America’s most expensive warship ever built will undoubtedly change naval warfare

The US Navy’s 10 Nimitz-class flat-top aircraft carriers are the envy of the world, and yet the Navy has a newer, more powerful, and more advanced carrier in the works: the Ford-class.

Named after US President Gerald Ford, the Navy plans to procure four of these titans of the sea. In the slides below, see how the Fords improve on America’s already imposing fleet of aircraft carriers.

The new Ford class carriers will feature an improved nuclear reactor with three times the power-generation capacity as the Nimitz class.

This outsized power-generation capacity provides the Fords an opportunity to grow into new technologies that come up during their service life.

With ample power to draw from, the Fords could one day house directed-energy weapons like the Navy’s upcoming railgun.