USN Aviation Cruiser Concepts (CGV & MEU Studies)

[Scott Kenny]

I cross-posted this at the Warships Projects Board....


The 16th edition Norman Polmars' Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet (pp89-90) mentions a number of unusual carrier proposals being looked at at by the bottom up review at the time of publishing (1997).

They range from an "ultra large STOAL concept of 214,000tons (no angled deck apparant) to some "minimum capability carriers" both SWATH and monohull.

Most interesting to me were the CGV designs which don't seem to be strictly carriers at all but rather a revival of the old flight deck cruiser from the 30s, or the unnofficial proposals by Leopold for the Strike Cruiser.

Ranging from 26-43,000 tons and carrying 12-22 aircraft they had batteries of up to 192 missiles. The aircraft complements seem far too low for an actual carrier and the missile battery is 50% more than even a Ticonderoga.

A few were equipped for CTOL operations with angled deck.

The smallest of the airwings of the air wings was described as 2 helicopters 8 F14s an 2 Hawkeys.

This seems strange, but presumably was intended to provide a minimum Phoenix armed CAP to augment the missiles.

It seems to me ( a layman in these maters) that the small air groups would be a very poor substitute for a carrier. 4 would be needed to replace even a Midway in numbers (but not variety) of aircraft. However, as cruisers, particularly if S-3s and ASW helicopters were substituted for the fighters, the vessels might have been really formidable escorts.


Does anybody have any info or pics on these or any insight into what the designers were thinking?

well if this was a mid-late 90's idea, massive airwings wouldn't have necessarily been needed. there were no near peer threats to the USN in the late 90s or early 00s, and a CVL with an air wing of 22 aircraft would have done just fine launching aircraft to attack terrorists in iraq and afghanistan (though obviously at the time they couldn't know about those wars.) substituting them in for CVNs would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the bigger carriers potentially prolonging their life spans.

Carriers are already built for a 50 year lifespan, though.

 

[Firefinder]

I cross-posted this at the Warships Projects Board....


The 16th edition Norman Polmars' Ships and Aircraft of the US Fleet (pp89-90) mentions a number of unusual carrier proposals being looked at at by the bottom up review at the time of publishing (1997).

They range from an "ultra large STOAL concept of 214,000tons (no angled deck apparant) to some "minimum capability carriers" both SWATH and monohull.

Most interesting to me were the CGV designs which don't seem to be strictly carriers at all but rather a revival of the old flight deck cruiser from the 30s, or the unnofficial proposals by Leopold for the Strike Cruiser.

Ranging from 26-43,000 tons and carrying 12-22 aircraft they had batteries of up to 192 missiles. The aircraft complements seem far too low for an actual carrier and the missile battery is 50% more than even a Ticonderoga.

A few were equipped for CTOL operations with angled deck.

The smallest of the airwings of the air wings was described as 2 helicopters 8 F14s an 2 Hawkeys.

This seems strange, but presumably was intended to provide a minimum Phoenix armed CAP to augment the missiles.

It seems to me ( a layman in these maters) that the small air groups would be a very poor substitute for a carrier. 4 would be needed to replace even a Midway in numbers (but not variety) of aircraft. However, as cruisers, particularly if S-3s and ASW helicopters were substituted for the fighters, the vessels might have been really formidable escorts.


Does anybody have any info or pics on these or any insight into what the designers were thinking?

well if this was a mid-late 90's idea, massive airwings wouldn't have necessarily been needed. there were no near peer threats to the USN in the late 90s or early 00s, and a CVL with an air wing of 22 aircraft would have done just fine launching aircraft to attack terrorists in iraq and afghanistan (though obviously at the time they couldn't know about those wars.) substituting them in for CVNs would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the bigger carriers potentially prolonging their life spans.

Carriers are already built for a 50 year lifespan, though.

And by the end of that 50 years, honestly by 40, they are spending more time in maintaince with all types of issues the deployed.

With some CVNs actually getting looked for early decommissioning due to the cost.

In theory a bunch of smaller CVLs doing the peacetime grunt work will help cut down on the wear which does that. Allowing more uptime.

Or at least let the older ships get the added maintenance time it needs.

This is a by ship basis thru.

Like CVN65 Enterprises gave 100 percent all the way up til her retirement. Thru that may have been cause by having like six refuelings in her life.

But other ships like the Truman are constantly looked at for retirement due to being a maintenance nightmare for sone reason.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Like CVN65 Enterprises gave 100 percent all the way up til her retirement. Thru that may have been cause by having like six refuelings in her life.

Several of those were due to early reactor designs needing to be refueled more often. Later reactors were set up for a 20-25yr lifespan, but that tends to require using weapons grade uranium in the reactors.

But other ships like the Truman are constantly looked at for retirement due to being a maintenance nightmare for sone reason.

If someone early on in their life let the maintenance slip and stuff gets deferred, I'd believe it.

I was on USS Georgia BN and then Kentucky, when they'd sent 3 boats around from the east coast to the west coast due to retiring the Ohio, Michigan, Florida, and Georgia from strategic service and converting them into SSGNs. The boats sent around had so much deferred maintenance that it took far longer than it should have to get them into acceptable shape for West Coast standards. I'm talking them being a week or more late out of refit and needing to come in a week or more early because of stuff that broke while at sea. IIRC there was a _very_ nasty memo or three sent from West Coast to East Coast over that. So nasty it may have ended several careers.

Kentucky was in rough shape from when she was made, too. The welders were on strike for a while, so she was completed by scabs. All sorts of stuff just not done right at all, like pipe brackets installed upside down. Normally, those pipe brackets would support the weight of the pipe even if the clamping part of the bracket wasn't there. Nope, installed upside down so that the part of the bracket welded to the hull was above the pipe...

 

[TomS]

well if this was a mid-late 90's idea, massive airwings wouldn't have necessarily been needed. there were no near peer threats to the USN in the late 90s or early 00s, and a CVL with an air wing of 22 aircraft would have done just fine launching aircraft to attack terrorists in iraq and afghanistan (though obviously at the time they couldn't know about those wars.) substituting them in for CVNs would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the bigger carriers potentially prolonging their life spans.

An air wing of 22 aircraft isn't enough for even low-level strike ops, once you back out the overhead needed. Even accepting that these are all STOVL aircraft, you need at least 3-4 AEW aircraft, 2-4 planeguard and utility helicopters, and 2-3 EW aircraft. That leaves ~12 strike-fighter aircraft. Now, you need at least a two-plane CAP (that maybe gets to double as a SuCAP) unless you're dealing with a place with absolutely no enemy air or surface threat (not many of those). That's six or more planes used up. Congrats, your "alpha strike" looks like maybe four to six aircraft plus EW support. Plus, if they all have to buddy tank to reach the target, you can put at most two to four strikers on target.

No, these air complements are not designed to be mini-carriers doing carrier-like tasks, just at lower intensities. They can do one of two things -- be a secondary deck for a large CVBG, the same as the CVLs in WW2. Offload the CAP mission to the small carrier and let the big boys concentrate on high-tempo strike ops. Or, in keeping with the "Revolution at Sea" concept (1980s, but carrying over into the 1990s), do something very different.

