OT: Russian carrier Admiral Kusnetsov

[wdolson]

Some aircraft types can be launched without turning into the wind. At Seattle SeaFair once I watched the Kittyhawk do flight ops with A-4s while at anchor in the sound. Anything heavier generally needs to have the carrier turned into the wind.

I think the British Sea Harriers can operate from their jump jet carriers without turning into the wind.

I don't know about the Russian carrier aircraft.

Bill

[Dili]

There are no more Sea Harriers. Currently the British don't have planes for their carriers.

This is the only ship that remains but doesn't have Harriers only helis http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/HMS_Illustrious_(R06)

[LoBaron]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

do modern carriers have to turn into the wind for flight ops? What are the catapults for?

I don´t think they absolutely have to on every occasion.

But since turning into the wind has two benefits, first to remove crosswind as a factor and
second to increase airflow over deck to bring takoff and landing speed further away from
stall speed, I always thought this is common procedure.
Everything that reduces the danger of something as tricky as carrier ops is a bonus.

This is why I am asking, because Kuznetsov doesn´t look like giving a damn in Appollo11´s pic.


Edit: the main job for the catapults (in combination with the angled deck) is to allow for nearly
simultaneous takoff and landing ops and a less cluttered flight deck IIRC, not to increase payload
or make turning into the wind unneccesary.

Not sure there though, where is Iain when you need him?

[sandman455]

My take on that image is that the ship is not undergoing flight ops. There are far too few support personel on deck.

I think the landing lights you are refering to is just reflected light off the white paint on the SU-33 nose. The aircraft are probably on some low alert status for training or they simply left them thre for more room in the hanger bay. There is never enough room so leaving aircraft on deck is SOP for any modern carrier.

And no you don't need wind over the deck but it is highly desired since any trouble with the aircraft or the catapult system if employed would be amplified with little wind over the deck.

ORIGINAL: LoBaron

Interesting pic!

What I find weird is that there is a fighter visible on the stern which look like
it has either just landed or is preparing to launch, yet Kuznetsov seems to neither
go to full speed nor turn into the wind - at least it looks by the smoke and wake.

Any ideas? I didn´t know they are performing flight ops without doing so.

Edit: a second one is next to the isle, both with their landing lights on.

Edit2: on second thought it could just be fighters ready for alarm scramble?

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

For all the hotshot submarine stud Captains that get their photos of a CVN's screws, I wonder if they're detected coming in. For these wargames, I wonder if the ROE allow the submarines to be hit by active sonar from dipping helicopters or blasted by concerted ASW attacks. In the case of that Collins' class submarine pictured above, that's a dead sub by my reckoning. I wonder if the submariners realize that they just got greased in their quest for fame. In real life, any submarines detected in the CVNBG region would be treated with the utmost hostility. In peacetime, the risk:reward just isn't there for these guys, so they can shoot the moon.

Also, there's a benefit for CVNBGs to lament how open they are to attack by submarine. "Oh, look how easily our screen can be penetrated! Please, oh please Mr. enemy man, please don't try to track us with your submarines! Look how closely you can get! We're defenseless!" I wonder whether these same vulnerabilities would be echoed in wartime or whether the ASW is-perhaps-more formidable than letting on.

OK, this thread forced me to resurface for a day. Waaaaaay too many zoomies and not one self-IDed bubblehead. [:)]

I served in a boomer and not a fast boat, but I've done ASW wargames, and I've been an OOD being hunted by a P-3. That was NOT a wargame, but a realio trulio situation one dark night near Grenada where the ROEs were not well understood and certain command silos didn't talk to other command silos about who was or wasn't a Soviet SSN real near a certain location where Cuban troops were getting beat upon. I have respect for the P-3. I know what one sounds like going over the control room about 50 feet off the deck. And yeah, MAD works real good. Also periscope-finding radar. If I were being hunted by the USN's ASW troops I'd have my Page 2 filled out. OTOH, in a hot war we would not have been at PD doing the evolutions we were doing when that P-3 got us.

As far as the USN gutting ASW capability in the 1990s, well, yeah. The guys with subs we were worried about left them rusting at the pier where the sats could see them, and we had other priorities like no-fly zones to use up the O&M appropriations. Coordinated ASW is by far the hardest, most complex naval evolution there is. Harder than an amphibious landing I'd argue. If you don't train for it all the time you get bad at it pretty fast. But after the USSR fell apart the only submarine threat on the horizon was littoral D/Es and AIPs, and most of those were owned by friends. This has changed somewhat, but the littoral part hasn't much. D/Es are cheap, and they have limited capabilities to match. As others who served longer than me in different roles have said here the famous "hole in the water" is somewhat true (a lot less than laymen who don't understand narrowband processing think), but that carries with it the downside of slow or no mobility.

