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Automating Future Aircraft Carriers
Roland Piquepaille writes "Britain and France will jointly build three new huge aircraft carriers which will be delivered between 2012 and 2014. With their 60,000 tonnes, these 275-meter-long carriers will be the largest warships outside of the U.S. Navy. They're going to cost about $4 billion each, but with their reduced crews due to automation, they'll save lots of money to taxpayers during their 50 years of use. StrategyPage tells us that these ships will need at most a crew of 800 sailors instead of 2,000 for ships of that size today. At a cost of $100K per sailor per year, this represents savings of more than $6 billion. Impressive -- if it works."
USS Enterprise was commissioned in 1960 and is scheduled for decommissioning in 2013. So far its been in service almost 46 years. I see no reason why these ships won't last for 50 years. Even submarines last 30 years (and some SSBNs are under consideration to be extended to 50 years).
Suddenly, the hairy finger of a familiar monkey tapped me on the shoulder. It was time.--G. T.
...the article paints the picture this is something that happened today, but it's not - see http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/4780630.stm
In fact, the carriers are already being built - all that's been signed is a formal agreement, with France giving Britain payment for prior research and development. They've actually been under construction since December!
When they modernized USS Missouri in the mid-80s they cut the crew complement roughly in half. It didn't mean longer watches; it meant fewer duty stations. The new automation systems on board (and fewer small guns to man) meant that it didn't take as many crewmembers to perform the same tasks any more.
New engineering technology, for example, can cut the number of men it takes to operate an engine room from 25-30 down to 5-10. And more of those jobs are monitoring systems jobs, as opposed to manual labor, which reduces fatigue and reduces the chance of injury.
It works fine if it's properly designed and managed.
-Coach-
Perhaps the world's greatest tragedy is that ignorance is not impotence.
Huh? JDAM's are dirt cheap. The unit cost for JDAM's are ~$18,000 per. The project cost over the units supplied is $60K, but the answer is not another expensive project, it's to make more of the cheap per unit kits =)
There are 4 boxes to use in the defense of liberty: soap, ballot, jury, ammo. Use in that order. Starting now.
I think you've been watching too many movies.
Where do you suppose those surface skimming missiles come from? Something (either a ship, aircraft, or sub) has to get within range to launch them first.
The ocean floor in a great many areas is way deeper than a sub's crush depth. Active sonar can localize a whether its moving or not...and if its moving passive sonar and other means can find it.
--Mike
(former helicopter carrier-based Aviation Anti-Submaine Warfare Operator/USN)
Had the British had a real, full sized aircraft carrier, the Argentine Air Force would never have been able to get close enough to make repeated low level bomb attacks on British ships unloading supplies and troops. They might have scored some lucky hits with Exocet missiles, but they would never have gotten close enough to drop those dumb bombs on British ships in San Carlos Water, for instance. A large aircraft carrier can carry aircraft with airborne radar systems and large numbers of fighters capable of establishing total air superiority over a large area. The British had no hope of doing anything remotely like this in 1982 with their two tiny ASW aircraft carriers.
Point defense systems like Phalanx and Goalkeeper are strictly defense systems of last resort, and are no substitute for having local air superiority, which only a full sized aircraft carrier can provide (assuming you do not have local air bases).
They can travel hundreds of miles before striking a ship, way beyond any ship's detection range, similar to cruise missiles. That's the whole point of having them - to not have to send expensive ships that can be easily destroyed by aircraft or cannons or missiles.
Continual upgrades to warships and warplanes are standard practice in militaries across the world. Warships are eventually outfitted with new technologies to replace those previously installed.
I cost my employer close to £100K a year, yet my salary is less than a third of that. Most of the extra costs go on training, accomodation costs (services, heating, etc), employment taxes, pensions, and providing me with the IT I need to do my job.
I imagine that most jobs are the same. Pretty much every job has overheads...
Their ship losses in the Falklands were mostly due to lack of long range aerial radar coverage and lack of training in the command staff to use the newer AAA systems. If you are referring to the destroyer they lost there it was lost because it went into the line of fire between the other ship which had suitable AAA for low altitude engagement and the attacking planes. As a result noone engaged them until they dropped the bombs. If you are referring to Atlantic Conveyor, that was dead meat. It was neither even armed, nor properly protected by AAA armed vessels so it did not stand a chance against an Exoset. In either case long range radar coverage from an airplane would have prevented both.
