Small Air Wings And Small Carriers

I’ve noted in recent discussions that there is some confusion about “small” carriers.  I’ve stated that small carriers are useless and yet my own fleet structure plan calls for small carriers.  Huh???  What’s going on?

Well, the confusion lies in the definition of “small”.  The commonly used definition of a small carrier is a carrier with an air wing of around 20-30 aircraft.  Examples include,

• HMS Queen Elizabeth – around 24 F-35B
• Charles de Gaulle – 28-40 aircraft
• INS Vikramaditya  - around 24 aircraft

There is also the popular “sea control” carrier which is generally described as having around 12-20 aircraft.

These may have some utility during peacetime or very low end combat but all of these are utterly useless in high end combat.

ComNavOps’ “small” carrier, in contrast, is a supercarrier by any other definition and is small only relative to a Nimitz or Ford.  It carries a nearly full air wing of combat aircraft, lacking only some of the support aircraft.

People love to talk about smaller carriers as an alternative to supercarriers.  Well, small carrier studies have been conducted since the day after the first full size carrier was designed.  The USS Wasp, CV-7, was an attempt at a smaller carrier even before we completed our first large fleet carriers!

Every aircraft carrier size study ever conducted has reached the same conclusion – that large carriers are more efficient in every way than small carriers.

However, there comes a point where efficiency and effectiveness are rendered irrelevant by sheer cost and it appears that the US Navy has reached that point.  A $14B+ ship is simply unaffordable and, even if construction funding could be provided, it is unusable because no one will risk a $14B+ ship in combat.  At this point, a smaller carrier is no longer a debatable alternative - it’s mandatory just due to cost.

Costs have forced us to shrink our carrier fleet from twenty or so to 15 and now down to 10 (9+1 in long term overhaul).  Runaway costs and lengthening construction cycles have us firmly on track for a 7-9 carrier fleet.  Also, it is worth noting that the Navy currently only operates 9 air wings so only nine carriers can possibly be deployed. 

The key point, here, is that skyrocketing carrier construction costs have forced us to reduce our carrier fleet and is likely to result in further reductions.  Thus, the possibility of smaller carriers – ComNavOps’ definition of smaller - again becomes worth considering.  We simply can’t afford $15B - $20B carriers.

So, where does a discussion of smaller carriers lead us? 

Everyone will have their own favorite vision and version of a smaller carrier and will likely cite some foreign “carrier” as an example of what we should build. 

Everyone will be wrong.

Wait, what now?  Didn’t I just say that a discussion of smaller carriers was worth considering?  If so, how can every version and example be wrong?  They’re wrong because none of them take into account the one aspect (other than cost!) of a carrier that matters.  You know what it is, right?  It’s the air wing, of course.  A carrier IS its air wing.  Without its air wing, a carrier is just a floating tabletop with the combat power of an LCS!  If we’re going to have a discussion about smaller carriers it has to start with a discussion about the air wing.

Okay, so where do we start a discussion of the air wing?  Well, there’s only one aspect of the air wing that’s important and that is its combat power.  Ideally, that discussion would be relative to our military strategy but we don’t have one so we’ll have to do the best we can in the abstract.

The air wing’s combat power comes from numbers of aircraft and type of aircraft. 

Numbers ought to be obvious but far too many people don’t appreciate what it really means.  A carrier air wing has several functions that it has to fulfill.  Among them are,

• Carrier task group defense
• Strike
• Surveillance
• Anti-submarine warfare

Each function requires a certain minimum number of aircraft to effectively accomplish the task.  We wouldn’t normally send a single aircraft to attack an enemy air base, right?  Of course not.  An effective strike requires a minimum number of aircraft.  Let’s take a shot a estimating the minimum numbers.  Our function list with minimum numbers of aircraft plus some necessary support aircraft now looks like this.

• Carrier task group defense 30
• Strike 30
• Surveillance 4
• Anti-submarine warfare 8
• Electronic warfare 6
• Tankers 12

Now, let’s flesh those numbers out a bit.

Carrier task group defense against a modern aircraft/missile attack will require as many aircraft as we can get in the air in time.  Less than 30 and we’re not mounting an effective defense.  The number 30 also attempts to account for the fact that unless we have absolutely perfect pre-knowledge about the incoming strike direction and timing, we’ll undoubtedly be caught with aircraft on deck, out of position while refueling, or out of position because we anticipated the threat axis incorrectly.  Thus, in order to get, say, 8-10 aircraft actually into a valid intercept position, we’ll have to have at least 30 involved in the attempt.