Under Revolution at Sea, these small air wings are primarily sensors of some sort, either AEW aircraft (for AAW) or sea surveillance aircraft (for ASuW/ASW). So with 22 aircraft you're maintaining two AEW stations (say 8 aircraft) and 2 sea surveillance ones (also 8 aircraft) plus a planeguard (2-4 helos) and a small deck alert fighter det (maybe 4 or so, to keep one or two ready for when you have to go inspect a zombie instead of just shooting it down). The actual ordnance is almost all ship-launched missiles -- some combo of surface-launched air-targeted SAMs, long-range antiship missiles, ASW stand-off weapons, cruise missiles, etc. That's Metcalf's big idea, anyway.

This was a really disruptive way to think about naval warfare, and honestly none of the established warfare communities liked it. It took away all of their scope for independent action, and depended heavily on datalinks that kept proving to be really fragile and unreliable in the real world. Even by the late 1990s, network infrastructure could not credibly execute Revolution at Sea, because the tech just was not ready for prime time. It took major advances in networking, mostly driven by civilian use cases like cell phones, to make it really feasible. We might be about there now. Maybe.

 

[johnpjones1775]

well if this was a mid-late 90's idea, massive airwings wouldn't have necessarily been needed. there were no near peer threats to the USN in the late 90s or early 00s, and a CVL with an air wing of 22 aircraft would have done just fine launching aircraft to attack terrorists in iraq and afghanistan (though obviously at the time they couldn't know about those wars.) substituting them in for CVNs would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the bigger carriers potentially prolonging their life spans.

An air wing of 22 aircraft isn't enough for even low-level strike ops, once you back out the overhead needed. Even accepting that these are all STOVL aircraft, you need at least 3-4 AEW aircraft, 2-4 planeguard and utility helicopters, and 2-3 EW aircraft. That leaves ~12 strike-fighter aircraft. Now, you need at least a two-plane CAP (that maybe gets to double as a SuCAP) unless you're dealing with a place with absolutely no enemy air or surface threat (not many of those). That's six or more planes used up. Congrats, your "alpha strike" looks like maybe four to six aircraft plus EW support. Plus, if they all have to buddy tank to reach the target, you can put at most two to four strikers on target.

No, these air complements are not designed to be mini-carriers doing carrier-like tasks, just at lower intensities. They can do one of two things -- be a secondary deck for a large CVBG, the same as the CVLs in WW2. Offload the CAP mission to the small carrier and let the big boys concentrate on high-tempo strike ops. Or, in keeping with the "Revolution at Sea" concept (1980s, but carrying over into the 1990s), do something very different.

Under Revolution at Sea, these small air wings are primarily sensors of some sort, either AEW aircraft (for AAW) or sea surveillance aircraft (for ASuW/ASW). So with 22 aircraft you're maintaining two AEW stations (say 8 aircraft) and 2 sea surveillance ones (also 8 aircraft) plus a planeguard (2-4 helos) and a small deck alert fighter det (maybe 4 or so, to keep one or two ready for when you have to go inspect a zombie instead of just shooting it down). The actual ordnance is almost all ship-launched missiles -- some combo of surface-launched air-targeted SAMs, long-range antiship missiles, ASW stand-off weapons, cruise missiles, etc. That's Metcalf's big idea, anyway.

This was a really disruptive way to think about naval warfare, and honestly none of the established warfare communities liked it. It took away all of their scope for independent action, and depended heavily on datalinks that kept proving to be really fragile and unreliable in the real world. Even by the late 1990s, network infrastructure could not credibly execute Revolution at Sea, because the tech just was not ready for prime time. It took major advances in networking, mostly driven by civilian use cases like cell phones, to make it really feasible. We might be about there now. Maybe.

When exactly did Somali rebels, Al Qeada or the taliban get air forces to necessitate a CAP? Or a navy for that matter?

Any minor air or surface threats the such a carrier might face could be engaged by an escort.

I’ll admit buddy refueling wasn’t something I was considering for longer range missions. But back to my original point here, EW aircraft also not really necessary when bombing rebels/terrorists…

 

[Firefinder]

Also the 90s is when new PGMS started dropping the need for large number of Aircraft and ordnance for a strike.

Like we did go from needing 12 planes loaded with 1000 pound bombs to smash a field bunker to 1 with a 500 pounder since the weapons actually HIT the target. With that one plane going off to murder 3 other such targets.

In both Iraq and Afghanistan it was not uncommon for a single fighter to patrol on standby dropping one bomb on target when call for and fly back off to the racetrack pattern it been wearing into the sky.

Apparently Ukraine been doing nasty thing with a two ship formation of a bomber with JDAMs and another with HARMs.

So a low alpha strike isn't that big of a issue so long as the planes have guided weapons like the JDAM.

Then you have the likely massive amount of Tomahawks in the massive VLS farms these studies had. Which be good for the heavily defended by SAMs targets which do need a lot of planes to kill.

 

[Scott Kenny]

well if this was a mid-late 90's idea, massive airwings wouldn't have necessarily been needed. there were no near peer threats to the USN in the late 90s or early 00s, and a CVL with an air wing of 22 aircraft would have done just fine launching aircraft to attack terrorists in iraq and afghanistan (though obviously at the time they couldn't know about those wars.) substituting them in for CVNs would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the bigger carriers potentially prolonging their life spans.

An air wing of 22 aircraft isn't enough for even low-level strike ops, once you back out the overhead needed. Even accepting that these are all STOVL aircraft, you need at least 3-4 AEW aircraft, 2-4 planeguard and utility helicopters, and 2-3 EW aircraft. That leaves ~12 strike-fighter aircraft. Now, you need at least a two-plane CAP (that maybe gets to double as a SuCAP) unless you're dealing with a place with absolutely no enemy air or surface threat (not many of those). That's six or more planes used up. Congrats, your "alpha strike" looks like maybe four to six aircraft plus EW support. Plus, if they all have to buddy tank to reach the target, you can put at most two to four strikers on target.

No, these air complements are not designed to be mini-carriers doing carrier-like tasks, just at lower intensities. They can do one of two things -- be a secondary deck for a large CVBG, the same as the CVLs in WW2. Offload the CAP mission to the small carrier and let the big boys concentrate on high-tempo strike ops. Or, in keeping with the "Revolution at Sea" concept (1980s, but carrying over into the 1990s), do something very different.

Under Revolution at Sea, these small air wings are primarily sensors of some sort, either AEW aircraft (for AAW) or sea surveillance aircraft (for ASuW/ASW). So with 22 aircraft you're maintaining two AEW stations (say 8 aircraft) and 2 sea surveillance ones (also 8 aircraft) plus a planeguard (2-4 helos) and a small deck alert fighter det (maybe 4 or so, to keep one or two ready for when you have to go inspect a zombie instead of just shooting it down). The actual ordnance is almost all ship-launched missiles -- some combo of surface-launched air-targeted SAMs, long-range antiship missiles, ASW stand-off weapons, cruise missiles, etc. That's Metcalf's big idea, anyway.

This was a really disruptive way to think about naval warfare, and honestly none of the established warfare communities liked it. It took away all of their scope for independent action, and depended heavily on datalinks that kept proving to be really fragile and unreliable in the real world. Even by the late 1990s, network infrastructure could not credibly execute Revolution at Sea, because the tech just was not ready for prime time. It took major advances in networking, mostly driven by civilian use cases like cell phones, to make it really feasible. We might be about there now. Maybe.

