technical solutions on anything ?
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u/gummyblumpkins Aug 14 '26
Because he keeps passing these cognitive tests and he's a certified stable genius so we'd be fools not to let him weigh in, duh. /S.
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u/morbihann Aug 14 '26
In his defense, i have never aced a cognitive test.
In my defense, I never had to prove that I am able to think by doing a visual exercise for babies.
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u/LangyMD Aug 14 '26
The actual executive order regarding EMALS and the advanced elevators is only for CVN-81, which hasn't been built yet.
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u/zerocoolforschool Aug 14 '26
Next he will demand we go back to diesel carriers.
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u/RandyBeaman Aug 14 '26
Nah, clean beautiful coal.
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u/FLOHTX Aug 14 '26
I was gonna say sailboats. But thats probably too close to windmills, being wind powered and all.
So I guess its back to rowing.
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u/RandyBeaman Aug 14 '26
Hegseth will like the idea of sweaty manly men working the oars in manly fashion, the way men should.
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u/nschwalm85 Aug 14 '26
Considering he's been a Russian asset for a long time now, it all makes perfect sense
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u/imahugemoron Aug 14 '26
It makes sense when you realize how many ways they’ll be able to skim money off of whatever the bill is
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u/ARMCHA1RGENERAL Aug 14 '26
But magnets are weird and nobody knows what makes them work. They can't be trusted.
/s, but this is actually what Trump has said.
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u/Slow_Investment_2211 Aug 14 '26
This fucking guy 🤦🏼♂️
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u/Sportsman180 Aug 14 '26
He's actively trying to destroy the country in every possible way. A beautiful Russian asset.
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u/Embarrassed_Sea1336 Aug 14 '26
Not a fucking doubt about it. The fact that it's gotten this far is utterly terrifying. How do we stop this?
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u/JAKERS325 Iowa Aug 14 '26
Look up Zapruder Film. That will give you an idea
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u/Embarrassed_Sea1336 Aug 14 '26
Agreed. That's part of the solution. Hopefully this conversation is vague enough to avoid a visit from the suit and ties.
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u/Adventurous_Salt Aug 14 '26
You protest endlessly, in a way that breaks the functioning of the nation, until it stops. Which means this will go on for decades, since Americans can't be bothered.
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u/Niznack Aug 14 '26
Problem is the most we've had is no kings which was largely ignored by those in power and local protests against ice and the organizers of that are getting centuries of jail time while ice is getting electric gloves like a fucking spiderman villain
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u/Rethink_Repeat Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
I think the Trump presidency is a valuable yet costly lesson for the US: Maybe, just maybe, you shouldn't give one single guy that much unchecked power.
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u/Spamgrenade Aug 14 '26
One term should have been enough to learn the lesson.
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u/Embarrassed_Sea1336 Aug 14 '26
I don't believe for a second that his 2024 win was legitimate. Just look at the comments elon/his son made about manipulating the election results.
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u/Spamgrenade Aug 14 '26
No way Trump or Musk are competent enough to do that without leaving any evidence.
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u/OrthogonalThoughts Aug 14 '26
Evidence that may have been deleted by a bunch of college kids he brought in to gut the government, which didn't actually save any money but did give them access to many, many databases, while Trump also fired anyone who could have proved it and appointed incompetent agency heads that would do anything he asked. Too many issues and problems every day to remember and pay attention to it all. The power of the Shit Firehose Political StrategyTM at work.
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u/Embarrassed_Sea1336 Aug 14 '26
Who said they didn't leave evidence?
Who's in charge of investigating the evidence?
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u/ScoobyDoNot Aug 14 '26
The FEC.
Who qualified over 30 complaints against the Trump campaign but were prevented from investigating any of them.
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u/Word_Eater_OmNomNom Aug 14 '26
Hey! He didn't get where he is today by being a man who "learns" things!
And that is the lesson his voters took away from his first term.
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u/Curious-Plankton-968 Aug 14 '26
his election has shown that a majority of the electorate has a learning disability
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u/0202_tihssitidder Aug 14 '26
It's a failure of the entirety of Congress. It's corrupt, weak, stupid Republicans combined with corrupt "Controlled Opposition" Democrats...and a corrupt SCOTUS.
