rickusn

Lotas of good stuff as usual.

Ill post a couple articles.:

Redirect

Get the Carriers!
By Rebecca Grant, Admiral John Nathman, USN (Ret.), and Loren Thompson

For U.S. power projection needs, there is still no substitute for the aircraft carrier.

Get the carriers! That was the famous order written on ready room blackboards as the carrier pilots of Task Force 58 attacked the Japanese fleet during the Battle of the Philippine Sea in June 1944.

Over the last few years, it’s seemed that plenty of influential thinkers in Washington want to “get the carriers,” too, and replace them with Tomahawk land-attack missiles (TLAMs), smaller carriers, or remotely-piloted vehicles.

“Superfluous,” retired Admiral Stansfield Turner said of carriers in a much-quoted July 2006 Proceedings article. Turner argued there was “less need for large carriers with large numbers of aircraft and large amount of ammunition.”1

Proceedings columnist Norman Polmar took aim at carrier missions from antisubmarine warfare to air defense and made the case that 130 other ships with TLAMs were a better value than ten carrier air wings. Scrutinizers of the shipbuilding budget on Capitol Hill and elsewhere continue to point to the price-tag for the new Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78)-class carriers, sometimes using the right cost numbers, sometimes not.

Across the nation the sense is that America needs to prepare for a long-term deterrent strategy and a maritime posture that looks at challenges beyond Iraq. Certainly, plenty of technology trends are opening up great new opportunities for carriers and their air wings.

The critics are right about one thing: It’s time to evaluate what the nation should expect from its 2020 carrier force.

Demand for Air Power

Carrier decisions are big commitments. These are 50-year design-life platforms and the most expensive ships in the Navy budget, and that’s before the cost of the air wing is included. The next carrier, the CVN-78, will culminate nearly 20 years of design effort when she enters service in 2015.

Just what should carriers provide?

According to the critics, not much. There’s a misconceived belief among them that the need for air power is on the wane. One basic line of argument is that surface ships with missiles can replace carriers in littoral attack. Branching out, critics contend that since the revolution in strike warfare increased precision strike capacity by an order of magnitude, then micro-air wings on small carriers can do the job. It’s all framed in lurking suspicions about the vulnerability of carriers and a vague desire not to put all the eggs in one basket.

The trends in air warfare paint a different picture. Demand for air power is up, and the range of tasks is growing. Consider the recent slate of tasks for Navy carrier aircraft in Afghanistan and Iraq. They’ve done everything from providing early air support in Afghanistan in 2001 to flying more than 5,500 sorties in a little over six weeks as major combat operations began in Iraq in 2003.2 In the years that followed, they’ve learned to hunt insurgents, watch over convoy routes, and supply non-traditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance (ISR) from on-board systems. NATO patrols in Afghanistan do not move without air power available.

Naval aviation leadership made much of the revolution in strike warfare carried out in the late 1990s. While that was a landmark achievement, joint demand for air power didn’t stop with precision.

Effective joint air operations can’t be measured just by aim points struck anymore. The air component also wages a “persistence” fight in an environment rife with ungenerated aim points. Everything from convoy movement to special operations forces to signals intelligence may fuse to generate the targets. When that happens, the strike aircraft must be on hand instantly to kill the target. The net effect may be small in terms of aggregate aim points struck, but the demands on sortie generation and persistent fighter coverage are intense.

Interdiction and close air support for friendly ground forces necessitate a broad array of weapon effects. Volume of aircraft sorties and the variety of weapons available are critical for what Soldiers and Marines call “air-delivered indirect fires.”

Sometimes forces want something much bigger than a Hellfire; other times they want a small weapon with a low collateral-damage footprint, or even just jet noise for a show of force. Whatever the need, aircraft carriers in the air component must be ready to do their part.

Are these operational patterns peculiar to Iraq and Afghanistan? Most don’t think so. Many tactical situations demand “eyes on target” before weapon release—a fine-tuned level of control that joint force commanders have come to expect.

Fighting on a dispersed battlefield with no rear areas and few mutually supporting lines of operation is now at the core of future joint plans for maneuver in the noncontiguous battlespace. See the newest Joint Pub 3-0, or any capstone Army or Marine doctrine for details.

Overselling Missiles

Counter to what the carrier critics say, the Navy is not on the verge of swapping aircraft carriers for some other form of firepower from the sea.

Cruise missiles such as TLAMs (or conventional ballistic missiles) may have a role in certain campaigns, but it’s likely to be a niche role. TLAMs are expensive when fired in quantity and also vulnerable. With a top speed of about .75 Mach, a cruise missile can be tracked by radar. Analyst Norman Friedman found that at least two, and perhaps as many as six, TLAMs flying a hasty, single-mission profile were shot down in the 1991 Gulf War.3

Even a surviving inbound missile faces a tough problem. In the time it takes to fly its course, a mobile target such as a surface-to-air missile or antisatellite launcher can rev engines and move several hundred yards—enough to negate the missile’s effects.

Effective future destruction of enemy air defenses really can’t be done with a missile barrage. That campaign will rely on air-launched weapons that gain survivability through velocity—ideally, weapons that can achieve low-hypersonic speeds.

Besides, how do you achieve a show of force with a TLAM?

Carriers have value beyond their kinetic effects. Their shaping influence has been a major mission with deployments off Iran this year, and will continue to be an important American tool of power and diplomacy.

Underselling the Air Wing

While air wing commanders see the demand first-hand, the higher reaches of the active-duty Navy may actually be underselling the future air wing.

America’s aircraft carrier fleet in 2020 will most likely be a blend of Nimitz-class ships and Fords. The carrier air wing will include the F/A-18E/F Super Hornet, the F-35C Lightning II, air-refuelable E-2Ds, cyberwar-capable EA-18Gs, and later, a Navy unmanned combat air system (N-UCAS). Also on the decks will be upgraded SH-60 helicopters, and perhaps even MV-22 Osprey tiltrotors.

From one perspective, the Navy is in an enviable position. Tough decisions to retire the A-6, the S-3, and the F-14 freed up money in aviation accounts to quickly complete the Super Hornet buy. Navy fixed-wing aircraft are a relatively young and effective force. However, the carrier air wings still face a serious challenge. They need to regain their lost advantage in range and persistence, and they must add stealth.

The F-35C brings many advantages. Its stealth will allow a carrier air wing to operate on day one in an advanced air defense environment. Forget the old debates on maintaining stealth materials at sea. The coatings on the F-35 are the best of fifth-generation stealth. They are far more durable to begin with, and the F-35 was designed without the need for intrusive inspection and extensive recoating after accessing maintenance panels. (For those who must worry, a more relevant issue to watch is the timing and configuration for communications and datalinks and how they fit with the overall DoD architecture.)

The F-35 needs to be on the deck in significant numbers, but alone it will not give the carrier all the long range and persistence it needs. A Navy unmanned combat air system could add extra punch soon after the Ford’s projected 2015 launch.