When exactly did Somali rebels, Al Qeada or the taliban get air forces to necessitate a CAP? Or a navy for that matter?

Any minor air or surface threats the such a carrier might face could be engaged by an escort.

I’ll admit buddy refueling wasn’t something I was considering for longer range missions. But back to my original point here, EW aircraft also not really necessary when bombing rebels/terrorists…

All carriers fly a CAP. Because while the Somalis might not have any air cover, someone else in the area might, and might decide to pick a fight that they can't win for reasons that make sense to them.

 

[johnpjones1775]

well if this was a mid-late 90's idea, massive airwings wouldn't have necessarily been needed. there were no near peer threats to the USN in the late 90s or early 00s, and a CVL with an air wing of 22 aircraft would have done just fine launching aircraft to attack terrorists in iraq and afghanistan (though obviously at the time they couldn't know about those wars.) substituting them in for CVNs would have saved a lot of wear and tear on the bigger carriers potentially prolonging their life spans.

An air wing of 22 aircraft isn't enough for even low-level strike ops, once you back out the overhead needed. Even accepting that these are all STOVL aircraft, you need at least 3-4 AEW aircraft, 2-4 planeguard and utility helicopters, and 2-3 EW aircraft. That leaves ~12 strike-fighter aircraft. Now, you need at least a two-plane CAP (that maybe gets to double as a SuCAP) unless you're dealing with a place with absolutely no enemy air or surface threat (not many of those). That's six or more planes used up. Congrats, your "alpha strike" looks like maybe four to six aircraft plus EW support. Plus, if they all have to buddy tank to reach the target, you can put at most two to four strikers on target.

No, these air complements are not designed to be mini-carriers doing carrier-like tasks, just at lower intensities. They can do one of two things -- be a secondary deck for a large CVBG, the same as the CVLs in WW2. Offload the CAP mission to the small carrier and let the big boys concentrate on high-tempo strike ops. Or, in keeping with the "Revolution at Sea" concept (1980s, but carrying over into the 1990s), do something very different.

Under Revolution at Sea, these small air wings are primarily sensors of some sort, either AEW aircraft (for AAW) or sea surveillance aircraft (for ASuW/ASW). So with 22 aircraft you're maintaining two AEW stations (say 8 aircraft) and 2 sea surveillance ones (also 8 aircraft) plus a planeguard (2-4 helos) and a small deck alert fighter det (maybe 4 or so, to keep one or two ready for when you have to go inspect a zombie instead of just shooting it down). The actual ordnance is almost all ship-launched missiles -- some combo of surface-launched air-targeted SAMs, long-range antiship missiles, ASW stand-off weapons, cruise missiles, etc. That's Metcalf's big idea, anyway.

This was a really disruptive way to think about naval warfare, and honestly none of the established warfare communities liked it. It took away all of their scope for independent action, and depended heavily on datalinks that kept proving to be really fragile and unreliable in the real world. Even by the late 1990s, network infrastructure could not credibly execute Revolution at Sea, because the tech just was not ready for prime time. It took major advances in networking, mostly driven by civilian use cases like cell phones, to make it really feasible. We might be about there now. Maybe.

When exactly did Somali rebels, Al Qeada or the taliban get air forces to necessitate a CAP? Or a navy for that matter?

Any minor air or surface threats the such a carrier might face could be engaged by an escort.

I’ll admit buddy refueling wasn’t something I was considering for longer range missions. But back to my original point here, EW aircraft also not really necessary when bombing rebels/terrorists…

All carriers fly a CAP. Because while the Somalis might not have any air cover, someone else in the area might, and might decide to pick a fight that they can't win for reasons that make sense to them.

Again that’s what escorts are for.
If your escorts can’t down a sudden small opportunistic air attack you need better escorts.

Again though really weren’t many people who could realistically threaten our ships from the air at the time.
Iran? Ground based aircraft from Saudi Arabia or Bahrain could instead provide patrol duties.

 

[Firefinder]

Also all these designs had a full Aegis set similar found on the Burkes or the rare full 16 channel set.

Which at this time, 1990s to well even now, often went into hotzones alone with the only air craft near them being their Helicopters. Fully trusting in the Aegis system to murder anything that looks at them funny.

So the CAP likely will not have been needed due to that.

 

[johnpjones1775]

Also all these designs had a full Aegis set similar found on the Burkes or the rare full 16 channel set.

Which at this time, 1990s to well even now, often went into hotzones alone with the only air craft near them being their Helicopters. Fully trusting in the Aegis system to murder anything that looks at them funny.

So the CAP likely will not have been needed due to that.

Exactly, it’s the same mistake people make with the Russian ‘carriers’.

Expecting an aviation cruiser to operate the same way as a standard CV class ship is silly.

The aircraft would likely be more of a secondary consideration, especially if the ships had more VLS than a Tico.
They’d be cruisers whose airwing would likely be tailored to the mission they are deploying to complete meaning they’d likely be lacking in almost every other form of carrier operations/warfare.

ASW? Lots of helicopters, and maybe a few fixed wing.
Assault interdiction? Again mostly helicopters, with fixed wing aircraft armed for land attack.
SAG? Mostly fixed wing with half for CAP, and half for prosecuting surface targets.
Humanitarian? Again mostly helos

Saying an aviation cruiser is useless because it fails at CV operations, is like saying the stryker mobile assault gun is useless because it fails as a tank.

Sure both examples they could be shoehorned into that other role and hope for the best, but in both examples you have to use different tactics and operating procedures to get the most out of them.

 

[TomS]

Saying an aviation cruiser is useless because it fails at CV operations, is like saying the stryker mobile assault gun is useless because it fails as a tank.

Note that I did not say that. I pointed out that trying to use an aviation cruisers as a CV would be not very good, but that the likely intended use case was very different, in accord with the sensor-driven Revolution at Sea operating concept.

 

[johnpjones1775]

Saying an aviation cruiser is useless because it fails at CV operations, is like saying the stryker mobile assault gun is useless because it fails as a tank.

Note that I did not say that. I pointed out that trying to use an aviation cruisers as a CV would be not very good, but that the likely intended use case was very different, in accord with the sensor-driven Revolution at Sea operating concept.

If I misunderstood what you were saying I’ll accept that.

 

[that_person]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind is trying to use these as proper strike carriers, in a similar style to the CVNs. They’d be used to lead SAGs in places we’d like to send a carrier, but can’t spare one for (Taiwan, Indian Ocean, etc). Alternatively, you could use them for ASW with the proper carrier force, but recurring theme here is it seems as if none of the aviation cruiser schemes actually have a role in the fleet. They can’t do actual strike missions, they can’t intercept Backfires, and their cost doesn’t justify them being used for ASW. They really don’t fit into the fleet.

 

[BlackBat242]

Hence the USN never building any of them.

 

[johnpjones1775]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind is trying to use these as proper strike carriers, in a similar style to the CVNs. They’d be used to lead SAGs in places we’d like to send a carrier, but can’t spare one for (Taiwan, Indian Ocean, etc). Alternatively, you could use them for ASW with the proper carrier force, but recurring theme here is it seems as if none of the aviation cruiser schemes actually have a role in the fleet. They can’t do actual strike missions, they can’t intercept Backfires, and their cost doesn’t justify them being used for ASW. They really don’t fit into the fleet.

