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USS America: Why the Navy Took 4 Weeks to Sink Their Own Aircraft Carrier

Sinking Aircraft Carrier
Sinking Aircraft Carrier. Computer Generated Image/YouTube Screenshot.

What You Need to Know: The U.S. Navy’s SINKEX of the USS America and shock trials on the USS Ford have reshaped aircraft carrier survivability.

-The USS America’s deliberate sinking in 2005 revealed vulnerabilities to air, surface, and undersea threats, sparking innovations in carrier design and layered defenses.

-Lessons learned influenced the development of larger, more resilient carriers like the Ford-class, which underwent its own shock trials to address structural and technical weaknesses.

-These exercises have driven advancements in radar, interceptors, electronic warfare, and ship-mounted lasers, ensuring carriers remain a cornerstone of U.S. naval power in an evolving threat environment.

USS America’s SINKEX: Lessons in Carrier Survivability

For many years, the United States Navy “shock trials” have provided a critical method of assessing the durability, survivability, ability to sustain damage, and overall performance parameters while under attack for emerging warships

Air-dropped bombs, undersea torpedos, cruise missiles, and small arms fire are all directed toward a new warship to ensure the vessel can function within and simply withstand dangerous combat conditions and survive large-scale attacks. Warships are assessed regarding their ability to survive direct hits and sustain the turbulent sea states generated by bombs exploding nearby. 

The Navy regularly does this and quite often performs what it calls “SINKEX,” efforts to actually succeed in “sinking” a ship to determine its vulnerabilities and ability to function through enemy attack.   

One famous SINKEX instance in 2005 fully sank the USS America (CV-66) carrier as part of a deliberate effort to assess aircraft carrier survivability. While this SINKEX exercise took place as far back as 2005, it offered valuable insights into questions regarding layered ship defenses and carrier survivability. The USS America was one of the US Navy’s classic Kitty Hawk-class Supercarriers built as far back as the 1960s.

Supercarrier in Vietnam & Desert Storm 

The large USS America ship performed admirably, supporting US air power projection in several conflicts, including the Vietnam War and Desert Storm. Many proponents of the revered platform hoped it would become a museum. Yet, senior Navy and Pentagon officials chose the ship for the SINKEX exercise to learn key lessons about carrier designs and survivability. 

The live-fire attack exercise certainly showed that large carrier platforms were indeed quite vulnerable to air, surface, and undersea attack, as the USS America was bombarded with missiles, bombs, and torpedoes in a live-fire test. The live-fire test took place to learn valuable lessons regarding carrier construction and layered ship defenses. 

USS Gerald R. Ford. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

USS Gerald R. Ford. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Some might have argued that the destruction of the USS America suggested that large-deck ships such as carriers had become, or were becoming, obsolete in light of new enemy weapons. At the same time, the opposite may also be true, meaning much was learned about methods of successfully protecting carriers. 

For instance, the Nimitz-class and Ford-class carriers are significantly “larger” than the Kitty Hawk-class, indicating that perhaps the Navy learned new methods of protecting larger, less mobile, massive big-deck carriers. The USS Ford deck, for example, is larger than the Nimitz-class to enable a 33-percent increase in sortie rate. 

USS America: One Really Hard Aircraft Carrier to Sink 

The USS America was the largest ship ever to sink, and one can envision the kinds of survivability lessons the US Navy might have learned. Did the Navy know how to redesign or fortify a carrier’s large “hull” with new protections and materials? Perhaps the Navy examined precisely where on the ship the USS America “broke” or “cracked” before taking on water and sinking. 

If key lessons were learned about carrier vulnerability to certain weapons, the US Navy likely made many modifications, structural adjustments, and protection reinforcements to better “harden” carriers against future attacks. One distinct possibility is that the US Navy learned how supporting ships by sailing in a Carrier Strike Group can protect carriers. 

Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier Artist Rendering. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

Ford-Class Aircraft Carrier Artist Rendering. Image Credit: Creative Commons.

It took the Navy four weeks to sink the carrier, having to use charges onboard the warship to finally sink her. 

For instance, did the sinking of the USS America help the US Navy learn how to detect incoming anti-ship missiles and other threats using Aegis radar? Perhaps it helped the Navy arm its fleet of destroyers with new generations of electronic warfare (EW), interceptor missiles, and weapons systems designed to detect and protect against enemy attacks upon carriers. Defenses built into US Navy destroyers are designed to operate alone and to protect carriers in a Carrier Strike Group.

In more recent years, carrier vulnerability lessons learned have likely informed the rapid development of ship-mounted lasers, advanced SM-6 interceptors, Aegis Combat System fleet networking, SPY-1 radar, vertically towed array sonar, and precision-guided, ship-launched gun ammunition and missiles. 

USS Ford Shock Trials

In recent years, the US Navy continued its carrier-survivability learning curve with Shock Trials on the USS Ford. The trials, which involved exploding a large number of bombs close to the USS Ford, helped identify structural and technical vulnerabilities in the ship, which were then addressed and corrected before the ship was deployed. 

Ford-Class

The Ford-class aircraft carrier USS Gerald R. Ford (CVN 78) and the Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Harry S. Truman (CVN 75) transit the Atlantic Ocean June 4, 2020, marking the first time a Ford-class and a Nimitz-class aircraft carrier operated together underway. Ford is underway conducting integrated air wing operations, and the Harry S. Truman Carrier Strike Group remains at sea in the Atlantic as a certified carrier strike group force ready for tasking in order to protect the crew from the risks posed by COVID-19, following their successful deployment to the U.S. 5th and 6th Fleet areas of operation. (U.S. Navy photo by Mass Communication Specialist Seaman Riley McDowell)

“The Shock Test (USS Ford) was very impressive. There were very few issues that weren’t able to be resolved on the ship itself. Over 80 percent of the issues found were able to be resolved onboard the ship, so I would say technically, it will be a fantastic ship,” Rick Giannini, Chairman of the Aircraft Carrier Industrial Base Coalition and CEO of the Milwaukee Valve Company, told Warrior Maven in a 2022 interview.

About the Author: Kris Osborn 

Kris Osborn is the Military Technology Editor of 19FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven – Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a highly qualified expert in the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

Written By

Kris Osborn is the Military Affairs Editor of 19 FortyFive and President of Warrior Maven - Center for Military Modernization. Osborn previously served at the Pentagon as a Highly Qualified Expert with the Office of the Assistant Secretary of the Army—Acquisition, Logistics & Technology. Osborn has also worked as an anchor and on-air military specialist at national TV networks. He has appeared as a guest military expert on Fox News, MSNBC, The Military Channel, and The History Channel. He also has a Masters Degree in Comparative Literature from Columbia University.

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