What might the aircraft carriers of the future look like ?

[F.L.]

How can aircraft carriers evolve with today's technological advances ?
How will they evolve in the face of new threats such as hypersonic missiles, stealthy submarine drones... ?
Will the trend be towards larger aircraft carriers or smaller ones ? Could we see "very light carriers" again ?
Are stealth aircraft carriers a possibility ?

 

[F.L.]

What future ?

 

[carvalho2008]

Armed and Independent: Thinking Outside the Box on Small Carriers | Center for International Maritime Security

cimsec.org

 

[carvalho2008]

Russian varan Poject

 

[carvalho2008]

CVX HHI in Korea

 

[carvalho2008]

 

[carvalho2008]

Multifunctional Naval Platform: the small aircraft carrier that Portugal is building

www.outono.net

 

[carvalho2008]

Portuguese project

 

[F.L.]

Portuguese project

It's a very interesting concept.

 

[F.L.]

...

 

[MadRat]

Ramped monorail launcher. Locate them off the main deck and use an ogee curve to maximize acceleration in the allotted space and places the planes on a slight climb angle at release. Granted you would want the plane to sit on a dolly that transverses the monorail, not rely on pilot gymnastics. Once the plane is attached to the monorail's dolly you could withdraw the landing gear and eliminate that much extra drag. All that deck space taken up for launching CTOL fighters seems wasteful.

And maybe explore if its feasible to mount an angled deck above the main deck, so retrieval of aircraft doesn't stop all the other functions on your main deck. Instead of a normal hull, explore the benefits of x-bows, tumblehome, and multihulls.

 

[carvalho2008]

I believe there will be 4 major principles that will influence the aircraft carriers of the future:

1) NEZ, No Escape Zone of anti-ship weapons, are increasingly effective, leaving aerodrome ships more susceptible to being targeted. It will be increasingly dangerous to keep all your eggs in one basket...

2) The evolution of a multitasking ship will be consolidated, completely merging an amphibious plant with the stobar or ctol concepts.

3) Missiles nowadays sometimes reach the same range as embarked planes, this danger means that aerodrome ships need to be diluted in numbers to increase chances of survival. being smaller, they would operate together.

4) Drones, loitering munitions, missiles equipped with turbines will cause an emphasis on modeling in destroyers, causing them to return to operating with aircrafts following the example of WWII cruisers, no longer being limited to operating only with helicopters.

 

[sferrin]

1. Aircraft carriers have been susceptible to attack since the Langley in 1920. The argument has been going since Jimmy Doolittle in 1945. Nothing has changed.

2. LOL

3. See #1

4. ?????

 

[paralay]

All ships will be aircraft carriers, a carrier of 100,000 tons displacement is not required for drones

 

[Scott Kenny]

How can aircraft carriers evolve with today's technological advances ?
How will they evolve in the face of new threats such as hypersonic missiles, stealthy submarine drones... ?

They will evolve, probably to have better onboard defenses themselves. I wouldn't be surprised if the later Fords got several racks of Mk41 VLS, 16-32 cells per location and probably fore and aft, port and starboard, replacing the ESSM launchers. Just angled outboard enough to keep any boosters from landing on the deck instead of being strictly vertical. Radar capable of guiding all that as well, so full SPY6 with fixed arrays. (That applies to all ships, really. More missiles necessary for their own defense because they cannot mass together for safety in an A2AD area.)

Underwater protection is going to be an interesting discussion. The best defense against a submarine is another submarine, not a surface ship or aircraft, but a carrier can definitely add some torpedo defenses.

Will the trend be towards larger aircraft carriers or smaller ones ? Could we see "very light carriers" again ?

The bigger the carrier the better. Gives you more space for longer catapults, more arresting gear run, more space for bigger aircraft. The 6th Gen fighters are going to be huge, the range requirements demand it. I figure the USN F/A-XX is going to be on the order of 85klbs, right at the limit for the catapults and arresting gear, and bigger than a Flanker in bulk. And the USN 6gen is going to be the smaller plane than the USAF 6gen, I'm expecting that one to be over 100klbs!

I think the 100ktons size is about the max anyone could afford to build. Something the size of a Nimitz or Ford.