Baker's Law: Misery no longer loves company. Nowadays it insists on it
http://www.sigsegv.cx/
Why do you think so-called "rogue states" like Iran and N.Korea are apparently actively seeking nuclear weapons programs? Because it would give them leverage and a considerably larger measure of power on the world stage. Nuclear weapons in the modern day serve as both a deterrent to would-be-attackers, and as a political bargaining tool (read: political power).
As for taking action outside of your home area... Britain and France are both more than capable of doing this already. They both have a military presence in many countries across the world, and the British military are, as you no doubt know, heavily involved with the US in Iraq and Afghanistan in ongoing operations.
The grandparent was implying that without these aircraft carriers, neither country can demonstrate any military power. My point is that this implication is way off the mark. As we've covered, Britain and France are both permenant members of the U.N. security council, and are both nuclear powers. How does this make them incapable of projecting and weilding power on the global stage? Hardware like this will bolster, rather than single-handedly provide military strength.
She's built like a steak house, but she handles like a bistro....
Good points. But the problem was in that the Brits and other NATO navies didn't have good long-range or mid range SAM systems because they figured in the Atlantic war with the Soviets that the Americans would deal with the long range stuff in the Atlantic and they would be in convoys doing the point defense work. The Brits figured out that point wasn't enough there.
The American Tartar and Standard systems of the early 1980s were much better at long and medium range work with the Sea Sparrow acting as point, the Falklands showed the US that they needed more point and they ramped up the R&D and procurement of the CIWS. Now it's a myth that the Falklands drove the initial development of CIWS, the French and Israelis let the Brits, Germans and Americans know that SSM and ASM seaskimmer were an issue and CIWS development started in the late 1970s.
The Brits in the early 80s had an airborne radar from some Sea King helicopters, but it's important to look at the Argentines, they did some amazing nap of the earth work when they conducted strikes on the British. While the Brits had holes, the Argentine strike aircraft, crews and pilots did outstanding work there, likely the best low altitude airstrike flying there has been.
There have been a good number
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g _of_the_Belgrano
:)
USS Cole
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/nav
"At 11:18 on the morning of October 12, 2000, as USS Cole (DDG 67) was refueling in Aden Harbor, Yemen, suicide bombers detonated an explosive-laden boat directly against the port side of the ship. The resulting blast killed 17 Sailors, wounded 37 others, and tore a hole forty by sixty feet in the ship's hull.
In the aftermath of the explosion, the crew of USS Cole fought tirelessly to free shipmates trapped by the twisted wreckage and limit flooding that threatened to sink their ship. The crew's prompt actions to isolate damaged electrical systems and contain fuel oil ruptures prevented catastrophic fires that could have engulfed the ship and cost the lives of countless men and women."
USS Stark
http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/agency/nav
"During the 1987 deployment, Stark was struck by two missiles fired by Iraqi aircraft. The fires that resulted claimed 37 lives and wounding 21. Today the only remaining sign of this tragic event is the memorial engraving mounted in the midships' passageway, which lists the names of the lost shipmates.
The frigate was heavily damaged and could only be saved by the effective help of the crew."
ARA Belgrano
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Falklands_War#Sinkin
On May 2 the World War II-vintage Argentine light cruiser ARA General Belgrano -- formerly the USS Phoenix (CL-46), a survivor of the 1941 Pearl Harbor attacks -- was sunk by HMS Conqueror, using WWII vintage design Mk 8 mod 4 torpedoes. 321 lives were lost, although initial casualty reports were confused. In all, 323 Argentines died, half of all their War losses.
HMS Sheffield
Two days after the General Belgrano sinking, on May 4, the British lost the Type 42 destroyer HMS Sheffield to fire following an Exocet missile strike. Sheffield had been ordered forward with two other Type 42s in order to provide a radar and missile "picket" far from the British carriers. After the ships were detected by an Argentine Navy (ARA) P-2 Neptune patrol aircraft, two ARA Dassault Super Étendards were launched, each armed with a single Exocet. Refuelled by a C-130 Hercules shortly after launch, they went in at low altitude, popped up for a radar check and released the missiles from 20 to 30 miles (30 to 50 km) away.
In addition there were casualties due to mining in the Persian Gulf during the 1980s and Desert Storm I'm too tried to look up
> Example, the US Abrams tank is 2-3x better than any other tank it will meet except perhaps the British Challenger tanks
I think you forgot something...
