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I hope it's not a ranking because it puts the Kuznetsov and Varyag above the CdG and QE, lol.Title of this "click bait" might not be accurate
I spent about a month aboard a WW2 vintage Carrier (USS Boxer LPH4) back in the early 60's. I remember sweltering hot quarters, water hours (salt water showers) and seemingly hours spent in the chow line. Is that old tub still around?
I spent some time on the LST Desoto County and the conditions seemed pretty good in the early 60's. As a FMF Marine I had occasion to visit some notorious tubs like the USS Fremont and the USS Cambria for the never ending at the time concept of going over the side on nets for landing craft exercises.That was a "Long Hull Essex" class ship, converted to an early LPH as part of a program to test the concept.
She was decommissioned in 1969, scrapped in 1971.
However, after around 1965 she was mostly used for logistics uses. Transporting large numbers of aircraft to Vietnam, recovering Apollo test capsules, things like that.
The oldest ship I served on was the USS Iwo Jima LPH-2. And that was a shock, as to how bad the conditions were on that tub. Even more so as two years before I had been on the USS Whidbey Island LSD-41, and the over two decades between their construction was staggering.
I spent some time on the LST Desoto County and the conditions seemed pretty good in the early 60's. As a FMF Marine I had occasion to visit some notorious tubs like the USS Fremont and the USS Cambria for the never ending at the time concept of going over the side on nets for landing craft exercises.
True but a Carrier is damn near (not totally) impossible to sink.
The Japanese might disagree with you
Even aircraft for the Army Air Corps and Marine Corps that were not even intended for carrier based operations.
On 23 June, Manila Bay came under enemy air attack during refueling operations east of Saipan.
Power outlets? The Boxer barely had air. Tight stretched canvas racks about five or six feet high with a metal air tube at the end that had a bayonet holes punched in at every rack.Well, I still remember the berthing on the Iwo. It looked like something from a WWII era movie. Nothing more than stretchers stacked 5 high, maybe a foot from your face and the cot above you. Sleeping foot to foot-head to head as there was only a few inches between each person front to back, and the row of cots next to you meant you could slap the person sleeping there.
This is what the berthing on the Whidbey Island was like.
.
Three high, and each Marine in their own little "pod". Which even had power outlets, a reading light, and an AC vent like what you would find on an airplane.
Power outlets? The Boxer barely had air. Tight stretched canvas racks about five or six feet high with a metal air tube at the end that had a bayonet holes punched in at every rack.
We didn't have Walkman radios back then but a PRC 10 battery could power a portable radio pretty well out in the field.The original Iwo was the same. You can barely compare the pre-Vietnam era Iwo from the ships that were built during and after the Reagan buildup (in fact they were almost the same as the ships used in WWII). And the Whidbey was one of those. The first ship designed to operate with the LCAC. I know on the LSD-41, my platoon had the same living area that my company had on the Iwo.
Hell, one of the people to know on board were the radio techs. They could cobble together a cable to let you use a PRC-77 battery with your Walkman. That was largely the height of "personal electronics" in the 1980s, and we all had one. If I remember right, for most people a PRC-77 battery could power one easily for a week.
cWithin a decade or two of the Wright Brothers and their Kitty Hawk venture of powered and manned heavier than air flight craft "proof of concept" we find that during the First World War, flat platforms for landing and take-off of aircraft had been built upon the upper levels of warships and first experiments of ship-born aircraft use were in play. Especially during and shortly after WW One.
This thread is intended to focus upon such. While many Nations and their Navies provided early experiments in the concepts of aircraft landing and taking off from a warship; we will focus here, to start with, on the efforts of the United States of America (USA) and it's Navy ~ Unite States Navy ~USN.
While initial posts and focus are on the USN, other nations will be examined and considered as this thread develops.
c
Actually most of the true innovations in carrier aviation were pioneered by the British. But the U.S. took most of those innovations (launch catapults, arrested landings, angled flight decks) mated them with nuclear power and took off.
Actually most of the true innovations in carrier aviation were pioneered by the British. But the U.S. took most of those innovations (launch catapults, arrested landings, angled flight decks) mated them with nuclear power and took off.
1) Stop building ridiculous, Carrier Strike Groups.
They are ****ing dinosaurs and cost GIGANTIC, amounts of money.
Once hypersonic missiles are perfected and in mass production? That is the END of the aircraft carrier as THE naval weapon system.
50 hypersonic missiles with mid-course guidance adjustments and multiple decoys could EASILY overpower a US Carrier Strike Group's AA assets.
No way Ticonderoga's and Arleigh Burke's can defend the group from over 150 targets (with decoys) coming in at 200 feet at Mach 10. Especially if the first one takes out any AEW assets that were airborne (a Hawkeye).
Over-the-horizon limitations would limit the time the Carrier group would have to acquire the targets, Say their radar was 80 feet off of the surface? That means they would not acquire the missiles until they were about 175 miles away or so. Maybe a bit more.
When I stand at the water's edge and look out over the ocean, how far away is the horizon?
At Mach 10 (and they might be faster) or about 2 miles a second? That gives them 100 seconds TOPS from the time they first acquire the targets to track them, lock on to them and fire.
It is virtually (to my knowledge) impossible for 2 Ticonderoga's and 3 Arleigh Burke's (the normal maximum escorts in a Carrier Strike Group) to take out ALL of the missiles/decoys in 100 seconds.
And, apparently, Aegis radars cannot even track hypersonic missiles.
But even if they could?
And even if they have new, laser anti-missile systems on board and they are effective.
At least - IMO - 5 or 6 of those 50 missiles will get through.
And I doubt that even a Ford Class aircraft carrier could withstand the kinetic energy alone of 5 or 6 missiles plowing into her at 7,000 miles an hour. Certainly, she would be COMPLETELY out of action for a while.
Aircraft carriers are DINOSAURS.
2) SSGN's are the future.
An Ohio SSGN can carry up to 154 Tomahawk cruise missiles.
USS Ohio (SSGN-726) - Wikipedia
And each missiles can attack up to five, separate targets and have mid-course, guidance correction.
https://www.shephardmedia.com/news/n...rminal-guidan/
That means the Ohio could sail undetected to the coast of China, surface, launch off all of her missiles, re-submerge, sail away for missile replenishment without significant risk of getting attacked.
And her missiles could - theoretically - take out over 700 targets.
All with NO risk of a pilot being shot down and killed/captured.
And 1 SSGN costs about 1/10'th of a Carrier Strike Group.
If not less.
Amphibious Assault ships still have some role to play.
But Aircraft Carrier dinosaurs?
America should stop building new ones IMMEDIATELY.
And they could then cut back on all these insane numbers of cruisers and destroyers to escort these lumbering hogs.
And save hundreds of billions over ten years.