Recapturing Long Range Strike

What’s surprising is that the Navy is taking a cautious attitude toward the potential for unmanned, long-range strike from carrier decks. Maybe Admiral Turner was right. It’s hard for military organizations to abandon familiar weapon systems—and to take on new ones.

Currently the Navy lags on unmanned planes. In 2004, the Defense Science Board concluded that there was “no longer any question of the technical viability and operational utility” of unmanned systems. Just one Global Hawk operating in Iraq in 2003 located 13 surface-to-air missiles (SAMs), 50 SAM launchers, more than 70 SAM transport vehicles, and 300 tanks, the board found.4

Air operations centers rave about the value of unmanned reconnaissance and strike. The services are tussling over operational control and executive agency. Those are the earmarks of a mature operational capability.

The Naval Aviation Vision 2020 pictured a Navy ISR unmanned air system ready in about 2015, with a strike variant scheduled for initial operational capability in 2020.5 This Navy UCAS will be a stealthy, tailless vehicle about the size of a strike fighter. Over the next few years, the systems for carrier suitability (such as launch and landing) and for aerial refueling will mature. The Navy’s UCAS demonstration program is exploring aspects of that technology now.

While it’s still early, the Navy seems hesitant to make the logical connection between UCAS and the return of a long-range strike role for carriers. That’s unfortunate, because unmanned systems should be a big part of the next revolution in strike warfare.

Here’s a chance for the Navy to do something it hasn’t done for some time: take the lead in development of a highly innovative air weapon system.

CVN-78 has already been designed to include unmanned systems in its air wing. Unmanned aircraft with an unrefueled range of 1,500 nautical miles could add a long-range, persistent strike capability that carriers have never had before.

UCAS is not just an ISR platform. With a notional 4,000-pound internal payload, a Navy unmanned plane could carry several types of advanced weapons, from today’s 500-pound JDAM to the Small Diameter Bomb to a future evolution of AMRAAM dual-roled to strike surface-to-air missiles.

Specifically, a complement of about 12-18 UCAS on CVN-78 could sustain two or three orbits 1,000 miles from the carrier. Those orbits could carry out maritime missions or project ahead to hunt and strike targets.

A stealthy, unmanned strike aircraft has the potential to give carriers “something long missing in the carrier air wing: a capable unmanned surveillance-strike aircraft,” found analysts Robert Work and Tom Ehrhard in a 2007 study for the Center for Strategic and Budgetary Assessments.6

Why not leave that role to the Air Force? When carriers are the first or only responders, they will need long-range surveillance and strike as a tool for shaping the battlespace.

Granted, even a very stealthy UCAS might face trouble against masses of Chinese fighters. One role for armed UCAS in a China peer competitor scenario could be covering flanks around carrier strike groups positioned east of the Taiwan Strait. With long range, the carriers can send UCAS to keep watch over North Korea or the South China Sea.

That won’t be the only mission. The combination of F-35 and UCAS provides a very attractive air power asset for other scenarios, too.

The recent creation of an Africa Command signaled that the federal government, both its military and civilian components, intends to take a more vigorous role on that continent. Given the geography of Africa (and other hotspots) there is a strong potential for missions such as hunting high-value targets, supporting special operations forces, or securing specific areas hundreds of miles inland. A carrier strike group with F-35 and UCAS might be called on to sustain both surveillance and on-call strike orbits from the sea.

Volume of support is important in such missions. For strike fighters, the joint force commander’s requirement might begin with two combat air patrol stations for close air support and non-traditional intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance in widely separated locations. Also, there might be a need for a third deep-strike combat air patrol over a critical area.

To make a difference in this type of scenario, the aircraft carrier needs to sustain about 60 strike/ISR sorties per day for the three CAPs. That will be robust tasking for the future air wing but that’s just what the nation should expect.

The CVN-78

Integrating long-range unmanned suppression of enemy air defenses, strike, and surveillance is a powerful argument for large-deck carriers with the autonomy to host their own complete air wings.

Not just any ship can support 21st-century requirements. Just a few years from now, the Navy will christen the first new carrier class the nation has seen in more than 40 years. While the Nimitz-class carriers will remain in the Fleet for some time, getting the most from carrier air power also calls for a new carrier.

With the CVN-78, the Navy has a lead ship tailored to expanding demand and diverse missions. True, the Navy made a conservative decision to stick with the Nimitz hull. That decision kept costs down, speeded up development timelines, and freed the Navy to concentrate on some big moves to gain maximum capability for the new class.

Among them are:

Eliminating the 1950s-style steam-driven catapults and replacing them with an electromagnetic system
Moving the island farther back, opening up more deck space
Tripling electric generating capacity with a new electrical power-generation and distribution system
Constructing new high-density nuclear reactors
Redesigning “smart” spaces within the hull for net-centric warfare
Installing equipment in modules so computer and combat systems can be upgraded or swapped out over the ship’s life cycle
Leaving room for future advances, such as directed energy weapons.
All told, CVN-78 will deliver 25 percent more sortie generation capacity and a crew that is smaller by several hundred spaces. It will also have more than 375,000 cubic feet of ammunition storage—a big boost.

It’s hard to imagine a “small” carrier—even if one existed—successfully carrying out the full range of air wing missions.

Not much value is delivered to the joint force from a micro-carrier displacing 13,000 tons with only 8-12 aircraft aboard. Even the larger “small” carrier concepts at 50,000 to 60,000 tons displacement cannot embark with the full complement of aircraft needed to execute a variety of missions or sustain 24-hour flight operations.

The sea-keeping characteristics of small carriers are also a big problem. In potential hotspots such as the North Arabian Gulf or the South China Sea, it’s common to experience rough seas above Sea State 5 (wave heights at 8-13 feet) during the worst months of the year. No combined forces air component commander wants to hear that excuse for sortie cancellation.

Other nations have figured out that more size equals more capability. While no international ships will be as big as the CVN-78, most new carriers are bigger than the ones they are replacing. Italy has nearly doubled the displacement tonnage from the 1980s-era Giuseppe Garibaldi at 13,850 tons to the 27,100 tons of the Conte di Cavour, due for commissioning in 2008. Britain’s pair of planned new carriers, HMS Queen Elizabeth and HMS Prince of Wales, will be three times bigger than its current carriers when they enter the Royal Navy around 2012 to 2015.

Focusing on Cost

Then there is cost. Carriers do have the biggest per-ship price tags in the U.S. Navy, so the cost argument is worth examining.

Research looking 30 years back and 30 years ahead shows that carrier costs haven’t grown nearly as much as costs for other ships.

Rising shipbuilding costs have been a big concern for Navy future planning. In 2006, the RAND Corporation released a sobering report on how average annual costs for Navy ships grew between 7 and 11 percent per year from 1950 to 2000. That was far in excess of typical inflation rates.

