Comments by "" (@tomk3732) on "Diesel vs Nuclear Aircraft Carriers" video.

Official is 30+ Real could be as high as 35. Every knot speed increase is massive addition in power.
6
Note that nuclear reactors for subs are not the same as for a carrier - subs are much smaller. You could use sub reactors on a carrier but you would need to go with many of them - like 8.
5
Unlikely. If Kursk could have all of her torpedos explode and still had no leaks there is little concern. Peter the great has some armor plating around reactors.
4
It is actually possible to sell nuclear carriers - problem is that you do not want to sell these as usually they are top end tech vs. somewhat tame diesel. US would never sell its old carrier to say... China (!!!)
2
@ChubakaSteven You can probably calculate top speed to within less then 1kn knowing installed power and displacement. After all back in WWII when designing ships they could tell top speed of a design quite close to actual speed test speed.
1
@yeetspageet6707 You cannot have slow carrier with fixed wing aircraft as they need lift for which wind over deck is used. BUT she mostly will have vertical start aircraft so this may be only limited addition. Problem is she cannot go 32kn for more then say a day as she will run out of fuel rather quickly. Going 32kn vs. economical 15kn uses at least 4x as much fuel. So at top speed her range is cut by more then half. This may not be such a big deal for UK but is for US which traditionally builds ships with very long ranges.
1
Basically smaller carriers such as QE or helicopter landing ships such as America are less capable and cheaper versions of large carriers such as Nimitz / Ford / type 004. Of note is the 7 times power (!) this does not come as "free" add on. You pay billions for this. QE class is less capable smaller cheaper carrier. You get what you pay for. Also conventional powered no catapult carriers are more "defensive in nature" Soviet carriers were meant to only extend the combat range of ground based aviation not go half around the globe and harass someone. There are numerous advantages nuclear has over conventional - the main con is price. No one would spend big $$$ to get almost nothing in return - advantages of nuclear are huge but so is the premium you pay - hence why US is building nuclear carriers and so is China.
1
Exactly - UK could afford a single carrier with nukes. Sure it would be better then QE - but would be ONE. Having two less capable ships >> single ship.
1
@anignorantbrit Yes, even if you did not mind selling your nuclear carrier very few nations could afford one - and these that could afford one are usually competitors (i.e. China would easily pay 10B for decommissioned Nimitz class). Certainly even small conventional carriers are not sold a lot as few nations can afford these & don't build their own. Even India is working on their first domestically build carrier. British only hope for sale will be Australia.
1
@ffrederickskitty214 Not true at all - see - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Submarine_hull
1
@ffrederickskitty214 To move 2x as fast a ship needs 2^3 8x as much power rough estimate as actual curve is different. But that is the *same * ship. Now at low speeds a regular ship viscous resistance of water is most important (we have viscous water, air resistance and wave making resistance). At high speeds wave making resistance dominates. Also for a carrier the total resistance of rather tame air can be up to 10% of total resistance. The topic of ship resistance etc. was studied for past 200+ years. Subs have the most economical shape for traveling under water - a teardrop shape with viscous drag of just 0.04. There is no wave making or air resistance to square shape of a deck. In your car example you are comparing two vehicles traveling in the same medium & try to project that onto two other vehicles traveling in different to each other mediums. You can read more here: https://www.usna.edu/NAOE/_files/documents/Courses/EN400/02.07%20Chapter%207.pdf Also this is all for calm waters - no one adds things such as wave resistance, current resistance, wind resistance - 20kn wind can add 25% extra to resistance and current of 4kn is that much substracted from power - subs are under water - no affect by waves, wind and most of the currents. As a side not this explains why subs cannot go fast when not submerged - in your simplistic example a sub that is on the surface would have lesser area subject to resistance but still same installed power - so it should be able to travel faster. It cannot as at higher speeds (as mentioned above) the viscous resistance is lesser component of total and wave resistance takes over. Turns out teardrop shape is not ideal here.
1
@ffrederickskitty214 To be honest most subs do indeed have more installed power per displacement then an aircraft carrier. But given that both the carrier and sub have classified speeds it is hard to say where it all goes. Ford class is same as Nimitz class displacement wise yet has 25% more power installed & same posted 30kn+ speed. Akula sub is 8x smaller then Nimitz but has over 1/3 more power per displacement for "similar" speed. But Akula has only marginally more power (per displacement) then Ford again for "similar" speed.
1