Trump Rethinks America’s Most Advanced Carrier

Rubric: Security
Format: Special Report
Author: Sinisa Brkic (sb)

President Donald Trump has ordered the Pentagon and U.S. Navy to prepare a fundamental redesign of the future USS Doris Miller, replacing its advanced electromagnetic aircraft launch system with traditional steam catapults. The decision reaches deep into a carrier already designed around a different technological architecture and could add billions of dollars in cost while creating new schedule and integration risks. It also puts Washington on a strikingly different technological path from China and France.

A presidential order reaches deep into carrier design

Trump signed a National Security Presidential Memorandum on August 13 directing the Pentagon and Navy to produce, within 60 days, a plan for replacing the Electromagnetic Aircraft Launch System, known as EMALS, with steam catapults during construction of CVN-81, the future USS Doris Miller. The memorandum goes further, directing planners to replace the ship’s Advanced Weapons Elevators with hydraulic systems and to identify the necessary timetable and resources.

The scope is important. The order does not direct the Navy to tear EMALS out of the USS Gerald R. Ford or retrofit the next two ships in the class, the future USS John F. Kennedy and USS Enterprise. The immediate redesign centers on CVN-81, making the Doris Miller the point at which the administration intends to reverse one of the defining technological choices of the Ford class.

Why the Navy moved beyond steam

Aircraft carriers need catapults because many carrier aircraft cannot reach flying speed within the limited length of a flight deck under their own power. For decades, U.S. carriers solved that problem by using high pressure steam to drive a piston connected to an aircraft along the launch track.

EMALS replaced that mechanism with electromagnetic propulsion. The system was designed to deliver more precise control over launch energy, accommodate a wider range of aircraft weights and reduce stress on airframes through smoother acceleration. The Navy has also promoted advantages in maintenance, efficiency and future aircraft compatibility.

The manpower difference is especially significant on ships already struggling with crew requirements. According to reporting by the Associated Press, operating an EMALS catapult aboard the Ford requires about two sailors, compared with roughly a dozen for the older steam system. Returning to steam therefore affects more than the machinery beneath the flight deck. It potentially changes staffing, maintenance demands and the internal support architecture of a ship designed from the outset around electric systems.

Trump has challenged EMALS for years

The decision is not an abrupt change in Trump’s position. He has attacked electromagnetic catapults since his first term, arguing that they are excessively complicated, expensive and less dependable than the steam technology used successfully across generations of U.S. carriers.

That criticism has a real historical foundation in the difficult development of several technologies introduced on the Ford class. EMALS faced reliability problems and cost concerns during its development, while the carrier program itself became associated with delays and technical difficulties. Those problems, however, do not establish that steam is inherently superior under present operating conditions.

The administration is framing the reversal as part of a broader effort to reduce complexity across naval shipbuilding. Its August memorandum argues that excessive redesigns and complicated systems have contributed to higher costs and delays and calls for greater reliance on proven technology. The unresolved question is whether redesigning a Ford class carrier around steam at this stage will reduce complexity or create a new layer of it.

The USS Doris Miller is not a blank sheet of paper

That question matters because CVN-81 is already well beyond the conceptual design stage. General Atomics, which produces EMALS, says work associated with the Doris Miller launch and recovery equipment is already roughly halfway through production. The company has warned that changing direction now carries substantial cost, schedule and integration risks.

Those concerns extend beyond removing one launch mechanism and inserting another. Steam catapults require supporting equipment, piping and engineering arrangements that differ fundamentally from an electromagnetic system. The carrier’s wider design must accommodate those demands while engineers also work through the administration’s order to replace the Advanced Weapons Elevators with hydraulic technology.

Reuters reported that the transition could cost billions of dollars, but no definitive government estimate for the CVN-81 redesign has yet been released. That distinction is critical because the eventual cost will depend on the engineering plan, contracts, equipment already completed, work that can be salvaged and any resulting construction delays.

The personnel equation cuts against the redesign

The Navy must also consider manpower at a time when filling billets aboard ships remains an operational challenge. A technology that requires more sailors to perform the same launch function introduces a recurring personnel cost that persists long after construction expenses are absorbed.

Steam catapults have one undeniable advantage: decades of operating experience have made their behavior, maintenance demands and failure modes well understood. EMALS represents the opposite tradeoff, using more sophisticated technology in exchange for greater control, reduced manpower requirements and a system designed for the evolving mix of aircraft that future carrier air wings may operate.

That makes the argument more complicated than a simple contest between old and new. Proven technology can reduce one category of risk while increasing another, particularly when it is inserted into a vessel whose architecture was built around a different system.

China is moving in the opposite direction

The international comparison gives the decision wider strategic significance. China has adopted electromagnetic launch technology on its newest carrier generation, while France intends to use an electromagnetic system on its future aircraft carrier. The United States, which pioneered operational electromagnetic carrier launches with the Ford, is now preparing to move one future ship back toward steam.

That does not by itself prove that Beijing or Paris has selected the better solution. Carrier design involves different propulsion systems, aircraft requirements, industrial capabilities and operational concepts. But the contrast is difficult to ignore because electromagnetic launch systems are widely associated with the next generation of carrier aviation, including greater flexibility in launching aircraft of substantially different weights.

For Washington, the strategic issue is therefore larger than technological symbolism. The Navy must determine whether the reliability gained by returning to a mature system outweighs the capabilities, manpower advantages and future development potential it sought when it abandoned steam in the first place.

The 60 day plan will reveal the real price of the decision

The presidential memorandum establishes the direction, but many of the decisive details remain unresolved. The Pentagon and Navy must now determine exactly how the Doris Miller can be redesigned, how much completed work will have to be changed, what the conversion will cost and what it will do to the carrier’s delivery schedule.

The memorandum also makes implementation subject to applicable law and the availability of appropriations. That means the engineering consequences must eventually meet fiscal reality, particularly if the redesign generates the multibillion dollar bill now considered possible.

The first major test will not be whether steam catapults can launch aircraft. The U.S. Navy has already proved that over many decades. The harder question is whether replacing EMALS on a Ford class carrier already under construction can deliver the simplicity and reliability Trump wants without creating precisely the cost growth, design disruption and delays his broader naval policy says it intends to eliminate.