RAND’s analysis ultimately found that economic factors such as labor and material costs accounted for part of the cost rise, while building bigger, better and heavier ships explained the rest. As the RAND team put it, “most of the growth beyond inflation is due to changes in the customer-driven factors.”7

More intriguing, RAND found that costs rose much less steeply for aircraft carriers than they did for surface combatants, nuclear-powered submarines, and amphibious ships.

Looking forward at the shipbuilding accounts, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that shipbuilding costs could exceed Navy estimates by as much as 72 percent over a 30-year period. However, on aircraft carriers, there was good news. The CBO found carriers were least likely to experience unexpected cost growth, pegging the number at just 11 percent.8

Carrier costs are remarkably stable, transparent, and in the final analysis, well worth the capability they bring.

Of course, the price-tag for the CVN is still much higher than for other ships. Yet this is balanced by the fact that the Navy is buying only a few. Over the next 30 years, the Navy projects it may buy 7 aircraft carriers. Contrast that with plans for 66 surface combatants, perhaps 88 littoral combat ships, and more than 50 attack submarines. The Navy may buy 289 ships between now and 2037 and only 7 will be carriers. In the current Navy plan, aircraft carriers account for just 12 percent (in Fiscal Year 2007) of the total cost outlay in ship construction.

Affording the 313-ship Navy will remain a challenge. But even eliminating CVN-78 altogether would do little to change the situation. Most of all, the credible power of the U.S. Navy comes from the tactical air power of its carriers. Want value to the nation? The American flattops with their mass and versatility offer more than any other military system in the history of naval warfare.

Dr. Grant is President of IRIS Independent Research, a defense consulting firm in Washington, DC.

Admiral Nathman, a naval aviator, recently retired after 37 years on active duty in the U.S. Navy including service as Vice Chief of Naval Operations and Commander, Fleet Forces Command.

Dr. Thompson is chief operating officer of the Lexington Institute, a nonprofit, nonpartisan public-policy research organization focused on national security and other areas of federal policy.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Admiral Stansfield Turner, “Aircraft Carriers Are On Their Way Out,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, July 2006. back to article
2. Navy fighter sortie numbers cited in Commander, Ninth Air Force, “Operation Iraqi Freedom: By the Numbers,” 30 April 2003. back to article
3. See Norman Friedman, Desert Victory - The War for Kuwait (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1991). back to article
4. Defense Science Board, Unmanned Aerial Vehicles and Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles, February 2004, pp. iii-iv. back to article
5. Naval Aviation Vision 2020, p. 42. back to article
6. Thomas P. Ehrhard and Robert O. Work, The Unmanned Combat Air System Carrier Demonstration Program: A New Dawn for Naval Aviation? CSBA Backgrounder, 10 May 2007, p. 29. back to article
7. Mark V. Arena, Irv Blickstein, Obaid Younossi, Clifford A. Grammich, Why Has the Cost of Navy Ships Risen? (Santa Monica, CA: The RAND Corporation, 2006). back to article
8. Congressional Budget Office, Resource Implications of the Navy’s 313-Ship Plan, December 2005. back to article

rickusn

Redirect

Helicopter Procurement: Playing with Fire
By Captain George V. Galdorisi, USN (Ret.) and Scott C. Truver


Growing demands on the helicopter community require a turnaround in the Concept of Operations to acquire the right number and right size of rotary-wing aircraft.

The U.S. Navy has embraced what it terms the “warfare enterprise,” with an intense focus on business efficiencies to enhance warfighting effectiveness. In early 2007, Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Mike Mullen stated the objective, “to implement an enterprise framework that is about change management and forging a path to an affordable future.”1 The CNO’s principal goal for the Navy enterprise is to “enable execution of the Navy’s strategy by delivering required readiness and capabilities at best value.” While this business approach will provide important benefits, the priority must be to ensure that the Navy’s strategic, operational, and tactical capabilities meet evolving needs.

One element of this approach is the Naval Aviation Enterprise, which has “necked-down” naval aircraft as one means to reduce aircraft life-cycle total ownership costs. A 25 May 2007 memo from Vice Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Pat Walsh to the commanders of the acquisition commands underscored the importance the Navy places on this process and the need to “develop ideas for what we might do to improve Navy buying power by reducing the type/model/series.”2

Nowhere has this been more pronounced than in the Navy helicopter community, which has moved from eight models of light and medium aircraft to just one type (the MH-60 Seahawk) and two models (the MH-60S and the MH-60R) of medium-light helos, and one type of heavy-lift helicopter, the MH-53E, which will be retired in the near future.3 While the business case for this dramatic turn was and remains sound, the operational warfighting case for this narrow a Navy helicopter community portfolio is fraught with danger. When an earlier version of the current Navy Helicopter Master Plan (HMP)––which, in mid-2007, included in the CNO’s Naval Helicopter Concept of Operations (CONOPS)––first emerged in the mid-to-late 1990s, the perceived future operational environment made this plan acceptable, with limited operational risk.4


COURTESY OF THE AUTHORS
MORE WITH LESS The Helicopter Master Plan and the Concept of Operations show clearly how fewer types of rotary-wing aircraft are assigned to perform more functions.

(SEE CHART)

Things have changed significantly since then, however, which demands an immediate and thorough review of the Naval Helicopter CONOPS. Nothing less can ensure the Navy helicopter community––which comprises almost half of naval aviation––has the tools to succeed.

Current and Emerging Needs

The changes in U.S. security and defense have been manifested by significantly increased and expanded need for helicopter support in worldwide U.S. military operations. For example:

Operations in Iraq and Afghanistan show a dramatically increased use of helicopters to insert and extract special operations forces overtly and clandestinely––a mission that is certain to grow in importance.5
U.S. distributed operations have also underscored the need to medically evacuate wounded Americans to field hospitals. U.S. Navy helicopters are likely to remain in demand for such missions in the future.6 This mission has morphed from medical evacuation of wounded personnel away from battles to insertion of medical trauma teams closer to the fighting to treat wounded more quickly.
Once a “lesser included subset” of operational war-fighting missions, the humanitarian assistance and disaster relief (HA/DR) mission is placing increasing demands on the Navy helicopter community, as rotary-wing assets are often the only aircraft capable of either rescuing stranded survivors or delivering sufficient supplies to provide needed relief in remote areas.7
Forward-deployed Navy and Marine Corps helicopters are often called on to supplement Air Force helos in combat search and rescue (CSAR), and the Navy has already recognized that this will be a primary mission of the MH-60S.8
The Navy’s Sea Basing “pillar” and the air and sea “connectors” that move personnel and material throughout the Sea Base and ashore are gaining increased traction across all branches of the U.S. military. Air connectors supporting the Sea Base must have sufficient cubic feet of usable space to carry the volume of material to sustain high-tempo operations ashore.
The threat of naval mines to a Sea Base, as well as to other U.S. and friendly ships operating in the littorals, is well documented.9 The limited endurance of the MH-60S does not provide an effective solution to large-area minehunting or minesweeping.
Thus, not only are rotary-wing aircraft increasingly in demand for current missions, but in-service and new Navy helicopters are expected to perform more complex and demanding missions that no one ever envisioned when they were designed. Many of these missions demand additional agility and flexibility that are inadequately supported by a diminished helicopter force structure.

