Posted on 09/10/2020 2:07:16 PM PDT by Retain Mike
A number of Proceedings articles and commentaries in the past several years have advanced the idea of saving money and fulfilling the vision of “distributed maritime operations” by building a fleet of more, smaller, lighter ships. For aircraft carriers, that argument tends to take the shape of more “Lightning carriers”—based on the hull form of amphibious assault ships such as the USS America (LHA-6) class—and fewer nuclear-powered carriers of the Nimitz (CVN-68) and Gerald R. Ford (CVN-78) classes.
While LHAs are cheaper to build than CVNs ($3 billion vs. $10 or more billion), the argument misses several key principles that allow CVNs to pack a lot more punch (orders of magnitude more, in fact) and deliver it more economically—and more combat effectively—than the smaller flattops.
(Excerpt) Read more at usni.org ...
Protection against EMP isn’t space intensive. It is detail intensive.
Double Deck the Carriers.
The USN’s classes of assault carriers currently in service have a similar capability and role as the Jeeps did for WWII. They do not have near the capability to protect themselves as do the Nimitz and Ford classes nor are as fast.
Yep. My microwave is said to protect against EMP.
The faraday cage inside the microwave protects objects inside - and people outside when in use - but making a faraday cage for a lerger space really just means making sure doors are closed, windows protected, and so on.
Any Electrical Engineer straight out of college could design it, with input from experienced ship designers.
The Yamato was huge. You should go see it sometime.
Bring a towel.
Wouldn’t they be visible from space?
Carriers would be OK against an EMP. And they could handle a missile or two. Nukes? No idea.
Reading this source I noted nine bomb hits, but I think what really got the ship was 7 plus torpedo hits on the port site. I am sure that was a damage control problem that there was no way to solve.
I bet for an aircraft carrier that hitting the island would render it inoperative.
Japanese battleship Yamato
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Japanese_battleship_Yamato
The Japanese built two aircraft carriers with three superimposed flight decks after WWI. It didn’t work out too well. When they were modernized in the 1930’s two of the flight decks were removed.
I think the Navy could distribute the weight well enough to make it stable. I’d be more concerned about them running into something.
I remember a comment by a battleship captain during the Reagan presidency. Someone asked him about cruise missiles, and he said he would just pass the word for sweepers. Anything inside the armored have been impervious. Outside the armor though I imagine there would have been a lot of casualties.
The volume of a warship like a carrier is vastly larger as the length and beam increase. Carrying stuff is important.
They’ve played with the idea of Catamaran & Trimaran hulls for carriers, but they have the same problem as multiple smaller carriers — a relative lack of volume.
Saratoga (CV-3) and Ranger (CV-5) also survived the entire war.
You have that ever-so-slightly backwards. The reason the Navy cranked out so many CVE “Escort Carriers” is because they were quickly built. But being built on merchant hulls with merchant machinery they were unsuitable for offensive fleet actions. They were too slow, had too few aircraft (mostly 2nd line types) and were only suitable for keeping enemy subs at bay, supporting land invasions and escorting convoys for air top cover in mid-ocean.
The Navy also built several CVL “light carriers” on Cleveland-class light cruiser hulls. These were fast enough for fleet actions, but carried about 1/3rd the aircraft of a full-size fleet carrier. They played with the air wing composition on those and finally gave up. The maxed them out for fighters and made fleet defense ships out of them when the Essex-class came online to carrier the offensive strike load.
It took a couple of years to build a fleet carrier. You could crank out a CVE in a couple of months and a CVL-conversion in less than a year.
I expect that the bulk of the carrier force will be held in reserve until the “Big Blow-off” occurs. Once the SSN’s & Stealth Fighters sanitize the sea areas and the tactical nuke exchange happens, or does not happen, then the CVN’s will move out in multi-carrier CVBG’s. Those will provide the bulk of the strike aircraft in-theater.
Even in WW2, the old pre-war dreadnoughts had a role to play. The fast battleships pretty much lacked for targets, but they were massive AAA batteries for protecting the carriers and pretty much couldn’t be destroyed by Kamikaze attacks for even multiple heavy torpedo hits (had the enemy been able to get those on target).
So yes, the CVN will have a role in a major war, albeit a secondary follow-on role. But in any war short of that they have tons of utility.
That’s pretty much how the USN used their Independence-class CVL’s in 1944-45. They loaded them up with Hellcats and provided the “Blue Blanket” Air CAP for the battlegroup while the CV’s provided the strike aircraft — eventually including the Corsairs which were too heavy for the CVL’s but could catch and kill Kamikazes at the distant picket line.
The IJN tried that. It didn’t work. The Yorktown-class had the ability to launch scout-bombers directly from the Hangar Deck via waist catapults below the flight deck. They eventually removed them.
Can you imagine how big the Donald J. Trump class of aircraft carriers will be?
The will make today’s carriers look like the old “Love Boat” compared to The Oasis Of the Seas.
(folks, this is A JOKE. No need to poke holes in it)
I saw a scientific article on what the physics would be for a carrier that could fly.
If ends up being about 90% hover propeller units.
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