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."

Comments

The US Navy has a better new toy

[Anonymous Coward]

The US Navy's main project right now is the DD(X) destroyer. It uses advanced automation (damage control, weapon countermeasures), stealth, advanced radar, reduced crew, full control/integration with the rest of the fleet. The best toy: Its capability for rapid-fire, pinpoint 155mm shell attacks from up to 100 miles away may sometimes eliminate the need for aircraft carriers entirely, resulting in an operational cost probably an order of magnitude or two cheaper than a carrier, and with very little chance of any casualties. Of course many of those same capabilities are also going to soon be added to cruisers, aircraft carriers, etc.

It doesn't sound as impressive as a new aircraft carrier, but for most scenarios it's going to have amazing results. It's meant to be the first ship to arrive, and carriers will only be used for prolonged engagements.

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[Atlantis-Rising]

Except wasn't the reason carriers were so effective in the first place because 100 miles is almost nothing compared to the strike range a carrier can put out? (not sure what it is, 700 or so?) Plus, sometimes it helps to have eyes in the sky on the situation, and a large object on station at the same time. How many people could you evac to a DD(X) via helicopter? Does it even carry them? (Plus, when was the last time somebody on board a carrier died as a result of a strike on that carrier? sixty years ago?)

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[Anonymous Coward]

This is completely untrue. The task force included two carriers - The HMS Hermes and the HMS Invincible. Both carried Harriers and helicopters.

The reason the task force suffered losses was due to lack of good point defense systems (like the Phalanx, Goalkeeper, etc.)

Hermes and Invincible were small helicopter carriers intended for ASW work; they also could carry a small number of V/STOL Harriers, which gave the British a very tiny fighter aircraft force that was entirely inadequate to the task of establishing air superiority. The Harriers were not numerous enough, and lacked any kind of airborne radar guidance, making them entirely useless in preventing the Argentinian air attacks. The Harriers could pick off the occasional Argentine aircraft but could not stop the attacks.

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).

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[arivanov]

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.

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[Wyatt Earp]

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.

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[Anonymous Coward]

Urrgh. I think I am going to become a "WeaponNazi" and take to reminding people everytime they call a monster weapon a TOY that:

These things are used to KILL PEOPLE! Real People! Not on TV, not in a "reality" show. For real! People like you and me, even if they dont like a lot like us, still humans.

Please don't allow the media to lull you into this sense of complacency about monster weapons of any kind. Be they owned by so called "bad folks" like Iran, or the supposedly good folks (yeah right), like the US or UK.

Repeat after me: A Weapon is NOT cool! It is NOT a toy.

And spouting that bull about "bullets don't kill people, blah blah blah". Bullets helps people kill other people faster, more safely, dependably, in larger numbers. Advanced weapons like these reduce the emotional cost of killing someone even further.

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[sane?]

Reminds me of this joke exchange

This is based on an actual radio conversation between a U.S. Navy aircraft carrier (U.S.S. Abraham Lincoln) and Canadian authorities off the coast of Newfoundland in October, 1995. (The radio conversation was released by the Chief of Naval Operations on 10/10/95 authorized by the Freedom of Information Act.)

Canadians: Please divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid collision.

Americans: Recommend you divert your course 15 degrees to the North to avoid a collision.

Canadians: Negative. You will have to divert your course 15 degrees to the South to avoid a collision.

Americans: This is the Captain of a US Navy ship. I say again, divert YOUR course.

Canadians: No, I say again, you divert YOUR course.

Americans: THIS IS THE AIRCRAFT CARRIER USS LINCOLN, THE SECOND LARGEST SHIP IN THE UNITED STATES' ATLANTIC FLEET. WE ARE ACCOMPANIED BY THREE DESTROYERS, THREE CRUISERS AND NUMEROUS SUPPORT VESSELS. I DEMAND THAT YOU CHANGE YOUR COURSE 15 DEGREES NORTH--I SAY AGAIN, THAT'S ONE FIVE DEGREES NORTH--OR COUNTER-MEASURES WILL BE UNDERTAKEN TO ENSURE THE SAFETY OF THIS SHIP.

Canadians: This is a lighthouse. Your call.

Re:The US Navy has a better new toy

[Oldsmobile]

You know, you are correct. Real war truly sucks. The problem is, most of the people on Slashdot have no idea how much it sucks.