If current requirements are extrapolated to cover just the Navy’s two-year Program Objective Memorandum (POM) and six-year Future Years Defense Program (FYDP)––let alone the Navy’s 30-year shipbuilding and aviation plan—it is not clear that the current Navy Helicopter Master Plan and Naval Helicopter CONOPS can meet expected needs. Helicopters provide critical capabilities in support of Navy Carrier Strike Groups (CSGs) and Expeditionary Strike Groups (ESGs), but no CSG or ESG deploying today leaves with its full complement of Navy helos––nor will they in the future––because demand for these multimission assets already exceeds the supply.

For example, when the Navy made the decision in the mid-1990s to retire the S-3 Viking aircraft, it also decided to have helicopters assume the Viking antisurface warfare (SUW) mission. At approximately the same time, the service decided to have Navy helicopters provide an organic airborne mine countermeasures (AMCM) capability to carrier and expeditionary strike groups. These decisions and dynamics shaped the Naval Helicopter CONOPS, a concept that was ultimately approved by the CNO on 24 January 2002; however, the concept did not address future heavy lift or dedicated AMCM requirements. In addition to the type-model-series “neck-down” extrapolated from the helicopter master plan, the helicopter CONOPS also examined the concept of operations to provide MH-60Rs and MH-60Ss to carrier and expeditionary strike groups and detailed the numbers of each aircraft to be assigned to each battle formation.

While Navy helicopter requirements documents speak of delivering “capabilities” to carrier and expeditionary strike groups and not of “filling rails”—i.e., providing the maximum number of MH-60R or MH-60S airframes that can be carried on CSG and ESG ships—current H-60 helicopter usage rates demonstrate that the actual demand for these aircraft by carrier and expeditionary warfare commanders far exceeds what operational requirements documents predicted.10

A Growing Helo Gap

The current helicopter concept of operations outlines an acquisition program for large numbers of medium-light helicopters––254 MH-60R and 263 MH-60S helicopters—to meet mission needs. This procurement plan is already under way, with 11 MH-60R and 103 MH-60S helicopters in the Fleet and test community in mid-2007. The CH-53K is the planned replacement aircraft for the current Marine Corps CH-53E, which was designed in the 1960s and introduced in 1980 as an engineering change proposal to the CH-53D. While the Navy’s heavy-lift replacement plans have not been fully articulated, the service is considering procurement of a CH/MH-53K variant to replace its current MH-53E fleet.

As the new aircraft are fielded, the in-service, legacy Navy helicopters are being retired in increasing numbers and rates. Various Sea Hawk models (SH-60B, SH-60F, and HH-60H), Sea Kings (UH-3H), Sea Knights (CH-46D), and Hueys (HH-1N) that provided the antisubmarine and antisurface warfare, search and rescue, combat search and rescue, special warfare support, VIP/vertical onboard delivery, and vertical replenishment are already retired from the Navy inventory, or close to it. Conversely, on the heavy-lift side, the Navy had planned to retire the MH-53E by 2005 but is retaining it––at increasing costs––to meet urgent Fleet needs that only aircraft with such a large cabin and long endurance can meet.

To avoid a looming capabilities-to-requirements gap, the Navy’s acquisition programs must provide capable replacement aircraft. Naval aviation, like many other warfare communities, is confronting budgetary pressure to do more with less, and part of that less could well mean that new aircraft do not arrive in time to replace those aircraft taken out of service. Vice Admiral Thomas Kilcline, the leader of the Naval Aviation Enterprise, admitted as much: “What keeps me up at night is wondering whether we can sustain the current inventory of naval aviation aircraft until the budget gets us to new aircraft.”11

Earlier this year, the Navy’s Air Warfare Division (N88), under Rear Admiral Bruce Clingan, put in motion a force structure gap analysis to address these issues.12 Admiral Clingan explained: “The biggest wild card for Navy helicopters is the fact that the demand signal has grown and has huge, Navy-wide support; and this support includes new demands from Naval Special Warfare, the Naval Expeditionary Combat Command, and the Littoral Combat Ship.”13 The then-“CEO” of the Naval Aviation Enterprise, Vice Admiral James Zortman, Commander Naval Air Forces, underscored the gap between the burgeoning demand for Navy helicopters and the ability to meet that demand: “No helicopters for emerging needs like the LCS have been identified in the current Navy Program of Record.”14

At issue is how the ongoing Navy helicopter force structure analysis is conducted and what the terms of reference of this study lead its participants to conclude. With the DoD procurement budget continually under pressure to support ongoing warfighting operations, the challenge of starting new procurement programs is especially daunting. Concern is growing that regardless of the results of this analysis, doing no more than requesting that additional airframes be added to an existing program would appear to some to be the easiest way to close the gap. But this may not necessarily be the most operationally effective solution.

While the current Naval Helicopter CONOPS does not need to be jettisoned, what is needed is a thorough, disciplined, and comprehensive analysis of alternatives that carefully reviews the rotary-wing capabilities required by the total naval force to satisfy current and future operational requirements. Indeed, the review should include a no-holds-barred analysis to determine the correct mix of rotary wing aircraft, which should include those not in the current program of record, to meet the operational needs at the lowest cost. This perspective would demand thinking that goes well beyond and outside the existing plan.

Options for Consideration

In mid-2007, the Naval Helicopter CONOPS envisions the Navy procuring rotary-wing aircraft ranging from small, unmanned vehicles (e.g., Fire Scout and other VTUAVs), to crewed medium-light helicopters (MH-60R and MH-60S) and perhaps heavy aircraft (the possibility of an AMCM MH-53K Super Stallion based on the Marines’ CH-53K). Given the difficulties in starting brand-new procurement programs, the default or “status quo” plan for Navy rotary-wing procurement appears to be: Buy more MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawks and wait for the MH-53K Super Stallion. Such a business-as-usual plan looks unlikely to succeed in light of emerging operational requirements and the uncertainty about a Navy variant of the Marines’ 53K. Indeed, a comprehensive, unconstrained analysis of alternatives would likely show that this option does not deliver a sufficiently wide range of warfighting capability for either existing or emerging missions.

The MH-60R and MH-60S Seahawk have a maximum gross weight (MGW) of slightly more than 24,000 pounds, and an MH-53K would likely have an MGW equaling if not exceeding the 73,500 pounds for the in-service MH-53E. While size itself is not the defining characteristic that should drive procurement decisions, size does matter. With the next step up in aircraft size weighing more than three times the next smaller aircraft (the Seahawk/Super Stallion ratio), the Navy is in danger of foreclosing options for the mid- and long-term future. The available data will likely show the status quo approach fails from operational, fiscal, and risk-management points of view.

