Aircraft Carriers

I'd go with the former (CVF solution). Bigger faster ship to start with.

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I agree with Obi Wan. Why modify the ship when the USN has ships capable of the amphib job?

If Most countries with any sort of navy had a Tarawa or Wasp class they would call it an aircraft carrier..not an LHA/LHD.

You could perhaps even just fit a catapult and cables into some LHA(R)s.

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Ever been on an LHA? I have. The now sunk USS Belleau Wood(LHA-3) for the shooting of the movie "Antwone Fisher". The deck underneath the flight has berthing areas for troops and other personnel. Plus flag spaces and work shops for the air wing. So this sort of modification is not pheasible unles the whole ship was refit to change accomdations.

Just to clarify my reasoning behind the US CVF idea, The USN will not be able to increase the number of CVNs in service for decades as only one shipyard (Northrop Grumman at Newport News) can build them,- and only one at a time. The US CV force is already being overstretched and longer deployments lead to manning problems such as retention of trained sailors. Logically more ships are needed to spread the load, though they need not be as capable as a CVN since some operations are lower intensity (ie training and ASW for example).

Thus the most obvious solution is for the US to join the CVF programme, which will lower overall costs to the UK and France for a start, providing support to the USAs closest allies and since they have been designed to operate the F-35 from day one compatability with USN aircraft is not an issue. The CVF design has a high degree of automation reducing crew requirements far below those of a traditional CV of similar size, bringing down operating costs. A force of five CVFs could be built in the same time as two CVNs and would help relieve the pressure on the USN. One would be allocated as a permanent training carrier at Pensacola Florida (a belated replacement for the old Lexington AVT16) but could be brought forward for frontline use oif needed, also releasing a CVN from the role. Other vessels of the class could be used as high speed LPHs able to transport up to 1500 troops to trouble spots along with their Helos, and once these had been landed an air wing of F-35s could be flown out to the ship allowing it to remain on station in support of any CVNs assigned to the mission. Alternatively they could cover smaller ops on their own, including convoy escort, ASW, disaster relief (think of the boxing day tsunami) and others.

Warships don't come more useful than the flat topped, lop-sided ones. This solution would:
allow the CVNs to remain in the strike role,
allow the LHAs/LHDs to concentrate on the amhibious role (instead of facing the possibility they might be withdrawn to cover the Sea control role),
and take all the miscellaneous/ nebulous other useful duties currently assigned to CVNs and LHAs/LHDs and give them to ships occupying the middle ground: The USN CVFs.

Hi Obi Wan Russell,

sorry to everybody for straying of topic but I have a special question to Obi Wan. You have some ship drawing charts on your homepage and I was wondering if you might send me some high resolution version of those pics. I like them very much (considering that some of those ships were drawn by me;-))

Please mail me,

Regards.

I know they're both nearly 50 years old, but how feasible would it be to keep Enterprise and/or Kitty Hawk in service past their scheduled decommissioning dates? Even if they would be used as training ships or as "immediate reserve" ships to be activated if a major international crisis occurs.

MConrads said:

Hi Obi Wan Russell,

sorry to everybody for straying of topic but I have a special question to Obi Wan. You have some ship drawing charts on your homepage and I was wondering if you might send me some high resolution version of those pics. I like them very much (considering that some of those ships were drawn by me;-))

Please mail me,

Regards.

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I'd be happy to contact you but there is no contact info here! I didn't realise you were a member of this forum, and I'd like to congratulate you on the quality of your draftsmanship. I used some pics as the basis for some modified designs and would be interested to hear your thoughts. Added an Invincible class profile as a first effort. Send me a pm with your contact info and we'll take it from there.

The US CV force is already being overstretched and longer deployments lead to manning problems such as retention of trained sailors

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Overstreched? Could be. But in the future the USN plans to foward deploy another CVN in the Pacfic(Guam or Hawaii) in addition to CVN-73 which will move to Japan next year to replace CV-63.

Retention? The USN retention rate among enlisted personell remains high. Not so true for the officer corps.

know they're both nearly 50 years old, but how feasible would it be to keep Enterprise and/or Kitty Hawk in service past their scheduled decommissioning dates? Even if they would be used as training ships or as "immediate reserve" ships to be activated if a major international crisis occurs.