You’d think that, but look at russia, that’s exactly what they did with their aviation cruisers.

 

[that_person]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind is trying to use these as proper strike carriers, in a similar style to the CVNs. They’d be used to lead SAGs in places we’d like to send a carrier, but can’t spare one for (Taiwan, Indian Ocean, etc). Alternatively, you could use them for ASW with the proper carrier force, but recurring theme here is it seems as if none of the aviation cruiser schemes actually have a role in the fleet. They can’t do actual strike missions, they can’t intercept Backfires, and their cost doesn’t justify them being used for ASW. They really don’t fit into the fleet.

You’d think that, but look at russia, that’s exactly what they did with their aviation cruisers.

Their aviation cruisers where built to defend SSBN bastions stationed right on their coast. Our SSBNs operate in the middle-of-nowhere ocean, thus making them harder to find. This is a Reddit post I made on the subject:

The following will all be in the context of the 80s Cold War, but much of it can be applied to 2023.

Looking at this from a USN standpoint, it doesn’t make much of any sense. During the 80s, there where several aviation cruiser concepts presented by both the private industry and NAVSEA, however, they all fell victim to the same few fatal flaws.

The first is they genuinely don’t have a role in the fleet. During the Cold War, it was assumed that the submarine force and carrier air wings would be able to deal with the Soviet surface fleet, while the USN surface combatants would handle AAW and ASW. The same is true in 2023 to some extent.

That being said, all of the western aviation cruisers where designed to operate some form of STOVL aircraft (Convair 20-something, Rockwell XFV-12, Grumman 698, and of course the Harrier). None of these have the range or payload to be well suited for ASuW duties. None of the STOVL aircraft particularly well suited for interdicting Soviet Backfires either, they lack the range, speed, radars, and big missiles to be effective. Also, there is no reliable STOVL AEW aircraft you can fly off a aviation cruiser either, which would be essential for coordinating the Outer Air Battle.

So that leaves ASW, something the Grumman 698 would be very well suited for. This is the only area that I can really see an aviation cruiser being effective in. But, now we’re adding aviation facilities to an already constrained hull, that will drastically run up costs. The fact of the matter is realistically we’re going to need to design and entirely new ship, an entirely new aircraft, and then buy all the supporting aviation equipment and combat suites in order to make a ASW aviation cruiser. When the bill finally comes due, chances are it will be closer to a CVN than say, a Spruance, with less than half the capability. If we drop the idea of using a special STOVL ASW plane and instead choose to use a big helo squadron, I have to ask what this will actually accomplish compared in terms of capability. Maintenance will be very intensive, and if we stick to the rule that you need 3 units in order to have 1 operational at any given time, it does not seem cost-effective. We already have dedicated subs, MPAs, and destroyers for ASW duty.

The one role I do think an aviation cruiser would thrive is a SAG flagship. While a Harrier cruiser certainly won’t be frontline material, it may be just fine for sinking Soviet expeditionary squadrons predeployed around the globe before the war starts. You can send these to places like the Indian Ocean, places where we would like a full blown CVBG, but can’t spare one. They won’t be enough to “win” the theater, but they should be enough to at least hold down the fort and contest any Soviet activity in the region. However, in order to be survivable, the ship will need escorts. Not anything much, a few Perrys, a Spruance or two, and maybe a cruiser. But, now that it has escorts with plenty of missiles, we might as well delete the missiles from our aviation cruiser and trade them in for more Harriers. Realistically such a ship would be used in a Falklands-type scenario, rather than a long, drawn out campaign in the Norwegian Sea, so a Harrier will be useful here and there. If we do delete the missiles, then we just have a fast LHA. And if we just want a fast LHA, let’s just take a LHD, remove the well deck, and reform the bow to save money.

Overall, such a ship has little use in the USN.

 

[johnpjones1775]

I don’t think anyone in their right mind is trying to use these as proper strike carriers, in a similar style to the CVNs. They’d be used to lead SAGs in places we’d like to send a carrier, but can’t spare one for (Taiwan, Indian Ocean, etc). Alternatively, you could use them for ASW with the proper carrier force, but recurring theme here is it seems as if none of the aviation cruiser schemes actually have a role in the fleet. They can’t do actual strike missions, they can’t intercept Backfires, and their cost doesn’t justify them being used for ASW. They really don’t fit into the fleet.

You’d think that, but look at russia, that’s exactly what they did with their aviation cruisers.

Their aviation cruisers where built to defend SSBN bastions stationed right on their coast. Our SSBNs operate in the middle-of-nowhere ocean, thus making them harder to find. This is a Reddit post I made on the subject:

The following will all be in the context of the 80s Cold War, but much of it can be applied to 2023.

Looking at this from a USN standpoint, it doesn’t make much of any sense. During the 80s, there where several aviation cruiser concepts presented by both the private industry and NAVSEA, however, they all fell victim to the same few fatal flaws.

The first is they genuinely don’t have a role in the fleet. During the Cold War, it was assumed that the submarine force and carrier air wings would be able to deal with the Soviet surface fleet, while the USN surface combatants would handle AAW and ASW. The same is true in 2023 to some extent.

That being said, all of the western aviation cruisers where designed to operate some form of STOVL aircraft (Convair 20-something, Rockwell XFV-12, Grumman 698, and of course the Harrier). None of these have the range or payload to be well suited for ASuW duties. None of the STOVL aircraft particularly well suited for interdicting Soviet Backfires either, they lack the range, speed, radars, and big missiles to be effective. Also, there is no reliable STOVL AEW aircraft you can fly off a aviation cruiser either, which would be essential for coordinating the Outer Air Battle.

So that leaves ASW, something the Grumman 698 would be very well suited for. This is the only area that I can really see an aviation cruiser being effective in. But, now we’re adding aviation facilities to an already constrained hull, that will drastically run up costs. The fact of the matter is realistically we’re going to need to design and entirely new ship, an entirely new aircraft, and then buy all the supporting aviation equipment and combat suites in order to make a ASW aviation cruiser. When the bill finally comes due, chances are it will be closer to a CVN than say, a Spruance, with less than half the capability. If we drop the idea of using a special STOVL ASW plane and instead choose to use a big helo squadron, I have to ask what this will actually accomplish compared in terms of capability. Maintenance will be very intensive, and if we stick to the rule that you need 3 units in order to have 1 operational at any given time, it does not seem cost-effective. We already have dedicated subs, MPAs, and destroyers for ASW duty.

The one role I do think an aviation cruiser would thrive is a SAG flagship. While a Harrier cruiser certainly won’t be frontline material, it may be just fine for sinking Soviet expeditionary squadrons predeployed around the globe before the war starts. You can send these to places like the Indian Ocean, places where we would like a full blown CVBG, but can’t spare one. They won’t be enough to “win” the theater, but they should be enough to at least hold down the fort and contest any Soviet activity in the region. However, in order to be survivable, the ship will need escorts. Not anything much, a few Perrys, a Spruance or two, and maybe a cruiser. But, now that it has escorts with plenty of missiles, we might as well delete the missiles from our aviation cruiser and trade them in for more Harriers. Realistically such a ship would be used in a Falklands-type scenario, rather than a long, drawn out campaign in the Norwegian Sea, so a Harrier will be useful here and there. If we do delete the missiles, then we just have a fast LHA. And if we just want a fast LHA, let’s just take a LHD, remove the well deck, and reform the bow to save money.

