This seems to be a boom time for carriers. The first Chinese carrier, theLiaoning, is running operational trials and has recently demonstrated the ability to launch and recover its supersonic fighters. The Indian Vikramaditya, that country’s first new carrier for several decades, is running delivery trials. Japan and Korea are both operating air- capable ships which, although they are rated to operate helicopters, are surely potential short takeoff/vertical landing (STOVL) carriers. The British are building two Queen Elizabeth-class carriers larger than any the Royal Navy has previously operated or even ordered. The STOVL version of the F-35 is to equip the British carriers and also U.S. helicopter assault ships. The U.S. Navy is building the Gerald R. Ford, the first of a class to replace the existing Nimitz class.
Are the new U.S. carriers dinosaurs bought by a backward-looking naval leadership, the modern equivalents of the “battleship admirals” who are said to have hobbled the Navy of the interwar period? Or is the carrier still viable, and still the central element of sea power?
At the same time, opponents of carriers are becoming more vociferous. They point to the Chinese DF-21D ballistic missile, which is advertised as a carrier-killer, capable of maneuvering into position above a carrier and showering it with bomblets capable of sweeping aircraft from its flight deck. A single DF-21D is clearly far less expensive than a carrier, so some have argued that the Chinese can easily cancel U.S. carrier-centered sea power with less expensive asymmetric weapons. Some may see the U.S. Navy’s agreement with the U.S. Air Force to join in an Air-Sea Battle Concept as admission that the carrier battle groups cannot survive without considerable assistance. What is going on here? Are the new U.S. carriers dinosaurs bought by a backward-looking naval leadership, the modern equivalents of the “battleship admirals” who are said to have hobbled the Navy of the interwar period? Or is the carrier still viable, and still the central element of sea power?
Rafales and Super Etendards on the deck of the Charles de Gaulle en route to Libya. The value of having a nearby carrier rather than a faraway airfield became apparent during operations over Libya in 2011. Marine Nationale photo by Raphael Martinez
The question is not whether a carrier can be sunk by a sufficiently determined enemy. Of course it can. The question is: What does a carrier do that is unique enough that it is worth protecting? The great advantage of a carrier is that it brings tactical aircraft close to a target. If the role is close air support, the aircraft can spend a lot more of their limited time in the air where they are needed. Their pilots are not exhausted by long flights from land bases whose locations generally reflect political agreements rather than tactical needs. Because they are nearby, the airplanes from the carrier can fly again and again in the time it takes a more distant airplane to fly out and return to base for another load.
Targets are increasingly designated by coordinates, on the basis of intelligence gathered by satellites or by UAVs. It may be argued that cruise missiles can strike the same targets as carrier aircraft. The difference is that the carrier aircraft return to strike again and again, so that a carrier can deliver a lot more ordnance per ton of ship. Moreover, it is a lot easier to replenish a carrier at sea, so that she can keep striking. Modern vertical launch systems for missiles are nearly impossible to replenish at sea. Typically a missile shooter fires all of her cruise missiles, then retires to port, or at the least, to a very calm area, to replenish laboriously. A carrier replenishes much more rapidly, and under much rougher conditions. If you think of the carrier as an intermediate stage in a pipeline of weapons from the United States to a distant target area, you understand that it is uniquely well suited to that role.
The question is not whether a carrier can be sunk by a sufficiently determined enemy. Of course it can. The question is: What does a carrier do that is unique enough that it is worth protecting?
This sort of advantage apparently convinced the British government to go ahead with its carrier program. When NATO forces became engaged in Libya, the British contribution was Tornado strike aircraft flying from the United Kingdom, because there was no closer British base. On paper, the Tornados had the requisite range. Had they been assigned to fly out and strike preassigned targets, which is typical in many air campaigns, that might have been enough. However, the NATO aircraft supporting the rebels in Libya had to hit targets that presented themselves suddenly – targets such as Libyan tanks emerging and firing at the rebels. What was needed was continuous air presence over Libya. An airplane flying to the limit of its range could not orbit over Libya for long. Aircraft from closer NATO bases did a lot better. Suddenly the British government was forced to confront the difference between range and endurance at a given range – and the latter was what mattered.
That is aside from the advantage a carrier gains from her mobility. During the NATO operations over Kosovo, a small British carrier in the Adriatic regularly delivered more sorties than large air bases in Italy, because the weather often closed those bases down. The carrier could move out of unflyable weather. This experience seems to have been key in convincing the British government to approve a carrier program in the first place; the Libyan experience made it much more urgent.
