Posted on 12/18/2010 8:08:10 AM PST by sukhoi-30mki
There is always one carrier going through major overhaul/refueling. That's a two year process that doesn't require an air wing.
As for the size, the old air wings had two fighter squadrons, two light attack squadrons of A-7s and a heavy attack squadron of A-6s. They now have 4 squadrons of F-18s so they can do more with fewer aircraft. Depending on the needs the carrier has 4 fighter squadrons instead of just 2. Or four attack squadrons instead of just 3.
The Yacht Club Wing of the GOP have always been wooden-gun defense-haters. They scream and yell about anything that raises their taxes -- even a DoD big enough to keep them from being executed by Soviet or Chinese purge teams.
Here is their take on defense and social problems:
They're rich, they're out of the rain, and
THEY. JUST. DON'T. CARE.
Unless, of course, it's about access capitalism.
No way does a Hornet lug as much ordnance as an A-6 used to. I'd tend to question that business about "more with less" -- more flexibility, maybe, but not more iron on the target. Plus, the A-3's went away, too.
No, but the F-18 carries the precision guided munitions that have come along after the A-6. It can do more with one or two smart bombs than an A-6 could do with its entire bomb load. The key is not how much ordinance you can carry but how much can you get on target in a single strike. Plus it can operate as a fighter when necessary, which an A-6 or A-7 could not.
I was aware of the overhaul periods, but I was always under the impression that the Air Wings had similar “down time” periods where they were in intensive training on land. I may have been wrong, but that was my understanding.
And when you said old air wing type, you weren’t kidding. The type I was familiar with had two squadrons of F-14s, two squadrons of F/A-18s and (I’m still fuzzy on this last one) one or two squadrons of A-6s. I think it was just one squadron of A-6s but I’m not sure.
Training for a carrier air wing requires a carrier. Where else would you get the requisite traps and catapult takeoffs? The navy as never in my memory had a 1 for 1 carrier to air wing ratio.
And when you said old air wing type, you weren’t kidding. The type I was familiar with had two squadrons of F-14s, two squadrons of F/A-18s and (I’m still fuzzy on this last one) one or two squadrons of A-6s. I think it was just one squadron of A-6s but I’m not sure.
The standard pre-F18 airwing had two squadrons of F-14s, two squadrons of A-7s, and a squadron of A-6s. Each of those had, if memory serves, 12 aircraft but a couple of the A-6s were tanker versions. They also had a squadron of E-2s and a squadron of EA-6s, each with 4 aircraft. And then they had a squadron of S-3s and a squadron SH-3s, each with 8 aircraft. I may be off on the numbers for each squadron but it made for a pretty full deck. Today's carriers have one less strike squadron and they've lost the S-3s as well.
Agreed that it takes a carrier to practice traps and launches, but wasn’t that what the Lexington (and wasn’t there another carrier assigned to take the Lexington’s place as a training carrier?) was for until recently? Everything else was done from shore, to the best of my knowledge. Granted, I never was more than a sideliner and never served, but it seems that there’s some seriously flawed logic in the way the Navy has been handled since Reagan left office.
Wait a second, I just caught that last part. The Navy did away with the S-3? WTH? When did this happen and what’s pulling ASW duty now?
About the same time as the F-14s and each carrier has a couple of SH-6 helicopters.
Those were used for training brand new pilots, not maintaining existing ones. Now I believe they send a fleet carrier off of Florida every so often and carrier qual them that way.
It makes zero sense to let a combat air wing rot on shore for two years while their carrier is in Newport News. One air wing for each operational carrier. Anything else is a waste of men and material.
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