VSS - VSTOL Support Ship - exotic air group

[Archibald]

France probably had the largest fleet it could afford[5].

100% agree. You (correctly) blame WWII devastation, but the roaring 1944-1974 decades of prosperity helped reparing the damage. Main issue after De Gaulle return in '58 was Force de Frappe. France had to fund a fourth army with expensive new weapons and it cost the country half the cost of Apollo and 5 times Concorde: $10 billion dollar. For a medium power recovering from WWII, fighting dirty colonial wars and having important NATO committments (even after 1966) that was a lot. The French Navy gained boomers, but the surface fleet took a beating, made worse by the 1973 oil shock. Clearly three full size carriers was never affordable - Arromanches filled a lot of roles like a good Swiss knife but was gone by 1974. And PH75 went nowhere before ballooning into PA75 - nowadays know as CdG.

Do we have any data how said 10 billion spread 9ver the years? Or what cost what?

It's a number I checked a few months ago. I made a google search "Force de frappe" "french""billion" and this was the result.
The bulk of the effort was 1958-1973 and most expensives items were the ballistic missiles - Albion's S-3 and the boomers M1 / M20 series. The nukes by themselves were also expensive. In comparison the Mirage IVA was a cut-down interim system.
Testing in Moruroa was, for the french navy, a massive effort (think Crossroads but at French Navy scale of course !) called Force Alfa with the carriers, the last cruisers left, and frigates, also a few amphibs and lot of merchants.
Also the H-bomb which path was rocky. France had a nearly 5 years headstart over the PRC in A-bombs (February 1960 vs October 1964) but the H-bomb was a much harder nut to crack and the Chinese got there faster - June 1967, two and a half years - a record that still stands. France was bogged down but finally detonated Canopus in August 1968.
Another expense were the tactical nukes - Pluton missile and also Mirage IIIE & Jaguars, the last two droping a test device at Moruroa in 1973-74 (wasn't easy to get them there, was done by ships, in crates).

 

[H_K]

One ship can only be in one place.

So the argument for these VSS type carriers is more one of having some airpower available in multiple locations.

Yes. For the USN, more smaller carriers equals less capability overall, but at least some capability always available even if a supercarrier is unavailable (or worse case is put out of action).

This is true even within a 24hr cycle, i.e. 2 VSS carriers operating together can better operate 24/7 than a single super-carrier, so having 2 smaller carriers together has some benefits even if the super-carrier can project more power (alpha strikes) over the course of a single 2- or 12-hour period.

(I guess the counter-argument is the USN could just operate 2 CVNs together to get the same benefits!)

********
For smaller navies the cost of VSS might be justified if there was a very large maritime domain to cover - especially if the carrier reduces the burden of building lots of expensive land-built airbases in remote areas (e.g. UK, France, Canada, Australia, Brazil, Indonesia…)

 

[uk 75]

The primary role of the Canadian and Dutch carriers was ASW. The availability of the Orion/Aurora aircraft and plenty of bases helped make them unnecessary. Canada had frigates and destroyers with Seakings and the Netherlands became a Wasp then Lynx user.
France planned an ASW carrier to replace Arromanches but this evolved into a fixed wing large carrier.
The Royal Navy was forced by politicians to build through deck cruisers rather than light carriers. But had it been allowed carriers the RN would have again wanted something like Eagle rather than Hermes.
Spain and Italy build one light carrier each. Spain had already used AV8 on the old Dedalo (ex USS Cabot).
It is hard to see how one gets more light carriers even with bigger budgets as most navies would simply demand a bigger carrier or spend the money on more ASW assets.

 

[1635yankee]

I think even a single SSN could have sunk key elements of the seaborne invasion force thus denying it the chance to land.
As you say the crisis was caused by politics.
But my main point is that the RN focussed rightly on the main threat to Britain which came from Moscow not Buenos Aires

I just think the Argentinians could get a foothold, possibly by subterfuge, before the RN could start sinking ARA ships.

In any case, you're right in that the Argentinian calculations were influenced by what seemed to be a lack of concern with the Falklands, even though it had been a source of friction in relations between London and Buenos Aires for decades. You're also right in that the the real threat to Britain was from the dictator in Moscow, not one in South America.

 

[riggerrob]

... LAPES on deck sounds like a recipe for broken stuff. I mean, it's basically an in-flight arrestment with no landing gear, which would be really, really hard on both the cargo and the deck equipment. And without thrust after the arrestment, I'm not confident the load goes straight ahead consistently. ...

As long as you install the arrestor hook aft of the center of gravity, the drag created by the hook will try to keep the load going straight ahead on the deck. That configuration worked well when pistons and propellers were fashionable on aircraft carrier decks.