The aircraft carrier John F. Kennedy (CVN 79) is the second ship in the Gerald R. Ford class, the Navy’s newest class of nuclear aircraft carriers. While the Gerald R. Ford class introduces new technologies such as electromagnetic catapults and arresting gear, it remains generally faithful to traditional supercarrier design. U.S. Navy photo illustration courtesy of Newport News Shipbuilding
Mobility also confers a degree of protection. Before a carrier can be attacked, she must be detected and tracked. A great deal depends on how cooperative the carrier is. If she constantly radiates uniquely recognizable signals, and if she steams a consistent straight course, she will be found relatively easily. In the early 1960s, the Soviets began to fly reconnaissance bombers directly over U.S. carriers without searching for them, and the U.S. Navy realized that it was being tracked. Radio emissions were the main culprit. The Navy learned to shut down its transmitters, and it also learned tricks of evasion and deception. With the end of the Cold War, much of that experience has been forgotten. It is probably time to relearn it. Admittedly, we are now far more dependent on computer links of various kinds, and it will take ingenuity to shut them down or make them difficult to intercept or to reroute them deceptively, but it would be foolish to imagine that it cannot be done.
That leads back to DF-21D. Is it the end of carriers? It has not really been tested, and the Chinese have been forced to say that it is developmental at best. The U.S. Navy already has a tested anti-ballistic missile in its SM-3. The recently announced laser self- defense weapon would seem ideally designed to deal with the bomblets DF-21D is designed to deliver.1 More importantly, DF-21D is toothless unless other Chinese systems can detect and accurately track carriers. That is not at all easy, despite claims that everything on Earth can be seen and tracked on a 24/7 basis – satellites looking down do not really do anything like that.
The Chinese are caught in a difficult bind. They want to dominate East Asia, and for that they have to replace the U.S. Navy as the major seaborne power in a maritime theater of operations.
The Chinese are caught in a difficult bind. They want to dominate East Asia, and for that they have to replace the U.S. Navy as the major seaborne power in a maritime theater of operations. They are following two separate tracks to get there. One is to denigrate the value of the U.S. carrier force, to convince countries in East Asia that the U.S. carriers cannot protect them. That certainly applies to Taiwan; the Chinese remember a 1996 crisis in which the sudden appearance of the carriers vastly relieved the Taiwanese.
The Chinese have invested in a variety of more conventional anti-carrier weapons, such as supersonic fighter-bombers carrying high-speed missiles and even license-built Backfire bombers (the kind the Soviets planned to use against U.S. carriers in the ’80s). Whether or not they would be successful in wartime, in peacetime they lack the shock value to convince governments. Something much more dramatic was needed. Hence the much-touted DF-21D, which has had its own U.S. advocates. Again, those same governments are unlikely to ask whether DF-21D has or will have sufficient reconnaissance backing. This is a battle of images, not realities.
The Indian Navy hopes to soon take delivery of INS Vikramaditya, radically modified from the former Russian carrier Gorshkov. Indian Navy photo
The other Chinese track is to gain prestige through greater sea power. The Chinese leadership knows what visible sea power means: capital ships – carriers. Hence the expensive Liaoning and projects for further carriers. The Chinese leadership is well aware of what the United States achieves when its supercarriers turn up in Asian waters.
It is not clear that anyone in Beijing has appreciated the extent to which the two tracks contradict each other. If carriers are really obsolete because of new Chinese technology (the DF-21D), then it is unlikely that China can or will maintain a monopoly on it. Surely the United States, which is far more advanced than China, can easily put together an equivalent. The Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency (DARPA) is already testing hypersonic anti-ship cruise missiles, which are probably more effective than a ballistic anti-carrier missile. Moreover, Chinese shipboard defenses are unlikely to approach those of a U.S. carrier battle group. Two can play at the anti-carrier prestige game.
The other major Asian navies seem to be betting that the United States is right.
If carriers really are not obsolete (which is the current U.S. position), then DF-21D is exposed as an expensive stunt, and it is money wasted.
The other major Asian navies seem to be betting that the United States is right. Japan now has two small carriers (19,000 tons fully loaded) that it calls, for political reasons, helicopter destroyers. They are actually comparable to the British Invincibles, which performed effectively for years equipped with STOVL Sea Harriers. It was one of these carriers that outperformed the NATO air bases in Italy during the Kosovo war. Two larger ships (24,000 tons fully loaded) are under construction.
Notational imagery of HMS Queen Elizabeth, showing her unique two-island design. Carrier Alliance image
In theory, all of these ships are to be equipped solely with helicopters, and they are justified by the need to protect Japanese sea lanes 1,000 nautical miles (nm) from Japan, where land-based aircraft are less effective. However, should the STOVL F-35B survive into large-scale production, it would obviously be able to operate from the large, flat decks of these ships. Successive Japanese governments have, moreover, pressed for changes in law and practice that would allow the Japanese self-defense forces to operate more preemptively. Missile threats raised by North Korea would make strike carriers attractive, and changing Japanese public opinion (due largely to North Korean aggressiveness and testing) might find them quite acceptable. In addition to the “destroyers,” Japan has three full-deck amphibious ships, but they are relatively small to operate F-35s.