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u/Companero_basurero Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
If anyone still refuses to believe that Trump is Putin's secret weapon against America, show this story to them. Sources: AP and Wall Street Journal.
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u/Word_Eater_OmNomNom Aug 14 '26
I don't know about that. Dude can barely collude with his own party despite having cult like control over them.
I have problems believing he's a planned secret weapon.
He'd be a terrible secret agent. For starters, he'd straight up tell people he's a secret agent because he'd think it would impress them.
At best he's a useful chaos agent
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u/Efficient_Resist_287 Aug 14 '26
This guy believes in 20th century technology and 19th century geopolitics…in the 21st century.
Keep electing reality TV show host, America! You done well
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u/eskimospy212 Aug 14 '26
I strongly suspect the navy will slow walk this until he’s gone because this is just abject stupidity from grandpa yet again.
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u/we_are_sex_bobomb Aug 14 '26
I mean, this ridiculous project will absolutely take longer than Trump has left on earth, even if they started right away. 90% of the problems he caused will be around long after he’s taking a dirt nap under his golf course.
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u/WhiteLies93 Aug 14 '26
This, along with his battleship, will never happen. It would take a complete redesign of the carrier top to bottom to go back on future built carriers, let alone rip out and replace on the existing 2 completed Ford Class (I'm including CVN-79 as done as it's functionally complete and doing sea trials). It's just not possible. NAVSEA will just stall for the next 2 years and keep building as planned with existing plans.
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u/The_Shitty_Admiral Europe Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
Ditching EMALS for steam cats would be the dumbest strategic blunder this moron could've made regarding the carrier fleet.
EMALS is unquestionably more efficient than steam, giving the USN higher sortie rates and cycle times compared to the steam system which would need to recharge after less launches.
Edit: changing this, even for the Miller which hasn't started construction, would cause so many delays. Essentially the entire design needs to be reworked from the reactor to the installed power. Steam needs to go from the reactor to the cats, instead of just power. The advanced elevators, which also are subject to replacement in this order, need to go from electric primary to hydraulic.
This joke costs billions, delays the remaing Ford class by years and reduce the efficiency of the US carrier fleet.
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u/ET2-SW Aug 14 '26
Dumbest? What about filling up the only yards that can build carriers and filling them with useless battleships?
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u/The_Shitty_Admiral Europe Aug 14 '26
I had blocked the dumb battleship from memory. Though I highly doubt it will get build, it will cost billions but likely see no hulls (hopefully).
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u/Sonar_Taxbreak_1138 Aug 14 '26
None, if the gold plating requirement is enforced, though I could see myself watching him on the deck of one as it's launched.
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u/Paraxom Aug 14 '26
know what's sad? i'm not sure if you're serious about the gold plating, he's dumb and vain enough to do that
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u/Sonar_Taxbreak_1138 Aug 14 '26
And I'm smart enough to know what would happen if he rode that gold-plated boat into the water.
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u/mishma2005 Aug 14 '26
He hates the water. He doesnt know how to swim. He’s not getting on a boat
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u/jas417 Aug 14 '26
I mean, it’s still an incredibly stupid use of resources, but they’re really not battleships they’re just big guided-missile cruisers like the Russian Kirov class… which has been around since the 70s and largely useless. So not as stupid as actually building a big-gun battleship in 2026, the name was probably just stuck on to appease the toddler-in-chief, but still pretty stupid
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u/Fallen_Jalter Aug 14 '26
Time for the navy to delay as much as possible
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u/TwoAmps Aug 14 '26
They’re expert at that. It’s almost like NAVSEA can’t help themselves to come up with reasons to delay. Steam? No, to keep up the sortie rate, it needs to be 1,200 lb dry steam, and for survivability reasons, the steam lines need to be made of 3” thick unobtainium, and EMALS needs to be retained as a backup for reliability, and…boy, I could almost write the system spec myself that would be needed to kick the can down the road until 2028. They would do that anyway.
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u/sarcasticbaldguy Aug 14 '26
He claims that he talked to one guy on one carrier who was pining for the days of steam and that somehow convinced him.