The problem is, they don't show any of this on television. Check out for instance John Simpsons report from Kudistan during the beginning of the Iraq war. They were in a Peshmerga/US special forces convoy and got hit by friendly fire. The whole thing was a huge mess, really bloody, and yet an incident hardly worth mentioning, except that there were reporters there. He caught the whole thing on film.

I don't think anyone on Slashdot would find being in that situation terribly cool or fun.

Future renovations?

[TwentyLeaguesUnderLa]

So, is there any chance at all that the Aircaft Carriers will actually stay in use for the entire 50 years? Won't be replaced by anything newer or better?

I would guess they would be.

Re:Future renovations?

[Aglassis]

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).

the question isn't CAN you do it..

[spacerodent]

The real problem with this mentality is that these are warships. Smaller crews are vastly less efficent at damage control and have much smaller margins for casualties before the ship ceases to be combat effective. Automation is all well and good but ships that size NEED vast crews simple due to the unpredictable nature of sea service. Imagine if you have a gastro outbreak onboard and 400 of your crew are down. Larger crews can absorb unexpected events much more easily than smaller ones. Plus most of these studies tend to ignore hte fact that less crew means more and longer watches for the duty stations that remain. The US is moving to this right now with the new San Antonio LPDs and DDX program but they are facing the same choices. Reality wise we'll probably see much more automation and relyability but I have serious doubts if anyone will field a warship of this size without a crew of at least 1/2 the normal rate.

Re:the question isn't CAN you do it..

[Bender0x7D1]

Smaller crews are vastly less efficent at damage control and have much smaller margins for casualties before the ship ceases to be combat effective.

Very true. However, considering modern weaponry, weapons that would inflict the amount of damage that would require those extra damage control specialists, would probably render it combat ineffective, and in bad need of a shipyard. My guess is it won't be a torpedo hitting the most heavily armored part of the hull, it will be a missile slamming into the superstructure. Also, in the event that there is major, repairable damage, since it is an aircraft carrier, there should be plenty of escorts nearby that can offer assistance.

Imagine if you have a gastro outbreak onboard and 400 of your crew are down.

You are missing the point that at this scale you don't talk about absolute numbers, but percentages of the total crew. So if an epidemic would sideline 400 of the original 2000 crew (20%), then it would likely only affect 160 of the reduced crew of 800. So you only have to cover 160 watches instead of 400. Why is this? Some percentage won't eat the "bad" meal, some percentage will have a different food, and some percentage will be immune/not affected. You can't assume that it will affect the same overall number if your population size is different.

Plus most of these studies tend to ignore hte fact that less crew means more and longer watches for the duty stations that remain.

I haven't read these studies, (do you have any links), but it seems they would continue with the same watch schedule, and just reduce the number of stations required. The drop in efficiency that is a result of having too much time on duty is well studied, and I doubt that would be ignored. Now, what might be a factor is that it is "easier" to sit in a single location and monitor several things remotely, than to walk rounds and check on each one. This would reduce physical fatigue so longer watches could be maintained.

Re:the question isn't CAN you do it..

[Raul654]

I suspect most of the naval fatalities over the last 30 years are due primarily to ship-board accidents. The USS Forrestal (CVA 59) was nearly lost due to an accidental misfire on the deck which killed 134 people. Apparently several others have experieneced similiar problems. In 1989, 47 people were killed when a turret exploded (see here).

Realistically, it's far, far too expensive to maintain a modern navy of any size. The age of ship-to-ship combat is over. The nations that have surface ships generally don't use them except as a platform for deploying land forces.

Re:the question isn't CAN you do it..

[Moofie]

"America as a rouge superpower."

Yeah, just wait until we put on our lipstick and eyeshadow! THEN you'll see what a properly made-up superpower looks like!

Re:the question isn't CAN you do it..

[Decker-Mage]

I'm a former Electronics Technician although I'm cross-qualified to a fair-thee-well. Helmsman/Quartermaster of the Watch/Ship's Navigator including underway refueling, Supply Officer, Damage Control Locker Leader (and alternate Damage Control Assistant), Aviation Firefighter, Systems Administrator, etc. ad nauseum. So I think I can address this.

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.

Hmmm

[Space cowboy]

Not sure what I think of this... On the one hand, if it's possible to save loadsamanny by automating non-critical jobs, then fair-enough, sounds cool. And the brits have something of a history in designing warships - presumably they'll not have forgotten too many of the important bits ...