The operational case for adding a medium-lift helicopter to the Navy’s inventory is the strongest, but procurement officers should consider other critical factors. Adopted in the early 1980s from the Army UH-60 Black Hawk (first fielded in 1979), the Seahawk helicopters have served the Navy well for over a quarter-century. However, the more these platforms did, the more they were asked to do.

Those who flew and followed these aircraft during the past several decades have watched mission creep ratchet up the weight of the aircraft and cause a concomitant increase in the number of sensors, systems, and weapons hung on these platforms. Given the cost of the emerging crop of new Seahawk helicopters, the Navy should fly them to near-mid-century; but it would be naive to think that these platforms will not suffer the same mission creep as their predecessors.

Anecdotal evidence indicates the Navy is already pushing the edge of the operational envelope in its demands on the planned medium-light helicopter fleet. Consider the following missions:

Special forces support has the most demand for expanding requirements because of the success of special forces in Afghanistan and Iraq as well as the changing nature of warfare, as large unit formations give way to small-unit maneuver forces operating independently and often remotely. The special operations mission often depends on inserting significant numbers of forces deep into hostile territory, operational situations where size does indeed matter a great deal.15 If the Navy buys only the status quo helicopter mix, this could well foreclose several critical special operations alternatives.
Battlefield medical support has generated the most operational demand and excitement in the Navy helicopter community. While an MH-60S will be adequate to carry a small number of troops from the point of attack to a field hospital, in many cases the number of injured will exceed the capacity of the aircraft, and in no cases will an MH-60S or similarly sized aircraft be sufficient to bring a forward resuscitative surgical suite to wounded troops.
America’s forward-deployed naval forces inevitably are the first forces on scene in a disaster area, and helicopters are increasingly the platform of choice, especially when natural disasters destroy critical infrastructure, such as airfields. One of the enduring images of the Asian tsunami relief effort led by the Navy was the picture of Navy helicopters delivering relief supplies in remote areas of Indonesia.
Often lost in the excitement of operational warfighting and lifesaving missions is the need to haul large quantities of material between ships and from ship-to-shore. The service’s Sea Basing strategy is critically dependent on sea and air connectors, and is an area where size matters a great deal. For example, while a MH-60S can carry a payload of approximately 5,500 pounds about 200 nautical miles, a medium-heavy helicopter can carry as much as 12,000 pounds as far as 700 nautical miles, depending on the aircraft.
Airborne mine countermeasures is an important mission, but the Navy is moving from a 36-ton MGW helicopter to one weighing slightly more than 12 tons MGW that might not be up to all tasks. While lighter-weight AMCM systems are in the offing, the current MH-53E mine countermeasures helo is capable of flying far longer mine-sweeping missions than the new MH-60S, an important factor for AMCM missions from organic platforms and when operational timelines are tight.
As the Navy examines the options regarding its mix of helicopters, it may be betting on the planets being perfectly aligned if it goes with buying more of the same type of helicopters already programmed. Instead, a helicopter community expansion plan that includes the critical need for a medium-heavy helicopter may indeed be the most affordable option both from an acquisition and total life-cycle cost perspective.

Which Way Forward?

Clearly, the Navy rotary-wing procurement plan developed in the waning years of the last century must be reassessed. The current mix of helicopters represented in the Naval Helicopter CONOPS inadequately covers the range of missions these aircraft are being called on to perform.

In addition to expanding its helicopter force structure, the Navy can easily optimize it by delivering a mix of rotary-wing platforms more capable of responding to critical operational needs at lower total ownership costs. The default solution of acquiring aircraft already in production and betting that these platforms can be adapted to perform every mission the Navy foresees in the future cannot achieve this goal.

In mid-2007 the Navy has the opportunity to address fleet operational needs with an aircraft based on a thorough, objective analysis, and not a default, business-as-usual approach. The Navy needs the increased operational flexibility and warfighting capability in the immediate future, not on some distant horizon.

Captain Galdorisi is a veteran Navy helicopter pilot, with extensive experience in the SH-60 aircraft.

Dr. Truver is a Washington-based national security and naval analyst.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Rhumb Lines, 19 January 2007 (Washington, D.C.: Navy Office of Information, 2007), U.S. Navy Office of the Information. back to article
2. Rhumb Lines, 10 July 2007, U.S. Navy Office of the Information. back to article
3. Naval Aviation Vision 2020 (Washington, D.C.: Department of the Navy, 2006, http://www.cnaf.navy.mil/nae/), pp. 52-55. See also, Sea Power, June 2007. back to article
4. Naval Air Systems Command, PMA-299, briefing, Multi-Mission Helicopters Program Office, 21 May 2007. back to article
5. U.S. Special Operations Command, Right Place, Right Time, Right Adversary: Posture Statement 2006 (Tampa, FL: USSOCOM, 2006), generally, but at pp. 21-22. back to article
6. Michael Vengrow, “Saving Limbs and Lives,” pp. 20-21, and Joseph Rappold, “FRSS Teams,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, February 2007, pp. 22-23 ; and Skip Trahan, and “M*A*S*H – The Navy Way: Patient 296,” Rotor Review, Fall 2006. back to article
7. ADM Mike Mullen, “What I Believe: Eight Tenets That Guide My Vision for the 21st Century Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, January 2006, pp. 12-16. back to article
8. Comptroller General of the United States, Decision in the Matter of Sikorsky Aircraft Company; Lockheed Martin Systems Integration-Owego, 26 February 2007. back to article
9. RADM John Christenson, Vice Commander, Naval Mine and ASW Command, briefing to the Surface Navy Association, 9 January 2007, accessed at Surface Navy Association. back to article
10. Interview with CAPT Thomas Criger, Commander, H-60/VTUAV Fleet Introduction Team, 1 May 2007. back to article
11. Remarks at the National Museum of Naval Aviation Symposium Flag Panel, 11 May 2006. back to article
12. The OPNAV Air Warfare Division (N88) in mid-2007 was conducting two studies, one focused on the number of H-60 aircraft in the Navy’s procurement profile and one to determine the Navy’s heavy lift requirement, including a recommendation for a replacement aircraft for the aging MH-53E. back to article
13. Remarks at the Naval Helicopter Association Symposium, San Diego, California, 13 April 2007. back to article
14. VADM James Zortman, Commander Naval Air Forces, remarks at the Naval Helicopter Association Symposium, San Diego, California, 13 April 2007. back to article
15. Interview with CAPT Dick Couch, USN (Ret.), 15 May 2007. back to article

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rickusn

And a Naval History article. There are some othre interesting articles here too. Among them articles on a Korean War airstrike and the Yamato and her escorts "final sortie".:

https://www.usni.org/magazines/naval...p?STORY_ID=808

Improving the Breed
By Norman Polmar

In the wake of the war-built Essex-class ships were three aircraft carriers that served as crucial testbeds for the technology and operations of their huge Cold War–era progeny.