Also not mentioned to date is that the very best ASW is not at sea. At sea is the absolute hardest place to sink a submarine. At the pier loading groceries is the easiest. The USSR had air defenses and geography such that their submarine support facilities were pretty much untouchable. Certain other D/E-owning adversaries not so much. Cruise missiles, B-2 attacks, carrier air wings, or SEAL penetrations and the spare parts, repair technicians, and torpedo inventories go away. Then the threat is only those boats at sea, and they are a perishable commodity.

As far as wargames go, yeah, there are a lot of pictures on both sides of the coin. Unspoken of here are times when the sub-launched flares signalling a simulated warshot landed on the flight deck of the unsuspecting carrier. Or that it was normal in the old days for SSNs playing OPFOR to have diver-installed sound enhancers (called "clappers" for some reason in the boats, but also other names) at the stern to make it a more fair fight for the poor sonarmen in the skimmers. But in my limited experience those wargames were done to help pre-deployment workups of CVBGs, not necessarily to help the sub drivers. A launch range where the flares are visible from the carrier is stupid.

You speak of "screens", and those still exist, but I'm afraid you're picturing a WWII screen where the escorts are in blinking-light distance of the carrrier. Consider that the USN Web site lists the MK48 ADCAP torpedo's range as "in excess of five miles." It's trivial to find other on-line sources with other ranges, 27 miles being not uncommon. I'm not saying, but let's use the latter figure for discussion. Consider a moving circle 54 miles in diameter around the carrier. Also consider that the Mk48 is wire-guided as well as programmable in three-dimensions. Any number of inbound multiple-leg courses can be programmed in to disguise the launch vector. Some can be launched to run shallow, some deep, taking advantage of known sound channels. Early launches can run in active to feed data back to the sub for wire-guided course corrections on later fish. Some can run in passive, with different search patterns inserted. And, while an SSN can only actively control a set number of wire-guided weapons, it can RAPIDLY launch many, many non-guided MK48s. The magazine capacity of the Seawolf class, for example, is 50, and the reload cycle is the work of minutes these days, not the hour or more of WWII with sweating men and chainfalls.

Combine the above with the fact that much airborne and surface ASW focuses on localization and attack on subs known to be in that 54-mile circle. But subs don't act like knights charging in on a TF with lowered lance. They don't fight fair. They're assassins. In most cases a task force's first hint that a sub is near is going to be reports of an incoming torpedo. As someone above said, the best defense a CVN has is that reactor and hoping to run away really fast. But again, good attack planning is going to place other weapons in the path of that run away. And any TF important enough to have integrated ASW is going to rate more than one SSN. We learned something from the Germans.

The world has never seen an SSN-driven anti-shipping campaign, and I hope it never happens. It would be short and brutal. Today, again, the best ASW weapon is another sub, and an SSN, for all its disadvantages, is the best sub for the job. Not very many nations have them, or if they do they don't have the IT capability to make their sonars work as well as ours. Whoever gets the first shot off usually wins. China may be a problem someday, but isn't now. Kilo and other exported D/E models in the hands of nations with little experience using them are to be respected, but aren't the wonder weapons some think. Yes, they are sometimes trotted out at funding time, but in the scheme of total defense budgetary demands they aren't a Top-5 worry. As I said up above, the USN's ASW capability even in these days of restained effort is by far the best in the world, and were I in a sub opposing it I would be very worried. The other direction? Not a lot there.

[henry1611]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

do modern carriers have to turn into the wind for flight ops? What are the catapults for?

The Admiral Kuznetsov uses a ski jump rather than catapults, like the Invincible class carriers.

[henry1611]

ORIGINAL: sandman455

I think the landing lights you are refering to is just reflected light off the white paint on the SU-33 nose.

As shown in this picture.

[castor troy]

ORIGINAL: henry1611

ORIGINAL: castor troy

do modern carriers have to turn into the wind for flight ops? What are the catapults for?

The Admiral Kuznetsov uses a ski jump rather than catapults, like the Invincible class carriers.

