Obsolete carrier air wing

The U.S. Navy is starting to realize that it is facing the prospect of taking an obsolete carrier air wing to war.

The Super Hornet won't be up for emerging threats in the Pacific.

The Navy states that the solution against anti-access threats will not depend on just one weapon. The problem is that as far as fighter aircraft off of carriers, they do not have even one weapon to take on such threats.

It gets worse. The F-35 is in no way up for the challenge. By virtue of its operational document drawn up in the 1990's to determine a design need, it was assumed that there would be hundreds of F-22s to take on the high-end threats.

Finally, what the Navy will not say publicly is that the Super Hornet beats the F-35 in every relevant operational metric.

Unless the Just So Failed can someday actually prove otherwise.

And, at what cost?

F-35C not compatible with French carrier

Besides what I tweeted on the right, note that the UK thinks that if they go with the F-35C, it won't be compatible with the French aircraft carrier.

A reassessment of the programme, ordered by the Prime Minister, found the F35C would only provide one operable carrier, rather than two, and would carry an extra cost of up to £1.8billion, the Times reported. The review also found the programme would not be compatible with France's aircraft carrier and the new vessel would not be likely to come into service until 2025.

EMALS, critical to F-35C success in the U.S. Navy? Oh wait. Someone has to prove that you can trap an F-35C.

UPDATE--UK carrier project will end up being helicopter capable only

The UK Parliament and MOD seem to be hopeless at decision making over their large aircraft carrier project.

This project was supposed to deliver 2 carriers that would launch and recover F-35 STOVL aircraft. Now, Parliament and the MOD dither. They cannot determine to go with the F-35B or the carrier version F-35C.

The first thing to consider is why did they go with the F-35C two years ago? The reason is that the F-35B STOVL was riddled with techical problems. So much so, that they thought it would be cancelled.

Things haven't changed much. The F-35B is still at high risk of never being operationally capable.

The U.K. now claims that converting the carriers to a conventional conviguration with catipults and wires to take the F-35C (or other carrier aircraft) will be too expensive. Well, duh. There was no way to have zero cost increase on the carriers when adding additional appliances that were not in the original plan.

After making their decision to go with the F-35C, a potential show stopper appeared. A rolling hook and wire test in 2011 with the F-35C failed. Unless this is solved, the F-35C will not be able to land on ships. The U.K. will not have full confirmation of this until the F-35C does cat-shots and traps on a real carrier.

One of the major problems with the F-35 program is that the STOVL variant is the driver in the whole project.

For example, The F-35A and F-35C carry around 2000 pounds in dead weight in the F135 motor. The goal of the program is to have one motor design with three sub-variants; One for the A, B and C. So the priority is to design a STOVL motor that can be stripped to run in conventional aircraft. Extra, dead weight is the result for the A and C.

And how much does the STOVL motor with all of its lift fan appliances weight?

About this much.

A STOVL design is also very different on its center-of-gravity requirements to safely fly. Different enough as to cause issues with the F-35A and C.

Other airframe compromises in the F-35 program have left the design with paper-thin weight margins for all variants.

The F-35 program is in serious trouble.

So, along with mothballing one of the carriers as soon as it is built, the Royal Navy will end up with a very nice helicopter carrier.

For a defense budget that is in dire trouble, this is about all the country can afford. They are not in the league of defense budgets that can pay to run carrier ops.

UPDATE-

Secret correspondence seen by The Mail on Sunday shows that senior defence officials knew the move was likely to prove controversial, and they urged officials to stonewall awkward questions from the media.

MOD and UK leadership don't know half of the problem

Wait until the dummies in the MOD find out that neither variant of the F-35 is a good idea.

They will end up with 2 over-priced helicopter carriers.

Finding budget sanity in the carrier air wing

The carrier air wing has one more mission that is not talked about much. That is, to provide a purpose to keep big aircraft carrier pork and graft moving in the system.

The Navy will need to make some serious budget decisions in the coming years.

The first one would be to ditch the requirement for the F-35C. There is no amount of lipstick that can make this pig a useful jet for carriers. And it was never a credible anti-access threat player anyway.

Once that is done, a move has to be made to simplify the fast jet portion of the carrier air wing. To accomplish this, retiring all of the legacy Hornet squadrons sooner rather than later can save a lot of cash.

Today fast jet composition of the carrier air wing is 2 classic and 2 Super Hornet squadrons. Dumping all the classics and reforming into 3 Super Hornet squadrons as the total fast jet composition for the carrier air wing can simplify things and save money.

Given the severe budget problems, we may see some carriers go away due to lack of money to operate them. If 3 carriers go away, that frees up taskings for 6 Super Hornet squadrons.

Super Hornet production can proceed at a continued rate to replace early Super Hornet Block I (and early Lot) that are showing age.