Overall, such a ship has little use in the USN.

their heavy aviation cruisers were designed to protect SAGs from air attacks. i think you may be thinking of ships like the Moskva class.

 

[Hood]

I have cleaned up this thread. Please refrain from personal arguments that aren't really relevant to this thread, it should not take 12 posts of argument to get a point across.

Please could everyone please think hard before clicking on the 'Reply' button and quoting the entire chat history. The forum software allows you to highlight and select specific text for quoting or you can simply scroll to the bottom of the screen and type in a reply without the need to quote.
In my view you only need to quote when responding to a particular point made by a member within a busy thread to make the context of your reply clear. There is no automatic need to quote the last poster or an entire chain of conversation between two people.
This may sound grumpy on my part but unnecessary scrolling down endless quotes tires my scrollwheel finger and tires my patience to the same degree.

 

[Winchester]

In other research, you've said that the airwing was primarily SV-22, which jibes with the ASW mission. But 200 VLS cells does not. OTOH, absent any sort of guns or fire support capacity, it would lack the Marine Corps support that made the battleships viable budgetarily.

My thinking is that, given what the sources say about the early conversion proposals for the Iowa class and how the Marines went' "nope, you're not taking our 16-inch guns, forget it", the MEU isn't so much though of as direct replacement in service for the Iowas, it's a replacement for the requirement that the Navy intended to fill with the Iowas and couldn't because the Marines effectively stole them - namely, "all the Tomahawks" and "Moar Harriers at sea."

Also, with 200 cells aboard each ship, there would be incentive to invest in a fire support missile that was cheaper than Tomahawk.

I'm pretty sure though that no matter what the rationale was for the design, it was never in a million years intended to be built as depicted - I think this was a "what if we had unlimited money to build whatever we wanted" kind of project.

 

[that_person]

In other research, you've said that the airwing was primarily SV-22, which jibes with the ASW mission. But 200 VLS cells does not. OTOH, absent any sort of guns or fire support capacity, it would lack the Marine Corps support that made the battleships viable budgetarily.

My thinking is that, given what the sources say about the early conversion proposals for the Iowa class and how the Marines went' "nope, you're not taking our 16-inch guns, forget it", the MEU isn't so much though of as direct replacement in service for the Iowas, it's a replacement for the requirement that the Navy intended to fill with the Iowas and couldn't because the Marines effectively stole them - namely, "all the Tomahawks" and "Moar Harriers at sea."

Also, with 200 cells aboard each ship, there would be incentive to invest in a fire support missile that was cheaper than Tomahawk.

I'm pretty sure though that no matter what the rationale was for the design, it was never in a million years intended to be built as depicted - I think this was a "what if we had unlimited money to build whatever we wanted" kind of project.

It should also be noted that the MEU was drafted by the same part of NAVSEA who thought AEGIS cruisers based on the SL7 hull was a good idea, and that you could somehow build a modern ship that could deflect a P-700. I believe the intent of these studies was less to come up with future ship designs, but more to test a hypothesis or solve a problem assigned by Navy brass. The result too such ludicrous design requirements, will also be ludicrous.

 

[CommanderRenHoek]

You’d think that, but look at russia, that’s exactly what they did with their aviation cruisers.

The Russian Navy projected power using Admiral Kuznetsov because its all they have at all to project carrier airpower. Further, it was really a supplement to the land-based aircraft operating out of Russia itself or their air base in Khmeimim (which also hosted the Kuznetsov's strike craft for a time when one of the arrestors broke).

Navies who aren't the USA have uses for aviation cruiser-type vessels usually because there's no other option for fixed-wing naval aviation, mainly due to budget reasons (a post on page 1 of this thread years ago by Bgray says as much). Both 1960s UK, USSR and modern Russia would have loved to have full CATOBAR CV/CVNs if they could only secure funding for them (see the fates of CVA-01, Orel, and Shtorm respectively); aviation cruisers were essentially priced into being their only options (doctrinal and political reasons often just gave extra convenient rationales). The USN could only really even consider these vessels together with CVNs in a time of comparatively unrestrained budgets (i.e. the Reagan administration years), and as a replacement for something that was politically and technologically more vulnerable (the Iowa battleships).

 

[Scott Kenny]

You’d think that, but look at russia, that’s exactly what they did with their aviation cruisers.

Don't forget that Russia is also constrained by the Treaty of Montreaux(sp?), which limits the ships that can transit the Dardanelles and Bosporus from the Black Sea to the Med to aviation cruisers, no full carriers are allowed to make that transit.

 

[TomS]

Don't forget that Russia is also constrained by the Treaty of Montreaux(sp?), which limits the ships that can transit the Dardanelles and Bosporus from the Black Sea to the Med to aviation cruisers, no full carriers are allowed to make that transit.

The Turks were pretty flexible on the definitions, though. They accepted the Soviet assertion that the Kuznetsov is an "aviation cruiser" with a primary armament of antiship missiles, rather than an aircraft carrier.

 

[Ainen]

The Turks were pretty flexible on the definitions, though. They accepted the Soviet assertion that the Kuznetsov is an "aviation cruiser" with a primary armament of antiship missiles, rather than an aircraft carrier.

+the discussion back in 1989 went that they already signalled they don't mind Ulyanovsk class passing either.
Even when it was more or less expected that the second hull of that class (.8) won't even pretend to carry ASCMs anymore.

Clearly that wasn't seen as an obstacle - Soviet LHDs were(and Russian LHDs are) to be built at the Black Sea.

their heavy aviation cruisers were designed to protect SAGs from air attacks. i think you may be thinking of ships like the Moskva class.

All of them were built around offensive ASW(first against Polaris subs, then against forward-deployed tridents on low trajectories, or...wherever ASW may be needed). Come to the desired part of the ocean, clean it of surface&flying interference(and keep them out), then sweep that's below.
That's why all of them(up to and including Kuznetsov class) had such a heavy complement of ASW helicopters, reinforced by AEW helicopters and fighters as those became available.

De facto it meant offensive sea superiority operation.
And yes, Kievs were exactly MEUs, and in that sense - last true surface capital ships(per Montreux they also legally passed as 'battleships').

 

[Scott Kenny]

Apparently missed a whole pile of things in my previous read-through.

Since there's talk of building smaller carriers I wonder if this will get a second look.

Highly unlikely.

Small carriers are exponentially worse than large carriers.