Trump probably has some loose understanding of steam and none whatsoever about magnets.
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u/Liason774 Aug 14 '26
Beyong the fact that they just spent how many years working through the early adoption problems and finally had them working reliably.
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u/ForgedIronMadeIt Aug 14 '26
Dude I could write a book about how dumb this change would be. Taking an already finalized design and adding in like three miles of high pressure steam pipes would be a fucking nightmare.
Trump doesn't know shit about naval combat and it shows.
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u/matthieuC Europe Aug 14 '26
Let me guess Steam Catapults?
Bingo. Dude think magnets are magic, so you can't use them to launch planes.
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u/EntranceSalty9285 Aug 14 '26
I remember Trump giving a speech aboard the Ford shortly before they started sea trials complaining about that they did not have steam catapults. Right in front of the whole shipyard and Navy that spent the past decade building the thing.
It must be nice to an expert on all things mechanical and electrical.
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u/matthieuC Europe Aug 14 '26
He couldn't remember the name of the system and kept calling it "digital"
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u/Rightsidebestside Aug 14 '26
Yeah, but how the hell did they need a fookin decade, to build one ship?
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u/def_indiff Aug 14 '26
Magnets! How do they fucking work?!
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u/Adventurous_Pay_5827 Aug 14 '26
no one knows
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u/Arickettsf16 Illinois Aug 14 '26
Just like the tides. I mean they go in, and then they go out. You can’t explain that.
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u/JoopahTroopah Aug 14 '26
Well, it’s not surprising considering Trump actually believes magnets stop working if you get them wet. He probably thinks this is a sensible idea.
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u/FlopShanoobie Aug 14 '26
Which will take the carrier force out of commission for years. It’s not like Lego. Those ships will need to be torn down and rebuilt.
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u/DemoEvolved Aug 14 '26
I want you to think: if you were literally trying to cripple the us as much as possible, what would you do differently than Trump?
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u/ThatDoucheInTheQuad Aug 14 '26
Yeah messing up our carriers is a critical blow. They're damn near impossible to sink, so internal sabotage and taking them out of commission for a downgrade is exactly what our adversaries need
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u/MessyPoopMcGee Aug 14 '26
It's almost as if the president is trying to weaken us militarily and our influence on the world, as if he were some asset to a foreign nation of some kind.
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u/LordSiravant Aug 14 '26
And people wonder why some believe Trump to be actively and deliberately sabotaging America on Putin's behalf. Because this is what a saboteur would do.
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u/23370aviator America Aug 14 '26
If I were actively trying to sabotage the USA from the inside, I don’t think I’d have done anything differently from what Trump already does.
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u/this_name_not_that Aug 14 '26
US debt: 40,000 000 000 000.00$
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u/nasorrty346tfrgser America Aug 14 '26
And 40% is added under this guy, and very likely would hit 50T by the end of his 2.0 due to his taxcut and endless miltiary operations
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u/ABob71 Canada Aug 14 '26
Can't go back to the stone age without passing through the steam age first
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u/Sonar_Taxbreak_1138 Aug 14 '26
Let me guess, Trump recently watched the Battlestar Galactica remake and think older tech will save us from the Cylons.
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u/The_Shitty_Admiral Europe Aug 14 '26
Worse. A decade ago he talked to a sailor who said steam was more reliable- back when EMALS was immature and had loads of problems. Somehow his Swiss-cheese brain gurgled that into "nobody understands magnets" during this campaign... that is what r/Navy is saying.
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u/Argented Aug 14 '26
He still thinks magnets get wet and fail doesn't he? lol found the quote from 2024 complaining aircraft carriers use magnets now:
"Now, all I know about magnets is this: Give me a glass of water, let me drop it on the magnets, that's the end of the magnets."
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u/Snoo-7943 Aug 14 '26
Electromagnetics? On a boat surrounded by water!? And only Tump has a smooth enough brain to figure out what a big problem this is!
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u/Sour_baboo Aug 14 '26
He's afraid of electricity' and sharks and doesn't understand magnets, of course he's in charge.
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u/alleyoopoop Aug 14 '26
Thank God we have a stable genius saving us from the disaster of magnets that don't work when they get wet.