The smallest carrier capable of doing anything beyond protecting itself is going to be about 45ktons. Midway sized.

We are NOT going to see 12kton CVEs show up. A convoy escort needs to be able to handle a minimum of 20 aircraft:

2-3 AEW, to keep one in the air 24/7 (5-7 if you need to use helicopters for AEW, helicopters have much less endurance)​

8 fighters, to keep two in the air 24/7​

4 ASW helicopters, minimum, to keep one in the air 24/7​

2-3 utility helicopters as plane guard and CSAR, to keep 1 in the air 24/7​

2-3 COD cargo planes​

Are stealth aircraft carriers a possibility ?

Maybe? First, you'd need to do something weird for the hull shaping. Slapping an island shaped like the Zumwalt deckhouse is trivial. Then you have all the aircraft on deck in very unstealthy condition, and all the people and tugs running around, all equally non-stealthy.

Even if you could reduce the RCS of a carrier to the size of a B-2, now there's a carrier sized hole in the reflections from the water and that huge wake a quarter million horsepower makes in the water.

 

[F.L.]

Actually, I think we're going to have two major types of aircraft carrier working side by side.
- Heavy aircraft carriers (STOBAR, CATOBAR, big STOVL)
- Light, very versatile helicopter/aircraft carriers & light STOVL (equipped with helos, VTOLs, UAVs, etc.)

The question of light versus heavy aircraft carriers can be posed like this:
In the event of high-intensity warfare involving heavy losses, is it better to have a few large aircraft carriers or a lot of light carriers ?

 

[sferrin]

All ships will be aircraft carriers, a carrier of 100,000 tons displacement is not required for drones

Another reason the Zumwalt hull would have been perfect. Check out the size of the flight deck compared toa Burke:

 

[Dilandu]

My IMHO, carriers would become smaller, exchanging the large onboard supplies with fast resupplying by fast drone ships. Instead of concentrating all air wing on one great ship, it would be distributed among several smaller, stealthier units - so in case some of them would be detected and knocked out, it would not reduce the air wing as greatly as loss of one large carrier.

The air wing would shift toward the UCAV's, probably with only a small number of manned multi-purpose planes.

 

[Dilandu]

We are NOT going to see 12kton CVEs show up. A convoy escort needs to be able to handle a minimum of 20 aircraft:
2-3 AEW, to keep one in the air 24/7 (5-7 if you need to use helicopters for AEW, helicopters have much less endurance)8 fighters, to keep two in the air 24/74 ASW helicopters, minimum, to keep one in the air 24/72-3 utility helicopters as plane guard and CSAR, to keep 1 in the air 24/72-3 COD cargo planes

Why are you thinking in terms of manned aircraft, while drones could perform much of those functions?

 

[carvalho2008]

Op-Ed: Is it Time for the U.S. Navy to Build the Drone Carrier Warship? - Naval News

As the Pentagon and Congress grapple on determining what to build to meet the “500-ship U.S. Navy goal,” a couple of years-old ideas and artist renderings may lead to a more flexible future for the U.S. Navy’s global operations. BAE Systems' UXV and Naval Group’s “Ocean Avenger” are Potential...

www.navalnews.com

"Naval Group’s 4,000-ton trimaran “Ocean Avenger” Drone Carrier Warship has two straight runways to launch UCAVs with VTOL rotorcraft stationed at the stern. “Ocean Avenger” also has a main gun turret and VLS cells for missiles in addition to four 30mm autocannon turrets at the corners of the trimaran. Right: BAE’s 8,000-ton UXV Drone Carrier Warship uses two split-V runways to launch UCAV aircraft. Spots on the stern and forward deck are reserved for unmanned VTOL rotorcraft while the floodable well deck can launch unmanned surface and subsurface systems. UXV carries offensive and defensive VLS missiles and a 155mm gun with the possible addition of larger Hypersonic missile tubes. UXV is stated to be 500-feet long, or the length of the upcoming U.S. Navy’s FFG-62 FREMM-modified frigate "....

 

[F.L.]

“Ocean Avenger”

It's a really cool concept. In a modern battlecarrier style.
Nice find !

 

[F.L.]

