There are a couple of drawbacks to using nuclear reactors for power. They're also very fast despite being among the largest ships in the world. USS Enterprise could out-accelerate all of her non-nuclear escorts despite her bulk thanks to her eight reactors. The crazy amount of energy generated by a carrier's two reactors (eight in the case of USS Enterprise) allow them to steam at full speed around the world indefinitely. The appearance of the first US nuclear submarine, USS Nautilus, made most techniques for anti-submarine warfare developed during the Second World War useless, since those relied on the submarine coming to surface to recharge its batteries.Īll submarines in the US Navy are nuclear powered, as are all currently-active carriers USS Kitty Hawk was the last conventionally powered carrier in service with the USN, and was decommissioned on May 12, 2009. This allows the vessel to go more or less anywhere in the ocean and if they're a submarine stay submerged for weeks if not months on end. Simply put, they don't need to be refuelled during a sortie, have enough electricity to generate their own oxygen from seawater, and are only limited by the endurance of their crew and other supplies. Nuclear powered ships or submarines are very useful things for a navy to have. This is not the same as nuclear-capable, the latter meaning that it can carry nuclear weapons. If an N is in the type designation, that means that the vessel is nuclear-powered.
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