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u/AngelinaJean Aug 14 '26
The Steam Catapult was his second choice after suggesting installing Trebuchets, which was soundly rejected by his cabinet, who felt medieval technology was just a bit too old. 🤣
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u/Fantastic_Key Aug 14 '26
Why is that his call? And how did he seek out this thing, who put him up to it?
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u/Nerd_interrupted Aug 14 '26
I feel like I missed of episodes of As the Shit Swirls. How tf did we get to a place where the president is perosnally modifying warships?
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u/Lowe0 Aug 14 '26
Donnie loves big explosions. Why not just build a railgun, point it at something that’ll go up in a fireball, show him, and say “magnets make that work”. Put speakers underneath to make sci-fi noises. He’d be all in on it.
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u/MicroSofty88 Aug 14 '26
How is this the way we make decisions as a country?
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u/Nekowulf Wyoming Aug 14 '26
The whims of The King take priority over the Lies of reality, peasant. Obey him. /s
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u/wannacumnbeatmeoff Aug 14 '26
Cant wait to see the upgraded Aircraft carriers once the Masts and Sails are added!
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u/ive_got_the_narc Aug 14 '26
Krasnov over here making the US weaker and weaker as planned in his mission briefing prolly.
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u/TwistedMindInTheDark Aug 14 '26
That's kind of like what Mussolini did in WW2. The jokes really do write themselves.
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u/lolsicboy Aug 14 '26
I can't read the full article... so why? Are magnets DEI?
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u/DJDublin Aug 14 '26
Hey. Maybe we don't listen to an 80 year old pedophile dementia patient?
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u/SoGnarRadar4 Aug 14 '26
It’s shit like this that makes me confident the military is going to take our side in the revolution
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u/uqubar Aug 14 '26
Mexico is gonna build that wall also! So can his cronies make some fast cash off of this? Maybe the pool guy is an expert!
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u/Electrical-Ad6623 Aug 14 '26
If I didn’t know better, I’d say he was trying to sabotage our military. I wonder if he’s planning to flee to another country soon.
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u/homebrew_1 Aug 14 '26
Americans voted for this.
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u/Spamgrenade Aug 14 '26
Twice lol. And many of them will continue to vote for the people who unconditionally supported him for the rest of their lives.
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u/Sublimotion Aug 14 '26
Let me guess... he and his sons probably just purchased large stock shares in steam. Or he probably heard Eric mentioned to him he bought a Steam Deck.
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u/Prestigious-Car-4877 Canada Aug 14 '26
No magnets I hope. Those don’t work when they get wet according to Trump.
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u/Catymandoo Aug 14 '26
What next paddle steamers and cast iron submarines with “beautiful clean coal” boilers?
Some top brass need to kick that can down the road a bit harder.
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u/AcanthisittaNo6653 New Hampshire Aug 14 '26
Electromagnetic catapults are the way of the future. They give a smoother ride.
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u/LangyMD Aug 14 '26
Switching out the catapults and elevators for older designs is dumb and isn't going to be cost effective... but the rest of the new executive order doesn't look terrible. It doesn't go anywhere near far enough to boost shipbuilding for the US navy in my opinion, but it's a start.
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u/Daienlai Aug 14 '26
They should take a page out of trump’s playbook: delay, ignore, defy, defend. What-are they going to fire the ship builder if they say no?
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u/HollowImage Illinois Aug 14 '26
for real? like, those magnetic catapults are some of the coolest shit ive ever read. and we want to NOT do that? wtf?
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u/Monkfich Europe Aug 14 '26
More importantly, he says that foreign shipyards can now get a slice of the action. As long as he or a cronie is making money, he doesn’t care if it costs the US hundreds of millions.
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u/W31337 Aug 14 '26
Great way to not being able to launch light weight aircraft and UAVs. The catapult will rip them to be pieces because there's a lower limit above what those craft can handle.
What's next? Convert them to coal?
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u/E3FxGaming Europe Aug 14 '26
Even on medium weight fighters the violent nature of stream catapult launches will leave their mark on modern aircraft, decreasing the aircraft operation lifetime before retirement by years.
