Aircraft Carriers II (Closed to posting)

Re: ROKN LPH-6111 Dokdo now fully operational. Great pics.

I think the island is currently controlled by South Korea.
Didn't they build something on the island?

Re: ROKN LPH-6111 Dokdo now fully operational. Great pics.

Does the ROKN have any VSTOL ISR assets or do they use helicopter born AShM or attack helos? I'm not aware of any of these.
So that limits the use of that ship in an amphib landing role pretty much to the peninsula where it has support from land based P-3 and strike aircraft, I think. There are ,however, Cobras in the army, will those perhaps be used on the ship also?
For ASW, duties it can of course go much further to protect shipping lines, since it carriers all it needs for that kind of mission.

Threads merged.

No slight to you Jeff ..but..The reason I started this CV thread was to keep our discussion of CVs in one thread. Otherwise we may have numerous threads basically covering the same subject. I.E. Aircraft carriers.

Now ..I'm happy to see the ship operational. About a year ago a Korean felloow in another forum told me that S.Korea did not have the funds to by the helos for Dokdo. Apparently that problem is solved.

Anyone have any ideas on when the JMSDF DDH16 will be operational?

bd popeye said:

Threads merged.

No slight to you Jeff ..but..The reason I started this CV thread was to keep our discussion of CVs in one thread. Otherwise we may have numerous threads basically covering the same subject. I.E. Aircraft carriers.

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No prob popeye, I put up that thread because the Dokdo is an LPH and not really a traditional or even VTOL carrier (at least not yet).

When such news as a new commissioning is added to the end of a thread like this, many people may miss the news regarding the same and since the Dokdo and Hyuga are such interestiong topics, I though a thread about them would be appropriate.

But if the mods here feel differently, that is fine with me too.

bd popeye said:

Now ..I'm happy to see the ship operational. About a year ago a Korean felloow in another forum told me that S.Korea did not have the funds to by the helos for Dokdo. Apparently that problem is solved.

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I do not know if they used other SH-60s from other vessels or not...or even from their Army and had them painted. I do see what looks like Hueys on the deck too, so maybe they do not have all they want or need yet...but they are clearly operating helos off of its decks.

bd popeye said:

Anyone have any ideas on when the JMSDF DDH16 will be operational?

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Well, it is still outfitting and will probably go to sea trials in a few months. My guess is late this year or sometime next year for commissioning and full operational capability.

I'd like for the PLAN fans to sound off in this thread.

What do the PLAN fans think of the ROKN building as many FOUR of the fine vessels. And..the JMSDF building probaly a like number? All the while the PLAN has Zero avation capable ships.

State your opinion PLAN fans...

Since I asked the question I will give the first answer..

If S. Korea, with no carrier building experience, can build an LPH from the keel up why hasn't the PLAN? Certainly the Chinese have the shipbuilding capblity. So why no "from the keel up" Chinese CV??

But why does the PLAN have to follow? In fact, of all the navies in the Asian region, the PLAN has the largest and most formidable air arm that is independent of the national air force, a few hundred aircraft of which a significant number have stand off capability. The bomber fleet actually has much better strike and power projection reach than any of the ships. The question remains whether they would jump to making a true carrier rather than just a helicopter carrier.

You are asking the question if the PLAN should have dedicated helicopter carrying vessels. The 071 is already a step forward to that, and its not hard to see they can go even further. In my opinion, the LPD is much more potentially useful to the PLAN as opposed to the LPH, and I would rather build more LPDs rather than LPH.

Maybe you should ask the question why other navies in the Asian region hasn't have nuclear submarines much less a ballistic missile one. Is it necessary for any navy to match another navy on a feature to feature basis?

Frankly I think helo carriers are downright vulnerable in a potential fight with the USN, so why build them other than for peaceful power projection purposes? The JSDMF and the ROKN can claim they can work their LPHs under USN cover.

Unless you seriously reinforce the decks for VTOL jet fighter blast--Harriers are known to melt pavement---helicopter carriers are dubious for VTOL jet fighters. Taking off in VTOL means the blast would affect nearby parked planes, which means you must have a minimum distance where the plane takes off and where the other planes are parked. The spot where the plane takes off is going to be left pretty hot and may not be usable for any other aircraft until it cools off. If you want true carrier aviation, just better to go with conventional take offs and landings and don't waste your time and breadth on jet VTOL. And if do want jet VTOL, you need to build something at least in the 30,000 to 40,000mt displacement range, a small full carrier like the Kiev class. You at least need the option for conventional take offs and landings. VTOL aircraft is not as easy--or even as safe---as helicopters in controllability in vertical take off and landings.

