Moderator: Community Manager
[Post Reply] [*]  Page 3 of 13  [ 124 posts ]  Go to page « 1 2 3 4 513 »
Author Message
Bombhead
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 14th, 2010, 10:40 pm
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 2299
Joined: July 27th, 2010, 7:41 pm
I don't know why we spent all that money designing the ugliest carrier design ever.Should have raked out the old plans for CVA01 and built two of them, starting 1991.With our appaling record on carrier building times,Hermes 15 years,Ark Royal 12,we might just have had both in service about now :cry:


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Portsmouth Bill
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 15th, 2010, 8:20 am
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 3220
Joined: August 16th, 2010, 7:45 am
Location: Cambridge United Kingdom
I'm being entertained on my way to work with BBC Radio 4 discussing the Strategic Defence Review, that is about to drop upon the armed forces. It seems its being done in haste, without proper consultation, and being mostly driven by the Treasury....um, sounds familiar. Of course, the Navy are arguing for the two carriers as vital for overseas deployment and projection, the RAF has its own pet projects, and the Army cannot take any more manpower cuts, if it is to continue fighting these hopeless wars.

I hate to say it, but those two carriers look like sitting ducks; so another time-honoured scrapping of ships after a good part of their cost has already been spent. Reminds us of TSR2 et al. On the subject of defence reviews; the prize for the Golden Turkey must go to Duncan Sandys, the Conservative defence minister, who in 1957 decided that the age of the manned combat aircraft was at an end, and henceforth guided missiles would do the job better. So the Brits cancelled a whole raft of promising projects, one of which was the Fairy Delta development.

As a footnote to the above. Marcel Dassault was keen to see the Fairy Delta being tested in France, and being an astute designer, he recognised the potential, which bore fruit in the most successful fighter of its generation - the Mirage; which was both used by the French and exported all round the world. Apart from The Saab Draken that couldn't be sold likewise for political reasons, that left the Lockheed Starfighter, not a very useful design, and the English Electric Lightning, likewise limited; both being short range fighters.

Ah, nice to have a rant :lol:


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Obsydian Shade
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 18th, 2010, 7:39 am
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 797
Joined: August 13th, 2010, 5:44 am
Contact: Yahoo Messenger, AOL
I've always been fond of the Cavour Class carriers. Seems like building 4-6 of these things would be a better plan, if the RN was really serious about power projection. Unfortunately, the budget black hole is likely to swallow everything...

_________________
We can't stop here--this is Bat country!

If it's close enough to cast a shadow, I think the flying house wins initiative.

Bronies are like the Forsworn. Everyone agrees that they are a problem but nobody wants to expend the energy rooting them out.

"That is a very graphic analogy which aids understanding wonderfully while being, strictly speaking, wrong in every possible way."


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Philbob
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 18th, 2010, 7:58 am
Offline
Posts: 586
Joined: July 30th, 2010, 3:45 am
The Cavours are too large and heavily armed for the RN, they have the weapons and sensors suite of a Destroyer. I would of liked to have 4-5 small carrier at 30 kt +/- that could do 29 kts. The ships would have a core crew of 150-200 and would pull double duty as a small aviation ship or comando carrier. Combat and sensor systems would be built around CAMM, two or three Gun based CIWS, and two or three 30 mm for small boat defense. the primary sensor would be artisan. Anyway I got into a huge debate about this over at Key Publishing but i think some of them were trolls. That being said currently the two large CVF's is right now the best option becuase of this late in the construction program. the Type 26 i would acutally recomend cutting to 6 units and then invest that money into more large and medium OPV's.

_________________
Supreme Commander of the Astrofleets


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
TimothyC
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 18th, 2010, 2:13 pm
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 3765
Joined: July 27th, 2010, 3:06 am
Contact: Website
This small Carrier stuff is ****. I Call upon the Name of Stuart Slade!


The Following Quotes are from a Thread on HPCA (Owned/Rub by Stuart Slade and the home of TBO'verse, TIPOTS'verse, and The Last War by Jan Niemczyk) entitled "The merits and flaws of multiple carriers vs one or two".
Hurricane wrote:
There could be some sort of market for a universal carrier base.
Do you mean a universal carrier design that could be exported widely? If so, it's the Holy Grail of warship design. A lot of people have worked on exactly that, explicitly to replace the British light fleets. The problem is that everybody wants their carriers to do different things and a ship that can cover all the bases is so compromised that it simply isn't worth the effort.
Quote:
That 3 smaller carriers are better than one big one.
Unfortunately, it isn't an option. Carrier size is determined by aircraft characteristics. Essentially, what we do is a maths problem. The aircraft need to take off, ie reach flying speed. For all practical purposes that means catapulting them. Now, the aircraft has to reach flying speed which is a set point. The maximum acceleration the aircraft can be subjected to before the pilot's neck snaps is also a set point. Those two bits of data give us the length of the capapult section. The wingspan of the aircraft plus 50 percent gives us the width of that zone. That's component A.

The landing zone comes next. The deceleration applied to the aircraft is also a fixed amount. A good example of what happens if that amount is exceeded was shown in some arrester trials where the wires stopped the rear half of the aircraft but the front half kept going and went over the edge of the angled deck. Now, the landing zone also needs enough space for the aircraft to accelerate and resume flying in the event of a bolter. That total length multiplied by the wingspan of the aircraft plus 50 percent is the component B.