Strike missions against any kind of significant, defended target will require a minimum of 30 aircraft to carry enough weapons to achieve destruction of the target.  However, a successful strike requires more aircraft than just the weapon launching aircraft.  We’ll need, say, 6 electronic warfare (EW) support aircraft (EA-18G Growlers) and 12 tankers (let’s assume we have a dedicated tanker aircraft).

Surveillance is the establishment and maintenance of situational awareness for hundreds of miles around the carrier.  This is accomplished by E-2 Hawkeyes, mainly.  A minimum of 4 are required to maintain a continuous awareness.

Anti-submarine warfare is a function that has been abandoned by the Navy but the need hasn’t gone away.  We need a minimum of 8 fixed wing ASW aircraft.

With all that in mind, our air wing size now stands at

• Carrier task group defense 30
• Strike 30
• Surveillance 4
• Anti-submarine warfare 8
• Electronic warfare 6
• Tankers 12

• Total 90

Now, some people are going to say that because we have the dual role, strikefighter F-18 Hornet and miraculous, every role F-35, we can use the same aircraft for either defense or strike and thus get by with far fewer aircraft.  This is utterly incorrect. 

A carrier and its air wing exists to conduct offensive operations.  If we send out a strike (30+ aircraft), we aren’t going to leave our carrier defenseless, are we?  At $15B+ each, we’d better not!  Thus, we’ll need to have 30 aircraft available for defense while the strike is out.  Thus, we still need the 60 total strike/defense aircraft.  Dual roles, as it pertains to numbers, is a fraudulent myth.  No aircraft, no matter how many roles it can perform, can be in two places at once.

Thus, our minimum effective air wing size still stands at 90.  There’s no getting around it.

Now, let’s discuss aircraft types.  We’ve already touched on it but let’s clarify even further.  We know that we need attack aircraft and fighters.  However, it is vital to recognize that the various support aircraft are mandatory for the air wing to successfully accomplish their various tasks.  Thus, we absolutely need electronic warfare, tankers, surveillance, and ASW types.  It is this fact that renders most foreign carriers/air wings nearly useless in a peer level war.  They just don’t carry a full complement of the necessary support aircraft and most are not even capable of operating the required types.

The British, for example, want to believe that when war comes they’ll simply surge one or two dozen extra F-35’s to the carrier (an absurd belief but we’ll let that slide for the moment) to make a full air wing.  Unfortunately, they lack any credible E-2 Hawkeye type aircraft, tankers, or EW support aircraft.  Thus, any strike they might launch will be flying handicapped with no tanker support, no EW support, and no surveillance and air space battle management.  That’s a recipe for losing a high end battle.

Thus, our smaller carrier absolutely must have these support aircraft types.  It is this requirement for support aircraft that renders every proposal for a “sea control” type of smaller carrier utterly useless in high end combat.  The sea control such an air wing without support aircraft could exert is limited to third world, peacetime “threats”. 

So, what do we conclude from all this?

It’s clear that any air wing, large or small, must be at least around 90 aircraft and contain a full complement of support aircraft in order to have any hope of being effective in high end, peer combat.  With that requirement firmly in mind, one can begin to design a carrier around the air wing.

Now, ComNavOps’ own proposal for fleet structure calls for Midway/Forrestal size “smaller” carriers with nearly full air wings.  The “nearly” part, however, omits some support aircraft.  Wait, what?!  Didn’t I just write at length about the need for a full air wing with all the support aircraft?  Yes, I did.  So, how can I then turn around and advocate an air wing without support aircraft?  The answer lies in how ComNavOps’ “small” carriers would be used.  In my concept, smaller carriers would ALWAYS be paired with full size carriers and the full size carriers would supply the missing support aircraft.  Thus, in a very real sense, the smaller carrier is nothing more than an extra aircraft barge for the larger carrier rather than a fully capable carrier that can conduct independent operations.  With that operating doctrine in mind, a smaller carrier with a slightly reduced air wing becomes viable.

Let’s address one final aspect of small carriers, because I know it will come up in comments, and that is peacetime.  There is, of course, a need for carriers during peacetime.  The US, for example, insists on using carrier aircraft to plink pickup trucks.  That’s idiotic but, okay, so be it.  What we don’t need is full size carriers doing very low end work.  Instead, we need to build very small, very traditional carriers with very low end air wings.  For example, a WWII Essex class carrier operating an air wing of Super Tucanos would make a very good peacetime carrier and both the carrier and the air wing would cost a fraction of the current cost to build and operate.