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leopard_2
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Merkava
- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Leclerc
The EU navy's lack ships that can project power they mostly consist of small frigates that where originaly meant for convoy protection. There are 2 smal French carriers, a few ASW carriers that have to use Harriers for their airwing.
A large carrier is great for power projection, humanitarian operations or as a base for landing operations. Nobody knows what conflicts will rage in the future. Maybe there will be another fight for oil & resource when these commodities become scarce. Maybe emerging powers (China, Indonesia) need to be kept in check. Europe might need these carriers.
Some more detailed information about the project can be found here: the British part (aka CVF) and the French part (aka PA2).
Tierce
Who sponsors your feelings?
or the "terrorist" in Gitmo told that menstrual blood was smeared on his Koran
LOL - that never happened. You might want to read about how the prisoners are actually treated, especially in regards to their Koran (they can only be touched by "infidel" US soldiers who are wearing a clean white cotton glove on their right hand). The whole Newsweek Koran story was an absolute farce, and has been repeatedly shown to be so.
And before you keep yelling "Geneva Conventions" please read them, you don't qualify for them just by breathing and there are many ways to get yourself excluded from them.
Check with the people we've sent to Syria for interrogation;
Syria? SYRIA?!? What the HELL are you talking about? Syria is by NO means an ally.
but we bombed the fuck out of a country that had nothing - nothing - to do with 9/11.
Yeah, Saddam probably didn't (although the documents being released recently certainly point to him and Bin Laden working together, or at least having nice friendly chats going back as far as 1995, as well as outlining his broad support for terrorists and his terrorist training camps... Zarqawi didn't just randomly choose Iraq as a place to go to after he was injured in Afghanistan). But why does that matter? He is the biggest living mass murderer, he tried to have Bush Sr. assassinated (something we should have overthrown him for in the first place), he had acid dripped on the faces of judges who didn't condemn people to death (btw, you might not want to read that story, it's about one of the guys who helped set up the new Iraqi court system and he says in the article that he "did not meet one Iraqi who told me that it was a mistake to remove [Hussein] from power"), etc etc etc (^8).
Nobody is really suggesting that we roll out a new round of Iowa-classes, as cool as I think the idea of 16" dia. naval gunnery is (find me an aircraft that can lay down 243,600 lbs. of ordnance every five minutes onto a target, near continuously).
Which is sort of unfortunate, because the new boats are soft targets; they can't absorb fire and keep on fighting -- the assumption is that they won't get hit by anything, which seems like a dubious assumption. The battleships were heavily armored gun platforms -- it was assumed they'd be hit, and designed so that wouldn't keep them from fighting.
The Navy's inability to provide meaningful gunnery support is why the Iowa and Wisconsin haven't been stricken from the naval registry. It's not clear that the new destroyers will fill this void, although it is pretty clear they won't even begin to have the near-shore potency of a battleship and its 16 inch guns, but the Navy is hoping they'll be just enough to convince those pesky congressmen to let them get rid of the two sort-of remaining battleships.
Battleships were used extensively in ground support operations in WWII. Interestingly, no American battleship has been lost on patrol (out of port) since the 1800s.
Agreed. Building new aircraft carriers - especially big ones like these - more than 60 years after the end of WW2 demonstrates a profound lack of imagination. In fact, it is a perfect illustration of the dictum that nations always prepare for the last war.
In WW2, carriers were very important, as witness the fact that there were only a handful in 1939 but hundreds in 1945. Aside from the US Navy with its 100-plus carriers, even Britain's Royal Navy had over 70 carriers at the end of the war. (Admittedly, most of them were small escort carriers, but still - the Royal Navy doesn't have 70 warships in all nowadays).
The only reason the US Navy maintains its big carriers, and countries like France and Britain are planning new ones, is that there has been no serious naval warfare since 1945. Carriers are big, fat targets which positively invite attack by tactical nuclear weapons - whether delivered by torpedo, cruise missile or even ballistic missile. It's not necessary to get a direct hit - anything within a mile or so should do the trick. Anyone who has seen "Top Gun" even once must realize that, without the director on their side, Maverick and his friends should have failed to defend their carrier. The odds were all on the side of the attackers - who could, for instance, have split up and come in individually. How do three or four defending aircraft intercept six or more attackers, all widely separated? The real truth is uttered by CAG when he says "this whole thing will be over [in a few minutes]".