A carrier needs AEW, COD, CAP, and a mix of ASW and other-use helicopters, just to keep it safe and let the actual combat group do their thing. This minimum operational coverage looks about like so:

3-5 AEW planes to keep one up 24-7. (5-7 AEW helicopters if you're stuck using helos, because nobody funded the EV-22. Helos don't have the flight time that a fixed wing plane does, so you end up needing more of them in rotation and they're stuck closer to the carrier.)​

2-3 COD planes to haul supplies to and from the carrier while at sea.​

8 fighters to keep a CAP of two up 24-7​

4+ ASW helicopters, and a dozen would be better so you can have one ASW helo in each cardinal direction from the carrier 24/7. This lets your escort ASW helicopters work outside of your escorts instead of between carrier and escorts.​

2-3 other helicopters for plane guard while you are doing flight ops, in case a pilot ditches or some flight deck worker gets blown overboard. They do other stuff too, but their primary job on a carrier is rescue.​

3-4 Tankers optional, if your mission involves having any given aircraft in the air for long periods. (depending on aircraft, your CODs may be able to double as tankers if they're not needed for cargo)​

That's 19-20 aircraft not counting tankers on the low end. That's more like 36+ aircraft if you're using helos for your AEW (probably won't need tankers except for your mission aircraft though).

Now we can start talking about the mission aircraft we're going to stick on this carrier, for whatever job we want it to do.

ASW? That means long range MPA like the S-3, you're going to want about a dozen of those and a full dozen ASW helos too. Puts you at about 40 aircraft, and demands that your design has catapults because nobody has designed the SV-22 yet. Or an ASW CL-84... Without a fixed wing MPA? How much fuel can you pack into an EH101 for range, on top of all the ASW gear? Make it probably a dozen ASW Merlins with drop tanks and IFR probes, plus another dozen ASW helicopters whether Merlins or H-60s.

Convoy Escort? Still going to want S-3s, but probably won't need as many ASW helos because you will have more escorts with helicopters. And a baby carrier is a lower priority target than the merchant ships you're guarding. Will probably double the number of fighters to have a bigger CAP available.

Strike? Uh, you need a couple of EW planes, a dozen or so attack planes, plus more tankers. Oh, and probably a full dozen extra fighters, too, to escort that strike package. That's a good 30 aircraft. Can we discard the entire strike mission from any carrier having space for less than 65 aircraft?

There were a number of studies of similar CGVs. These ships provided 22 aircraft and 192 VLS cells. I disagree with concentrating all airpower on big deck carriers only. A hybrid cannot take the place of a carrier. It's function is to disperse some airpower. The MEU/CG-V/STOL combines an Aegis cruiser with a small V/STOL carrier. Main function here is ASW with enough missile firepower to defeat saturation air attacks and a small number of organic fighters for self defense and presumably some form of V-22 based AEW. Larger than Invincible with more missiles, SPY radar system and Aegis combat system. You could build a surface action group around this ship or perhaps sail it independently. Friedman's Destroyers showed Aviation Cruiser with VTOL aircraft and larger missile batteries some years ago as being proposed to follow on the Arleigh Burke DDGs. A CBG cannot be in all places at once while dispersion complements the CVN and does not compete with it.

See my response above to @XP67_Moonbat . A ship with 22 aircraft has the bare minimum air wing to protect itself. It cannot launch strikes, it cannot even deal with a large air attack on itself. Missiles for strike do not belong on the same hull as fixed wing aircraft, because they're just flat better deployed onto that DDG 50+ miles closer to the enemy!

There may be an argument for a carrier with ~96 VLS cells, maybe 128, in 3-4x32 cells. 16-32 cells on each corner, more or less. 20x SM2s, 6x SM-6, and 24x ESSM in each set of 32, reduce proportionally for fewer cells. Though maybe arranged not quite vertical (say, 5-10deg outboard?), so that the boosters don't drop onto the flight deck.

I wouldn’t read to much into the ASW mission. The fact the painting has Harriers suggests there was more than just the ASW mission, they seem to be oversized SAG leaders more than anything, picking up the slack when carriers aren’t available. Don’t have anything concrete to support that of course, it’s just a hunch.

I believe that the idea was to have that carrier use Harriers as Combat Air Patrol to chase the Bears away.

"Whether there was ever a sound reason to build them" they are the best multi capability ship affording the cdr's the most options and counters necessary while presenting an adversary w/ too many potentials to manage.

Again, a carrier needs ~22 aircraft just to barely protect itself, and is incapable of doing strike missions or even heavy ASW. And strike missiles are better served by being some 50 miles closer to their target, not on the carrier.

Or, in keeping with the "Revolution at Sea" concept (1980s, but carrying over into the 1990s), do something very different.

Under Revolution at Sea, these small air wings are primarily sensors of some sort, either AEW aircraft (for AAW) or sea surveillance aircraft (for ASuW/ASW). So with 22 aircraft you're maintaining two AEW stations (say 8 aircraft) and 2 sea surveillance ones (also 8 aircraft) plus a planeguard (2-4 helos) and a small deck alert fighter det (maybe 4 or so, to keep one or two ready for when you have to go inspect a zombie instead of just shooting it down). The actual ordnance is almost all ship-launched missiles -- some combo of surface-launched air-targeted SAMs, long-range antiship missiles, ASW stand-off weapons, cruise missiles, etc. That's Metcalf's big idea, anyway.

I'd bump that to 8x fighters to maintain a CAP of 2x; and some ASW helicopters to protect the carrier separate from the escorts, call it another 4x just to keep one ASW helo in close to the carrier 24/7. But otherwise I follow the thinking.

This was a really disruptive way to think about naval warfare, and honestly none of the established warfare communities liked it. It took away all of their scope for independent action, and depended heavily on datalinks that kept proving to be really fragile and unreliable in the real world. Even by the late 1990s, network infrastructure could not credibly execute Revolution at Sea, because the tech just was not ready for prime time. It took major advances in networking, mostly driven by civilian use cases like cell phones, to make it really feasible. We might be about there now. Maybe.

That's a very weird idea, so I see why the residents didn't like it much. They're ship captains, damn it, they want to be Aubrey or Nelson and go do cool things! Hell, for the first month after Captain Tammen came to USS Georgia, he'd randomly stick his head into control and order us to go deep and fast, just because he was the captain and he could. (My favorite captain, FWIW)

And I agree that we might be there now on all the datalinks. They definitely were NOT there in the 1980s or 90s. But unless someone says "I really want to be able to do (X)" it will not be developed.

 

[Scott Kenny]

An intermedite ship between CG V/TOL or Carriers and there defensive and offensive sub/surface drone motherships which could be viewed as replacing frigates-destroyers as these smaller ships are still dependant on the large CG V/TOL or Carriers. This craft would eventually replace attack subs as well.

Yeah, NO.

Different jobs, folks.

"According to undersea warfare expert H.I. Sutton, author of the Covert Shores web site, the use of drones could lead to minimally crewed aviation ships, complete with deck robots to substantially reduce the number of personnel needed to maintain, operate, and fly aircraft.

As for the carrier itself, Sutton suggests a semi-submersible vessel that uses ballast tanks to raise or lower itself in relation to sea level. A semi-submersible carrier could sit “barely two meters (six feet) above waves during flight operations in normal sea states or bad weather but ballast down further when not engaged in flying operations,” Sutton tells us. He envisions sleek, low-profile vessels, similar to a submarine sailing on the surface of the ocean, with elevators and a flight deck for UCAVs."

I've seen carriers take waves over the bow. 90 feet above the normal waterline.

I've been out swimming in 20,000ft of water when a 30ft swell decided to roll by, and that was in the Pacific! I understand the North Atlantic is worse.

If you're planning on the weather deck being that close to the waterline, you might as well just go full submarine and only come up when you need to launch or recover aircraft!