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I doubt if it could be done simply because of economics. It cost a lot of money to keep a ship in a reserve status. Presntly the USN has 5 decomissioned CV's. No sort of mainatinenece is performed on these ships. Not a single one of them is in a reserve status. They all are waiting for some method of disposal.

Neutral Zone said:

I know they're both nearly 50 years old, but how feasible would it be to keep Enterprise and/or Kitty Hawk in service past their scheduled decommissioning dates? Even if they would be used as training ships or as "immediate reserve" ships to be activated if a major international crisis occurs.

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Enterprise and Kitty Hawk will need a major overhaul and refit for that to be viable. They are also another one of those one-of-a-kind ship class that has no parts commonality with other designs, either because they were constructed that way or because of retirements. It will be an expensive refit, and depending on the material condition of Enterprise and Kitty Hawk, it may just be more economical in the long term to actually retire them both as replacements come online. It takes 3 years from laying down to launch for a Nimitz-class carrier, plus an addition 2 years till commission. The length required for a refit of Kitty Hawk and Enterprise, depending on material condition of the two, may equal the time it takes for a new carrier to be built and launched, and as such, it may be better to scrap the older carriers and go for a newer one.

Obi Wan Russell said:

I'd be happy to contact you but there is no contact info here! I didn't realise you were a member of this forum, and I'd like to congratulate you on the quality of your draftsmanship. I used some pics as the basis for some modified designs and would be interested to hear your thoughts. Added an Invincible class profile as a first effort. Send me a pm with your contact info and we'll take it from there.

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Hi Obi Wan,

some how I only have restricted access and can´t send PMs.

Looking forward to it,

best regards.

Obi Wan, I was just thinking a bit about your CVF outlines in post #412. Would that ship carry landing ships? Can't really think of it. How about making it somewhat like the italian Cavour design. It could be able to carry troops and light vehicles like HMMWVs, trucks, AAAVs wich would be on- and offloaded through doors with ramps in the side of the ship. Now, is it possible to construct those ramps in a way where a LCAC moves backwards against that CVF vessel in order to load those vehicles on in? This would then of course require the CVF not to move.
The LCACs would have to come from a different LPD, so landing the troops isn't really faster, but you have more troops to unload at the same time and the CVF could offer many Helos wich can move troops much faster.

Scratch said:

Obi Wan, I was just thinking a bit about your CVF outlines in post #412. Would that ship carry landing ships? Can't really think of it. How about making it somewhat like the italian Cavour design. It could be able to carry troops and light vehicles like HMMWVs, trucks, AAAVs wich would be on- and offloaded through doors with ramps in the side of the ship. Now, is it possible to construct those ramps in a way where a LCAC moves backwards against that CVF vessel in order to load those vehicles on in? This would then of course require the CVF not to move.
The LCACs would have to come from a different LPD, so landing the troops isn't really faster, but you have more troops to unload at the same time and the CVF could offer many Helos wich can move troops much faster.

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An amphibious variant is certainly possible, or rather a more multi role variant. The portside flight deck overhang could certainly accomodate LCVPs on davits recessed into the overhang itself. Think a variation on the LCVP stowage on HMS Ocean, and extending the hangar deck aft to provide vehicle stowage with a stern offloading ramp or a full blown docking well. I'd prefer the former solution as a docking well would require the ship to anchor close offshore making it vulnerable to attack, so I'd keep it further out to sea , midway between the ships landing the troops and the CV group further out providing air cover. A small dock able to accomodate an LCAC would be a good compromise, allowing the CVF to remain underway and thus protect herself from attack more easily. Once the troops had been landed the ship would re deploy further out to sea and join up with the CVN(s) to provide extra strike aircraft, with her fixed wing squadrons flying out to her from bases further away from the combat zone (eg in a Gulf scenario the air wing would be on standby in Europe or Diego Garcia, assuming that island base hasn't been liberated by it's rightful occupants!). The CVF in LPH mode would help with the initial surge of troops and then reinforce the air war leaving the regular Amphibious shipping to support the troops ashore.