There is no current Korean program to build a carrier, but from time to time it is reported that the Koreans want to build one or more, as part of a shift from a coastal to a truly oceanic fleet. The large Korean shipbuilding industry is surely capable of such a project.
In recent years, South Korea has been building a large modern fleet, including Aegis destroyers that might seem well-adapted to escorting a carrier. At present there is no carrier project, but there is a program to build two and possibly three flat-deck amphibious ships (nearly 19,000 tons fully loaded), and the option for the third is for a 24,000-tonner. These ships are in the small carrier category. None of them is currently considered STOVL-capable, but the U.S. Marines aretesting the STOVL F-35B on board USS Wasp, and in that way they are showing that large amphibious ships are partly carriers-in-waiting.2 There is no current Korean program to build a carrier, but from time to time it is reported that the Koreans want to build one or more, as part of a shift from a coastal to a truly oceanic fleet. The large Korean shipbuilding industry is surely capable of such a project.
The situation in Europe is bleaker, mainly because of the economic crisis there. Before the crisis, Spain and Italy operated STOVL carriers, both having built large ships recently. Near-bankruptcy forced the Spanish to discard their single-purpose STOVL carrier Príncipe de Asturias in February 2013, leaving them with the slower flat-deck amphibious ship Juan Carlos I. She has a ski-jump bow specially intended to launch STOVL aircraft. Two similar ships, Canberra and Adelaide, are being built for the Royal Australian Navy. In contrast to the Spanish, the Australians do not currently intend to operate STOVL aircraft from these ships – but they have retained the ski-jump. The Príncipe de Asturias is now being offered to other navies. Thailand has long operated a smaller version of the ship, but her STOVL aircraft have not been operational for more than a decade, and she has seen very little service.
They currently operate the AV-8B, which is aging, and the obvious replacement is the F-35B. Whether it materializes in Italian service will depend on how deeply the Italians have to cut their defense budget.
Italy, which is also in financial trouble, has the large, new Cavour and the older and smaller Giuseppe Garibaldi, both of which were designed to operate STOVL aircraft. They currently operate the AV-8B, which is aging, and the obvious replacement is the F-35B. Whether it materializes in Italian service will depend on how deeply the Italians have to cut their defense budget.
Italy’s Conti di Cavour is newer and larger than Guiseppe Garibaldi, the navy’s other carrier, but whether she will end up operating F-35Bs is an open question
The United Kingdom is in a peculiar position. A few years ago, the British government decided to eliminate fixed-wing naval aviation entirely on a temporary basis, pending the completion of the two new carriers. The carriers were designed so that they could be completed in either STOVL or conventional (“traps and cats”) configuration. They were begun in STOVL configuration. At one point the government announced that it was withdrawing from the STOVL F-35B program in favor of procuring the F-35C conventional carrier variant, which made the first carrier (already well advanced) useless as completed. Later the government switched, arguing that conversion to conventional configuration was unaffordable and that by adopting STOVL it could get useful capability earlier. Some British analysts have pointed out that this is illogical. Internal British analysis, which has been published, makes it clear that the conventional F-35C carrier version not only grossly outperforms the STOVL version, but that it alone meets the criteria the government had chosen to make the STOVL/conventional decision.
The F-35 certainly offers more sophisticated avionics, but that is why it is so expensive, and it may be a case of something desirable but not essential.
There is, moreover, the delicate issue of the future of the STOVL F-35B and indeed of the F-35 program as a whole. The F-35 is now by far the most expensive defense program in history. It may be “too big to fail,” but it may also be the best single candidate for cancellation as a way of balancing U.S. books. Cancellation would not much affect the U.S. Navy. For example, Boeing is now advertising a modified F/A-18E/F, which it says is as stealthy as an F-35 and a lot less expensive. The F-35 certainly offers more sophisticated avionics, but that is why it is so expensive, and it may be a case of something desirable but not essential. The real lesson of the F-35 may turn out to be that manned aircraft themselves are too expensive.
