I've also posted the readiness schedules of fossil CV vs. CVNs before too based on historical data and everything indicates higher readiness rate and shorter maintenance cycles for CVs.
00X/004 future nuclear CATOBAR carrier thread
- Thread starter AETHER
- Start date
kwaigonegin
Colonel
Carriers are extremely expensive capital ships and by nature they are also strategic offensive weapons systems.
If like you said, China's singular intent is only playing offense than a carrier, and most certainly a diesel one would be an absolute waste of funds and resources. A carrier also ties up precious resources that can be allocated somewhere else for defensive purposes.
A combination of multiple SSKs, CGs, DDGs etc. would make for a far more formidable and sophisticated defensive screen vs a lone carrier.
A modern carrier's primary goal is to aggresively advanced a country's foreign policy. It's also a very useful psychological tool and makes for a great asset to quell relatively unsophisticated, underarmed opponents.
All these are offensive operations by nature.
A carrier provided a platform for C4ISR for mid range defense. The DDGs can't see over earth curvature and can't use their range effectively without scouts. Scouting can be done with ground based assets but those taken longer to get in theater, and the Pacific is big.
That was basically the Russian doctrine for carriers: to provide fleet air cover and scouting for their big 500 km range missiles that otherwise couldn't actually hit anything.
If a problem happen defending China with a CV, you will not have a nuclear disaster on your own coastal area... CVN are for power projection.
People have different opinions and most of the members agreed on this, China doesn't need CVN based for various reasons.
according to me, its about prestige as well , stakes are very high. China being the largest industrial country on planet earth with 50 percent global shipbuilding and one of the most advanced Civil nuclear industry. it is necessary to build few CVNs. i m sure in near future PLAN will definitely go with nuclear propulsion as China's role in global affairs are increasing..
kwaigonegin
Colonel
No, why do you need C4ISR for 'fleet air defence' in the first place if your entire posture is defensive in nature?
I think you are looking at the macro level whereas my post to the OP was more micro in intent.
You need air defence for your fleet only because your fleet is on operations far away from your homeland in the first place.
People on this forum get thier panties tied up in a knot everytime the mere mention of PLAN's orbat that anything but making chocolates and unicorn poop.
There is NOTHING WRONG with having carriers, NOTHING WRONG with wanting to protect SLOCs or power projection in another region.
The USN and NATO etc have been doing it for decades.
HOWEVER let's not pretend that PLAN's aircraft carrier initiative and certainly future CVNs are made to only deliver milkshakes and candies up and down the Chinese coast between Hainan and Dalian.
Carriers ARE and will remain strategic OFFENSIVE weapons platform.
If you are using them for anything but .. you are just wasting time and resources that could be allocated to other platforms. That was the point I was trying to make.
Why did the Soviets have carriers despite a strategic defensive naval posture?
You need to shoot enemy ships to have a credible defense. You can't see enemy ships at the range of your missiles without air power.
I think you've basically just described China's naval strategy for the next 25 years, seriously.
This is a misconception. Compared to a conventional design a nuclear-powered supercarrier is not significantly more expensive to build or to maintain and refuel over the entire lifecycle of the ship (which in USN is 50 years) but is significantly cheaper in operation.
The obstacle in cost terms for building a CVN is the cost of nuclear safety procedures introduced into the navy. I must stress that it is not about the nuclear technology but the systemic handling of it - a human factor, not a machine one. This was one of the reasons why Hyman Rickover was a strong proponent of a nuclear navy because he understood the implications for cost and safety if nuclear propulsion was introduced only on a limited number of vessels. Managing a nuclear fleet is fundamentally the question of how to maintain consistent skill across the personnel pool involving ship crews, maintenance staff, command personnel and also the necessary skill in the industry which builds the ships. Soviet nuclear safety was a major issue well into the 80s largely because Soviets maintained a mixed navy. It may seem counter-intuitive but to anyone who has ever had to deal with training and retention having two pools of people at different skill level is an obvious risk, and training everyone to satisfactory nuclear standards would be too expensive. Soviet navy paid the price for that approach.
USN introduced three classes of nuclear warships: submarines, carriers and cruiser. The benefits of submarines were obvious. Nuclear carriers had greater available power and especially spare room for resources. Nuclear cruisers were the most expensive per vessel because the number of reactors and their output was least optimal, but even they were considered to be bringing more in terms of than they took in upkeep.