Finally there's the deck park area. This is the space needed to move aircraft around, park them, ready them for launch or for striking below after retrieval. The area here is a key part of the aircraft carrier's efficiency; if she's short on space here, she won't be able to operate her aircraft effectively. This is component C

Finally we have to decide how many aircraft we want to be able to launch at once. Then, we multiply A by that number, add B and C and we have the total area of the flight deck. Note this is largely driven by the performance and size of the aircraft, not by any desire on how big the carrier should be. Essentially, we have a flight deck and we put the ship underneath it. That tells us such things as how many aircraft the ship can carry and everything else. If we design a smaller ship, we have to accept compromizes on aircraft operating capability. That eans reduced payload for the aircraft, inability to launch aircraft rapidly, inability to bring them back on board quickly, inability to tailor strikes or keep alert aircraft up on deck. All that good stuff. So, the smaller carrier doesn;t just have fewer aircraft, a lot fewer per ton by the way, but she can't use them as effectively. Also, she's likely to have less fuel for them and fewer munitions.

Basically the way it works is that if one has 100,000 tons to invest in carriers; the max capacity of the 100,000 ton ship will be 90 birds while the three 30,000 tonners with probably carry around 24 each. The big catch is that in actual operability terms the ratio won't 9:7 but 8:5.

Also, each carrier requires an overhead (hotel load) of aircraft regardless of her size. This incudes a couple of AEW birds, probably four ASW helicopters (no, she can't rely on her escorts for those; tthe carrier can operate them in wetaher conditions that prevent teh destroyers and frigates from doing so) and at least one utility bird. Say six in total. So, the 30,000 tonner really has 18 strike birds and 6 utility while the 90,000 tonner has (theoretically) 84 strike birds and 6 utility. That brings us to roughly 8:5 odds in favor of teh big carrier and, once operability is included roughly 2:1 in favor of the big carrier. In reality what this means is the big carrier cand evote more of her capacity to support riole aircraft (tankers, EW birds, etc etc etc).

Finally, cost isn't related per ton. Most of a ship's cost is determined by her systems costs. Hull and machinery cost are 10 - 20 percent of teh total. So, the 30,000 tonner actually costs around 50 percent of the 90,000 tonner. So the balance really is that the three 30,000 tonner fleet costs 50 percent more but offers half the capability than a single 90,000 tonner. Which is why the USN doesn't build the smaller carriers.
My Fuhrer....I can find WIN!

[ img ]

Chart found in

Handbook of U.S. Aircraft Carrier Programs
by
Director
CV and Air Station Programs Division (OP-55)
DCNO (AIR WARFARE)
OFFICE OF THE CHIEF OF NAVAL OPERATIONS

found at the Navy Yard Archives -- the book used to be a mix of CONFIDENTIAL and UNCLASSIFIED sources; it's now been declassified completely.
GarethB wrote:
As a followup to Stuart's comments on why carriers are the size they are, something else he wrote about a specific carrier, Charles de Gaulle, that many here have probably read before but it may be new to some of the new members.

http://www.tboverse.us/HPCAFORUM/phpBB3 ... f=11&t=936
fgrey wrote:
If the British wanted commonality with American forces, a LHA derived class would fit the role with minimal changes to British military doctrine IF a suitable aircraft could be found. This would be significantly larger than the current Invincible class, have close to the capacity of the planned Queen Elizabeth class, and probably outclass most modern carriers at about half the cost per carrier - the Americans paid 2.4 billion for the USS America.
There's little doubt about the fact that an LHD derivative would make a good aircraft carrier – in fact, the new LHA-6 class is more or less just that. It's an LHD-1 Wasp class with the well deck aft stripped out and its aircraft operating capabilities enhanced. Actually, she derives from the LHD-8 Makin Island but that's a detail. The thing is that these ships are big. The LHD-1 class are officially 41,000 tons full load but are actually closer to 45,000 tons. LHA-6 will be (officially) 45,000 tons but will really be closer to 50,000 tons. The Queen Elizabeth class are officially 66,600 tons (I love that displacement) but are really going to be closer to 68,000. So, LHA-6 is about three quarters the size of the Queen Elizabeth. LHA-6 currently costs around US$3.2 billion, officially the cost of Queen Elizabeth is US$2.4 billion but it's pretty clear she'll cost a lot more than that. I'd say that the two classes are probably about even in real costs.

However, the devil is in the details.LHA-6 doesn't have the equipment (command systems and so on) to conduct the kind of power-projection missions as the QEII. She lacks the ability to rapidly re-arm and refuel strike aircraft on deck. She can't launch the kind of mass strikes that the QEII's mission profile needs. What LHA-6 does have is the equipment needed (command systems and so on) to manage an amphibious operations. Internally she's designed so large numbers of heavily-armed marines can move around her quickly and efficiently. She has over-sized hatches to allow big men with lots of guns to get through them easily. She's designed to operate a steady stream of small numbers of fixed-wing aircraft so that the troops on shore have air support when they need it. So, although the two ships appear similar in size and cost, they are actually quite different animals.