3 fast jet squadrons (not counting the Grizzly detachment) should be good enough for peace time. In times of war, a carrier can be beefed up with more squadrons and/or the physical size of the squadron can be increased.


The USMC picking up the Super Hornet (after realization of F-35B failure) will help the situation.

While not a true anti-access player, in many situations that allow for the F-22, the large radar foot-print of the Block II Super Hornet will add to over-all capability.

In the case of lesser threats like Iran trying to close off access to the gulf, an all Super Hornet Block II force will be highly effective in killing off a wide variety of targets that are a threat to maritime security.

Hard and/or painful budget cut decisions are coming. How the U.S. Navy survives all this is yet to be seen. It is possible that there is salvation in simplifying the carrier air wing.

Improving the fleet

The outlook for U.S. Navy firepower doesn't have to be all doom and gloom.

Some clever spending and management on the things that we need to project real power is possible. By dumping bad ideas like the LCS and DDX (scrap; do not follow through), there can be a bright future. Savings can also be had from down-sizing our second land army and cancelling the F-35 program.

Future wars may involve a reduced and/or interrupted supply of fossil fuels. We need a nuke escort for our nuke carriers. That way, you only bring fuel to the carrier battle group that supports air ops.

A nuke "frigate" (friendly funding language) on a destroyer hull (stripped not equipped), could be to our advantage. Something like this:

Nuke Frigate
Gun, Bow VLS, 6xASW torp, (light cal guns as needed) Helo hanger/deck
cost $1.5B

A requirement for 3 hulls per big carrier (we would probably get 2).

Next, the carrier air wing still has some possibilities even if the F-35C never sees service in the fleet.

Start out with something like this where the AT6II label is there only to represent a trainer-class turbo-prop made into a light attack aircraft. This requirement would most likely be a different airframe.

This would be handy in numerous operations; is cheap to operate; is networked and has great loiter and endurance. It is also a bit safer with danger/close strafing. It would be for day or night ops in permissive air environments.

Carrier Air Wing
12 F/A-18E, 12 F/18F, 24 AT6II, 8 Romeo/Sierra, 4 EA-18G, 4 E-2D.

As time goes on, it may be possible that that the UCAS-N will prove itself. The carrier air wing composition below (along with Tomahawk support as needed) would have taken care of the Libya op very well. I mention this because some are so in love with mentioning Libya as a pattern for future war even if it doesn't apply in a Syria, Iran or Kosovo scenario.

12 F/A-18E, 12 F/18F, 24 AT6II, 8 UCAS-N, 8 Romeo/Sierra, 4 EA-18G, 4 E-2D.

And finally, with time, the addition of FA-XX; which should be a Navy priority sooner rather than later.

12 F/A-XX, 12 F/18F, 24 AT6II, 8 UCAS-N, 8 Romeo/Sierra, 4 EA-18G, 4 E-2D.

There may be doom and gloom in the DOD budget climate. There will always be restructuring followed by more doom and gloom. We may loose some carriers to budget cuts.

With that, the Navy still can have a bright future; if only resources are not wasted on things we do not need.

DOD budget decay increasing

The decay is starting to increase. As the DOD budget fear becomes more real, traditional must-haves are going away.

"Under heavy pressure to find real cuts, U.S. Navy officials are considering decommissioning a nuclear aircraft carrier halfway through its planned lifespan, two Pentagon sources said.


The USS George Washington's three-year-long refueling overhaul, scheduled to begin in 2016, would be canceled under the scheme, and the ship would be decommissioned as its reactor fuel ran out."

As things become worse, expect to see more. So if we don't have money to refurb a ship that is expected to have a 50 year service life, why in the hell are we wasting $15B on a new Ford class nuke carrier?

Large section of UK aircraft carrier build moving along

Hopefully this will turn into something other than a jobs program. With the MOD budget on death-watch, I have my doubts.

A lower number of carriers for the U.S. and many questions

Interesting AOL Defense read. G is quoted.

In the article toward the end it states this.

The move will also make the Navy's case for the new Ford-class carrier harder to make, Sharp said, noting that the Navy could bolster its amphibious fleet as a way to fill that gap.

I agree with the Ford issue. I think the other part depends. Besides the point that an Amphib makes a poor substitute for a carrier against first team threats, in a future with higher prices for fossil fuels, this could be a problem. For force projection in high fossil fuel price times, if you have an all nuclear aircraft carrier group (1 carrier, 2 nuke destroyers, and 2 nuke attack subs), the fossil fuels you bring out to the fleet for replenishment will be less.

The Navy needs to develop a nuclear powered (no outrageous frills) destroyer to escort carriers. This makes good sense and is safe in the long run.

First F-35C catapult launch