100m and a ski jump is enough to start a fully loaded Flanker without a catapult?

[henry1611]

ORIGINAL: castor troy


100m and a ski jump is enough to start a fully loaded Flanker without a catapult?

Here is a picture of the ski jump.



I don't claim to know the mechanics but the linked video (at the :39 mark) shows a Su-33 taking off using the ski jump. It is admittedly not fully loaded, but you can see at :49 and again at about 2:48 that the jump is not fitted with a catapult.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7wxyYNoA_b8

As an aside, I like how the Russians use a real truck as their crash cart (at 2:45).

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

For all the hotshot submarine stud Captains that get their photos of a CVN's screws, I wonder if they're detected coming in. For these wargames, I wonder if the ROE allow the submarines to be hit by active sonar from dipping helicopters or blasted by concerted ASW attacks. In the case of that Collins' class submarine pictured above, that's a dead sub by my reckoning. I wonder if the submariners realize that they just got greased in their quest for fame. In real life, any submarines detected in the CVNBG region would be treated with the utmost hostility. In peacetime, the risk:reward just isn't there for these guys, so they can shoot the moon.

Also, there's a benefit for CVNBGs to lament how open they are to attack by submarine. "Oh, look how easily our screen can be penetrated! Please, oh please Mr. enemy man, please don't try to track us with your submarines! Look how closely you can get! We're defenseless!" I wonder whether these same vulnerabilities would be echoed in wartime or whether the ASW is-perhaps-more formidable than letting on.

OK, this thread forced me to resurface for a day. Waaaaaay too many zoomies and not one self-IDed bubblehead. [:)]

I served in a boomer and not a fast boat, but I've done ASW wargames, and I've been an OOD being hunted by a P-3. That was NOT a wargame, but a realio trulio situation one dark night near Grenada where the ROEs were not well understood and certain command silos didn't talk to other command silos about who was or wasn't a Soviet SSN real near a certain location where Cuban troops were getting beat upon. I have respect for the P-3. I know what one sounds like going over the control room about 50 feet off the deck. And yeah, MAD works real good. Also periscope-finding radar. If I were being hunted by the USN's ASW troops I'd have my Page 2 filled out. OTOH, in a hot war we would not have been at PD doing the evolutions we were doing when that P-3 got us.

As far as the USN gutting ASW capability in the 1990s, well, yeah. The guys with subs we were worried about left them rusting at the pier where the sats could see them, and we had other priorities like no-fly zones to use up the O&M appropriations. Coordinated ASW is by far the hardest, most complex naval evolution there is. Harder than an amphibious landing I'd argue. If you don't train for it all the time you get bad at it pretty fast. But after the USSR fell apart the only submarine threat on the horizon was littoral D/Es and AIPs, and most of those were owned by friends. This has changed somewhat, but the littoral part hasn't much. D/Es are cheap, and they have limited capabilities to match. As others who served longer than me in different roles have said here the famous "hole in the water" is somewhat true (a lot less than laymen who don't understand narrowband processing think), but that carries with it the downside of slow or no mobility.

Also not mentioned to date is that the very best ASW is not at sea. At sea is the absolute hardest place to sink a submarine. At the pier loading groceries is the easiest. The USSR had air defenses and geography such that their submarine support facilities were pretty much untouchable. Certain other D/E-owning adversaries not so much. Cruise missiles, B-2 attacks, carrier air wings, or SEAL penetrations and the spare parts, repair technicians, and torpedo inventories go away. Then the threat is only those boats at sea, and they are a perishable commodity.

As far as wargames go, yeah, there are a lot of pictures on both sides of the coin. Unspoken of here are times when the sub-launched flares signalling a simulated warshot landed on the flight deck of the unsuspecting carrier. Or that it was normal in the old days for SSNs playing OPFOR to have diver-installed sound enhancers (called "clappers" for some reason in the boats, but also other names) at the stern to make it a more fair fight for the poor sonarmen in the skimmers. But in my limited experience those wargames were done to help pre-deployment workups of CVBGs, not necessarily to help the sub drivers. A launch range where the flares are visible from the carrier is stupid.