The point about LHA-6 though is that she's a big ship. She's about the same overall size as one of the old Midway class carriers. That's why nomenclaturing them as a CVL is so misleading. They are anything but a CVL. Most navies can't operate ships that size. They don’t have the berthing facilities, drydocks or maintenance facilities. A ship like LHA-6 is probably restricted to, at most four countries, three of whom prefer to build their own designs.
Quote:
The universal carrier idea sprouted from several pieces of real world data. Firstly, a significant number of carrier classes are designed around the skijump/short take off and landing design that the British carriers use, including the Principe de Asturias. A derivative of this, while not a spectacular success sails for the Thai navy as the Chakkrinaruebet - so adaptation of existing carrier classes to different users has been done before.
On, it can be done, the question is how close were the original specifications? The Chakkrinareubet and the Principe are a good example here. In fact, the original specifications of the two ships are superficially very similar. The driving force behind both designs was to keep two helicopters airborne simultaneously. Working backwards from that requirement determined number of helicopters carried and that determined flight and hangar deck size and so on. What was different was that the Spanish Navy planned to use their ship for ASW while the Thai Navy wanted theirs for maritime policing. Thus, the two helicopters were ASW birds for the Spanish and utility birds for the Thais. The big concealed difference was that the Spanish ship required an ASW command and communications system, a battle management system, sonars, on-board processing and so on. The Thai ship needed none of that stuff. So, converting the design was easy, the Spanish simply left off the ASW specific stuff and the space was converted to Royal apartments (suiting the ship to flagship work).

In most cases though, conversion from one country's requirements to another are not easy. For example take the Australian LHDs. The Canberra class is a version of the Spanish strategic projection ship Rey Juan Carlos. The ships have the same role, will deploy the same aircraft (and yes, the Canberras will be capable of handling the F-35B even though the RAAF hasn't caught on to that yet) and will do much the same things. Yet there's a lot of redesign needed. Things like extra air conditioning for tropical operations for example or datalinks that allow operations the Spanish can't undertake. Different radars require different superstructure layouts and so on. As always, the devil is in the details.
Quote:
The second piece of the puzzle to me are the various European warship projects. The French have had at least two joint designs of surface ships - such as the Horizon class (French-Italian) and the FREMM class, and are in the market for a new carrier.
The experience with the French in multi-national design is not good. Horizon is a complete disaster – four ships built out of a planned 22 and they aren't worth much. French participation in the design was responsible for the program being ten years late, way over cost, technically compromised and a general nightmare. FREMM Seems to be going much better, primarily because the Italians walked out of the meetings every time the French started playing head-games and refused to return until the French conceded the point. The French have pushed their PA2 program back at least five years now and the presumption is they won't be going ahead with it.
Quote:
They have also had experience with dealing with differing needs from the same basic hull design with the Lafayette, which exists in 2 distinct weight classes, and 4 distinct variants, and happen to be in the market for a carrier.
La Fayette was actually designed as a replacement for the export frigates of the 1970s and the French version is a sort of plug and play basis on which the others are based. Except the Formidables, they aren’t really La Fayettes at all. They're sort of proto-FREMMS..
Quote:
The third piece of the puzzle to me is the American model - where each carrier is gradually upgraded, and new features are backfitted. Considering the market size for a medium to large carrier you would not need a massive throughput and aside from facilities, the ships themselves need not be identical - but rather built around the same basic designs and facilities, the same way the Lafayette class ships are different along national lines- after all carriers are probably the most bespoke class of ship. This also means that the docks and other facilities can be kept in use for an extended period of time like the Americans do, but with less of a need to have a single buyer for all the carriers.
The U.S. carrier fleet is an odd case. Essentially the number of carriers is set by Congress, the hull life per carrier is set by design and the building rate set by dividing hull life by fleet size. The effect is roughly one carrier every five years and the result is a series of one-ship classes. They're called the Nimitz class but in fact every ship is different. That's inevitable.
Quote:
As for what I'd consider a viable universal carrier design- A significant number of the various classes of ships are built around the same basic ski-jump designs the British use, for use with harriers - including the current Italian and Spanish classes and might be the basis. On the other hand, there's no real replacement for the harrier - the F35B would likely need extensive refits to carriers since apparently the lift-fan design causes extreme heat damage to decks, and the size of the ship's deck might depend on its V/STOL performance. Apparently the Indians are using Mig 29s with the initial version of the Vikrant class (the two ships of the class are of significantly different wrights and sizes), so it may be possible to use a skijump design for a light carrier class. On the other hand, traditional flat deck and catapult carriers have other advantages - while larger, they can support a better variety of aircraft.
Ski-jumps have quite a few operational problems and whether the limitations they impose are worthwhile is a matter for individual navies. Devil in the details again. By the way, the Harrier also causes heat damage, it's inevitable with VSTOL I fear. It is possible to design a carrier so that the only thing needed to change from VSTOL to CTOL is the switch of two modules but that's an option for bigger ships.

The proposed second Vikrant class carrier may use the same electromagnetic catapult system modern American carriers, and the proposed British carriers do, and is about the same weight and capability. Considering, unlike the British, the Indians haven't had a history of carrier design, its quite ambitious.

