High Adaptability Surface Combatants

[Bgray]

Saw this in an article as I was looking for some information on the Reformers of the 1970s-1980s:

"Hart and Lind have long made public their dismay with America's supercarriers, which, they argue at length, are vulnerable, too expensive to deploy in the numbers needed, and carry the wrong kind of aircraft. They float an interesting case for a new kind of ship, "High Adaptability Surface Combatants," a hybrid mini-carrier and surface warfare ship that, by changing modular sensors and weapon suites, could be reconfigured fron one mission to another. Vertical or short take-off and landing aircraft like the Marine Corps' and Royal Navy's Harrier would operate from its flat top deck; a merchant ship-like bow or stern would let it also serve as a "roll-on, roll-off" amphibious ship; containerized antiaircraft weapons and modularized electronics and sensors would equip it for either antisubmarine or antiair warfare roles."

I haven't been able to find any images or designs of it, so was it just something that was mentioned in Hart an dLind's book, or did they ever try to detail it more?

 

[TomS]

I don't think they ever detailed it more. Bill Lind would have been exactly the wrong person to do any sort of actual naval architecture on a concept like this, and Gary Hart's only real exposure to boats seems to have been this one.

 

[that_person]

I get a feeling this is just another politician/commentator railing against something they have no understanding of.

 

[Kat Tsun]

At this point Bill Lind is more famous for his insane science fiction novels than his actual military analysis I think.

 

[Bgray]

I get a feeling this is just another politician/commentator railing against something they have no understanding of.

It was part of the "reformers" of the 1980s, the ones that hated the F-15, felt that the US Airforce needed cheap aircraft that would be pretty much good weather/day fighters, and well, let's just say that one reason they went away was the first Gulf War pretty well proved them wrong.

That being said, I'm surprised none of them at least came up with a drawing of their ship concept.

 

[TomS]

Poking at Google Books, I was able to read a tiny bit more about the concept as described by Hart and Lind. They talk about it as a light carrier configuration with a flight deck, an open deck below that, and an island to one side. Very likely no drawing, but there are plenty of exemplars from the same era -- adapted container ship designs, Carrier of Large Objects just a few years later, etc.

 

[Tzoli]

The same politicans on the British side proposed the "Fat and Tall Ship" concept?