You speak of "screens", and those still exist, but I'm afraid you're picturing a WWII screen where the escorts are in blinking-light distance of the carrrier. Consider that the USN Web site lists the MK48 ADCAP torpedo's range as "in excess of five miles." It's trivial to find other on-line sources with other ranges, 27 miles being not uncommon. I'm not saying, but let's use the latter figure for discussion. Consider a moving circle 54 miles in diameter around the carrier. Also consider that the Mk48 is wire-guided as well as programmable in three-dimensions. Any number of inbound multiple-leg courses can be programmed in to disguise the launch vector. Some can be launched to run shallow, some deep, taking advantage of known sound channels. Early launches can run in active to feed data back to the sub for wire-guided course corrections on later fish. Some can run in passive, with different search patterns inserted. And, while an SSN can only actively control a set number of wire-guided weapons, it can RAPIDLY launch many, many non-guided MK48s. The magazine capacity of the Seawolf class, for example, is 50, and the reload cycle is the work of minutes these days, not the hour or more of WWII with sweating men and chainfalls.

Combine the above with the fact that much airborne and surface ASW focuses on localization and attack on subs known to be in that 54-mile circle. But subs don't act like knights charging in on a TF with lowered lance. They don't fight fair. They're assassins. In most cases a task force's first hint that a sub is near is going to be reports of an incoming torpedo. As someone above said, the best defense a CVN has is that reactor and hoping to run away really fast. But again, good attack planning is going to place other weapons in the path of that run away. And any TF important enough to have integrated ASW is going to rate more than one SSN. We learned something from the Germans.

The world has never seen an SSN-driven anti-shipping campaign, and I hope it never happens. It would be short and brutal. Today, again, the best ASW weapon is another sub, and an SSN, for all its disadvantages, is the best sub for the job. Not very many nations have them, or if they do they don't have the IT capability to make their sonars work as well as ours. Whoever gets the first shot off usually wins. China may be a problem someday, but isn't now. Kilo and other exported D/E models in the hands of nations with little experience using them are to be respected, but aren't the wonder weapons some think. Yes, they are sometimes trotted out at funding time, but in the scheme of total defense budgetary demands they aren't a Top-5 worry. As I said up above, the USN's ASW capability even in these days of restained effort is by far the best in the world, and were I in a sub opposing it I would be very worried. The other direction? Not a lot there.

Damn interesting post, Bull. You should "surface" more often, you bubblehead you. [8D]

As an aside, what's a page 2?

[John 3rd]

How many planes and helicopters is that CV rated at?

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: castor troy

ORIGINAL: henry1611

ORIGINAL: castor troy

do modern carriers have to turn into the wind for flight ops? What are the catapults for?

The Admiral Kuznetsov uses a ski jump rather than catapults, like the Invincible class carriers.

100m and a ski jump is enough to start a fully loaded Flanker without a catapult?

Define "fully loaded". Not the same as "the same load it can carry off a 14,000 foot runway. Don't forget the Russian concept of "Good enough". [:D]

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

For all the hotshot submarine stud Captains that get their photos of a CVN's screws, I wonder if they're detected coming in. For these wargames, I wonder if the ROE allow the submarines to be hit by active sonar from dipping helicopters or blasted by concerted ASW attacks. In the case of that Collins' class submarine pictured above, that's a dead sub by my reckoning. I wonder if the submariners realize that they just got greased in their quest for fame. In real life, any submarines detected in the CVNBG region would be treated with the utmost hostility. In peacetime, the risk:reward just isn't there for these guys, so they can shoot the moon.

Also, there's a benefit for CVNBGs to lament how open they are to attack by submarine. "Oh, look how easily our screen can be penetrated! Please, oh please Mr. enemy man, please don't try to track us with your submarines! Look how closely you can get! We're defenseless!" I wonder whether these same vulnerabilities would be echoed in wartime or whether the ASW is-perhaps-more formidable than letting on.

OK, this thread forced me to resurface for a day. Waaaaaay too many zoomies and not one self-IDed bubblehead. [:)]

I served in a boomer and not a fast boat, but I've done ASW wargames, and I've been an OOD being hunted by a P-3. That was NOT a wargame, but a realio trulio situation one dark night near Grenada where the ROEs were not well understood and certain command silos didn't talk to other command silos about who was or wasn't a Soviet SSN real near a certain location where Cuban troops were getting beat upon. I have respect for the P-3. I know what one sounds like going over the control room about 50 feet off the deck. And yeah, MAD works real good. Also periscope-finding radar. If I were being hunted by the USN's ASW troops I'd have my Page 2 filled out. OTOH, in a hot war we would not have been at PD doing the evolutions we were doing when that P-3 got us.