UXV Combatant - Wikipedia

en.m.wikipedia.org

'

 

[hagaricus]

No-one seems to think they'll be submarines? They're already huge & nuclear powered, launching missiles from silos. Launching UAVs either underwater or surfaced from silos or deck isn't too much of a stretch.

My fantasy of adding an offset conning tower, deck runway with retractable ski jump and arrestor wires, and vertical hangarage for tailsitters may well be, but I'd be happy for anyone to tell me just why such an idea is preposterous.

 

[helmutkohl]

We could start seeing carriers primarily relying on large drones, which are the size of WW2 planes.
but it seems that countries that want to operate them, prefer to use catapults to launch them. the UK is considering adding them on the QE, China on the Type 076, and Turkey is also investigating them.

Since these large drones like the Kizilelma, X-47, etc are more compact than modern combat jets, we could see more WW2 sized carriers with catapults. 30-40,000 tons, could carry a decent amount of these drones as well as being large enough to carry a few number of manned aircraft for support.

 

[F.L.]

No-one seens to think they'll be submarines? They're already huge & nuclear powered, launching missiles from silos. Launching UAVs either underwater or surfaced from silos or deck isn't too much of a stretch.

My fantasy of adding an offset conning tower, deck runway with retractable ski jump and arrestor wires, and vertical hangarage for tailsitters may well be, but I'd be happy for anyone to tell me just why such an idea is preposterous.

Totally unrealistic, but nice !

 

[carvalho2008]

If since WWII, air power has established itself as predominant in naval battles, the same occurs today with much greater intensity.

WWI, battle by cannons prevailed;

WWII, Airplanes came to reign in the naval aviation environment;

From 1950 onwards, the air and naval environment no longer shared the skies only with planes and helicopters, but also with missiles. Well, missiles are intelligent projectiles that fly much further than cannon loads... drones have also entered, which are nothing more than the miniaturization of planes and remote controls...

Why do I write this? I write because every truly modern ship needs to emphasize its design to prioritize this evolution of equipment. Regardless of the tonnage, whether it is 600 tons or 60,000 tons, he must emphasize this.

So, the tendency is for any vessel to become a type of aircraft carrier and in the same way, reducing its size.

Today, Supercarriers do not serve as an example. they are big for an economic logical reason. However, there is no way to have the number of them needed in a global crisis like WWII. Just look at the number of aerodrome ships from the Second World War....the USA had more than 70 of them at its end, distributed in several classes. Today, the logic only becomes more pronounced, as it is almost suicidal for a squadron to set sail without an air-naval escort. Smaller countries are realizing this and know that they will not be able to count on the small number of their allies' aircraft carriers...they will be insufficient. Global supply line and logistics coverage is needed more than ever.

 

[paralay]

Another reason the Zumwalt hull would have been perfect. Check out the size of the flight deck compared toa Burke:

The entire upper deck is an airfield, something like the early aircraft carriers of the Second World War

 

[sferrin]

The entire upper deck is an airfield, something like the early aircraft carriers of the Second World War

I think it's one of the reasons these LCSs survived while the other class is getting retired:

 

[carvalho2008]

 

[F.L.]

Then you have all the aircraft on deck in very unstealthy condition, and all the people and tugs running around, all equally non-stealthy.

Perhaps a double-deck stealth aircraft carrier could solve this problem.
The planes would be hidden in the lower deck where the catapults and ski jump would be positioned. Landings would take place on the upper deck, where the aircraft would remain for only a minimum time.
I imagine a fairly narrow carrier without angled deck.

 

[yasotay]

 

[F.L.]

Of course, there are many possible futures for aircraft carriers, but the one we're particularly interested in is their future development.

 

[carvalho2008]

Perhaps a double-deck stealth aircraft carrier could solve this problem.
The planes would be hidden in the lower deck where the catapults and ski jump would be positioned. Landings would take place on the upper deck, where the aircraft would remain for only a minimum time.
I imagine a fairly narrow carrier without angled deck.

 

[carvalho2008]

The problem is being able to solve the blast of fighter engines

 

[Scott Kenny]

Why are you thinking in terms of manned aircraft, while drones could perform much of those functions?

You will still need numbers even if you run 100% drones. You still need to do maintenance, they can still break down. That's why even the long-endurance planes, the AEW and COD, have 2-3 airframes each. One plane is in maintenance, the other is a spare.