The Indians have a long history of presenting ambitious and exciting plans that never come close to completion in their original form. Wait until we see what comes out of the building yards first.
Quote:
Whether the 'universal carrier' is a light or heavy carrier would probably depend on cost
Actually it depends on operational requirements. When those exceed the capability capacity of a ship that could be afforded by the navy in question, they dropped out the carrier game.
Quote:
the Thais bought the Chakkrinaruebet for under 400 million USD (which is a perfect example of a 'budget' carrier)
No, she's an OPV with a big deck and hangar. She's not really a carrier at all.
Quote:
The ballpark figure for a heavy carrier program (such as the British and Indian programmes) seems to be about 2 billion per ship, demand and variations. The advantage of a light carrier hull design to me is that it can serve other roles (amphibious assault ships, amphibious transport docks, UAV command and launch ships, and various post battleship bombardment concepts), as well as cruiser roles. They would also lend themselves to the new wave of smaller unmanned aerial vehicles better.
There's no doubt that carriers are the most flexible ships around. All one has to do to change roles is to change the air group. Only, it isn’t quite that easy. Different roles require different ship-fits. We've touched on the differences between an LHA and a carrier in terms of internal arrangements. Add a diocking bay for an LHD and the compromise of carrier characteristics becomes severe. UAVs take a lot of handling on deck and that presents problems all of its own. So, yes, carriers are very flexible but that flexibility isn’t infinite and it doesn't touch on the problems of national differences.
Quote:
The advantage of a heavier design is, well, its generally a better carrier. More space, heavier fighters and backed up by the necessary escorts it could potentially pack a punch. I do believe they share the same vulnerabilities and advantages of the WW2 era battleship - size, power, and being a big target.
The big difference is that an aircraft carrier battle group can kill an enemy from several hundred miles away.
Quote:
In *peacetime* ironically enough, the american supercarrier makes sense. On one hand, its big and scary enough to be usable as a psy ops weapon - as shown by the American tendency to have carriers hovering ominously around trouble spots. On the other hand, supercarriers are self contained, and are pretty useful for relief work, pretty much having their own hospitals and such.
All true. Hence the standard definition of a CVN. "100,000 tons of diplomacy."
Quote:
In an actual war, in the modern context, they would pretty much be the primary target for everything and the kitchen sink - especially missiles and torpedoes. If you have supercarriers and lack overwhelming superiority in every other aspect, you're in a bit of trouble.
If there is a CVN around, we have got overwhelming superiority. One CVN recently deployed with eight AEGIS ships around her – that's enough firepower in her escorts alone to shoot down every non-American maritime aircraft in the world twice over
Quote:
If the enemy has a nuclear weapon on a torpedo or hits your carrier hard enough... well One large basket, many eggs, and an anvil dropping on it. No one's actually had to test a modern carrier in a naval combat situation other than the british, and the primary threat to them were missiles.
The Brits had no AEW, poor radars, no dedicated fighters, lousy point defenses and some Captains who were better off navigating desks. They still did pretty well against missiles. If somebody lays a nuke on a USN CVBG, everything is over – for them. Within a few minutes they will be flat, black and glowing in the dark. There's an old saying for this. One flies, they all fly. The defense of the carriers against nuclear attack isn't missiles or electronics or whatever. It's what will happen to your country if you try it.
Quote:
Taking all this into account, and that carriers are primarily prestige units... is why i felt that the LHA sized light carrier made sense. Like the Lafayette class, while a universal carrier would have a range of weights, various parts (I'm thinking, for example drive components for example) could be common, and precise weapons loadouts would depend on what the customer wanted.
Therein lies the rub. What you are saying sounds easy enough but it's the doors to a world of hurt. I'll give you an example. On Horizon, the French demanded that Sagaie be used as the chaff/flares. The British and Italians wanted Sea Gnat as a result of their NATO commitments. Sagaie loads horizontally, Sea Gnat vertically. Beneath the launchers were compartments that served other purposes. To install Sea Gnat, it was necessary to move those compartments and install the Sea Gnat magazines underneath. So, the Italians and the British made the changes to the superstructure design. Now, under the terms of the CNGF Horizon plans, each change had to be signed off by all three partners. So, the revised plans went off. When the British and Italians got them back, the French had changed the design back to its original layout. The Brits and Italians refused to sign off, changed the design back to their layout and off the plans went again. Only for the French to change them back again. That went on for two years until the British walked out. Now, that might not sound much but the plans for the radar installation couldn't go ahead until the superstructure configuration was settled. The plans for the weapons installation couldn't go ahead until the radar installation was settled. The specs for the command system couldn't be decided until the weapons installation was finalized. And so it went on. The whole program was at a complete standstill for those two years (and we won’t even go into the Conze Affair).
Quote:
Taking into account the modular nature of modern warships this would probably be feasible, and since the British, French, Spanish and Italians have worked with various projects together, and have differing levels of carrier experience, they would be the natural countries to do such a project.
It's been tried. The problem is that for a major contract that size, the client wants to build it in their own yards. So that means licensed construction and all that entails. Also, as a rule of thumb, multi-national program costs double with each additional member. Getting the four countries you list to agree on anything would be a miracle.