As far as the USN gutting ASW capability in the 1990s, well, yeah. The guys with subs we were worried about left them rusting at the pier where the sats could see them, and we had other priorities like no-fly zones to use up the O&M appropriations. Coordinated ASW is by far the hardest, most complex naval evolution there is. Harder than an amphibious landing I'd argue. If you don't train for it all the time you get bad at it pretty fast. But after the USSR fell apart the only submarine threat on the horizon was littoral D/Es and AIPs, and most of those were owned by friends. This has changed somewhat, but the littoral part hasn't much. D/Es are cheap, and they have limited capabilities to match. As others who served longer than me in different roles have said here the famous "hole in the water" is somewhat true (a lot less than laymen who don't understand narrowband processing think), but that carries with it the downside of slow or no mobility.

Also not mentioned to date is that the very best ASW is not at sea. At sea is the absolute hardest place to sink a submarine. At the pier loading groceries is the easiest. The USSR had air defenses and geography such that their submarine support facilities were pretty much untouchable. Certain other D/E-owning adversaries not so much. Cruise missiles, B-2 attacks, carrier air wings, or SEAL penetrations and the spare parts, repair technicians, and torpedo inventories go away. Then the threat is only those boats at sea, and they are a perishable commodity.

As far as wargames go, yeah, there are a lot of pictures on both sides of the coin. Unspoken of here are times when the sub-launched flares signalling a simulated warshot landed on the flight deck of the unsuspecting carrier. Or that it was normal in the old days for SSNs playing OPFOR to have diver-installed sound enhancers (called "clappers" for some reason in the boats, but also other names) at the stern to make it a more fair fight for the poor sonarmen in the skimmers. But in my limited experience those wargames were done to help pre-deployment workups of CVBGs, not necessarily to help the sub drivers. A launch range where the flares are visible from the carrier is stupid.

You speak of "screens", and those still exist, but I'm afraid you're picturing a WWII screen where the escorts are in blinking-light distance of the carrrier. Consider that the USN Web site lists the MK48 ADCAP torpedo's range as "in excess of five miles." It's trivial to find other on-line sources with other ranges, 27 miles being not uncommon. I'm not saying, but let's use the latter figure for discussion. Consider a moving circle 54 miles in diameter around the carrier. Also consider that the Mk48 is wire-guided as well as programmable in three-dimensions. Any number of inbound multiple-leg courses can be programmed in to disguise the launch vector. Some can be launched to run shallow, some deep, taking advantage of known sound channels. Early launches can run in active to feed data back to the sub for wire-guided course corrections on later fish. Some can run in passive, with different search patterns inserted. And, while an SSN can only actively control a set number of wire-guided weapons, it can RAPIDLY launch many, many non-guided MK48s. The magazine capacity of the Seawolf class, for example, is 50, and the reload cycle is the work of minutes these days, not the hour or more of WWII with sweating men and chainfalls.

Combine the above with the fact that much airborne and surface ASW focuses on localization and attack on subs known to be in that 54-mile circle. But subs don't act like knights charging in on a TF with lowered lance. They don't fight fair. They're assassins. In most cases a task force's first hint that a sub is near is going to be reports of an incoming torpedo. As someone above said, the best defense a CVN has is that reactor and hoping to run away really fast. But again, good attack planning is going to place other weapons in the path of that run away. And any TF important enough to have integrated ASW is going to rate more than one SSN. We learned something from the Germans.

The world has never seen an SSN-driven anti-shipping campaign, and I hope it never happens. It would be short and brutal. Today, again, the best ASW weapon is another sub, and an SSN, for all its disadvantages, is the best sub for the job. Not very many nations have them, or if they do they don't have the IT capability to make their sonars work as well as ours. Whoever gets the first shot off usually wins. China may be a problem someday, but isn't now. Kilo and other exported D/E models in the hands of nations with little experience using them are to be respected, but aren't the wonder weapons some think. Yes, they are sometimes trotted out at funding time, but in the scheme of total defense budgetary demands they aren't a Top-5 worry. As I said up above, the USN's ASW capability even in these days of restained effort is by far the best in the world, and were I in a sub opposing it I would be very worried. The other direction? Not a lot there.

Damn interesting post, Bull. You should "surface" more often, you bubblehead you. [8D]

As an aside, what's a page 2?

Glad to finally have the "bubblehead" perpective! [:D] A page 2 is the "I volunteer" part of the service record. You Volunteer for the USN, then volunteer again for subs or flying. You "unvolunteer" by "signing your page". The USN then strips you of your Wings/Dolphins and is VERY displease with you.

