Letters then complained that I didn't lore drop. However I needed to get my laptop and find my glasses so. Let the lore dropping commence. I will add a keep reading because I went in deep.
Okay, first: my credentials. I have worked quite extensively in specifically the field of naval aviation history. My work in this field has led to me being accused of being in the navy (no), having been in the navy (also no), and being in the CIA (ABSOLUTELY NOT). I am just a humble autistic man who knows so much about aircraft carriers I can tell them apart by a single shot of the interior of one, which happened while I was watching Top Gun for the first time, which led to me subjecting my friends to two different very long power point presentations. The first one, the one @jasontoddiefor is referring to, was 'A “Helpful” Guide to Telling Aircraft Carriers Apart,' in which I systematically went through the entire history of American light and fleet aircraft carriers, excluding escort carriers, because escort carriers had a very different purpose in the theater of war. The second one, 'How the Top Gun film series is Russian Propaganda (By Making Russian Jets Look Better Than They Are)' involved me holding my beloved friends hostage for two hours while I went on a very long rant about how exactly one (1) line from Top Gun: Maverick made me very angry. There is actually a third one in the works where I go into extreme detail about how the entire premise of the mission in Top Gun: Maverick doesn't make sense with modern electronic warfare technology. I am ashamed to admit the script hasn't finished because I got distracted by trying to become NATOPS qualified in an aircraft that stopped flying before I was born.
This all has nothing to do with the Nimitz.
I will now talk about the Nimitz.
This is the USS Nimitz, CVN-68. Let me start with my first brutally honest opinion: I don't like her being named for Admiral Nimitz.
Now, first off, I like the name Nimitz a HELL of a lot better than I like the names of the rest of the Nimitz class (looking at you, USS John C. Stennis. Because, yes. The USS John C. Stennis is named for the extremely racist senator John C. Stennis. I hate it anytime a military ship is named after a politician, to be clear, but I have a specific hatred of the USS John C. Stennis. and of course naming it the Stennis was Reagan's idea. but I digress.) I personally feel that Nimitz, despite his role in WWII, was not a good candidate to name an aircraft carrier for. Name a submarine after him. He was a submarine man. Recognize his considerable efforts in the submarine fleet by naming a submarine after him, like how we've had two iterations of the USS Hyman G. Rickover (Admiral Rickover spearheaded much of the development of US nuclear powered naval vessels. He was an insane stickler for nuclear safety, a legacy which has continued in the Navy and has given the US nuclear fleet a clean safety reactor record that continues to this day. For contrast, the Soviet navy had fourteen DOCUMENTED reactor incidents.) A better choice of name if we MUST use a name from a fleet admiral would have been the USS William Halsey or the USS Ernest J. King, who were both fleet admirals who had served in command of aircraft carriers.
Or, you know, we could just reuse names from previous aircraft carriers. Because it is a goddamn travesty that the current USS Ranger is a goddamn UNMANNED VESSEL. This is a ludicrous level of disrespect to the good name of the USS Ranger. I am so sorry, my sweet beauty. Rest in razor blades.
...and I am supposed to be talking about Nimitz!
So the Nimitz, known as Old Salt to her crews, and I just call her Grandma, is old as fuck. In ship terms. She started her career in 1975.
She is STILL serving actively. Allegedly she will retire in April of this year (2026). I personally will believe this when I see it. The Stennis' overhaul keeps dragging out and the JFK still isn't ready for service. I am very worried for Grandma.
Design wise, I mostly like the Nimitz class. Are they pretty? No. But they are very effective, and I do like that they made improvements over time to the class as they built them. Which you would have to. Given that they were launched over a period of time from the 1960s to the 2000s. Nimitz, being the first, benefited from none of these improvements, of course, but eh. She's a very impressive old girl all the same.
What I do NOT like about Grandma's design is that she has let jet fuel in her water supply that goes to the sailors. Now, this is not new for carriers; officially, it doesn't happen that often, and yet literally every carrier based sailor I've ever spoken to (and this is a LOT) has a fun little story of it happening to them.
So my overall opinion on the Nimitz? Could have used a better name but it's not the worst, was an innovative design for her day, should have more attention paid to the health and safety of the crew in terms of water supply, and, finally.
Please, US Navy. Let Grandma go to the big razor blade factory in the sky. It's starting to feel like elder abuse. You have taken a ship that, in my youth, I felt extremely neutral towards, and you have made me feel sorry for her. I know you like to keep your special girls running forever, but she is not the storied beauty that is the USS Lexington (CV-16). I'm going to hold your hand here. It's going to be okay. She can rest now.
Except she can't, because we've utterly failed in making sure her replacements are ready to go, and so the Navy has to keep forcing her to slog out another year again and again until they can finally get Stennis and JFK back in action.
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