Indian Navy 'No' to Nuclear-Powered Aircraft Carriers!!!

[asianobserve]

This is one of the things that nuclear powered ACs can do, Nimitz class that is:

 

[ace009]

yup ! but still cant understand why no nuke surface ships ???
fuel for 33 years. The modern reactors are good enough i hear. If only detection is the problem, than i guess thatr must be the reason

You are forgetting two important problems associated with nuclear powered vessels -

1. Size - nuclear power requires huge space for safety purposes - firstly, the reactor has to be shielded, otherwise the radiation will kill the crewmen, As a result of all the necessary shielding, the size is significantly big, not to mention heavy. Also, the cooling system has to be large enough - remember that in a typical nuke powered vessel, at BEST 10% of the energy is used in propulsion, another 10% in heating, running the cooling waters etc and all the rest is disposed off as heat into ocean water.

2. Stealth - because of the heat disposed off in the surrounding water, it is difficult to hide a nuke powered warship (submarines can submerge and hide deep under water). The "thermal wake" is otherwise detected by FLIR detectors.

So, of all the current warships, only the destroyers and large frigates can carry nuclear power, with some loss of speed and maneuverability - which means the whole purpose of a such vessels are lost - speed and stealth.

The only surface ship (apart from CVNs) that can be nuke powered are the battle cruisers - which are almost as large as the CVNs and cannot be "stealthy" at all ...

Aircraft carriers are so large and have such a flat topped shape that "stealth" is not feasible anyway, which is why CVNs are more desirable.

 

[SPIEZ]

You are forgetting two important problems associated with nuclear powered vessels -

1. Size - nuclear power requires huge space for safety purposes - firstly, the reactor has to be shielded, otherwise the radiation will kill the crewmen, As a result of all the necessary shielding, the size is significantly big, not to mention heavy. Also, the cooling system has to be large enough - remember that in a typical nuke powered vessel, at BEST 10% of the energy is used in propulsion, another 10% in heating, running the cooling waters etc and all the rest is disposed off as heat into ocean water.

2. Stealth - because of the heat disposed off in the surrounding water, it is difficult to hide a nuke powered warship (submarines can submerge and hide deep under water). The "thermal wake" is otherwise detected by FLIR detectors.

So, of all the current warships, only the destroyers and large frigates can carry nuclear power, with some loss of speed and maneuverability - which means the whole purpose of a such vessels are lost - speed and stealth.

The only surface ship (apart from CVNs) that can be nuke powered are the battle cruisers - which are almost as large as the CVNs and cannot be "stealthy" at all ...

Aircraft carriers are so large and have such a flat topped shape that "stealth" is not feasible anyway, which is why CVNs are more desirable.

True true !!!!!!!!