 

[H_K]

A carrier needs AEW, COD, CAP, and a mix of ASW and other-use helicopters, just to keep it safe and let the actual combat group do their thing. This minimum operational coverage looks about like so:
3-5 AEW
2-3 COD
8 fighters to keep a CAP of two up
4+ ASW helicopters
2-3 other helicopters for plane guard
3-4 Tankers optional
That's 19-20 aircraft not counting tankers on the low end.

Charles de Gaulle:
2 AEW
8 fighters for CAP/alert
3 helicopters for plane guard, COD and surface surveillance
2 fighters tasked as buddy tankers at all times

That’s 15 aircraft. With 30-35 aircraft total, ie. 24-30 fighters, that leaves 14-20 fighters for strike missions.

ASW is handled by escorts with modern towed sonar performing screening duties better than any helicopter. ASW helicopters aboard the escorts intervene only for target classification & engagement. AEW can be handled by 2 aircraft thanks to the Hawkeye’s long patrol endurance, though a 3rd spare would be nice to have. Fixed wing COD is a nice to have - it’s cheaper to stock spares onboard and on supply ships.

 

[Firefinder]

Honestly you can probably outright write off fix Wing CODs planes from the carrier onboard airwing.

Outside of mail running and delivering specialty items CODS are fairly useless to the carrier day to day since they can not carry much. Like you not unrepping a carrier even from a squadron of Greyhounds.

It honestly be better to base them from land and do delivers that way.

Need a New aircraft engine? Send it up and the nearest land base will drop it off. Ditto for the Admiral cake addiction, new passengers and other specail needs.

Biggest issues be ensuring the pilots maintain their Carrier landing quals, and since the Swotching over to the Osprey...

 

[johnpjones1775]

Apparently missed a whole pile of things in my previous read-through.


Highly unlikely.

Small carriers are exponentially worse than large carriers.

A carrier needs AEW, COD, CAP, and a mix of ASW and other-use helicopters, just to keep it safe and let the actual combat group do their thing. This minimum operational coverage looks about like so:

3-5 AEW planes to keep one up 24-7. (5-7 AEW helicopters if you're stuck using helos, because nobody funded the EV-22. Helos don't have the flight time that a fixed wing plane does, so you end up needing more of them in rotation and they're stuck closer to the carrier.)​

2-3 COD planes to haul supplies to and from the carrier while at sea.​

8 fighters to keep a CAP of two up 24-7​

4+ ASW helicopters, and a dozen would be better so you can have one ASW helo in each cardinal direction from the carrier 24/7. This lets your escort ASW helicopters work outside of your escorts instead of between carrier and escorts.​

2-3 other helicopters for plane guard while you are doing flight ops, in case a pilot ditches or some flight deck worker gets blown overboard. They do other stuff too, but their primary job on a carrier is rescue.​

3-4 Tankers optional, if your mission involves having any given aircraft in the air for long periods. (depending on aircraft, your CODs may be able to double as tankers if they're not needed for cargo)​

That's 19-20 aircraft not counting tankers on the low end. That's more like 36+ aircraft if you're using helos for your AEW (probably won't need tankers except for your mission aircraft though).

Now we can start talking about the mission aircraft we're going to stick on this carrier, for whatever job we want it to do.

ASW? That means long range MPA like the S-3, you're going to want about a dozen of those and a full dozen ASW helos too. Puts you at about 40 aircraft, and demands that your design has catapults because nobody has designed the SV-22 yet. Or an ASW CL-84... Without a fixed wing MPA? How much fuel can you pack into an EH101 for range, on top of all the ASW gear? Make it probably a dozen ASW Merlins with drop tanks and IFR probes, plus another dozen ASW helicopters whether Merlins or H-60s.

Convoy Escort? Still going to want S-3s, but probably won't need as many ASW helos because you will have more escorts with helicopters. And a baby carrier is a lower priority target than the merchant ships you're guarding. Will probably double the number of fighters to have a bigger CAP available.

Strike? Uh, you need a couple of EW planes, a dozen or so attack planes, plus more tankers. Oh, and probably a full dozen extra fighters, too, to escort that strike package. That's a good 30 aircraft. Can we discard the entire strike mission from any carrier having space for less than 65 aircraft?




See my response above to @XP67_Moonbat . A ship with 22 aircraft has the bare minimum air wing to protect itself. It cannot launch strikes, it cannot even deal with a large air attack on itself. Missiles for strike do not belong on the same hull as fixed wing aircraft, because they're just flat better deployed onto that DDG 50+ miles closer to the enemy!

There may be an argument for a carrier with ~96 VLS cells, maybe 128, in 3-4x32 cells. 16-32 cells on each corner, more or less. 20x SM2s, 6x SM-6, and 24x ESSM in each set of 32, reduce proportionally for fewer cells. Though maybe arranged not quite vertical (say, 5-10deg outboard?), so that the boosters don't drop onto the flight deck.




I believe that the idea was to have that carrier use Harriers as Combat Air Patrol to chase the Bears away.




Again, a carrier needs ~22 aircraft just to barely protect itself, and is incapable of doing strike missions or even heavy ASW. And strike missiles are better served by being some 50 miles closer to their target, not on the carrier.




I'd bump that to 8x fighters to maintain a CAP of 2x; and some ASW helicopters to protect the carrier separate from the escorts, call it another 4x just to keep one ASW helo in close to the carrier 24/7. But otherwise I follow the thinking.




That's a very weird idea, so I see why the residents didn't like it much. They're ship captains, damn it, they want to be Aubrey or Nelson and go do cool things! Hell, for the first month after Captain Tammen came to USS Georgia, he'd randomly stick his head into control and order us to go deep and fast, just because he was the captain and he could. (My favorite captain, FWIW)

And I agree that we might be there now on all the datalinks. They definitely were NOT there in the 1980s or 90s. But unless someone says "I really want to be able to do (X)" it will not be developed.

You emphasize a carrier needs a minimum of 22 aircraft just to protect itself, meaning 44 leaves the carrier well protected, add 6 more and you’ve got solid protection and a few for strike missions.

a carrier that only carries 50 airframes can be significantly smaller than a carrier designed to carry 100. Probably not half the size but probably closer to 3/4 the size of a super carrier or slightly smaller than that.

 

[H_K]

There’s a rough relationship of 0.8 to 1 aircraft per 1,000 tons starting from ~30,000 tons all the way through to a Ford class CVN. Depending on how tightly you pack aircraft.

The efficiencies of scale above 30,000+ tons actually seem to be fairly limited… aviation capacity seems to scale mostly linearly from then.

For example:
Charles de Gaulle 40,000 tons, 30-40 aircraft
USN CVN 100,000 tons, 75-90 aircraft

(Obviously there are other efficiencies from larger carriers in terms of propulsion, manning, escort ships etc).

 

[Scott Kenny]

Honestly you can probably outright write off fix Wing CODs planes from the carrier onboard airwing.

Outside of mail running and delivering specialty items CODS are fairly useless to the carrier day to day since they can not carry much. Like you not unrepping a carrier even from a squadron of Greyhounds.

It honestly be better to base them from land and do delivers that way.

Need a New aircraft engine? Send it up and the nearest land base will drop it off. Ditto for the Admiral cake addiction, new passengers and other specail needs.

