CVN-77 reactor pictures

I figured people would enjoy these pictures, since it was mentioned in another thread that the USN never really released anything on nuclear surface ship machinery. You can clearly see a Nimitz with both reactors and a number of turbines installed. I’m pretty certain its CVN-77 based on all the other pictures I found these with.

So why would you?

XP67_Moonbat said:

So why would you?

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: What, do you think I got my own helicopter, flew it back in time, took these and then posted them online? They are official Northrop Grumman photos, which is why the first one is marked up with a bunch of corporate propaganda about how big the shipyard is. The stuff is already on many other sites too. Its public information, and will have now been archived all over the world by web crawlers. Here's one place that used the picture in a photo essay.
http://www.dailypress.com/news/dp-cvn77-01,0,5744629.htmlstory

Its not like it matters one bit either, anyone with the resources to specifically target a reactor would already have had the resources to buy the plans off the Russians who easily would have stolen them decades ago. Not to mention the very first time a Nimitz was refueled, the secret was blown anyway. One satellite pass could look at the holes cut in the deck to lower in the fuel rods, and that’s all you need. As you can see from the side protection system, and the internal box the reactors are in they are not at risk from a mere terrorist speed boat exploding alongside. That assumes they somehow missed photographing every time we built a Nimitz when all this stuff would be in plain sight for months if not a year or more.

The ship would be much worse off if an enemy with precision targeting dropped his delay action missile into a magazine anyway. That’d destroy the ship and easily kill 99% of the crew with no chance of escape. A reactor being breached would only kill hundreds at worst, and force abandonment. Never mind USN amphibious warfare ships, detailed diagrams of which including magazine locations have been available for a very long time, and which have much less protection and yet thousands of sailors and marines packed on. Heck even the supposedly paranoid as hell Russians have now released details on the nuclear machinery of Kuznetsov and numerous nuclear submarines. Interestingly Kuznetsov does not have reactor dispersal either. They placed them side by side, presumably to save a lot of weight on biological shielding on a limited displacement carrier.

By the way, I just checked Google earth and guess what, you can see the bow reactor on one Nimitz being built on the historical imagary, the ship shown is also CVN-77 based on the date. The stern has been completed to the point of enclosing the reactor space.

So yeah… that means the US government is not taking any significant actions to conceal this information at all, never mind the contractor publishing the photos in the first place! They could get Google to blur the shipyard, just as the Naval Observatory in Washington DC was concealed to protect Dick Cheney, but they didn’t. They don’t even have our active freaking SSBN bases obscured, while the French one at Brest is. No doubt because of exactly what I pointed out above, the information is just not that important to an enemy. Its is however very valuable to we enthusiasts who would like to dream up our own paper projects with some accuracy, and seek to understand the rational behind design decisions on real ones, which is why I posted it.

Well, that was a pretty convincing rebuttal ;D

That's a minor price to pay for living in a relatively open society: secrets are hard to keep.

Sea Skimmer said:

Heck even the supposedly paranoid as hell Russians have now released details on the nuclear machinery of Kuznetsov and numerous nuclear submarines. Interestingly Kuznetsov does not have reactor dispersal either. They placed them side by side, presumably to save a lot of weight on biological shielding on a limited displacement carrier.

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Eh, Kuznetsov is not nuclear powered. Do you perhaps mean Kirov or Ulyanovsk?

xmotex said:

Well, that was a pretty convincing rebuttal ;D

That's a minor price to pay for living in a relatively open society: secrets are hard to keep.

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What did you see? Oh, a box.

sferrin said:

xmotex said:

Well, that was a pretty convincing rebuttal ;D

That's a minor price to pay for living in a relatively open society: secrets are hard to keep.

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What did you see? Oh, a box.

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We cannot allow a box gap!

Meteorit said:

Eh, Kuznetsov is not nuclear powered. Do you perhaps mean Kirov or Ulyanovsk?

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Yeah Ulyanovsk, though I have also seen the diagrams for three of the of Kievs and Kuznetsov too. So far nothing seems to have been released on Kirov. My guess on that is its because of a desire to conceal the true extent of the reported extensive armoring.

