The White House has directed the Department of Defense to draft a formal implementation plan to replace electromagnetic aircraft launch systems and advanced weapons elevators with steam and hydraulic systems for the construction of CVN-81, the USS Doris Miller.
Under an August 13 Presidential Memorandum, the administration instructed the Secretary of War, working in consultation with the Secretary of the Navy, to deliver timelines and resourcing requirements for the measures to replace these systems. The directive orders the reversion of foundational catapult and weapons-handling technology back to steam and hydraulic systems.
During an 11-month deployment that concluded in May, which was the longest for an aircraft carrier since the Vietnam War, the USS Gerald R. Ford completed more than 11,000 aircraft launches utilizing electromagnetic catapults. According to a February press release from the Navy, the flight deck design of the Ford-class, operating in tandem with electromagnetic systems and arresting gear, contributed to an increased sortie generation rate compared to that of a Nimitz-class carrier.
Writing in The Washington Post, Bryan Clark, a former Navy officer who served as Special Assistant to the Chief of Naval Operations and Director of his Commander’s Action Group, challenged the wisdom of a technological rollback. Clark, currently a Senior Fellow and Director of the Center for Defense Concepts and Technology at the Hudson Institute, emphasized that electromagnetic catapults accelerate aircraft more smoothly and gradually, placing reduced stress on airframes while recharging faster than steam catapults.
“The biggest benefit of the electromagnetic catapults are their lower cost and lighter personnel requirements,” Clark wrote, noting that the Ford’s crew is about 500 sailors smaller than its predecessors. Because legacy vessels used steam for catapults, they also used steam for auxiliary functions such as cooking equipment and water purification. Furthermore, the mechanical complexity of steam catapults requires about ten additional sailors per catapult across a four-catapult flight deck compared to electromagnetic systems.
Trump, who never served in the military, has repeatedly questioned the adoption of digital systems following a March 2, 2017 tour of the then-under-construction USS Gerald R. Ford at the Newport News shipyard in Virginia. In a subsequent interview with Time Magazine in May 2017, Trump recounted being told that the digital catapult system was being used to keep up with modern technology.
According to the TIME transcript, Trump recalled questioning the shift away from steam, stating: “It sounded bad to me. Digital. They have digital. What is digital? And it’s very complicated… I said no you’re not. You going to goddamned steam, the digital costs hundreds of millions of dollars more money and it’s no good.”
Over the ensuing years, Trump repeatedly revisited the topic at political rallies. During a November 2, 2023 campaign rally in Houston, Texas, Trump told supporters he questioned a sailor aboard the Ford regarding the relative merits of steam versus electric catapults. According to Trump’s account at the rally, the sailor reported that while electric systems could operate continuously, steam systems were preferred because “we can fix it with a blowtorch if something happens,” whereas an electrical failure from wave action would mean “we’re out of business.” Trump repeated a similar anecdote on July 15 at the U.S. Army War College in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, asserting that a crew member claimed electromagnetic systems required geniuses from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology to fix when they go bad.
Clark told CNN that retrofitting the USS Doris Miller with steam systems will “probably be into the billions” of dollars and could delay the carrier’s expected introduction around 2034 until the end of the next decade. Additionally, Clark noted that industrial supply chains for steam catapults have withered, stating that there are no longer steam catapult manufacturers in the United States, meaning production lines would require tens of millions of dollars and years to restart.
Beyond the propulsion debate, the nomenclature of CVN-81 faces parallel administrative review. Senior Navy staffers are reportedly reviewing the vessel’s name, which was designated on January 20, 2020, during the Trump first administration by then-Acting Navy Secretary Thomas B. Modly. Named during a Martin Luther King Jr. Day ceremony, the ship honors Mess Attendant Third Class Doris “Dorie” Miller, an African-American sailor who received the Navy Cross for extraordinary heroism during the December 7, 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor, where he manned an anti-aircraft machine gun without prior training and aided wounded crewmates.
“Steam power was cutting-edge technology in the 19th century,” Clark concluded in his Post analysis. “It is the wrong choice for a Pentagon that is leaning into artificial intelligence and autonomous systems. The Navy should stay the course with electromagnetic catapults to keep the carrier fleet strong and deliver more firepower.”