[AW1Steve]

I'd like to make one thing abundantly and extremely clear. I have absolute respect and admiration for all who serve in submarines. I've hunted many, of many nations, in fun and in "notso" fun. They have amazing abilities and capabilties. My comments in this thread were not at any time meant to disparage them or their boats.

The point I was trying to make is that ever since 1945 the clarion cry of "The carrier is doomed" , "The carrier is today's obselete dreadnought" , and "the carrier is a big waste". And again and again it's been proved wrong. Why? Because a carrier is simply a big steel airfield. It can't defend it'self against a ww2 destroyer. The reason the carrier is still going strong after 75 years is that it's never the carrier that we are talking about. It's about it's screen (Cruisers,and destroyers and frigates and SSN's...oh my!). And it's about it's aircraft. Fighters ,attack planes,early warning,ASW, helo's and tankers and transports and drones. And THEY never stop changing. New planes,RADAR's,SONAR's and ships of all types.

The point I've been trying to make is that if the CV owner (presumably the USN) is willing to provide the defenses it need , the CV can be as defendable as any parcel of real estate on the map...and it has the added advantage of no fixed mailing address. Can it be sunk? Of course! You don't even need to sink it, to render it a "soft kill" (recall the aircraft we were talking about? Close the runway and you have a soft kill!). All I'm trying to say , is that it can be defended. It has been defended in the past. And that it currently is NOT being defended to the same standard as it has been in the past. And as I've also said , one of those MAJOR aspects of defense is the SSN. (Supposedly , Rickover wanted the Los Anglese class as a "CV escort").

Any of ruffling the SS/SSN comunities collective feathers was entirely unintended, and I'm sorry if I did. [:(]

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

As an aside, what's a page 2?

A Page 2, at least in my muddled memory, is the seocnd page of the standard service record. Among other things it's where the official declaration of next of kin is kept.

[AW1Steve]

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

As an aside, what's a page 2?

A Page 2, at least in my muddled memory, is the seocnd page of the standard service record. Among other things it's where the official declaration of next of kin is kept.

Having gone back and checked, the moose is absolutely correct (as usual) I was confusing it with page 13. Page 2 is next of kin, personal information, and life insurance. Page 13 is the Volunteer page.

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

ORIGINAL: Bullwinkle58

ORIGINAL: Chickenboy

As an aside, what's a page 2?

A Page 2, at least in my muddled memory, is the seocnd page of the standard service record. Among other things it's where the official declaration of next of kin is kept.

Having gone back and checked, the moose is absolutely correct (as usual) I was confusing it with page 13. Page 2 is next of kin, personal information, and life insurance. Page 13 is the Volunteer page.

Just how many pages are there in this thing? Is this some job security for some JAGs, Steve? [;)]

[Chickenboy]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I'd like to make one thing abundantly and extremely clear. I have absolute respect and admiration for all who serve in submarines. I've hunted many, of many nations, in fun and in "notso" fun. They have amazing abilities and capabilties. My comments in this thread were not at any time meant to disparage them or their boats.

The point I was trying to make is that ever since 1945 the clarion cry of "The carrier is doomed" , "The carrier is today's obselete dreadnought" , and "the carrier is a big waste". And again and again it's been proved wrong. Why? Because a carrier is simply a big steel airfield. It can't defend it'self against a ww2 destroyer. The reason the carrier is still going strong after 75 years is that it's never the carrier that we are talking about. It's about it's screen (Cruisers,and destroyers and frigates and SSN's...oh my!). And it's about it's aircraft. Fighters ,attack planes,early warning,ASW, helo's and tankers and transports and drones. And THEY never stop changing. New planes,RADAR's,SONAR's and ships of all types.

The point I've been trying to make is that if the CV owner (presumably the USN) is willing to provide the defenses it need , the CV can be as defendable as any parcel of real estate on the map...and it has the added advantage of no fixed mailing address. Can it be sunk? Of course! You don't even need to sink it, to render it a "soft kill" (recall the aircraft we were talking about? Close the runway and you have a soft kill!). All I'm trying to say , is that it can be defended. It has been defended in the past. And that it currently is NOT being defended to the same standard as it has been in the past. And as I've also said , one of those MAJOR aspects of defense is the SSN. (Supposedly , Rickover wanted the Los Anglese class as a "CV escort").