The Japanese Maritime Self-Defense Force (JMSDF) JS Hyuga (DDH 181) and the amphibious assault ship USS Boxer (LHD 4) during Exercise Dawn Blitz. Japan recently launched Izumo, first of an even larger class of DDH
Cancellation of the F-35 would certainly affect other navies. The British stopped developing the Harrier, presumably on the theory that it would enjoy only a limited market. Instead, Rolls-Royce competed for and won the contract for the lift engine of the STOVL F-35.3 There is currently no other STOVL fighter/attack airplane on offer in the world, the Russians having long ago abandoned Cold War work on their own supersonic STOVL fighter, the Yakovlev Yak-141.
Cancellation of the F-35 would certainly affect other navies.
A large carrier moving at high speed can launch a conventional high-powered airplane from a ski-jump, without benefit of catapults. That is what the Russians and the Chinese currently do, and the Indians will do after delivery of Vikramaditya. The airplane has to give up much of its payload, and the carrier uses arresting gear to recover its aircraft. At least in theory this possibility is a fallback for the Royal Navy, although it has never been mentioned officially. In order to operate reliably from a ski-jump, an airplane has to be re-stressed and its landing gear has to be modified, but several navies are currently demonstrating that this is an entirely practical proposition. From the British point of view, ski-jump takeoff would allow adaptation of some existing carrier aircraft, such as the F/A-18 or the Rafale, albeit at an even greater sacrifice of payload and radius of action than was accepted with the F-35 STOVL decision.
Republic of Korea ship (ROKS) Dokdo (LPH 6111) steams in the Sea of Japan followed by USS Lassen (DDG 82) and USS Chung-Hoon (DDG 93) during Operation Invincible Spirit
The Japanese flat-decked carriers would not be able to operate in this manner, because the ski-jump itself forces the airplane up into the air. Early drawings of their 24,000-ton carrier showed a ski-jump, and it may be revived after the ships are built. The Spanish and Australian ships do have ski-jumps, but not arrester gear. It is not so clear that they could launch aircraft effectively given their lower speed, about 19 knots.
It seems clear that the carrier as a forward source of air power – of air strikes – is likely to remain vital for the foreseeable future.
It seems clear that the carrier as a forward source of air power – of air strikes – is likely to remain vital for the foreseeable future. Whether manned aircraft will remain is a separate question, because the great virtue of the carrier is that its strike element is reusable. It is therefore possible that future carrier aircraft will be unmanned, delivering weapons on call to assigned coordinates on the ground. The Northrop-Grumman X-47B Pegasus has just demonstrated both carrier launch and carrier recovery (in tests in July 2013, it made two successful traps out of four attempts). It seems likely that it will be capable of autonomous air-to-air refueling, which means that a carrier can maintain a group of such aircraft in the air near a potential target for a protracted period, a new and valuable capability.
The new capability brings up another aspect of carrier operations. At least during the Cold War, the U.S. Navy prized its carriers as a way of destroying the prime Soviet anti- shipping weapon, which was not the submarine but rather the fleet of heavy missile- carrying bombers (Badgers and Backfires). The number of bombers was limited, and the U.S. objective was to lure them out and destroy them in a decisive battle, just as in the past admirals sought to destroy the enemy’s main fleet in decisive battle. The Soviets could not ignore the carriers, because the carriers could and would deliver nuclear air strikes on their territory. The carriers and their escorts had an excellent chance of destroying the Soviet naval bomber force in the air before it could strike. No surface force could do anything like that, and the Soviets could fly out of range of any land-based NATO fighters. It can be argued that a group of armed UAVs, orbiting within attack range, would also draw out enemy air forces, and that this lure might be very useful in a future war. It seems unlikely that either the offensive or the defensive role of carriers will soon become outdated. There is a reason the world’s navies are investing in them.
It seems unlikely that either the offensive or the defensive role of carriers will soon become outdated. There is a reason the world’s navies are investing in them.
1: The missile uses bomblets to cover an area of uncertainity defined by its ability to correct course on the way down. The laser probably works best firing upward, where it is least affected by absorption due to evaporation off the surface of the sea.
The Russian carrier Admiral Kuznetsov. The Kuznetsov’s sister Varyag became the Liaoning after being sold to China. While Kuznetsov is expected to remain in service until 2025, she is unlikely to get as much sea time as Liaoning
2: The Marines consider their aircraft integral with the assault force, hence they consider it essential that the amphibious group be able to operate them. That was why they adopted the AV-8B Harrier as their attack bomber; the F-35 is its replacement. It is considerably larger, and it imposes much greater loads on the ship, including thermal loads, but the trials show that an amphibious assault ship can be adapted to operate the new airplane. Whether the STOVL F-35 is affordable is a separate matter.
All opinions expressed are the author’s, and should not necessarily be attributed to the U.S. Navy or to any other organization with which he has worked.BY NORMAN FRIEDMAN http://www.defensemedianetwork.com/
No comments:
Post a Comment