Large Ships and Spinal Mounts: What is the Point?

[RainOfSteel]

I wouldn't want to fly a sixteen hour mission in that thing!

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Bhoins:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Bhoins:
The last time an Aircraft Carrier was used in Naval warfare was for the Falklands war. Carriers are used today in support of operations in Iraq and Afganistan, but they are also in range of US Air Force Land bases. (Both here in the US and leased from our allies or liberated from the ground taken.) The actual role of the Carrier has declined drastically over the past 20 years, especially since the fall of the Soviet Union. They do provide some flexibility, since you don't have to rely on anyone else to provide you with airbases close to the target area for quick reaction strikes, but they are at the point where they are far from essential and numerous smaller carriers might provide a more flexible less expensive response that wasn't so vulnerable. However there is no way the Navy will give up its big Super Carriers, (until someone shows how vulnerable they actually are.) and no way the US Congress will stop building them, because they look big and impressive. And they can point to them and say, "see that, I voted to pay for that!"

Not really sure about that. In the Falklands the aircraft carier was used to support land operations and to defeat land-based aircraft. IIRC, the only Argetine naval casualty was te Belgrano, sunk by a submarine.

The US Navy keeps around a dozen carrier battle groups because they do allow force projection in a way the AF can't. In a fleet vs fleet action they are secondary to the submarine battle. </font>[/QUOTE]True, the British Carrier Air Arm did not attack Argentine Naval shipping but the Carriers were used for force protection. Flying Combat Air Patrol, protecting the naval assets from the Argentine Airforce and Navy, is participating in a Naval engagement. </font>[/QUOTE]Argentine Naval air flew from land bases. Except for some maybe Iraqi patrol boats, Naval aviation has not engaged Naval combatants at sea since 1945.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Uncle Bob:
Argentine Naval air flew from land bases. Except for some maybe Iraqi patrol boats, Naval aviation has not engaged Naval combatants at sea since 1945.

Actually that would depend on your definitions of Naval combatants and engaged. A Naval aircraft is a Naval combatant. If you are talking strictly a Carrier Air Wing engaging surface or subsurface craft (Boats, ships or subs) with live rounds with the intent to do grevious harm to the target, I don't believe we have to go all the way back to 1945. Haiphong seems to stick out in my mind. (There were several airraids in the Haiphong area to destroy North Vietnamese surface combatants, carried out from Yankee Station. Granted mostly PT boat equivalent, not capital ship but still....

) There were also raids against Iraq's naval assets in both Desert Storm and Iraqi Freedom. (Not that Iraq or North Viet Nam had much in the way of a Navy.

However carrier based aircraft used in a Naval engagement is not the same as carrier air conducting strikes on enemy shipping. The Carrier Combat Air patrol engaging enemy aircraft and defending the fleet is also Carrier Air used in a naval engagement.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"Argentine Naval air flew from land bases. Except for some maybe Iraqi patrol boats, Naval aviation has not engaged Naval combatants at sea since 1945."

7 Argentinian ships were sunk or damaged by British Naval aircraft.

http://www.naval-history.net/F42britsuccesses.htm

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
"Argentine Naval air flew from land bases. Except for some maybe Iraqi patrol boats, Naval aviation has not engaged Naval combatants at sea since 1945."

7 Argentinian ships were sunk or damaged by British Naval aircraft.

http://www.naval-history.net/F42britsuccesses.htm

I thought I remembered Argentine ships getting hit by Harriers, but unlike the Vulcans and Nimrods I wasn't sure. Thanks, Andrew, for proving, at least to me, that I haven't totally lost my mind.

 

[Uncle Bob]

Originally posted by Andrew Boulton:
7 Argentinian ships were sunk or damaged by British Naval aircraft.

http://www.naval-history.net/F42britsuccesses.htm

Three by helicopters from small surface combatents
Only four by carrier aviation
Trawler "NARWAL" sunk
Fleet transport "Bahia Buen Suceso" damaged
Transport "Rio Carcarana" damaged
Patrol ship "Rio Iguaza" beached

Somewhat more than I thought, but not much above the PT boat level. It was the submarine threat, not the Hermes' Harriers that kept the nine exocet armed destroyers and frigates in harbor.

My thesis remains that the main function of a carrier, since WWII, is to support amphibious operations and land ops near the coast. "Blue water" combat belongs to subs.

 

[Andrew Boulton]

"It was the submarine threat, not the Hermes' Harriers that kept the nine exocet armed destroyers and frigates in harbor."

Definitely. There are still people who think we shouldn't have sunk the Blegrano. These people are idiots.

"My thesis remains that the main function of a carrier, since WWII, is to support amphibious operations and land ops near the coast. "Blue water" combat belongs to subs."

But isn't this simply because, aside from the Falklands, no war has been fought between countries with significant navies, or in situations where they could be used?