You might want to install wheels under the load. Try to picture the aluminum pallets used to LAPES heavy loads. Wheels might improve landings, but the big savings will be in the minutes required to clear cargo off the deck.
Perhaps include some sort of sacrificial decelerator in the pallet design. Once the cargo is stowed below deck, you can toss the "single use only" pallet over the side.

Is this scheme any better than dropping cargo in the water alongside the ship?

As for using heavy helicopters for COD, I was trying to envision a small nay that is struggling to keep a single aircraft carrier in service (think Royal Canadian Navy during the 1960s). They probably struggle to afford helicopters any bigger than the Sea Kings they are already using for ASW. CH-47s never were very good at deck landings. As for affording a fleet of CH-53s ... take a second look at the budget.

 

[Scott Kenny]

HM Treasury, the gift that keeps giving. [sigh]

The single greatest threat to HM military is HM Treasury.

See the current fire on Bon Homme Richard (LHD-6) for proof of why this isn't a very good idea...

That one was compounded by egregious shipyard incompetence. 1) allowing stacks of cardboard, oily waste, and dead lithium batteries to build up, 2) having some 75-85% of the entire ship's fire main inoperable due to maintenance and having NO firefighting support from the pierside, 3) in direct violation of standing orders post a fire on a nuclear sub in drydock, not having quick disconnect fittings at the watertight bulkhead doors to allow parts of the ship to be closed off from the fire, 4) the fire starting in the well deck which is a single enormous open space, 5) the crew having no clue how to fight a fire...

 

[BlackBat242]

6. The CO, XO, and other senior ship's officers not being sure they were allowed to start and control firefighting efforts (they thought that authority had passed to the shipyard managers)... so they did nothing.

 

[starviking]

6. The CO, XO, and other senior ship's officers not being sure they were allowed to start and control firefighting efforts (they thought that authority had passed to the shipyard managers)... so they did nothing.

I guess as a result of a system that discourages initiative?

 

[Scott Kenny]

I guess as a result of a system that discourages initiative?

Shipyard tends to make a very large issue of people presuming upon Shipyard responsibilities. Career ending large issues.

 

[starviking]

Shipyard tends to make a very large issue of people presuming upon Shipyard responsibilities. Career ending large issues.

Seems to be a lot of career-ending issues in the USN

 

[Scott Kenny]

Seems to be a lot of career-ending issues in the USN

Ask any other Navy what happens to the officers when they let their ship run aground.

 

[GK Dundas]

6. The CO, XO, and other senior ship's officers not being sure they were allowed to start and control firefighting efforts (they thought that authority had passed to the shipyard managers)... so they did nothing.

And remember if something goes wrong, it's never the shipyard's fault.

 

[starviking]

Ask any other Navy what happens to the officers when they let their ship run aground.

True, but IIRC the root cause of the swathe of unfortunate USN accidents was hard-worked crew with little training time. Issues far beyond a captain’s pay grade.

 

[Scott Kenny]

True, but IIRC the root cause of the swathe of unfortunate USN accidents was hard-worked crew with little training time. Issues far beyond a captain’s pay grade.

Multiplied by people getting assigned from another ship of the same class but not the same configuration.

 

[GK Dundas]

The accident rate was not helped by a decision to develop digital training protocols.. apparently real men use computers and dvds . That and self training in all the incredible amount of spare time that every junior officer has on their hands
Hands on training taught by actual flesh and blood instructors with real life experience is for pussies....
And you wonder why then , some consider the USN to currently be a self propelled hazard to navigation.

 

[Scott Kenny]

The accident rate was not helped by a decision to develop digital training protocols.. apparently real men use computers and dvds . That and self training in all the incredible amount of spare time that every junior officer has on their hands
Hands on training taught by actual flesh and blood instructors with real life experience is for pussies....
And you wonder why then , some consider the USN to currently be a self propelled hazard to navigation.

While it is a bit different, the submarine community uses two different simulators. For doing things that we can't easily or safely do at sea.

One is the setup to firing torpedoes. Yes, we shoot any given torpedo multiple times before the exercise warhead is removed and replaced with boom. It's expensive to do that at sea, what with needing all the range safety and torpedo catchers.

The other one is a full motion simulator rig for rehearsing drills that are way too dangerous to do at sea. Specifically the "stern planes stuck full dive" emergency. (and @merriman just clenched from thinking about that...). On an Ohio-class, you have about 8 seconds to have gone through all the emergency actions, and even if you do everything right you will get deep enough that one Chief said "court-martial me on the surface, sir" and pulled the emergency blow handles before he was ordered. In the simulator. How deep were we supposed to be? Past test depth is all I will say.

 

[Archibald]

Could we please return to this topic subject ?