Biggest issues be ensuring the pilots maintain their Carrier landing quals, and since the Swotching over to the Osprey...

Arguable. Pulling into a friendly port just to get a new engine is pretty foolish, that's why the CODs exist.

Plus, with the right CODs you can also use them as tankers for when they're not flying COD. Pretty sure the Osprey COD can do tanker missions, and if it can't it needs to.

Though I suspect that the Ospreys end up flying a lot more cargo around a carrier group than the old C-2 Greyhounds.

You emphasize a carrier needs a minimum of 22 aircraft just to protect itself, meaning 44 leaves the carrier well protected, add 6 more and you’ve got solid protection and a few for strike missions.

A strike mission requires a flight of EW planes, a squadron of attackers, and a squadron of fighters to cover them. Plus tankers. That's 4x EW, 12x attack, 12x fighters, and probably 4x tankers. That also leaves the carrier with the bare minimum protection when the strike is out.

a carrier that only carries 50 airframes can be significantly smaller than a carrier designed to carry 100. Probably not half the size but probably closer to 3/4 the size of a super carrier or slightly smaller than that.

Yet a carrier that only carries 50 airframes still needs most of the same crew numbers as the carrier that has 100 (you end up needing more crew-support types like cooks with the bigger air wings). The America class LHAs have a crew of over 1000, not counting embarked Marines or any Air Wing. That's going to go up for a real carrier because there are catapults and arresting gear to maintain, plus the larger powerplants to operate them. I'd expect a crew of ~1800 or so for a conventionally powered carrier in the 45kton range with 50 birds on deck. Plus a good thousand bodies in the Air Wing.

Going back to Midway for crew data isn't a good comparison, those were old steam plants and very manpower intensive to run, and the Ford class is nuclear powered which is also manpower intensive. CVF has a very suspiciously low crew number to me, I wonder how well they can do damage control.

 

[johnpjones1775]

Arguable. Pulling into a friendly port just to get a new engine is pretty foolish, that's why the CODs exist.

Plus, with the right CODs you can also use them as tankers for when they're not flying COD. Pretty sure the Osprey COD can do tanker missions, and if it can't it needs to.

Though I suspect that the Ospreys end up flying a lot more cargo around a carrier group than the old C-2 Greyhounds.



A strike mission requires a flight of EW planes, a squadron of attackers, and a squadron of fighters to cover them. Plus tankers. That's 4x EW, 12x attack, 12x fighters, and probably 4x tankers. That also leaves the carrier with the bare minimum protection when the strike is out.



Yet a carrier that only carries 50 airframes still needs most of the same crew numbers as the carrier that has 100 (you end up needing more crew-support types like cooks with the bigger air wings). The America class LHAs have a crew of over 1000, not counting embarked Marines or any Air Wing. That's going to go up for a real carrier because there are catapults and arresting gear to maintain, plus the larger powerplants to operate them. I'd expect a crew of ~1800 or so for a conventionally powered carrier in the 45kton range with 50 birds on deck. Plus a good thousand bodies in the Air Wing.

Going back to Midway for crew data isn't a good comparison, those were old steam plants and very manpower intensive to run, and the Ford class is nuclear powered which is also manpower intensive. CVF has a very suspiciously low crew number to me, I wonder how well they can do damage control.

1800 is still much lower crewing than a super carrier your numbers of 2800 total with airwing is nearly half the crew of a Nimitz

 

[Firefinder]

Arguable. Pulling into a friendly port just to get a new engine is pretty foolish, that's why the CODs exist.

Why would you need to pull into port?

Talking bout keeping the CODs at land bases with fat stock of supplies and flying them to the Carriers as needed instead of keeping them on the Carriers and flying them to the landbase for pick up.

Greyhounds have enough range that a carrier can stay well out to sea without even worrying bout going port. And for 99 percent of a CODs duty it can be done out of one of the MANY nearby air bases.

And as far as the record shows, the only COD like plane that can do Tanking is the S3 Viking COD mod and the Osprey using the buddy tanker.

Its one of those in theory yes... in practicehasn't really been yet.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Why would you need to pull into port?

Talking bout keeping the CODs at land bases with fat stock of supplies and flying them to the Carriers as needed instead of keeping them on the Carriers and flying them to the landbase for pick up.

Greyhounds have enough range that a carrier can stay well out to sea without even worrying bout going port. And for 99 percent of a CODs duty it can be done out of one of the MANY nearby air bases.

And as far as the record shows, the only COD like plane that can do Tanking is the S3 Viking COD mod and the Osprey using the buddy tanker.

Its one of those in theory yes... in practicehasn't really been yet.

Ah, gotcha! *facepalm* man I feel dumb now.

I still think that the Osprey CODs end up doing a lot of hovering around the carrier group carrying supplies that the Knighthawks struggle with, but I will defer to someone who has been on a carrier deployment since the CMV-22s started doing their thing.

1800 is still much lower crewing than a super carrier your numbers of 2800 total with airwing is nearly half the crew of a Nimitz

The Ford is a terrible comparison, each reactor needs a good 200 crew to operate 24/7, so that's 400 bodies or more right there, plus all the extra bodies to feed them etc (probably another 50-100 right there). 1800 plus 500 more for the reactors is 2300, and that's only 300 less than the reported crew of a Ford not counting air wing. I'd be willing to bet that those last 300 people are only there to keep the air wing fed and watered.

 

[H_K]

The Ford is a terrible comparison, each reactor needs a good 200 crew to operate 24/7, so that's 400 bodies or more right there

That sounds high. If you look at Charles de Gaule’s two reactor plant, for example, it only needs about 80 people in total - about 15 watchmen per reactor (working in 3 shifts of 5), plus 25 pax for nuclear safety, and various officers & specialists.

Also if you look at SSNs the nuke crew requirement are surprisingly low - only about 15 pax on a French SSN for example (12 watchmen working in 3 shifts of 4 + 3 officers/specialists).

 

[Scott Kenny]

That sounds high. If you look at Charles de Gaule’s two reactor plant, for example, it only needs about 80 people in total - about 15 watchmen per reactor (working in 3 shifts of 5), plus 25 pax for nuclear safety, and various officers & specialists.

Also if you look at SSNs the nuke crew requirement are surprisingly low - only about 15 pax on a French SSN for example (12 watchmen working in 3 shifts of 4 + 3 officers/specialists).

USN runs higher manning, there's a good 22 people per watch on a submarine reactor. Usually times 4 watches, plus a few extras.

Plus there's physically more stuff on the carrier's reactors.

 

[that_person]

I believe that the idea was to have that carrier use Harriers as Combat Air Patrol to chase the Bears away.

You think this... why exactly? Why would you take the interceptor role away from the fleet carriers and give them to suboptimal VSTOL fighters, that would operate without an E-2? Also, almost all writing on the topic of small carriers discusses their use in for the ASW role.

 

[Scott Kenny]

You think this... why exactly? Why would you take the interceptor role away from the fleet carriers and give them to suboptimal VSTOL fighters, that would operate without an E-2? Also, almost all writing on the topic of small carriers discusses their use in for the ASW role.

The same thinking that assigned A-4s to the Essex class CVSs, that were doing the same ASW role: Protecting that specific carrier!