The three large, or battle, carriers of the Midway (CVB-41) class were the largest warships built by the United States in World War II, had an important role in the Cold War, and were the first U.S. Navy ships to embark nuclear weapons. The Battle of Midway in early June 1942 is generally cited as the event that illuminated the need for the three ships. The battle was in many respects the turning point of the Pacific war, when Japanese naval forces were decisively defeated, opening the way for an American offensive in the Pacific.

Based on the lessons of the battles of the Coral Sea (May 1942) and Midway, the Navy proposed a 45,000-ton large carrier, that would—appropriately—be named the Midway, as well as additional fleet carriers of the Essex (CV-9) class. The CVB actually originated with a proposal from the Navy’s General Board for a large carrier that would have an armored flight deck and be particularly well compartmented below decks to help resist battle damage. The board held hearings on the proposed battle carrier as early as March 1942, and Congress approved construction of the lead CVB (as well as nine additional Essex-class ships) in July.

In early August, Secretary of the Navy Frank Knox approved contract awards in the fiscal 1943-44 authorization for 690 new ships, including four large carriers, the CVB-41 through -44. On 12 August, however, President Franklin D. Roosevelt wrote to the secretary approving the entire program except for the four 45,000-ton carriers. The President disapproved the CVBs because of their long construction time in comparison to the 27,100-ton Essex-class ships, which he believed were a better investment of resources. At the same time, U.S. fleet commanders showed no enthusiasm for the larger ships.

Roosevelt confidant Captain Edward L. Cochrane, however, believed that shifting two of the planned CVBs to the New York Navy Yard, which had excess drafting capacity because of the cancellation of the large battleships of the Montana (BB-67) class, would interfere little with other carrier construction.1 Both Newport News Shipbuilding in Virginia and the New York yard would construct CVBs, with the drafting work done at New York.

Cochrane, who would become chief of the Bureau of Ships in November 1942, apparently had a major influence on the President, and Roosevelt agreed to CVB construction. A memorandum from Secretary Knox on 29 December 1942, approved the construction of two ships (CVB-41 and -42) and on 26 May 1943, the President approved building a third ship (CVB-43). The fourth ship—CVB-44—was formally cancelled on 11 January 1943.

Bigger in Every Way

After several design iterations by the Bureau of Ships, the CVB design evolved as one of the world’s largest warships, with a standard displacement of 45,000 tons and an overall length of 968 feet.2 With a beam of 113 feet, the carrier would be the first U.S. ship designed from the outset that was too large to transit the 110-foot-wide locks of the Panama Canal. (The Essex-class carriers could transit the canal locks only with their 40-mm starboard gun sponson removed and the port-side elevator in the vertical position. Also, three World War I–era battleships that were modernized after Pearl Harbor had bulges that increased their beam from 108 to 114 feet.)

The CVBs were the U.S. Navy’s first armored-deck carriers. They were also distinctive, with a massive starboard island structure and funnel somewhat reminiscent of the old Lexington (CV-2) and Saratoga (CV-3), built in the 1920s. The new ships were to have the heaviest antiaircraft battery of any warship, with 18 single 5-inch/54-caliber guns of a new, long-range design, plus 84 40-mm and 28 20-mm guns.

The ships were designed to operate up to 144 contemporary aircraft. With an estimated optimum aircraft takeoff and landing interval of some 30 seconds, it would—in perfect circumstances—take more than an hour to launch or recover its air group.3 The aircraft would be moved between the hangar and flight deck by one deck-edge and two centerline elevators. Two hydraulic flight-deck catapults would launch the heaviest aircraft.

Carved in Steel

The keel for the CVB-41 was laid down on 27 October 1943 at the Newport News Shipbuilding and Dry Dock Company. During the war and afterward reports circulated that the CVBs were converted from unfinished Iowa-class battleship hulls. That was a shipyard myth. The two unfinished Iowa hulls were scrapped. During the war, consideration was given to converting the six Iowa-class battleships when still under construction to aircraft carriers. Undersecretary of the Navy James Forrestal was a prime advocate of such conversions, declaring, “I think the conversion of the BB-63 and BB-64 would be very wise indeed.”4 But the Bureau of Ships demurred, arguing that it was more efficient to simply build more Essex-class carriers, and undertook no battleship conversions.

When the CVB-41 was launched on 20 March 1945, the U.S. Navy had 88 aircraft carriers of all types and sizes in commission. Another 25 were under construction, and an additional 31 were on order. Although more than two-thirds of the flattops in service were escort carriers, 26 fast carriers were in service with 16 more in various stages of construction.

The CVB-41 was christened the Midway by Mrs. Bradford William Ripley II, widow of a naval aviator killed during training. The first USS Midway had been a small fleet auxiliary (AG-41), renamed Panay in April 1943 so that the escort carrier CVE-63 could have the appellation. That ship, in turn, was renamed the Saint Lô in September 1944.


USS MIDWAY (CVB/CVA/CV-41)
Data as completed
Displacement: 45,000 tons standard
60,100 tons full load
Length: 900 feet waterline
968 feet overall
Beam: 113 feet
Flight deck width: 136 feet
Draft: 35 feet
Propulsion: 4 steam turbines;
212,000 shaft horsepower;
4 shafts
Boilers: 12
Pressure: 565 pounds-per-square inch
Aircraft: 144
Armament: 18 5-inch/54-caliber (18 single mounts)
84 40-mm/56-caliber Bofors (21 quad mounts)
28 20-mm/70-caliber Oerlikon (28 single mounts)
Manning: 4,100 (includes air group.)


The Midway was placed in commission on 10 September 1945, eight days after Japan’s formal surrender on board the battleship Missouri (BB-63). Subsequently, the Midway carried out trials and air group workup for the next few months.

On 1 March 1946, the carrier, with portions of air group CVG-74 embarked, departed Norfolk, Virginia, with three destroyers to conduct cold-weather tests. Operating off the coast of Labrador and above the Arctic Circle, this evaluation of carrier operations in arctic waters was called Operation Frostbite. It demonstrated that cold-weather carrier operations were feasible, although at a reduced tempo. The task force returned to Norfolk on 22 March.

A more historic operation occurred in September 1947. After the war, both the United States and the Soviet Union exploited German missile technology and test-fired a large number of V-2s.5 That month at Norfolk, the Midway took aboard two operational V-2s (without warheads) and a dummy training missile. The carrier went to sea with U.S. and German rocket scientists and engineers—among them Wernher von Braun, “father” of the V-2—on board. On 6 September, one of the rockets was launched from the carrier’s flight deck in Operation Sandy. The 46-foot, 14-ton missile lifted off and immediately began to tilt to starboard. Within seconds, the missile’s control vanes corrected its attitude to the vertical, and the only launch of a V-2 missile from a moving platform was a success.