 

[Uncle Bob]

Well, it is either true as it was in the Falklands, or false because the Falklands was a unique exception.

I think the former case requires fewer assumptions.

But I'm an American, and our Navy has 12 carrier battlegroups and 53 SSNs, so we have it covered either way.

 

[PBI]

Uncle Bob could be correct. The only way we'll know for certain is if there ever is another major conflict between navies possessing both major submarine and carrier assets. In a way, it's a little like the competing armour doctrines before WWII; both seemed plausible but it wasn't until fighting actually occurred that the German doctrine proved the superior

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by PBI:
Uncle Bob could be correct. The only way we'll know for certain is if there ever is another major conflict between navies possessing both major submarine and carrier assets. In a way, it's a little like the competing armour doctrines before WWII; both seemed plausible but it wasn't until fighting actually occurred that the German doctrine proved the superior

Only problem with trying to find out which theory is correct is that, unlike 1944-1945, there is only one Navy with Super Carriers. Further with the death of the Soviet Union and the death of the Red Navy there is no national Navy that a single Alpha Strike from a US carrier wouldn't reduce to holes in the water. Unless someone does some serious building in the near future, there can't be a modern equivalent of the Battle of Midway, or Coral Sea.

 

[The Oz]

It's true that there's not likely to be another Midway, but as John Keegan put it in his book, The Price of Admiralty, there could be " something akin to an underwater Jutland," a huge submarine war where aircraft carriers would likely play a very small part, except as targets.

 

[PBI]

Again, my point is still valid. I never said finding out which theory is the right one would be easy, I only stated the problem.

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by The Oz:
It's true that there's not likely to be another Midway, but as John Keegan put it in his book, The Price of Admiralty, there could be " something akin to an underwater Jutland," a huge submarine war where aircraft carriers would likely play a very small part, except as targets.

The high ground will still be extremely important. And Sub hunting is done by attack subs but also by aircraft. An aircraft is quite a bit faster than a Sub. So they can cover lots more ground and search a bigger area. The last war where Subs were actually significant, the subs lost when the other side owned the skies. The subs won when the sub side owned the skies. The only approach that makes sense for a Navy is the same as for a Land force. Combined Arms is the route to victory. Each asset has its own advantages and disadvantages. (Subs can hide and are more difficult to find from the air but aircraft are virtually immune to subs.) A Sub can only find a target within 120 miles of itself, and then only in narrow bands at 30 NM distances. An Aircraft Carrier can cover quite a bit larger area and attack targets at thousands of miles. The big question isn't that there is a use for Aircraft Carriers, the question is whether the Supercarrier really has a place in a modern navy, instead of smaller more numerous carriers.

As for a modern underwater Jutland, again like the fact that there is only one country with Supercarriers, the only country with a Sub equivalent to the SSN751+ (Improved Los Angeles) class is the British and there is no equivalent to the Seawolf. The only battle possible, without serious building programs by other countries, against the US Navy would be like sending a Brooklyn class light cruiser against a VLS Aegis Cruiser with a 30% Tomahawk loadout. Or sending HMS Drednaught against the USS New Jersey (in the recently retired configuration).

 

[The Oz]

Keegan wrote before the end of the Cold War, so he was projecting the future based on his current situation. I agree that for right now and for the next twenty years, the US Navy will still own the world ocean, but that's not so very long, really.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

And when satellite technology improves enough for us to see submarines down below the current 65 fathem range from space will they become obsolete?

 

[BetterThanLife]

Originally posted by cweiskircher:
And when satellite technology improves enough for us to see submarines down below the current 65 fathem range from space will they become obsolete?

Well the Smart Pig (JSOWS) makes mass armor formations obsolete against those that have it so I would hazard to guess that Subs would be less useful against those that can track them by satelite, though satelites can be predicted, blinded or knocked down. And Submarines don't just sail under the surface of the ocean they also sail under the weather, which gives them a reason for existing all their own.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Bhoins is right about combined arms. But, the Chinese are gathering strength - in the naval area, especially. They see it (and surface-to-surface missiles) as the only way to exert their power in the SW Pacific.

And, I would say that the biggest determinator is usually whether you have someone visionary on your side to see and exploit that one tactical/strategic innovation that makes the difference.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
...determinator...

Did I actually post that? What is a "determinator"? I think I meant factor.

 

[Chuck Anumia]

Originally posted by Fritz88:
</font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />Originally posted by Fritz88:
...determinator...

Did I actually post that? What is a "determinator"? I think I meant factor. </font>[/QUOTE]Perghaps you were trying to combine determining and factor into your own word?

 

[mike wightman]

I like the word "determinator".

If we use it enough around the internet and in reports etc. it will make it into the dictionary in a couple of years

<edit> scrap that, there are already 26000 google entries for determinator... it already exists</edit>