Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cs.utexas.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: jln@portia.Stanford.EDU (Jared Nedzel)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Small carrier missions
Keywords: carrier
Message-ID: <11228@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 8 Nov 89 04:40:44 GMT
References: <11197@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Sender: military@cbnews.ATT.COM
Organization: Stanford University
Lines: 54
Approved: military@att.att.com



From: jln@portia.Stanford.EDU (Jared Nedzel)

In article <11197@cbnews.ATT.COM> siyt@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (p.jayne) writes:
>
>
>From: siyt@cbnewsl.ATT.COM (p.jayne)
>
>When the subject of small carriers comes up, everyone assumes they need
>to perform the same missions as big ones.  
>What about convoy escort?
>A small carrier with a few escorts ought to do just fine when it comes
>to escorting a small to medium size merchant convoy.  


I must disagree with this.  In order to adequately protect itself (and it's)
convoy from air, sea, and sub attack, a carrier must be able to carry a 
large number of specialized planes.  To deal with an air attack, it needs
to carry a number of AWACS planes and a number of interceptors.  To
deal with a submarine attack, it needs to carry a number of anti-submarine
aircraft (such as S-3 Trackers).  To deal with a surface attack, it needs
to carry attack aircraft (such as A-6 Intruders).  For search and rescue,
it needs to carry helicopters.  Before long, you're talking about quite a
few aircraft and you'll need a large ship to hold them.  

There are many other constraints that deal with the design of a carrier 
(some of which were discussed here some time ago) such as:

    - number of catapults
    - length of catapults 
    - number and position of elevators
    - size of the hangar deck
    - size of type of powerplant
    - required speed

As these variables get reduced, the effeciency of aircraft carrier
is greatly reduced.

As was seen in the Falklands war, a small carrier with VTOL aircraft and
no AWACS capability cannot attain air superiority, which is necessary
to protect a convoy.  As a result, the Royal Navy lost a number of ships
(and could have lost a few more if the Argentine planes had had more 
retarded bombs).


>	Paul Jayne


-- 
Jared L. Nedzel
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e-mail: nedzel@cive.stanford.edu
        jln@portia.stanford.edu