RETREAT FROM RANGE: study on US Navy carrier air wing capabilities, downloadable

By: Jinan - 20th November 2015 at 23:29 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

thx

By: Jonesy - 21st November 2015 at 10:27 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

http://www.cnas.org/sites/default/files/publications-pdf/CNASReport-CarrierAirWing-151016.pdf

Likewise thanks. The message of the article is intended to provoke policy makers in a specific direction it's therefore not to be taken as particularly accurate, honest or balanced...it's none of those things. It's an interesting read though.

By: djcross - 23rd November 2015 at 04:07 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

Very good read.

And page 53 appears aimed at the heart of what the "big strike/little ISR" proponents would have UCLASS become.

The main issue is USN hasn't found the money to build what the "big strike/little ISR" crowd wants. Long range (big fuel volume) and big payload (big weapons bay) requires a big, heavy jet. Add the sensors, electronic warfare, communications and stealth needed to weaponize the big jet and you have an extremely expensive big jet. Think of it as a half-scale B-2.

I do disagree that weapons weight is a driving factor. Weight of bomb load may have been important during WWII, but with today's PGMs it is the number of weapons that determines the number of targets which can be engaged in a single sortie. Weapons do not have to be massive if you nearly always hit within a couple meters of aimpoint. But the smallest bomb in the carrier's magazine is the 500 lb Mk 82. :stupid:

Personally, I think the article is spot on. The CSG becomes an irrelevant money pit if it cannot project power from outside the reach of DF-21s and AShM armed H-6 and TU-95s. Congress should mothball all the carriers and give their sustainment money to USAF.

By: Jonesy - 23rd November 2015 at 11:39 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I do disagree that weapons weight is a driving factor. Weight of bomb load may have been important during WWII, but with today's PGMs it is the number of weapons that determines the number of targets which can be engaged in a single sortie. Weapons do not have to be massive if you nearly always hit within a couple meters of aimpoint. But the smallest bomb in the carrier's magazine is the 500 lb Mk 82. :stupid:

....and this is one of the key flaws in the piece....so heavily flawed in fact that you can only consider it to be a deliberate omission. The simple fact is that the important metric is 'effect' not payload/range. Back in the 70's you needed the 'Alpha Strike' to put together the range of capabilities necessary to put enough bomb-trucks over a target so that enough weapons could be placed within useful proximity to target. Now the paradigm is targets-per-plane not planes-per-target. Yet that very stark, key, point isnt discussed. Instead there are lamentations of how many strikefighters a KA-6 could drag out to range. Twaddle.

Personally, I think the article is spot on. The CSG becomes an irrelevant money pit if it cannot project power from outside the reach of DF-21s and AShM armed H-6 and TU-95s. Congress should mothball all the carriers and give their sustainment money to USAF.

That being the biggest validation of the flawed nature of the article of course. That it can, in its fervour to try and hark back to a still-irrelevant early 80's Top Gun carrier-world, be used to try and further an equally flawed point about the efficacy of carrier airpower.

The simple, undeniable and indelible problem with land-based airpower is the land-base. You dont have one thats secure, logistically connected and conveniently located the air force is a no-show in any meaningful sense....thats the same if the air force is flying anyones flag. Air forces dont do strategic persistence and no amount of AAR is going to change that. History has proved this so many times....from Doolittle to San Carlos....that air force ignorance of this basic fact is a running joke now.

That addressed the issue of the other key flaw in the article comes into view. How does a carrier airgroup do deep-strike without a penetrating bomber and without U-Class turning into a me-too-B-2 which the USN clearly doesnt need as, quite rightly, strategic bombing of fixed targets is one of the few things an air force should be able to provide.

The answer is it shouldnt. Why is very long range strike a carrier airwing tasking?. It was under SIOP of course...but thats as relevant as Reforger today. This fixation with range then is wholly bizarre. What does the US Navy do to deal with A2AD threats then being the obvious question?. It does the sensible thing and clobbers them with standoff missiles!. I didnt notice mention of TLAM anywhere in the article written, perhaps I missed it, but if you are hitting something 1000 miles away from your carrier group from any subsonic system you have a good few hours of transit time to plug in to your engagement cycle. You arent hitting 'pop-up' or fleeting targets-of-opportunity 1000 miles away from a carrier deck any more than you are doing so from a continent away with a strategic bomber.

If you are servicing a fixed-target list then TLAM them. You dont need a manned aircraft to do the job and TLAM, these days, are pretty cheap. Going forward this long-shot option needs to be better than just TLAM of course. DARPA's original 'ArcLight' programme and the CPGS concepts for a double- or triple-shot conventional SLIRBM capability embarked in the Virginia Payload Module subs point the way in this regard in my view. No-one seems to bat an eyelid anymore about Iskander-type conventional ballistic missiles....I see no reason why a submarine launched longer-range version of the same weapon-type would be especially problematic. Such a weapon would, of course, get around the subsonic striker full-range time-of-flight latency as well of course.

The carrier airwing is there to do what others cant. That is provide strategic persistence either covering a beachhead force, establishing sea-space/opposition littoral domination or providing an unmapped/undefended threat axis for a defender to contend with. It doesnt need to be weighted, heavily and at massive cost, to deal with targets 1000 miles away from the ship as, fantasy DF-21's included, those threats are marginal. That is the case even if retired USN officers jump up and down shouting "look....look its a missile gap" whilst pointing wildly.......

By: djcross - 23rd November 2015 at 18:39 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I am convinced a CSG with an air wing of jets with a 3700 km combat radius can be a powerful persistent force, controlling 32 million square kilometers (a sixteenth of Earth's surface). But there are too many competing factions within the USN to ever let that happen. Airpower takes a back seat.

The most vocal faction of the yacht club demands maintenance of the force structure (manpower). Because their career paths rely on evolving leadership responsibilities and there are more potential leadership spots in a large force than a small force. Unfortunately, it doesn't matter that the modern surface navy is built around the power projection of the CSG's airplanes. The yacht club would be perfectly happy if the carriers were still flying F6Fs, SBDs and TBFs. Command of big gray floaty things is the ticket. Relevance to today's requirements means nothing to them as long as they have a career path.

Then there is budgetary bickering/demands from submarines (attack and ballistic), brown water, amphibs, and Marines (the Navy's army), which has its own air force and armored force.

If the USN cannot beat down the internal demands of the "pet rock proponents" and come up with a plan to recapitalize and become relevant, then Congress should divert USN money to USAF.

By: Jonesy - 24th November 2015 at 15:38 Permalink - Edited 1st January 1970 at 01:00

I am convinced a CSG with an air wing of jets with a 3700 km combat radius can be a powerful persistent force, controlling 32 million square kilometers (a sixteenth of Earth's surface).

3700km combat radius???. What value is that when the longest range ISTAR capability organic to the fleet is the couple of hundred miles an E-2 can peer from patrol altitude?.

How long is it going to take a laden subsonic striker to chug out even 1850kms....offload....and get back aboard?. How many aircraft are you going to need to embark keep sortie rates up if planes are out half the day on a single mission?.

No need whatsoever for anything with that kind of radius of action. You need 500 miles out and 500 back at most and decent sortie rates inside that radial. Land attack missiles for anything longer.