Interesting post, Steve. Now we need to hear from a former CVN skipper to get his perspective. [8D]

[Panther Bait]

One limitation of the CV Flanker (Su-33K?) is that it is like the old F-14's and the original F-15's and is solely an air-to-air platform (except a few dumb bombs/unguided munitions).  "Not a pound for air-to-ground" as they used to say.  Air-to-ground missions on the Russian CV's were supposed to be handled by the carrier version of the Mig-29's.
 
Mike

[Bullwinkle58]

ORIGINAL: AW1Steve

I'd like to make one thing abundantly and extremely clear. I have absolute respect and admiration for all who serve in submarines. I've hunted many, of many nations, in fun and in "notso" fun. They have amazing abilities and capabilties. My comments in this thread were not at any time meant to disparage them or their boats.

The point I was trying to make is that ever since 1945 the clarion cry of "The carrier is doomed" , "The carrier is today's obselete dreadnought" , and "the carrier is a big waste". And again and again it's been proved wrong. Why? Because a carrier is simply a big steel airfield. It can't defend it'self against a ww2 destroyer. The reason the carrier is still going strong after 75 years is that it's never the carrier that we are talking about. It's about it's screen (Cruisers,and destroyers and frigates and SSN's...oh my!). And it's about it's aircraft. Fighters ,attack planes,early warning,ASW, helo's and tankers and transports and drones. And THEY never stop changing. New planes,RADAR's,SONAR's and ships of all types.

The point I've been trying to make is that if the CV owner (presumably the USN) is willing to provide the defenses it need , the CV can be as defendable as any parcel of real estate on the map...and it has the added advantage of no fixed mailing address. Can it be sunk? Of course! You don't even need to sink it, to render it a "soft kill" (recall the aircraft we were talking about? Close the runway and you have a soft kill!). All I'm trying to say , is that it can be defended. It has been defended in the past. And that it currently is NOT being defended to the same standard as it has been in the past. And as I've also said , one of those MAJOR aspects of defense is the SSN. (Supposedly , Rickover wanted the Los Anglese class as a "CV escort").

Any of ruffling the SS/SSN comunities collective feathers was entirely unintended, and I'm sorry if I did. [:(]

No ruffling here. I was just a bit amused by the fly-boys assuming that ASW had to be airborne. [:)] If we had any skimmer sonar pukes who would admit to it they'd probably sing the praises of Sprucan VDS. As I said, I wouldn't want to be going up against the USN's ASW suite then or now, even in one of our boats, let alone a Victor I maintained by drunks and the Red Fleet's logistic train.

But even against the Reds the issue always was initial detection versus after-detection prosecution, especially in a high-speed transit. As I think you said before best case for the CVBG is an enemy SSN having to sprint to reach launch, but the nightmare scenarios are much more numerous: loitering on track with RORSAT/Bear in the Air track definition intel, letting the target pass over while running silent, then a backstab, multiple incomming subs on complimentary vectors, coordinated sub attack with Backfires, etc.

Before torpedo launch the sub has most of the cards. Afterward a lot fewer. Multiple lines of buoys dropped by P-3s with big loads combined with dipping, active helos to herd the sub are hard to beat. Despite what Clancy likes to claim I don't know many bubbleheads who would admit to hearing buoys splash in with any assurance. Those lines are terrifying when you know they're there (I hate the active ones), but you don't know the exact make-up of the line. You figure there are passives mixed in, but where is the end point?

As far as the carrier, I agree with you. Carriers have to face 3-D threats, and air and surface are pretty well handled. ASW is harder, but subs are hard for more primitive navies to operate. The differences between a bunch of RPG-equipped Boghammars and a Kilo, training-wise and support-wise, are immense. And RPGs are only going to make a CVN really mad.

To your point about a carrier being able to defend itself, and that 2000-plus WT compartments make it hard to sink, I'd add my point that when you take on a USN carrier you're taking on more than the USN. You're taking on a bunch of assets far away which can reach out and touch you come nightfall. Some of them live in places like Missouri; I don't think the Boghammars have the range. And some of them, as the president said offhandedly in his Superbowl interview in a line I don't think was picked up on by the media, some of them live in Afghanistan, EAST of the Gulf, in a direction you're not expecting. And those assets are already in a shooting war posture, in theater, well-supplied, and able to surge to a much larger size in a matter of days. It's nice to be a superpower.