On the other hand, during a conflict, a carrier is a pretty juicy target, and one thing humans *are* good at in combat [apart from dying :( ] is being adaptible. It'd be a real shame if the plug fell out of the automated aircraft-landing computer because of a nearby explosion ... Yes, I'm being facetious, but the point isn't. Machines can only perform within their limitations, and people frequently perform outside their normal potential when (a) their life depends on it, and (b) there's no other option...

So, as long as we don't go to war, it'll probably be excellent. If we do, I hope they've thought of the consequences...

Simon

Clippy

[ktakki]

It looks like you're launching an alpha strike.

Would you like help?

• Launch the +5 fighters for air cover and stage the strike fighters on the deck
• Play a game of Minesweeper
• Give up, you cheese-eating surrender monkey
• Don't show me this tip again

k.

bad trend

[moosesocks]

I don't like this trend at all.

The more money we have to pay and the more lives we have to put at stake in order to go to war, the less likely it is that we actually do go to war.

The only way that war becomes "fair" is if both sides incur the same 'cost' of the war (monetary, soldier deaths, civilian deaths, etc.). If 33,773 American soldiers or civillians died because of our involvement there, we'd be pulling our troops out as fast as we possibly could.

With this, we're spending less money and putting fewer lives at risk to kill a proportionally higher number of foreign militants. At what point does war become a targeted genocide? We're putting our enemies in a position where their only method of directing their anger twoard us is by targeting civillians in suicide attacks. This scares the hell out of me.

Re:bad trend

[Ancil]

The only way that war becomes "fair" is if both sides incur the same 'cost' of the war

FAIR, who the hell wants war to be fair?!?? Anyone actually going to war wants it to be as unfair, as brutal, and as lopsided as possible. War is not a fucking soccer match.

In fact, when facing a country such as the US or EU which has basic respect for the rules of war (eg, the Geneva Convention), a "fair" war pretty much maximizes the number of people killed.

Look what happenned in the Pacific during WW2. American, Commonwealth, and Japanese soldiers got fed into a meat grinder for 4 years because they were reasonably well-matched. Then the Americans got the ultimate weapon, and their absolute air superiority allowed them to use that weapon with impunity. That doesn't sound very fair, does it? No big surprise: the war ended about a week later. This saved the lives of not only countless American GIs, but millions upon millions of Japanese soldiers and civilians.

Re:bad trend

[Jeremi]

FAIR, who the hell wants war to be fair?!?? Anyone actually going to war wants it to be as unfair, as brutal, and as lopsided as possible. War is not a fucking soccer match.

I think the best way to put it is that everybody (with the possible exception of arms suppliers) wants there to be as little violent conflict as possible. War is a terrible waste of resources, and war against a nuclear-armed nation is likely suicidal.

In fact, when facing a country such as the US or EU which has basic respect for the rules of war (eg, the Geneva Convention), a "fair" war pretty much maximizes the number of people killed.

I agree. The question is, is fighting against such countries really the threat that we need to prepare for? Or is the era of large-scale country-to-country warfare over (due to MAD if nothing else), and the real threat these days comes from terrorism? And if that is the case, wouldn't this money be better spent on combatting terrorism, rather than on building ships for wars that won't happen?

Re:bad trend

[stupidfoo]

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).

You guys don't get it...

[badmammajamma]

This gives them the ability to project power. Which is something England and France cannot currently do.

Re:You guys don't get it...

[meringuoid]

This gives them the ability to project power. Which is something England and France cannot currently do.

Others have already mentioned the whole Falkland thing, but that was 25 years ago, back when we were armed up in case of World War 3. Things are different now.

I'd suggest looking up the British intervention in Sierra Leone, in 2000. Quite a small war that's been all but forgotten about - because it was done properly. Park a carrier offshore, fill the capital with marines, lend the local government some helicopters and patrol vehicles, make it clear to the rebels that shooting at any of these will be taken very personally, and when they do so anyway then locate the bandit HQ and send in SAS death squads.

I gather it's this sort of operation that guides a lot of British defence thinking. What we need nowadays is not the ability to take on the Russians in massive air, sea and land warfare - what we want is the ability to materialise off the coast of some trouble spot and deliver some highly mobile badasses. The 21st century equivalent of the Victorian imperial fleet, basically, back when a British gunboat was more than enough to scare the average local warlord into line. And for that, we'll want some bigger carriers.

Misleading article

[lxt]

...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!

The supposed savings...

[SmurfButcher Bob]

is because the "missing" half of the crew will actually be outsourced to India.