The only way to do this is to get a group together and get them to agree on common systems where possible. The way the Dutch, Spanish and Germans agreed on the Tripartite Frigate Program. That ended up with De Zeven Provincien, F-124 and Alvaro de Bazan. Three quite dissimilar ships but enough commonality to save some cash. The tripartite frigate program started three years later than the CNGF Horizon, finished four years earlier and delivered twelve ships out of twelve planned.
Quote:
Possible customers, assuming its a light or medium carrier would be emerging regional powers - ones that would buy used carriers might prefer a new carrier were the price was right.
The problem is getting the price right. As I said, this idea has been floating around for a long time and the problem is that nobody has bitten. Most navies simply don’t have the infrastructure and have other, more pressing needs.
Quote:
For a heavy or supercarrier class (which makes less sense as a universal carrier),
The big carriers make a lot more sense than the small ones; they offer hugely more firepower and not that much extra money. A repeat CVN-77 will cost around US$6 billion but gives an order of magnitude more punch. The smaller mid-sized carriers QEII/CdG cost about half that and offer about a third of the punch if that. The small Amphib-based carriers aren't even in the same running. They're a threat to a frigate Navy but that's all. If real carriers come calling, they're dead. It’s the small ones that make only limited sense.
Quote:
well, I can't think of a market.
Any nation that wants to be considered a serious regional player.
RLBH wrote:
As an example of the kind of changes needed, you'd probably have to double the powerplant to get the needed speed and steam for the catapults - I'm assuming you want steam cats to keep cost and risk down. Oops, you just drove the cost up, and forced the naval architects to rearrange absolutely everything to fit in an extra set of machinery spaces.
Also, LHA-6 is gas turbine powered
Quote:
Oh well, you were going to need to rearrange all that anyway, an LHA only has a half-length hangar so the Marines have berthing and storage space, and you'll want a full length hangar for a carrier. Mind you, you're still going to lose space for berthing and messing, since British space requirements for that are higher than American. Most peoples are. By the way, you can't save space by using more automation, since you're trying to use in-service equipment to reduce cost and risk. Although that isn't in the British supply chain, so we're going to have to establish a whole new range of stock for equipment that's sub-optimal.
All excellent points. Need extra galley space as well; food on British ships is much better than American. And you'll need to find space for a bar.
Quote:
As far as I can tell, the small UAVs will quite happily operate off a convenient bit of flat deck - the New Jersey operated them in the 1980s, for goodness' sakes - and larger ones aren't that different from manned aircraft excepting the obvious lack of a pilot.
The small ones yes, the big ones are different. They require a lot of ground handling crews lest they roll over the side and are gone forever. We've been doing a lot of quiet experiments on this area and the numbers do not look good.
Quote:
You could probably do a design which can be built as a commando carrier or an aircraft carrier, again see the light fleets, although it would be sub-optimal in one or both roles. I know at least one naval architect who thinks that future amphibious assault ships will almost certainly be designed with a full hangar that can serve as a vehicle deck.
Have we met????
Quote:
In fact, there's a rather interesting ship that ThyssenKrupp have a brochure marketing specifically for disaster relief - although the graphics do have green helicopters and landing craft, and suspiciously 'warry' trucks.
Ah, well, one might be faced with gangs of desperate refugees. . . . . . . A Polish friend of mine described her as "The Modern Schleswig Holstein" (See identity of ship that fired the first shots of WW2)
Quote:
There's always the practice of putting a ship you're not terribly fond of a thousand yards astern of the carrier to soak up wake-homing torpedoes...
Two thousand yards. One doesn't want self-frying rump steaks descending on the flight deck.

Quote:
Only modular if designed that way ThyssenKrupp (formerly Blohm und Voss) do have the MEKO system which could work that way, but I don't think there's much other than that. I really don't think that Britain has the mentality or industrial capability to try this approach, although I could be surprised. The others might give it a try, their industries seem more export-oriented.
MEKO didn't work at all well; it ended up being a design tool to vary armaments and it's virtually gone with MEKO-A
Quote:
I'm struggling to think of countries that could afford (and would want) a carrier or large amphibious ship that wouldn't want to do the build locally. The only one that springs to mind is Turkey, possibly Brazil.
Both want to build locally. Brazil is likely to opt for something like the Spanish SPS. I honestly can't think of a candidate. Most countries want their navies to patrol their EEZs and half a dozen OPVs are much more effective than a single light carrier. To buy a carrier means getting into the power projection business and that means real carriers.
I think that sums it up neatly. If I might enhance it slightly.

To get a multi-national program off the ground there has to be

Commonality of Ship Role/Mission
Commonality of Budget
Commonality of Political Will

To make a multi-national program succeed there has to be

Commonality of Aircraft
Commonality of Support Capacity
Commonality of Building Location
Commonality of Equipment used
Commonality of Weapon Loadout
Commonality of Goodwill
RLBH wrote:
OK, OK, I surrender. I've heard about the lengths that were gone to so that Makin Island was a gas turbine ship.
You don't know the half of it. The Project Manager had no idea what he had let himself in for. Every time I met him, he had that deer-in-the-headlights look
Quote:
I didn't even know Brazil was looking, just that they've been in the carrier business for a while and the present ship is past it. Argentina? Nah, they're pretty broke, don't really have a need and would want to build locally. Besides, I think they know full well that even looking would be a good way for Her Majesty's forces to stop worrying about funding for a while.
Brazil's talking about looking. They're one of the candidates for buying a QEII if that's the way things crumble. Rumors that the RN is bribing Argentina to ask about buying a carrier have been officially denied.
fgrey wrote:
Third, I wonder, if the skijump/light-medium carrier design has its flaws, how come its the pre-eminent carrier design? The french and americans don't use it, but most of the (precious few) modern carrier classes use it, in conjunction with the harrier, though the russians apparently use a mig29 variant with it as well.
The simple answer there is that it isn't. The pre-eminent aircraft carrier design is CTOL with catapults and wires. The problem is that you're mixing up two kinds of ships that have different operational roles. This really stems from the way you are using the term "Light aircraft carrier" to describe ships that are not aircraft carriers at all.

Aircraft carriers are designed to operate fixed-wing strike aircraft. Period. Everything is secondary to that role. They may use those aircraft for a variety of roles and may fill a variety of operational niches with them but they are still designed around the operation of those aircraft. For such ships, catapults and wires are still the standard. I would point you at the U.S. Navy's CVNs which still represent the bulk of the world's carrier fleet both numerically and in terms of investment and the French who used catapults and wires on the CdG despite the major design problems the installation caused. The reason is quite simple; catapults and wires allow the user to get the best possible use out of the aircraft on board. They allow the aircraft to take off while heavily loaded and offer the most fuel-economic way of doing operations.