Cold War Deployments

When World War II ended in Europe in the spring of 1945, the Soviets were in firm control of Eastern Europe, mostly by military occupation. Communists also threatened Turkey and Greece and won control of Bulgaria and Soviet troops refused to withdraw from Iran.6 As a countermove, in April 1946 the United States sent the battleship Missouri, a light cruiser, and a destroyer into the eastern Mediterranean. Officially the ships were there to return the remains of a Turkish diplomat who had died in the United States in November 1944; in reality, they were sent to warn the Soviet Union of U.S. interest in Turkey remaining noncommunist.

No aircraft carrier accompanied the Missouri. At one stage of planning for the operation, the large carriers Midway and Franklin D. Roosevelt (CVB-42) were to have accompanied the dreadnought. The carriers, however, were dropped from the operation when the State Department concluded that the Soviets might consider so large a force a provocation. But the Missouri’s visit initiated the practice of sending major fleet units into the Mediterranean. The Roosevelt did operate in the Mediterranean from 8 August to 4 October 1946 with the 123 aircraft of Battle Carrier Air Group 75 (CVBG-75). The aircraft on this single carrier possessed more striking power than the combined air forces of all Mediterranean nations.

During the 1946 cruise, the FDR visited Athens to bolster the government of Greece in its fight against communists. At other Mediterranean port calls, the Roosevelt opened her decks to thousands of visitors, starting a custom of goodwill visits by U.S. warships. This show of naval force, begun with the Missouri visit, was a major milestone in the development of U.S. foreign policy in the postwar era.

From late 1947, on a continuous basis, at least one U.S. carrier operated in the Mediterranean, and from mid-1951 at least two attack carriers normally sailed that sea until the end of the Cold War. The Midway’s first Med deployment was from November 1947 to March 1948, with carrier air group CVBG-1. She made port calls in Gibraltar, Algeria, Malta, Italy, and France.

Finding a Nuclear-Strike Carrier Plane

The U.S. Navy’s most significant effort in carrier development in the immediate postwar years was the drive to achieve a nuclear-strike capability. When World War II ended, the United States had a very limited nuclear capability because of the few atomic bombs available, which could only be delivered to a target up to 1,500 miles away by a small number of modified B-29 Superfortress bombers. The Navy had no nuclear capability. The atomic bomb had been developed as an Army project with only a few Navy officers involved, albeit serving in key positions.

During the war, the Navy had begun developing a large, three-engine attack aircraft—the North American AJ Savage—intended specifically to operate from the three Midway-class carriers as well as future, larger flattops. It was to be powered by twin piston engines and an auxiliary J33 turbojet. The first XAJ-1 prototype flew on 3 July 1948. But the Savage would not be ready for fleet operations until the fall of 1949, and the Navy was not willing to lose time in the development of a carrier-based nuclear-strike capability. The only naval aircraft that could carry a 10,000-pound bomb and stood any possibility of taking off from a carrier deck was the Lockheed P2V Neptune, a new twin-engine, land-based patrol aircraft. It had a wing span of 100 feet, a length of 78 feet, height of 28 feet, and take-off weight of some 60,000 pounds.

Extensive tests with the Neptunes were conducted ashore at Patuxent River Naval Air Station in Maryland before two P2V-2s, loaded aboard the Coral Sea (CVB-43) by crane, took off from the carrier’s deck with the aid of rocket boosters on 28 April 1948. A dozen of the planes were modified to carry nuclear weapons. Designated P2V-3C, they were to be loaded aboard the Midway-class carriers by crane to fly atomic strikes. On 7 March 1949, three Neptunes launched from the Coral Sea, which was then off the East Coast. Two flew to a nearby airfield while the third, weighing 74,000 pounds on takeoff, with a five-ton dummy bomb on board, flew across the country, dropped its “bomb” on the West Coast, and then returned east to land at Patuxent River—a round-trip of nearly 23 hours and 4,500 miles. Despite the demonstration, the Navy was still far from having a practical carrier-based nuclear-strike capability.

All three of the Midways had their flight decks strengthened to operate the loaded Neptunes and were modified to store and assemble nuclear weapons. The Coral Sea was the first to be fitted to handle “nukes.” Completed in March 1950, its special weapon spaces were installed at the Norfolk Naval Shipyard. The ship then moved to the nearby Norfolk naval base, where a crane deposited a P2V-3C on board. On the night of 20-21 April 1950, a gun-type (uranium) MK VIII atomic bomb was assembled on board ship, albeit without certain critical components, and loaded into the Neptune. At 0730 the aircraft, weighing 74,668 pounds, took off amid a cloud of JATO (jet assisted take-off) exhaust in the first launch of a nuclear weapon from an aircraft carrier.

Deliveries of AJ-1 Savages to fleet squadrons began in September 1949, although the first carrier takeoff was not made until April 1950 from the Coral Sea. The Savage was the first true carrier-based heavy-attack aircraft. With a gross weight of 47,630 pounds, the AJ-1 could carry a MK III or a MK IV atomic bomb or an equal weight of conventional weapons to targets 750 miles from the carrier and return.

Special Weapons at Sea

On 14 June 1950, President Harry S. Truman released 90 nuclear bomb assemblies—without the plutonium core—from the Atomic Energy Commission to permanent military control; a small number were placed aboard Midway-class carriers as they departed Norfolk for operations in the North Atlantic and Mediterranean. While, in theory, this gave the carriers a nuclear-strike capability, the Savages were awkward to operate on straight-deck carriers, while the Neptunes had to be loaded aboard by crane. Still, the three CVBs were the world’s first warships to be armed with nuclear weapons.

The nuclear components for atomic bombs were not placed aboard aircraft carriers until at least 1953. In the interim, under a program code-named Daisy Chain, an elaborate scheme was developed to fly the plutonium cores from Savannah, Georgia, to a NATO-controlled airfield in the Mediterranean area where modified TBM-3R Avenger aircraft would be waiting to fly the components out to the carriers.

The Midway-class CVBs initially served with the Atlantic Fleet, making periodic deployments to the Mediterranean and other NATO areas during the early phases of the Cold War. They did not participate in the Korean War, as many U.S. political leaders feared that Korea was the first step in a process that would escalate to war in Europe.

