Path: utzoo!yunexus!ists!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!rutgers!att!cbnews!military
From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Small carrier missions
Message-ID: <11495@cbnews.ATT.COM>
Date: 17 Nov 89 06:56:29 GMT
Article-I.D.: cbnews.11495
References: <11197@cbnews.ATT.COM>
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From: henry@zoo.toronto.edu (Henry Spencer)
>From: jln@portia.Stanford.EDU (Jared Nedzel)
>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...

Note that the British carriers do now have AWACS capability, using radar
helicopters.  They would have been in use in the Falklands if the war
had lasted a month or two longer.  They're not as good as fixed-wing
aircraft, but on the other hand they can operate from the flight deck
of a destroyer in a pinch.

The British *had* air superiority in the Falklands whenever they had
aircraft in the right place.  The Harriers worked just fine as fighters;
the big problem was the lack of early warning, which made it difficult
to put them in the right place at the right time.

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