Designed to fight who?

[katorga]

Who exactly is this aimed at?

There are no major nation states left that could maintain a sustained war a la WWI or WWII any more. Every European state lacks the trained cadre of military personel to field a major army. Any every small nation is so outclassed by even 20 year old US/NATO equipment that spending billions on "next generation" systems makes no economic or military sense. Russia lacks economic power to play, and China lacks the geographic location to every conventionally threaten the US or Europe.

Example, the US Abrams tank is 2-3x better than any other tank it will meet except perhaps the British Challenger tanks. The US could build a tank for a fraction of the cost that would still outclass anything it will face.

The sheer military and technological superiority of even decades old weaponry is why most of the world has shifted to guerrilla or terrorist political tactics.

Re:Designed to fight who?

[Phosphan]

> 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

Re:not really

[Kadin2048]

The role you're thinking about for the Navy has also changed. Their is much less of a demand for huge "blue water" flotillas, and much more of a demand for smaller, lower-draft vessels to support shore operations.

The big carriers are nice, and I don't think anyone is suggesting that (at least in the USN) that they're going anywhere, anytime soon. The new destroyers are aimed at "littoral dominance," that is supporting ground troops and amphibious operations in coastal waters, in areas where you just can't take a carrier or a submarine. Right now we have to do most of that sort of warfare (patrolling near shores) with aircraft, and that gets expensive and impractical if you want to maintain a continuous presence.

The idea of the new destroyers is that they would allow us to maintain a presence and establish a platform for operations (e.g., special ops divers, artillery bombardment) in areas where right now we're limited to a temporary presence.

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).

Uhhh..

[Apiakun]

From the article:

"An aircraft carrier must fight, and find the enemy, and do a lot of other stuff."

Brilliant writing there. Very eloquent. No, really, I mean it, and other stuff.

Re:Useless

[Xochil]

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)

Why stop at $6 billion?

[Jeremi]

At a cost of $100K per sailor per year, this represents savings of more than $6 billion

$6 billion is pretty good savings, but if they were to skip building the ships entirely, they would save another $12 billion on top of that, for a total of $18 billion saved. I'm sure people can think of lots of uses for $18 billion that are more valuable than deploying aircraft carriers...

Prediction: They will build 1, at most

[Nova Express]

"Britain and France will jointly build three new huge aircraft carriers which will be delivered between 2012 and 2014."

No, they won't. Here's what will happen:

• Plans for three joint aircraft carriers are announced with much fanfair.
  
• After much grumbling, both the French and UK parliments, not quite yet absorbed into the antidemocratic structure of the Brussels Bureaucracy, approve construction of three aircraft carriers.
  
• A year or so later, the keel for the first aircraft carrier is laid down.
  
• One year into the project, and the first carrier is already six months behind schedule and 10% over budget.
  
• Two years into the project, and the project is already a year behind schedule. The construction start date for the last carrier are moved out another year.
  
• Three years in, and France, in the middle of lingering recession with negative GDP growth and continuing muslim riots, falls behind in payments. Work tmporarily halted.
  
• Following the replacement of Blair's government with hard left Labourites, military expenditures come under additional budget scrutiny, eventually being raided to prop up the ever-increasing cost of National Health Care. But mutual consent, the third carrier is cancelled altogether.
  
• A shipbuilder's strike delays construction another three months.
  
• Pressed for funds due to increasing UK involvement in the Pakistani Civil War, construction of the first carrier is slowed still further, and the second piushed out another two years.
  
• Flaws in the automation system cause an upward revision the number of staffers required for
  
• The carrier is now three years behind schedule, and costs are already more than 50% over projections.
  
• Suicide attack by the Albion Martyrs of Allah Bridge breaches the forward hull of the unfinished carrier. Compartmentalization system prevents ship from sinking, but fire control system malfunctions, spewing flame retardent foam everywhere but,/i> where the explosion occured. Launch delayed another six months.
  
• French giovernment falls after Islamofascist organization bombs Notre Dame, bringing right wing government of Sabine Herod to power. Military spending temporarily increases.
  
• Mired in its own recession, UK government asks France to contribute more to carrier construction. Second carrier pushed out two more years.
  
• After a mere nine months in power, Herod government resigns after fourth week of nationwide strike results in more than 1000 deaths. Socialist communist government cancels all funding for second carrier.
  