The LHAs and LHDs (and LPHs) are not "light aircraft carriers". They are amphibious warfare ships. Their job is to put a landing force ashore by a variety of means. This is a totally different design requirement and one that puts an enormous burden on the ship designers. An amphibious warfare ship is just as dedicated to its role as an aircraft carrier is to its. The major demand for an amphibious warfare ship is that it should carry its Marines to the scene of their operations in a fit and healthy condition and then transfer them to the shore. Everything including aircraft operations is secondary to that role. Notice that the majority of LHAs, LHDs and LPHs are flat-decked. The reason why is because a ski-jump takes up enough deck space to allow for one or two helicopter landing spots. For an amphibious warfare ship, those spots are more important than any advantages the ski-jump may confer. I would point you at the U.S. Navy's LHAs and LHDs, the British HMS Ocean, the French Mistrals, the Japanese Hyuga class all of which show this trend.

Where the ski-jump fits in is where an amphibious warfare ship is also operating a few VSTOL fixed wing aircraft, primarily to support the troops ashore. What the ski-jump offers is the ability to improve the capability of those aircraft without incurring the design costs of installing catapults and wires. Those are expensive items to install on ships (here, expensive does not refer to money but to the penalties inflicted on the design. Installing catapults and wires on an amphibious warfare ship would mean a major reduction in its ability to carry and service the troops on board. Thus it would represent sacrificing the ship's primary role in favor of a secondary role). In design terms, the ski jump is a very limited cost item; about the only costs associated with it are the loss of the aforementioned helicopter operating spots. In financial terms it is also very cheap.

So, if a Navy has an LHA/LHD but no carriers, a ski jump offers the ability to get some extra use out of the fixed-wing aircraft on board without too much disruption of the ship's primary role. Now, let's go back and look at the worldwide pattern with this in mind. Suddenly, the pattern does become very obvious. Countries that have proper aircraft carriers and amphibious warfare ships have flat-deck LHA/LHD type ships. Countries that have amphibious warfare ships but no aircraft carriers put ski-jumps on their LHA/LHD type ships.

This brings us to the two exceptions. The Royal Navy and the Indian Navy. Dealing with the latter first, at the moment they're stuck with the ski-jump because that's what they always had and their aircraft fleet is Harriers and the only way to get any decent range/payload out of a Harrier is to use a ski-jump. We don't know what is coming out of their shipyard for the new Vikrant class; all the released drawings and models are "speculative" (official description). The Vikramaditya was also determined by the need to modify an existing ship.

The Royal Navy is also stuck. Originally, the two CV(F)s were due to enter the fleet before the F-35 would be available and the ships would have operated with an interim Harrier/helicopter group until the F-35 was available. That meant a ski-jump. So that drove the ski-jump F-35B decision. Now, QE2 has been so badly delayed that she'll come into service about the same time as the F-35. There's a good school of thought that QE2 will be completed with a ski jump and PoW with catapults and wires. Then, when PoW enters service, QE2 will be sold or used as an LPH.

So, really the ski jump isn't "pre-eminent" at all. It's a niche solution for a specific requirement. Catapults and wires are the pre-eminent solution for true aircraft carriers.
Quote:
Aircraft commonality is the simplest part of carrier design.
Way no. Take a look at the French Navy for an example of why that is not true. They turned down Jaguar-M in favor of Super Etendard and F-18 in favor of Rafale, in both cases rejecting a superior and less-expensive aircraft in favor of their own product. Getting people to standardize on aircraft in any context is very hard.
Quote:
IMO. I'm not a fan of the F-35B as the future British fleet fighter mainly cause it isn't a proven design, and designing a hypothetical carrier around a prototype fighter seems off to me (as much as I think curtailing f22 numbers for f35s - that's a whole different rant).
It’s a good general principle not to change everything at once but it doesn't really apply here. I don’t like F-35B either, more because I have grave reservations about the whole principle of vertical take-off aircraft as a result of reading too much garbage about them in the 1980s. I think the British should bite the bullet, accept that QE2 is cost-overrunning and late anyway and switch to catapults, wires and the F-35C. They could then standardize of the F-35C as their front-line combat aircraft and throw the Typhoons into the sea. That would actually save money in the long term.
Quote:
I suppose it might fly by the time the British make up their minds, but i suspect going CATOBAR and with the F/A-18 makes more sense in the short run.
The British have made up their minds; I happen to think they made it up the wrong way but that's just me. They've still got time to put it right though and the QE2 is designed to make switching from ski-jump to wires relatively easy
GarethB wrote:
A question. What effect do skijumps have on "wind over the deck" for air operations? I'm inclined to thing that they'd cause turbulence but I'm just guessing about that, and whatever turbulence there might be may be acceptably mild.
That's actually a major design issue. Airflow over the ski-jump is a serious matter and it acts as one of the factors determining the angle of the jump. Another problem is spray from head seas. That can cause serious problems and also result in damage to the jump. On the Vikramaditya, the new ski-jump bow is actually wrapped around the old bow structure - the old bow is still there, inside the new one. How that is going to hold up to a heavy sea is going to be interesting
Jimlad2 wrote:
Having seen first hand the figures for delete / cancel 1/ build, I'm comfortable that we'll see both QE's built as it costs too much to cancel one of them.
On paper I agree, but don't neglect the possibility that cancelling one will become an end within itself rather than a means to an end. "Get the carriers" is still a noted phenomena within elements of the RAF and Army. After all, the original financial arrangements for Type 45 were supposed to make it too expensive to cancel any of the original twelve. Having said that, I think the RN will end up getting both ships, initially at least. The problem is that they might find one being sold out from under them for pennies on the dollar.
Quote:
My gut instinct is that the RN will push for both, but sacrifice HMS OCEAN to get them. We'll end up with a French style set up, whereby one carrier is in 'duty strike carrier mode' and operates with an airwing of approx 20 jets (plus AEW / ASW). The other will run as the duty LPH - similar to what ARK ROYAL has been doing for the last few years. We'll take on risk the fact that one of them will occasionally be in refit.
I think that's a reasonably accurate prophecy. I don't discount PoW ending up with catapults and wires though while QE2 becomes the duty LPH.
Quote:
As for airwing - I think we may yet see an RN F18 purchase as an interim measure, with longer term consideration of the JSF as a DPOC / future fighter option in the 2020-2030 timeframe. The advantage to the RN is that F18 means a CAG on entry to service, whereas JSF means we'd end up spending about 5 years using both as helo carriers waiting for sufficient numbers of the jet to turn up. If we're not careful QE2 is going to be the worlds most expensive bath toy...
I think that is an optimal solution. Buy F-18Fs as the airgroup for one carrier and supplement them with F35Cs later.
Zen9 wrote:
PA.2 was the French effort for a new carrier post CdeG, and in the end they chose CVF in her CATOBAR configuration. This took her to 75,000tons, due to the extra weight of the catapults, arrestor gear, more powerplant to get her up to a good speed for WOD and the 50 more personnel needed onboard.
She doesn't need extra powerplant; she's already faster than the CdG (which poodles around at 23.5 knots). The extra weight is a partial contribution for the catapults and a general desire to be "bigger" than the RN ships. To be honest, comparing like for like, I doubt if the French ship is much heavier than the British one. Still, the French ship is paper only at this time so who knows what, if anything, will finally come out of the yards.
Zen9 wrote:
Well to my understanding the move to CATOBAR will actualy slow the sortie rate, but what it will give is longer sorties of greater range and potentialy much greater payload.
It's a bit more complicated than that. The decks end up being suited for different things. With a standard carrier deck (cats and wires), the launch area is constant with a large parking area behind it. This means that a large strike can be readied for launch and prepared to go. Now, how fast those aircraft can be cleared from the deck depends on how many catapults the carrier has. For a CVN with four catapults, a group of four aircraft can be launched per cycle and that's a lot faster than any ski-jump carrier could ever manage. Two catapults, not so much. However, the key point is still that park full of bombed-up aircraft that allows the carrier to launch a massive strike (an alpha strike) that can take down a heavily-defended target.

