Future Gerald R. Ford-class aircraft carrier named

[Bish1309]

On 1/19/2020 at 3:59 PM, Fnfalman said:

Better than naming the ship after Clinton or Obama. 

I think they did that with a dry docked Chinese Junk.

[SC Tiger]

31 minutes ago, janice6 said:

I was around during the proposals for the "Photonic Mast" on the latest Submarines..

This was a mast that held a multitude of video cameras of different wavelength  responses, connected through the hull with an optical fiber and an optical rotary joint.  This joint is a marvel in itself).

The advantage of a Photonic Mast is that, where the Submarine once had two holes through the pressure hull of up to a foot or two in diameter, it now could have a hole through the pressure hull of an inch or two.

Again, the advantage of the small hole through the pressure hull of a submarine is that they now can go to considerably deeper depths.  The primary limit on a submarine's depth today, is the very large holes in the pressure hull, to accommodate an optical periscope. (two at least, for redundancy).

So you can see the immediate advantage to the Photonic Mast technology!  It's the significant OPERATING DEPTH INCREASE!

From what I've read, the only issue with the Photonic mast is it makes a Virginia-class sub very easy to identify since it doesn't look anything like a normal periscope.  They are changing the design to fix that.