In this day and age, big carriers are reminiscent of the "mighty Hood" in the interwar years 1919 - 1939. Universally admired as the epitome of British naval power, Hood toured the world on goodwill visits, stopping off at many foreign ports where visitors marvelled at her huge guns, glistening brasswork and holystoned white decks. When she was put to the test at the battle of the Denmark Strait, however, Hood was sunk within minutes. Ironically, she may have been sunk not by Bismarck (a real battleship), but by a shell from the cruiser Prinz Eugen - precisely the class of ship that battlecruisers like Hood were originally intended to hunt down and destroy.
Armed forces always tend to forget their proper role in peacetime. Instead of genuine capability, they begin concentrating more and more on the show of force. This tendency is well described in Norman Dixon's superb book "On the psychology of military incompetence". Then, when a real war starts, it takes a while for the "parade ground" generals to be dismissed (or killed), and replaced by real warriors coming up from the ranks. Similarly, the floating gin palaces that look so impressive in peacetime are quickly sunk, to be replaced by ships that can survive and fight effectively.
I am sure that there are many other solipsists out there.
>> 50-75 mile effective range when flying low-profile
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SS-N-19
This baby is supersonic, can be launched in "flocks" of 20 with one missile flying high and conducting reconnaissance and others flying low. If the high flying one gets hit, another one takes its place. It has AI, it maneuvers in flight, it can carry 500KG regular or 620KT nuclear warhead. And believe me, even 200 of these don't cost as much as one fully loaded aircraft carrier. And it has attack range of 360 miles.
I'm guessing the poster you're responding to was making a joke. Before WWII, it was thought that battleships, not aircraft carriers, were the way to go. Like the poster before you was saying, it was felt that aircraft carriers could not withstand the onslaught of a battleship with huge guns.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
The Exocet, travelling at somewhere around ~1000km an hour, slamming into multiple, high velocity, 20mm shells (also travelling at roughly 1000m/s, is going to result in a lot more than a mere hole. It's going to shred the Exocet into lots of tiny little pieces.
WWJD.... for a Klondike bar?
Basically I think they are willing to write these ships off as combat ineffective after taking damage, at least until it is repaired. Perhaps, just perhaps, a reduced crew may be able to conduct damage control while continuing combat operations but I don't believe so and automation is something I'm very familiar with here. If all personnel are involved in watchstanding/combat duties, any diversion of personnel is going to reduce/eliminate some of the ship's capabilities with respect to operations, period. You can't avoid it.
Another thing you have to remember is that any Aircraft Carrier is a veritable Disneyland for fire anytime and anyplace. We've had experience in the fleet with that (USS Forrestal, while my Father happened to be serving on it, among others btw). Toss a missile into the mix and forget it.
As for wandering around checking things, that's certainly true of some of the engineers (my first field), but not true of most of the rest of the crew that have watchstanding duties, aside from the security rover. Mostly you sit at a console or in an office watching and/or waiting for something to happen. Been there, done that, burned the t-shirt. A lot. If anything, that's more mind-numbing than wandering around checking things. That's one reason, among many, why the US Navy runs more on coffee than diesel fuel marine. Heck, even lookout duty is far more interesting than staring at a sonar or electronics warfare display one watch in three.
If they reduce the personnel, I can't see the number of watchstanders going down by much as when I was in it was already automated to the max so you'll have roughly the same number of watchstanders with roughly half to two-thirds the personnel. That probably means going to one watch in two as a normal watch rotation. That's a formula for personnel retention disaster. Things are already bad enough what with the extended deployments due to all the reductions in force during the '90's. Sure, recruiting is about right or even up in some ratings, but if you don't retain trained personnel, your overall personnel costs go up due to the high training costs. I know for a fact that well over a million was spent on my training and that was even before I hit the fleet where more schools were heaped on top (see above). True, I was an extreme case but high training costs are a given for any technical rating (and I'm not just talking about electronics here). Even Damage Control Techs are expensive.
The days of sending someone just out of bootcamp to a ship are long past and career long training is reality. So, I see yet another possible false economy here. Human capital applies to the military just as much as it does to the business world, if not more so as you also need trained NCO's to train their juniors as well as the odd Ensign or Lieutenant The senior NCO's are the one's that make the Navy work as well as providing the glue that holds it together.
Perhaps the British (likely) and French navies are different, but that's the way I see it.
"[I]t is a wise man who admits the limits of his knowledge or skill, and that pretending either causes harm." --Terry Go
Sad but true : linky