Those 8x fighters aren't because the pilots get tired, the planes are flying ~6hrs a day and they probably have more pilots than planes. Those 8x fighters are because fighters are terrible for loitering and use up all their fuel quickly, and because missiles have limited hang time. Assuming that you could keep drone fighters up until they needed maintenance, big assumption there IMO, then you need more tankers to carry fuel to the fighters. And the tankers are physically much bigger than the fighters, so that messes with your spotting factor.

The only savings is in not needing helicopters for Plane Guard if you don't have any pilots to rescue, but those helicopters also spend a lot of time running supplies from the big ship to the small ships.

TL;DR: That plane count is not going to go down much just because you're using drones.

No-one seems to think they'll be submarines? They're already huge & nuclear powered, launching missiles from silos. Launching UAVs either underwater or surfaced from silos or deck isn't too much of a stretch.

My fantasy of adding an offset conning tower, deck runway with retractable ski jump and arrestor wires, and vertical hangarage for tailsitters may well be, but I'd be happy for anyone to tell me just why such an idea is preposterous.

Big holes in pressure hull, like the kind necessary to let airplanes come on deck, make submariners clench so hard they can make diamonds. Read up on the Regulus missile subs from the late 1950s and early 1960s.

 

[Scott Kenny]

While that is an awesome concept, I think that the wind tunnel effect is going to do scary things on the lower deck.

 

[carvalho2008]

While that is an awesome concept, I think that the wind tunnel effect is going to do scary things on the lower deck.

The problem is being able to solve the blast of fighter engines

It would be so nice to get something similar to battlestar Galactica.....lol..lol

Despite the image, the planes should enter the takeoff tunnel, one at a time in the face of the blast created...

 

[Scott Kenny]

The problem is being able to solve the blast of fighter engines

It would be so nice to get something similar to battlestar Galactica.....lol..lol

Despite the image, the planes should enter the takeoff tunnel, one at a time in the face of the blast created...

I just mean in terms of all the wind getting funneled through that deck.

Many moons ago, my sub was stuck in the Explosives Handling Wharf at NSB Bangor.

EHW is that very tall building in the background, it has an open slot about 15-20ft tall on both ends of the building for trucks and whatnot to be able to drive through.

You can feel no wind at all standing outside that building, but as soon as you step inside the wind is blowing so hard you are leaning at a 45deg angle to the ground just to make any progress forwards at all!

The running joke was that all the wind on the west coast was generated there.

 

[CV12Hornet]

The question of light versus heavy aircraft carriers can be posed like this:
In the event of high-intensity warfare involving heavy losses, is it better to have a few large aircraft carriers or a lot of light carriers ?

A few large carriers. While the large carriers can be in fewer places at once they're more survivable and bring more strike aircraft to the party due both to the square-cube law and because they need to dedicate a lower proportion of their aircraft slots to specialists.

And maybe explore if its feasible to mount an angled deck above the main deck, so retrieval of aircraft doesn't stop all the other functions on your main deck. Instead of a normal hull, explore the benefits of x-bows, tumblehome, and multihulls.

The premiere carrier operator on the planet, the USN, studied all of these options during the Ford design process and went back to the monohull. Most of that was due to reduction of risk, granted, but all of the alternative options bring serious issues to a carrier design.

- X-bows are a no-go on a ship that's length-limited at the waterline by infrastructure whilst also needing as long a flight deck as can be managed.

- Tumblehome's geometry reduces deck area, which is also a no-go for carriers, which are all about maximizing deck area.

- Multihulls just plain haven't been tried at the sizes aircraft carriers reach, which scuppers that idea until and unless someone actually builds a multihull ship that big.

 

[Scott Kenny]

- Multihulls just plain haven't been tried at the sizes aircraft carriers reach, which scuppers that idea until and unless someone actually builds a multihull ship that big.

Another issue with multihulls is how you can build a monohull carrier that is at the width limit for the drydock and then hang the sponsons and flight deck over the top, but a SWATH or a Trimaran needs drydocks the width of the flight deck.

If it wasn't for that, I'd bet that we would have seen the Fords built as trimarans, because that greatly reduces propulsion power needed for the same speed.