Crobato said:
Unless you seriously reinforce the decks for VTOL jet fighter blast--Harriers are known to melt pavement---helicopter carriers are dubious for VTOL jet fighters. Taking off in VTOL means the blast would affect nearby parked planes, which means you must have a minimum distance where the plane takes off and where the other planes are parked. The spot where the plane takes off is going to be left pretty hot and may not be usable for any other aircraft until it cools off. If you want true carrier aviation, just better to go with conventional take offs and landings and don't waste your time and breadth on jet VTOL. And if do want jet VTOL, you need to build something at least in the 30,000 to 40,000mt displacement range, a small full carrier like the Kiev class. You at least need the option for conventional take offs and landings. VTOL aircraft is not as easy--or even as safe---as helicopters in controllability in vertical take off and landings.

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You appear to be misinformed about the hot exhaust from a Harrier in VTOL mode. No Harrier has ever melted pavement or anything else for that matter. It's not nearly as hot as you make out, the aircraft doesn't have afterburners. The Spanish Navy operated Harriers from the WOODEN deck of the WW2 vintage DEDALO for many years without any problems. To date no carrier has required special re inforcement for it's decks to operate Harriers and the deck can be walked on with ordinary boots immediately afterwards. Many publications have made unsubstantiated claims on this subject, for example there are many claims that when Hermes was converted from a CTOL CV to an LPH in 71-73 her flight deck was reinforced to take Harriers. Nonsense. Her deck was built to take the impact of aircraft twice the size and weight of a Harrier hitting the deck at 130 knots, whereas a Harrier touches down gently at a vertical speed of about 5 knots. Much less kinetic energy has to be absorbed by the deck this way, and any deck which can take a Sea King sized helo can take a Harrier.

The Russian Kiev class had a special VTOL landing pad with heat resistant tiles because their aircraft, the Yak-38 Forger, was a different beast to the Harrier (far inferior in all regards, especially range, reported to be as little as 60km!). It had three engines instead of one so sat on three columns of very hot air in the hover. By contrast the Harrier sits on a single column of air from the four nozzles, the forward two of which are blowing nothing but COLD air from the compressor fan at the front of the Pegasus engine. This helps cool the hot air from the rear nozzles before it hits the deck (not completely by any means, but enough to prevent the deck from heating). During the Falklands War two Sea Harriers landed aboard the LPDs Fearless and Intrepid to refuel and took off vertically without causing any damage to the deck. A 20,000 ton STOVL carrier can support up to 22 Harrier sized aircraft (minus helos, a balance always has to be struck) and that is more than enough to support both fleet air defence and stirke missions. Remember Harriers take up a lot less deck space then most naval aircraft so for a given size of carrier you can get more on. The Kievs were not 'full carriers', they were missile cruisers with a hangar and flight deck shoe horned onto the side. A ship little more than half their size could accomodate the same sized air group if it was purpose deigned and didn't have to carry the missile battery as well.

Obi Wan Russell said:

The Russian Kiev class had a special VTOL landing pad with heat resistant tiles because their aircraft, the Yak-38 Forger, was a different beast to the Harrier (far inferior in all regards, especially range, reported to be as little as 60km!). It had three engines instead of one so sat on three columns of very hot air in the hover. By contrast the Harrier sits on a single column of air from the four nozzles, the forward two of which are blowing nothing but COLD air from the compressor fan at the front of the Pegasus engine. This helps cool the hot air from the rear nozzles before it hits the deck (not completely by any means, but enough to prevent the deck from heating). During the Falklands War two Sea Harriers landed aboard the LPDs Fearless and Intrepid to refuel and took off vertically without causing any damage to the deck. A 20,000 ton STOVL carrier can support up to 22 Harrier sized aircraft (minus helos, a balance always has to be struck) and that is more than enough to support both fleet air defence and stirke missions. Remember Harriers take up a lot less deck space then most naval aircraft so for a given size of carrier you can get more on.

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I believe US carrier aviators had a simple nick name for the Forger...FUGSD..."Fly up, get shot down." While the Harriers certainly are not damaging the decks of those vessels on which they are embarked, it is quite possible that the Yaks could have if they did not land on the pads allocated for them. Perhaps it is they that damaged concrete.

In the end, the VTOL and performance characteristics of that aircraft, IMHO, while giving the Russians much needed operational experience, was certainly more political than functional.

As to the Harrier, well, I believe the following statement speaks for itself....and that is that the Harriers operate off of the decks of far more carriers and LPH class vessels all over the world than any other naval aviation aircraft, far more. An outstanding actual, real combat record too I might add.

Crobato, all I wanted to do is plant a seed to get a CV discussion going again. I feel I was somewhat sucessful. Excellent discussion by all posters!

I do feel the PLAN could well do with a Helo carrier(LPH or CVH). For power projection, sea control, amphip assualt, ASW & humanitarian efforts.