CGN commissioning:
Long Beach - 1961
Bainbridge - 1962
Truxtun - 1967
California - 1974
South Carolina - 1975
Virginia - 1976
Texas - 1977
Mississippi - 1978
Arkansas - 1980
CVN commissioning:
Enterprise - 1962
Nimitz - 1975
Eisenhower - 1977
Vinson - 1982
Roosevelt - 1986
Lincoln - 1989
Washington - 1992
Stennis - 1995
Truman - 1998
Note that in 1980 USN had 9 CGNs to 3 CVNs, so they were serving with CVs as well.
USS Bunker Hill, first VLS Ticonderoga, is laid down in 1984 and commissioned in 1986 making all non-VLS (and non-AEGIS) ships obsolete.
Nuclear cruisers were however retired from service between 1993 and 1999 not because of their propulsion but because of their armament and general design which was based on 1960s architecture and was completely obsolete and inefficient compared to Ticonderoga and Arleigh Burke classes. There was no way for them to be upgraded within reasonable cost and so they were retired, much like Spruance was retired between 1998 and 2005 at their notional MLU time. This is also why the first five Ticos armed with Mk26 were retired in 2004-05 while all Mk41 ships continued to serve.
Also Ticonderoga despite being classified as a cruiser has 330 crew which were easily exchangeable between all 27 ships and transfer between a Tico and a Burke was also much simpler because of similarity of sub-systems between the two classes. In comparison Long Beach had over 1100 crew and Virginia and California had close to 600. The personnel cost alone made them unaffordable and capability per crewman ratio between an AEGIS/VLS ship and a AN/SPS-48 with Mk26 is a no contest.
Considering that China is going to also implement large scale nuclear fleet with their submarines which imposes the need for fleet-wide nuclear safety standards it makes no sense to save on carriers. CVNs provide immeasurable savings in terms of endurance and combat autonomy. It is only the destroyers that are no longer economical because it allows them to be manufactured and repaired at non-nuclear sites.
Regular carriers will be cheaper when built as conventional ships but that depends on available reactors and necessary power output.
From Wiki:
- QE (65k t) requires ~120MW but British RR PWR2 delivers ~25MW so 2 CVs would require 8 PWR2 and RN could barely afford those 2CVs at the height of the 2000s boom. PWR2 is HEU i.e. expensive
- DeGaulle (42k t) uses 2x K15 with only ~60MW and is very underpowered. Successor (75k t) is planned for 2x K-22 at 220MW. K-15 are LEU i.e. cheap
- Nimitz's (100k t) 4x A4W produce total of ~550MW.
If you can afford supercarriers build them over regular carriers and if you can afford supercarriers then you can't afford conventional supercarriers.
Russia doesn't have a "doctrine for carriers" (or even a carrier) and Soviet doctrine is public knowledge. Soviet aircraft carriers were helicopter carriers and their primary role was ASW against USN SSNs penetrating into the "Bastion".
- Moskva - laid down 1962, 1967 and 1969, carried 18 Ka-25 ASW and Mi-8.
- Kiev - laid down 1970, commissioned 1975, 1977, 1982 and 1987 (Baku, first with a PESA radar), carried 18-20 helicopters and 12 Yak-38.
- Kuznetsov - laid down 1982, commissioned 1990, carried max 24 helicopters and 32 fixed-wing aircraft.
Also technically Moskva, Kiev and Kuznetsov were "heavy aviation cruisers" and not only because of Montreaux convention restricting transit of aircraft carriers across the Turkish straits but also becaue they carried long-range AShMs (not Moskva) so that every task force would have sufficient nuclear deterrent because Soviet navy didn't have enough large ships with modern long-range cruise missiles. Slavas were commissioned in 1982, 1986 and 1989. Kirovs in 1980, 1984 and 1988.
The 17 other modern 1970s "cruisers" (Kara, Kresta II) were large anti-submarine ships armed with SS-N-14 like Udaloy. The older cruisers (Kresta I, Kynda) were armed with obsolete P-5 Pyatyorka missiles (SS-N-3 Shaddock).
In 1990 the entire Soviet Navy had only 11 ships with long-range nuclear tactical weapons: 1x Kuznetsov, 4x Kiev, 3x Kirov, 3x Slava. USN at the same time had all of its 13-14 CSGs armed with tactical nukes carried both by aircraft and cruisers armed with Tomahawks.
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Mobilizing against enemy capable of destroying CVN? Nuclear contamination would be a small concern. Chances are WWIII already happened.