With a ski-jump, the aircraft needs a considerable run up to the jump. This tends to reduce the size of the parking area. Also, the ski jump can only be used by one aircraft at a time so the launch rate is actually quite slow. What these factors tend to mean is that teh ski jump configuration is best suited to an environment where a trickle of aircraft constantly available is required. So, the operational modes of the two ships are quite different.
Quote:
Potentialy theres a difference in days available for operations due ot weather, that favours STOVL, but longer ROA of the CATOBAR option means you can avoid the smaller areas of weather that might preclude operations. Though the further away from where you want your airpower the more time it takes to get there. It all has to be balanced out, risk to the CV, distance to targets, etc....
This is largely mythological I fear. The weather advantage of the ski-jump is something the RN like to crow about but a lot of it is that they simply allow operations in worse weather than the USN do. In the crunch, the weather handling capabilities of the CVNs are much greater than those of the small carriers.
Quote:
USMC like STOVL because they can have airpower nearby, time being a critical factor in their perception of whats needed. The USN want range by contrast.
Again, it's more complicated that that. The problem with big carriers is that, beacuse of their ability to launch major formations of aircraft, they do just that. They swamp the battlefield with aircraft so for the troops ashore, its either feast or famine, hige numbers of aircraft overhead screaming for targets or none at all. The STOVL carriers give a constant thin stream of aircraft. The big problem is that the latter works fine when there is no opposition; if there is opposition, that thin stream of aircraft can get destroyed in detail. Again, we come back to operational modes and how, if there are big deck amphibious ships available, the owning Navy doesn' even consider ski-jumps
Zen9 wrote:
The smaller the CV or the larger the airwing for launch, the worse this gets. Until you need a second CV acting as the emergency recovery vessel. Alpha strike with QE would be less than 36 at best, the old RN assumption would be two thirds available, but perhaps a modern airwing can get to three quaters or more. Recovery rates seem higher for STOVL last I heard, so its a case of swings and roundabouts.
This is all true; a lot depends on size and analysis is complicated by the fact that ski-jump carriers are smaller than cat-and-wire designs. I don't doubt that as size shrinks, cat-and-wire becomes less attractive and ski-jump more so. The ski-jump allows fixed wing aircraft operations on hulls that wouldn't normally permit it at all using cat-and-wire. There is a point where ski-jump carriers become more operationally effective than cat-and-wire. Where that point is is a matter of debate. Personally, I put it at around 35,000-40,000 tons (meaning CdG was right on the borderline). That debate is complicated by the fact that nobody has built a large ski-jump carrier so QE2 is right on the borderline.

