Twilight of the Aircraft Carrier?

The Diplomat ^ | December 13, 2013 | James R. Holmes

[wolfpat]

Never having heard of Project Habakkuk, I looked it up. VERY interesting. And, oddly enough, I work in a plant that manufactures particleboard. In this weather, there’s a few tons of Pykrete just laying about the place.

[GreyHoundSailor]

Political correctness put the COLE at that pier in Yemen. We had things that could have helped that ship, but they were all in warehouses gathering dust. Someone I know just mentioned the name and got threatened.

[Sporke]

I’m sorry. I never pass up the chance to post a pic of my old ship. I was in Turret 2 when that pic was taken. I figure we need to bring back 2 Battleships. Even being so old they are much more useful than the deathtraps that are, the LCS’s.

[tanknetter]

One aircraft carrier at Bikini was the Saratoga. The ship survived the blast, but it was radioactively contaminated, with no hope of decontamination. Faced with that, She was scuttled.

You may be thinking of the light carrier Independence instead.

Saratoga did survive the first bomb, Able, which was an airburst and missed the aim-point by somewhere around 700 yards. There's been much speculation about what would have occurred if the bomb had been on target (the AP was the battleship Nevada), and therefore much closer to Sara and the larger ships.

Sara was wrecked by the second bomb, Baker, which was detonated underwater. The massive "bubble" of water pretty much hit her broadside, dishing in her starboard hull. When the massive amount of water tossed into the air by the explosion came back down (that whole "gravity" thing, right?) it dished in the aft 1/3 or so of her flight deck. She sank of her own accord shortly thereafter.

Here are a couple artists' conceptions of what she looks like, sitting on the bottom of Bikini, showing just how massive the damage to her hull and flightdeck were:

[tanknetter]

That's neat, but ever since I first saw The Avengers, I've felt VERY sorry for any pilot who missed the wires and had to bolter right over the intake downdraft from the forward port lift-fan.

[CodeToad]

One costly component of drones that is overlooked is the cost of the communications satellites needed to operate them. Think tens of billions of dollars.

[central_va]

The first rule of naval warfare is never use active sonar and radar for search in wartime. It is the best way to get killed. It is like screaming “here I am shoot me”. Active sonar and radar are for targeting purpose when you are ready to shoot to kill, for targeting solutions.

[Mr. Jeeves]

Do we have the cargo ship tonnage needed to move massive amounts of equipment and supplies if a war broke out?

I know, we'll rent them from China!

Oh, wait... :)

[donmeaker]

One could recline the pilot and get greater G-force tolerance. My recollection is the Apollo astronauts endured about 40 Gs lying on their backs.

[donmeaker]

Need to make a rescue swimmer drone that would be fearless!

[donmeaker]

I just imagine a bolter on that, with the bolter going into the meat grinder!

[donmeaker]

The Obama will be a Kenyan aircraft carrier.

[donmeaker]

I would look at a ramjet powered drone, with rocket powered launch. smallish fold out fins, enough to get good g-turn rate at high speed. Electrical power by Ram air turbine and/or chemical batteries. You want it to be fast so your target doesn’t move or hide before you can kill it.

If you want to kill something, your drone starts to look a lot more like ordinance. If you want to loiter and observe, then it looks a lot like a globalhawk or predator.

In a situation where you are not sure, you start off looking and may thus find something you want to kill, you get a UCAS looking equipment, and off load the ordinance function to something it carries.

[Drew68]

In WWII, it took a buildup starting (slowly!) in 1938-39-40-41 to BEGIN the growth using Depression-era empty factories, steel mills, and mines and foundries!

And many factories that weren't empty. Singer, for example, quit making sewing machines and started making machine guns. Today Singer makes sewing machines in Brazil and China. We couldn't quickly retool these factories if we wanted to because they just don't exist in the U.S. anymore.

[gura]

Time to bring back the arsenal ship:

[tanknetter]

Time to bring back the arsenal ship:

Bring it "back"? We already have four in service.

[mad_as_he$$]

Video on the right.

http://kryptonradio.com/2013/08/27/video-of-the-day-flying-model-s-h-i-e-l-d-helicarriers/

[DoughtyOne]

Thanks. That’s cool. People are so damn ingenious.

[hattend]

If you had a bolter on that angled deck, that big ass fan is gonna suck you down.

[SamAdams76]

Until a U.S. carrier is sunk by the enemy, I remain unconvinced.

I say keep building these floating fortresses. They allow us to take the war to the enemy without having to build land-based airfields.