Replies

Regarding more carriers, with the Nimitz class ships cost $4b, there's a proposal for a smaller, coastal water 'pocket' carrier:

"According to some reports, Defense Secretary Rumsfeld’s spring 2001 Quadrennial Defense Review considered recommending that the Navy stop building large-deck Nimitz-class carriers in favor of smaller carriers that could be deployed in the coastal waters. This new class of 'pocket' aircraft carriers, designated the Corsair, is envisioned as a vessel of only 6,000 tons displacement, with a crew of as few as 20 sailors. The Corsair might carry half a dozen of the Vertical Take-Off variant of the Joint Strike Fighter being developed for the Marine Corps. Alternatvely, the Corsairs might employ Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles [UCAVs]. Vessels like the Corsair might be built for several hundred million dollars, compared with the $4 billion construction cost of a Nimitz carrier. The Corsair could allow the Navy to operate in coastal waters, within range of shore-base anti-shipping cruise missiles, according to proponents of the concept. It could also allow the Navy to provide air cover for smaller post-Cold War operations, such as the peacekeeping missions in Haiti or East Timor, that either divert a Nimitz-class carrier or are conducted without air support.

"The CVX design effort in the late 1990s onsidered a variety of alternative mid-sized carrier designs, including derivatives with alternative flight decks, fossil-fuel propulsion, low signature monohulls, and low signature catamaran."

[quote from globalsecurity.org's site]

Has anything more developed along lines of a Corsair class carrier?

This may seem like a pipedream, but this is what I think we should do. A small aircraft carrier is Great, but then add to that concept a submarine. A GIANT submarine with aircraft within it's belly.

The boat surfaces, opens it's aircraft doors and start launching aircraft. pops up anytime, anywhere, no escorts needed. Pops up. launches it's planes then goes back down until it is time for retrieval. The planes are lifted to the top flight deck and take off, just like on a normal carrier. Doesn't need to be a deep water sub, 3-500 feet would do it.

Surface, launch, submerge, surface, retrieve, submerge, and off to it's next theater. It would be huge, but it would be capable of much more and would be less expensive then the fleet of ships it takes now to support a carrier.

Has anything more developed along lines of a Corsair class carrier?

There are currently six light carriers in service that are as close to the "Corsair" concept as you can get. The three Royal Navy Invincible Class ships, the Italian Giuseppe Garibaldi, Spain's Principe De Asturias and Thailand's Chakri Nareubet.

While all these ships are better than nothing at all, they have shown the severe limitations of small-deck carriers, especially when it comes to handling long deployments, sustained air operations and power-projection missions. The penultimate evidence of this is that Italy is more than doubling the tonnage for its next VSTOL carrier (Andrea Doria), while the RN's next generation carriers will be over 2.5x as large as the Invincibles, and have the ability to be retrofitted with catapults and arrestor gear.

The "lighter carrier" concept has been tried again and again by the US - going back as far as the USS Ranger in the 1930s all the way forward to the Sea Control Ship concept (which was actually the basis for Spain's carrier program) in the 1970s - which included trials with Harriers on the LPH USS Guam. Nearly 70 years of hard experience has shown that lighter carriers are *not* the way to go for a country like the US that relys on its carriers for long-duration power projection missions.

the Corsair, is envisioned as a vessel of only 6,000 tons displacement. The Corsair might carry half a dozen of the Vertical Take-Off variant of the Joint Strike Fighter being developed for the Marine Corps. Alternatvely, the Corsairs might employ Unmanned Combat Air Vehicles [UCAVs]. Vessels like the Corsair might be built for several hundred million dollars, compared with the $4 billion construction cost of a Nimitz carrier. The Corsair could allow the Navy to operate in coastal waters, within range of shore-base anti-shipping cruise missiles, according to proponents of the concept. It could also allow the Navy to provide air cover for smaller post-Cold War operations, such as the peacekeeping missions in Haiti or East Timor, that either divert a Nimitz-class carrier or are conducted without air support.

This concept was floated around in the early 1980's when they were referred to as "Gary Hart carriers".

As to how well they fare in combat, one only needs to see how the British fared in the Falkland Islands with VTOL aircraft. Without air superiority fighters and the advanced warning aircraft that a CV can carry, the British fleet was subjected to attack not only by Super Etendards carring Exocet missiles but also ancient Skyhawks dropping "dumb bombs".

If the British had possesd a single CV or CVN, the Argentinian aircraft would not have gotten within striking distance of the British fleet.

Such "Gary Hart carriers" can be used only against a country that lacks any airpower such as Haiti. Against even a Third World country with airpower, the price that you pay for using these things is shown in the photos posted below of the HMS Sheffield which were taken before she sank.

The Corsair could allow the Navy to operate in coastal waters, within range of shore-base anti-shipping cruise missiles, according to proponents of the concept.

Mike, are you sure these guys are on *our* side?

Build a ship sized so that a single missile hit will be totally crippling. Pack it with expensive aircraft, so overloaded that there will be very little tonnage to devote to fire control and point defence. Give it a crew so small that damage control capability will be non-existant. Send it into harms way of shore-based missile systems.

Yep, that's a plan.