• Excessive government spending by France, Italy, and half the the rest of the EU causes Euro to collapse. Germany refloats the Duetschmark. Work delayed still further by inabaility to figure iut what French half of carrier costs should be paid in.
  
• It's now 2017, and the sole supercarrier is finally launched. A half day into first sea trials, catostrophic software failure leaves the Thatcher-Chirac carrier dead in the water. It has to be towed back to port. Carrier is still unavalable when China launches disasterous attempt to seize Taiwan.
  
• Japan and South Korea announce existance of own nuclear arsanals three days after China's fleet is sent to the bottom of the Staits of Formosa.
  
• Islamic Republic of France declared, falls. French half of crew pulled off for home security duty during attempts to supress the gorwing Islamic rebellion.
  
• Citing rising world tensions, UK military announces joint deal with US to create new class of aircraft carrier....

Re:Prediction: They will build 1, at most

[swpod]

No, it won't get past the drawing board. The Brits won't accept the French plan to put the propellers in the front (their patented "PermaRetreat" technology).

Re:Prediction: They will build 1, at most

[hobotron]

  I'd hate to see you fill out a Final Four bracket.

Re:Rockets don't have to come from a ship

[Xochil]

I said "ship, aircraft, or sub" not just "ships."

Can they be launched from land too? Sure, but carriers tend to keep themselves beyond the distance of most surface-surface missiles and keep anf have a battle group of picket ships to run outer-zone intercepts.

Also, how do you supposed shore launched missiles are able to acquire their targets? Any active radar transmission is detectable and easily jammed. IR homing isn't going to cut it over long ranges. GPS coordinated fed in? That's fine for stationary targets, but ships aren't stationary.

Its subs, aircraft, and ships (in that order) which are the biggest threats to a CVN, and they are detectable.

BTW, what navy did you ever serve in to gain your vast knowledge of surface warefare tactics?

--Mike

Re:Rockets don't have to come from a ship

[shmlco]

He's right. Something has to get within range to launch them. That's why aircraft carriers have a CAP and typically one or two hummers in the air at all times during critical situations. A hummer (E-2C Hawkeye) can fly out to cover your approaches and monitor more than 150,000 square miles of ocean. If you're within support range of a land airbase, an AWACs can provide additional coverage out to a range of 400km plus.

An Exocet, OTOH, has a range of about 70km. A Chinese Silkworm about 90km. A YJ-8 about 120km max. So you still need to let a plane or ship within range of your carrier, something they're not likely to let happen, as they know how much their ship costs as much as you do.

And even if they did, a strike has to get through your outer and inner missile defenses, past the close-in defense, and actually hit the right ship (not an escort). And even then, a modern carrier can probably shake off several hits, more if they're lucky, before being forced to withdraw.

It's not as easy as you make it sound...

More Detailed Info

[GrodinTierce]

Some more detailed information about the project can be found here: the British part (aka CVF) and the French part (aka PA2).

Re:not really

[Anonymous Coward]

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.

Re:They miss the point entirely !

[Archtech]

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.

Obsolete?? Depends on your point of view.

[Savage-Rabbit]

Aircraft carriers are obselete.

In a major fleet engagement against a worthy adversary (Which the US and NATO hans't had since the demize of the USSR) yes, one suspects the US super carriers of today are excessively vulnerable and losing even one of them would certainly be extremenly painful experience for the Americans both in terms of money and expecially prestiege and civillan morale/political support on the home front. They are, however, valuable when it comes to projecting strategic air power agianst third world dictatorships and regional powers such as Iran that cannot or have, at most, only a limited chance of penetrating the protective screen of a super carrier and seriously threatenting it. Basically super carriers are still useful for quiclkly making air support available for conflicts such as the US led wars in Iraq. Conflicts which a 19th century British general of the Victorian army would instantly reckognize as being similar in character to the a colonial punitive expeditions of his own time. What is really interesting is how would one of these new carriers would cope when hit by, say, a salvo of large sized modern ASW missiles? I mean one would expect that the skeleton crew would have extreme troube coping with the extensive damage since most of the automated systems would either be out of commission or working at limited capacity.

Re:They miss the point entirely !

[flewp]

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.

Re:They miss the point entirely !

[Sqwubbsy]

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.

Taking on the realisticness of 'Top Gun'? Boy, you're a brave fellow.

Re:They miss the point entirely !

[Punkrokkr]

What are you talking about? Everyone knows that it takes five hits to take out the air-craft carrier, whereas a battleship will sink in four!