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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Light vs. large carriers
Message-ID: <11148@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 6 Nov 89 05:03:16 GMT
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: rcstse@urc.tue.nl (Stephan Eggermont)
>I am trying to find out how effective a force of multiple small carriers
>would be in comparision to a CVN with escorts. 

This is a real swamp, because almost everyone with opinions on the subject
has some degree of vested interest in the answer.  It shouldn't be hard to
figure out what the USN position is, especially at budget time...

>- how many small carriers would be needed to provide the same level of 
>  - air defence 
>  - asw
>  - strike

A lot of this depends on *how* small.  It is possible to operate most
current carrier aircraft off something quite a bit smaller than current
supercarriers; in fact, the USN did so until fairly recently.  After
that, there is a grey area where capability is progressively lost and
aircraft design is progressively affected.  Remember that current small
carriers are quite hefty carriers by WW2 standards, and really determined
aircraft designers could probably produce quite capable aircraft that
could operate off them.  Carriers like the Invincible class and the USMC's
"amphibious assault ships" (only the USN is allowed to call ships "carriers")
are too small for most of today's USN aircraft, but that doesn't mean they
are inherently limited to Harriers and helicopters.

Of course, building new aircraft to operate from them would run the bill
for smaller carriers up even higher...

>- how many support ships would be needed to deploy this carriers group,
>  compared to a carrier group?

It is probably safe to assume that an equivalent number of aircraft need
a similar number of support ships, whether they are based on one carrier
or several.

>- are small carriers able to operate their harriers in as bad weather as
>  a large carrier its tomcats?

In considerably worse weather, actually.  The hard part is landings,
and Harriers can land anywhere on deck, not just at one end (where
the pitching motion is worst).  Normal bad-weather Harrier landing
procedure is to hover alongside amidships, where motion is least, and
then slide over and set down.  The RN was flying Harriers off the
Falklands in weather that would have shut down a supercarrier.

>- can small carriers provide the same maintenance level the large carrier
>  can provide?

There is no inherent reason why they can't.  The RN did engine changes
and the like off the Falklands.

>- How much do they cost? (initial, through-life, manpower)

I doubt that you can get meaningful answers on this.  It depends too
much on the assumptions made.


You might want to consider some other issues as well:

- You can't divide a supercarrier in half to lead two smaller task forces.
	Larger numbers are more flexible.

- Putting all your eggs in one basket is notoriously unwise.  Sinking
	several small carriers is almost certainly harder than sinking
	one supercarrier.  (Sinking *one* small carrier is probably
	easier... but you don't use just one.)  (Of course, the USN
	position is that the HMS Titanic, er excuse me the USS Nimitz,
	is unsinkable.)

- Harriers and helicopters can operate, with some limitations, from
	destroyers and such.  This considerably improves flexibility.

- The lower bound on the size of your carriers is probably set by whether
	you want fixed-wing radar aircraft, and if so, how big they are.
	Such aircraft *can* operate off small carriers; it was done in
	the 50s.  Radar helicopters impose fewer constraints but are not
	as capable.

                                     Henry Spencer at U of Toronto Zoology
                                 uunet!attcan!utzoo!henry henry@zoo.toronto.edu