I have to disagree on the recovery rate. Recovering by vertical landing is slow. What distorts this is that normally cat-and-wire carriers operate far below their maximum available rate for safety reasons. The comparisons are normally made between a cat-and-wire carrier at its normal safe speed and a ski-jump carrier at maximum speed. The same applies to launches by the way. Another factor to consider is that Royal Navy ship handling in general is far superior to that of the U.S. Navy. RN officers are simply much better trained (at every level of their professional development) than their U.S. equivalents. This means that they are happier to do things in conditions that are considered preclusive by the U.S.
Quote:
Now if we're comparing like for like, actualy its not a myth at all and certainly for my information it was a reality, but perhaps modern landing aids remove those limits. That said if the same level of effort and money was thrown at landing aids for STOVL, the difference would still exist.
It's a combination of training and safety factors. The gap is between what cat-and-wire can do and what it normally does. Again, the RN will do things in weather conditions that the USN will not consider. It's a training issue, not a technical one.
Quote:
Though I do have information suggesting that the big jump in carrier stability in rough weather is from when you go over 60,000tons and that below that. Smaller ships are only marginal improvements when comparing say 20,000tons with 50,000tons.
Experience tends to be there's a lot of design art thrown in here but the main change point comes at around 35,000 tons. This was the big lesson with Lexington and Saratoga, they could run and operate aircraft in much worse conditions than the smaller carriers. Hence the US predeliction for big carriers. There is another big jump at around 65,000 tons. Oddly, QE2 is over both size humps so she should be in the area where cat-and-wire give big benefits.
Quote:
The First point to make is the RN is only going to be fielding one CV, and at best 36 fast jets, so massive alpha strikes of 50 plus aircraft are not in the offing. Second point there is unlikely to be an LPH, so the only big deck available is the QE or PW. So to the USN the scale of their forces makes life so much easier, and their choices on how to design and operate their CVNs less encumbered thanks to the USMC flattops. Fielding I might note Harrier IIs now, and F35-B in the future.
In which case; why build a big carrier? The only point of building carriersthis size is to carry and operate lareg airgroups capable of flattening the opposition. For the kind of trickle operations you''re suggesting, the RN would have been better off with five 25,000 ton enlarged Invincibles. That would also solve the LPH problem.
Stuart, how much did experience with operating from Foch and Clemenceau influence the French choice of cat and wires for Charles de Gaulle?
I don't think the French actually made a choice; they never considered anything other than cats and wires. To do so would have meant them scrapping Rafale-M and buying Sea Harriers. After a decade of ridiculing the Sea Harrier and everything it stood for, that simply was not an option. Anyway, Dassault would not have stood for it.

Clemenceau and Foch were basically 27C Essexes with all that implies. They were just about OK for the generation of aircraft they had to handle but that's all. So, I don't think the French really used the experience from them at all.

_________________
𝐌𝐀𝐓𝐇𝐍𝐄𝐓- 𝑻𝒐 𝑪𝒐𝒈𝒊𝒕𝒂𝒕𝒆 𝒂𝒏𝒅 𝒕𝒐 𝑺𝒐𝒍𝒗𝒆


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Praetonia
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 25th, 2010, 8:50 pm
Offline
Posts: 35
Joined: July 27th, 2010, 12:56 am
The RAF should be abolished and folded into the Navy.

The army should disband everything in Germany without replacement, and withdraw from Afghanistan.

CVF/F35/Trident must be protected above all else.


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Blackbuck
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 25th, 2010, 8:55 pm
Offline
Posts: 2743
Joined: July 27th, 2010, 9:15 am
Location: Birmingham, United Kingdom
...
So you'd give ALL of the transport, ISR and support aircraft to the navy too? That seems like a real smart idea... If the army gets any smaller than it already is then we wont need to bother calling it an army. Look at the Mercians, formed out of several regiments which had already in turn been waned down to a battalion in strength.


Yes. No and No.

_________________
AU Projects: | Banbha et al. | New England: The Divided States
Blood and Fire


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Demon Lord Razgriz
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 26th, 2010, 12:17 pm
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 446
Joined: July 27th, 2010, 1:18 am
Location: Eastern North Carolina
I agree on 1 1/2 points made by Prae.

The UK is a large island nation, so the Navy should be in charge of Air Defense & such so roll the RAF into the RN. Then take many of the RAF bases and sell them to the public, then using the funds gained to build more carriers. Keep a few land bases for the mundane chores such as large cargo transport, or sell them all and keep a few hangers at the now civilian Airports.

Don't disband the army, just bring them home.

Keep the Tridents til the US comes up with a new SLBM, which according to the latest news as reverted to a Trident D5 design so the old boomers can use them as well as the new ones. Keep & expand the CVF fleet, but in a CATOBAR form cause for the love of god, KILL THE JSF!!!

_________________
95% of my drawings are destined for NS, 4.9% for fun, & .1% serious.
Worklist:
Space Shuttle
Atlas V
Delta II/III
Project Constellation
Soyuz series


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Portsmouth Bill
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 26th, 2010, 2:28 pm
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 3220
Joined: August 16th, 2010, 7:45 am
Location: Cambridge United Kingdom
Latest scuttlebut is that the R.N. will have to reduce its (already reduced) purchase of six Darings, if it is to keep even one of the new carriers.


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Bombhead
Post subject: Re: R.N. Carriers, will they be built?Posted: September 26th, 2010, 3:04 pm
Offline
User avatar
Posts: 2299
Joined: July 27th, 2010, 7:41 pm
If you bring the Army home from it's postings it will just give the government an excuse to cut it even more.


Top
[Profile] [Quote]
Display: Sort by: Direction:
[Post Reply]  Page 3 of 13  [ 124 posts ]  Return to “Off Topic” | Go to page « 1 2 3 4 513 »

Jump to: 

Who is online

Users browsing this forum: No registered users and 20 guests


The team | Delete all board cookies | All times are UTC


cron
Powered by phpBB® Forum Software © phpBB Limited
[ GZIP: Off ]