Sea Skimmer,

I did kinda shoot from the hip the other day, didn't I? With the VA-issued metal plate in my head, I do sometimes forget when and where I am. Well, I'll try to be careful next time.

Sea Skimmer said:

: What, do you think I got my own helicopter, flew it back in time, took these and then posted them online?

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And added annotations about NG's shipyard, too!

But seriously, maybe I just have really poor eyesight but I can't make out any worthwhile details about the reactors anyway.

same photo ~but much larger & useful ;D

This may sound pretty stupid, but what part is the reactor?

My guess would be the big light grey boxes with what look like sliding covers on their tops.


It is an interesting photo. Not a view of a under-construction nuclear ship I've ever seen prior to this.

As an aside, there are side view internal arrangement drawings of the Kirov and Ulyanovsk as well as an orthographic cut-away view of their KN-3 reactor in some of Pavlov's and Apalkovs reference books on the Soviet fleet (all russian language).

B)

There are two classes of modern nuke carriers Enterprise (only one of this class, has 8 reactors) and the Nimitz class (has 2 reactors). If you want to see what the reactor looks like I suggest not looking at ships. Search for the actual reactor. I uses the A4W, 4 means it was the fourth design W means its Westinghouse, A identifies if it sub or not, this is surface design "A". Not much to see from the outside. A big cylindrical object with big pipes coming out with valves and pumps on it.

How about this picture?

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikipedia/commons/thumb/6/60/Wwer-1000-scheme.png/256px-Wwer-1000-scheme.png

Remember though, this is about half the height of the carrier.

RobPrell said:

There are two classes of modern nuke carriers Enterprise (only one of this class, has 8 reactors) and the Nimitz class (has 2 reactors). If you want to see what the reactor looks like I suggest not looking at ships. Search for the actual reactor. I uses the A4W, 4 means it was the fourth design W means its Westinghouse, A identifies if it sub or not, this is surface design "A". Not much to see from the outside. A big cylindrical object with big pipes coming out with valves and pumps on it.

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Point of order: Enterprise has been rebuilt to use the Nimitz powerplant. The eight-reactor plant is history.

Madurai said:

RobPrell said:

There are two classes of modern nuke carriers Enterprise (only one of this class, has 8 reactors) and the Nimitz class (has 2 reactors). If you want to see what the reactor looks like I suggest not looking at ships. Search for the actual reactor. I uses the A4W, 4 means it was the fourth design W means its Westinghouse, A identifies if it sub or not, this is surface design "A". Not much to see from the outside. A big cylindrical object with big pipes coming out with valves and pumps on it.

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Point of order: Enterprise has been rebuilt to use the Nimitz powerplant. The eight-reactor plant is history.

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I doubt that.
The CVN-65 Enterprise has (still) eight A2W reactors.

I've never seen this before. Thanks for sharing! Pretty cool.

fightingirish said:

Madurai said:

RobPrell said:

There are two classes of modern nuke carriers Enterprise (only one of this class, has 8 reactors) and the Nimitz class (has 2 reactors). If you want to see what the reactor looks like I suggest not looking at ships. Search for the actual reactor. I uses the A4W, 4 means it was the fourth design W means its Westinghouse, A identifies if it sub or not, this is surface design "A". Not much to see from the outside. A big cylindrical object with big pipes coming out with valves and pumps on it.

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Point of order: Enterprise has been rebuilt to use the Nimitz powerplant. The eight-reactor plant is history.

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I doubt that.
The CVN-65 Enterprise has (still) eight A2W reactors.

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And any guesses as to where they might be?

Trench 94 at Hanford, these days...

What are the 8 items framed by the white lines?

Presumably, reactor access openings.

RLBH said:

Presumably, reactor access openings.

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I thought they were too but I could swear a guy who use to serve said those areas were related to the drive shafts or something. I'll check later.

JohnR said:

What are the 8 items framed by the white lines?

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IMHO reactor access openings.
Source (German): http://www.explorermagazin.de/boote/trench94.htm