The Midway became the first of her class to enter the Pacific Ocean when she departed Norfolk on 27 December 1954. Sailing by way of the Cape of Good Hope, she joined the U.S. Seventh Fleet off Taiwan in February 1955. In late June she sailed to Washington’s Puget Sound Naval Shipyard for an extensive modernization. In the yard through September 1957, she received an enclosed hurricane bow, angled flight deck, three steam catapults, and other updates. The Coral Sea followed into the Pacific in September 1960; the Roosevelt remained in the Atlantic. The availability of larger carriers of the Forrestal and later classes in the Atlantic beginning in 1955 permitted the shift.7

Carriers at War

Subsequently deploying to the Western Pacific on a regular basis, the Midway was in the South China Sea during the Laotian crisis in the spring of 1961, but no shots were fired by U.S. carrier planes. The first Midway-class carrier to launch aircraft in combat was the Coral Sea. In response to a Vietcong attack on a U.S. military compound in the Central Highlands of South Vietnam, on 7 February 1965, the Coral Sea, Hancock (CV-19), and Ranger (CV-61) launched strikes against military targets in North Vietnam. The only U.S. loss was an A-4E Skyhawk and its pilot from the Coral Sea.

All three Midway-class ships subsequently carried out operations against Vietcong and North Vietnamese targets. From 1965 to 1975, the Midway made nine deployments to the war zone, the Coral Sea eight, and the Roosevelt—still an Atlantic Fleet carrier—one. The Midway and Coral Sea also had important roles in the evacuation of military personnel and civilians from Saigon when South Vietnam fell in April 1975.

On 11 September 1973, in a historic move, the Midway became the first U.S. aircraft carrier based overseas when Yokosuka, Japan, became her home port. From there, with air wing CVW-5 embarked, she operated in the Western Pacific and Indian Ocean areas for 18 years. On 2 November 1990, she arrived in the North Arabian Sea to provide air support for Operation Desert Shield. And, with five other U.S. carriers, the Midway flew missions in support of Desert Storm in 1991. Keeping pace with the larger carriers, her aircraft flew 3,339 combat sorties—an average of 121 per day—during the conflict.

Desert Storm marked the end of the Midway-class carriers in the Fleet. The Roosevelt, which had undergone the least modernization because of scheduling and cost issues during the Vietnam War, had been the first decommissioned—after 32 years of service on 30 September 1977—and scrapped. The Coral Sea hauled down her commission pennant on 30 April 1990, after 42 years in the Fleet; she, too, was scrapped.

The Midway departed Yokosuka in August 1991, relieved as the overseas-based carrier by the Kitty Hawk (CV-63). She was decommissioned at Naval Air Station North Island in San Diego on 17 March 1997 after serving in the Fleet for almost 46 years. The ship was stored at Bremerton, Washington, but was under way again on 30 September 2003, when she was towed south to Oakland, California, for restoration work.

Finally, she was taken in tow on the last day of 2003, en route for San Diego. There, in June 2004, she officially opened as the San Diego Aircraft Carrier Museum. Today from her flight deck can be seen the site of what was the Glenn Curtiss training camp on North Island where, on 23 December 1910, the U.S. Navy accepted an offer by Curtiss to teach a naval officer to fly without charge. Lieutenant Theodore G. Ellyson reported to the Curtiss camp for flight training. He became Naval Aviator No. 1.

Mr. Polmar, a Naval History contributing editor and frequent contributor to and columnist of Proceedings, is the author of Aircraft Carriers: A History of Carrier Aviation and Its Influence on World Events, vol. 1 and 2 (Dulles, VA: Potomac Books, 2006, 2007.)

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1. Details of this CVB decision process are found in Friedman, Aircraft Carriers, pp. 202-204; also see Hearings of the Navy General Board. Cochrane was promoted to rear admiral and became Chief of the Bureau of Ships in November 1942; he was promoted to vice admiral in April 1945; he served in that post until September 1945. back to article
2. The original displacements of the major U.S. war-built ship classes were:

Standard Full Load
CVB-41 Midway 45,000 tons 60,100 tons
BB-61 Iowa 45,000 tons 57,540 tons
CV-9 Essex 27,100 tons 33,000 tons


Source: Department of the Navy, Ships’ Data U.S. Naval Vessels, vol. I (Washington, D.C., 15 April 1945). back to article
3. Most sources list the Midway air group at 130+ aircraft, e.g., Norman Friedman, U.S. Aircraft Carriers: An Illustrated Design History (Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press, 1983), p. 395, lists 64 F4U-4 Corsairs, 64 SB2C-5 Helldivers, and 4 F6F-5N and 4 F6F-5P Hellcats. The 144 aircraft number is based on Memorandum from Op 03-5 to Informal Advisory Board, subj.: Design of New Aircraft Carrier, June 30, 1946, p. 2. back to article
4. Memorandum from the Undersecretary of the Navy to the Secretary of the Navy, June 15, 1942 [no subject]. Four battleships of the Iowa class were completed in 1943-1944. The last two ships of the class, the Illinois and Kentucky, were laid down in 1945 and 1944, respectively, but never completed. After the war the conversion of the Kentucky to various missile configurations was contemplated, but never undertaken; both hulls were scrapped. James Forrestal, Under Secretary of the Navy from August 1940, became Secretary of the Navy in May 1944 upon the death of Secretary Frank Knox. In 1947 he became the first Secretary of Defense. back to article
5. In October 1945 the British fired three captured V-2 missiles from Cuxhaven on the North Sea in Operation Backfire. Subsequently, over the next few years 68 V-2s were test fired in the United States and 11 in the Soviet Union. back to article
6. Iran (Persia) had been jointly occupied by Soviet and British troops during the war, dividing the country in half. back to article
7. The Midway-class designations were changed from CVB to CVA on 1 October 1952, and to CV on 30 June 1975. back to article

Dreadnought

Excellent article Rick. I'm very interested in the little blurb "directed energy weapons"

__________________
Fortitude.....The strength to persist...The courage to endure.

Stan

Very very interesting read rick,

I found the Carrier piece very insightful, they are still the number 1 tool for the US to project around the world and I doubt that the increase in naval vessels utilising the cruise missile would be able to fill the void left by a carrier less navy.

In regards to the point made about navies increasing the size of their carriers around the world, I would find it very interesting to read a review from the US navy of the CVF when it comes into service. Especially the french version of the CVF.

Would the US every consider building carriers of that size again in order to increase their carrier force. Very interesting times indeed for the future of carriers around the world.

gunnut

I asked that question a while ago. The answer from everyone here is a resounding NO.

The reason is that a huge carrier can carry out more sorties per ton of ship and launch bigger (more capable) jets.

It all comes down to economics. With the mission profile of the USN, small carriers are actually more expensive to operate.

A smaller navy with a smaller area of responsibility and more limited mission profile will be better served by a smaller carrier. You can see the size of the carriers are directly linked to the size of the navy and the expected mission range.

__________________
"Only Nixon can go to China." -- Old Vulcan proverb.

TopHatter

A couple of completely uninformed opinions:

Stansfield Turner is by turns a brilliant and idiotic person.

Norman Polmar is an ass clown.

I'll listen to Norman Friedman any day of the week and twice on Sunday when it comes to naval affairs.

Merely my $0.02