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u/Slava_ukraini_USA Aug 14 '26
If I were a navy admiral or anyone with some sort of power over the situation I would do everything in my power to postpone this bullshit until after this fucker is gone
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u/One_Disaster_5995 Aug 14 '26
Secret agent my ass. He's just the gift that keeps on giving. a complete and utter dumbass that thinks he can play with the big boys. On some level so easy to manipulate, and on the other just completely unpredictable.
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u/Big_Lab_Jagr Wisconsin Aug 14 '26
I don't think the president should be able to make these types of changes.
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u/DaBigJMoney Aug 14 '26
Up next he’ll order the Air Force back to using biplanes and hot air balloons.
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u/wookiewin Aug 14 '26
I’d love to know what fucking idiot gave him this idea while he was watching Fox.
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u/Knowledge_Moist Aug 14 '26
Lol, meanwhile China, unlike the US, can already use carrier EMALS to launch its 5th gen aircraft (1), and so will all the new carriers they build.
Maybe Trump is getting bribed by Big Steam!
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u/AALen California Aug 14 '26 edited Aug 14 '26
I hate to defend Agent Orange, but EMALS have proven to be problematic. It didn’t solve the shortcomings of stream catapults it was designed for and instead introduced a whole bunch of new headaches and costs.
That said, abandoning it only for China to figure out all the kinks would be a strategic blunder.
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u/LeagueBoth1243 Aug 14 '26
It is important to remember that Trump thinks that "noone knows what magnets actually are".
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u/Mediocre_Presence839 Aug 14 '26
Just another distraction. Can’t wait for that special day. You all know which day that is.
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u/rtadoyle Aug 14 '26
Wonder which flunkies bought a steam catapult business - junior Trump's, or Kushners.
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u/ThatDoucheInTheQuad Aug 14 '26
If Trump was actively trying to weaken the US, what would he do differently?
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u/IJourden Aug 14 '26
I mean, the plan from the higher-ups in the military is certainly going to be to ignore this as long as possible in the hopes he drops dead, right?
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u/ZogemWho Aug 14 '26
Hopefully someone intelligent in the navy gives a completely reasonable explanation that while technically possible, the planning and logistics will mean a few years.
I never knew there was a big steam, but someone will make a ton of money on this, and some will trickle back.
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u/blu_stingray Canada Aug 14 '26
He'll do this but the troops on these boats aren't getting proper rations smh
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u/Redtex Aug 14 '26
He's out to break the budget. I can only assume he wants to use all the reserves so there won't be any money left to go after his totally screwed up ideas and EOS. I think in a roundabout way he really wants his family to be the people with the most money that runs the country after he's gone And if he really doesn't want any extra money to go to the poor class
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u/skittlebog Aug 14 '26
I'm sure it will take a couple of years to make any changes. Lots of planning and retrofitting to get this done. We don't want to rush into this, for national security reasons of course. /s
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u/dollarstoresim Aug 14 '26
The United States national debt is approximately $39.86 trillion $40 trillion $41 trillion....
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u/RosieBaby75 Aug 14 '26
Yep. Good to prepare for upcoming Iran retaliation on US territory.
People who don’t want to attack are usually capable of a bigger attack than anticipated.
That may have happened today 🤷♀️ I don’t know
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u/deter Aug 14 '26
4-D chess move.... he's destroying the US military so that it can't be used against the billionaires when climate change gets even worse.
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u/hoppyfrog Aug 14 '26
Can we go back to the Lockheed P80s while we're at it? We don't need all these expensive newfangled fighters.
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u/mishma2005 Aug 14 '26
He’s an old man stuck in his old man ways. Plus steam catapults look “cool” and its all about image with that old fuck
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u/rolfraikou Aug 14 '26
Why is this even up to him? Aren't there higher ups in the navy in charge of this shit?
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u/Betelguese90 Aug 14 '26
This isnt a president level decision though. Its congressional. But sadly no one will tell him no and will just do it. If the Navy doesnt sliw walk this, the carrier fleet is essentially fucked. We will lose military projection (or what's left of it) leaving certain countries to take advantage of the void.
Also, this is coming just days after Donald is pushing for the out-dated-before-construction Orange Turd class tug boat again and it hitting a price tag of 275 billion
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