PLAN Aircraft Carrier programme...(Closed)

Well we are seeing progression with the Liaoning here, from those early starts to three aircraft on deck with weapons testing to upwards and onwards before they reach full strength in fighter aircraft, 3 this year maybe 3-6 in 2014 then maybe 12 in 2015 and maybe full regiment of 24 in 2016, it will take a good few years before PLAN becomes an effective and efficient carrier operator

Then once they have a full load out they can start do serious high tempo opps, Royal Navy will be able to do around 75 sorties per day with the Queen Elizabeth carrier when it becomes operational, that’s around 2 sorties per day for each aircraft, Americans can do a lot more than 2, they can manage >2.5 sorties per day per aircraft, when USS Gerald Ford is commissioned it will be able to do 220-240 sorties per day on a surge that’s more than 3 sorties per day per aircraft!

For Liaoning if they go on a “surge” I would expect them to manage somewhere around 50 sorties per day with 24 x J15 fighter aircraft, personally because of the inherit design flaws and handicaps of the Liaoning I don’t think they can exceed 50 sorties per day unless unless they add more J-15

This is something PLAN will certainly attempt, like PLAAF did with KJ-2000 AWACS a 24-hour patrol, they will have to go all out for prolonged periods of times to sustain carrier opps if they want to achieve 50 sorties per

Does the ford count include helicopters?

If we include liaoning's chopper wing (along with CVFs), you could get a near 100 sortie rate per day (considering both liaoning and CVF have full capacity for 50 planes)

We are talking about fixed Wing aircraft only

Sorties is one part of the overall strike package, there is no point in getting a bird in the air unless it does what it was sent to do, that's strike, called "bombs on target"

USN routinely does practice this, getting launched dropping the bomb and hitting the target successfully, on a 240 sortie round trip USN could easily drop 500 bombs on target, remembering that not all sorties are actually strike sorties because you do have recon, surveillance, electronic jamming etc etc

For Liaoning I would say that maybe they could get a "bomb on target rate" of around 75, based on a 24 aircraft fleet

So you can see the difference in fire power and capability between a Nimitz Class and the Liaoning, although it has around 60% of the overall tonnage of a Nimitz/Ford Class it's only got around 30% of the strike and firepower, this is down to the optimised design and operations of the USN carriers which have been achieved over decades of carrier opps totally fine tuned

Soviet Union was still years behind as such thier two Kutz carriers were not optimised for strike, I guess the Ulyanosvk was for this which never was finished, this is the difference between the two

This is why for full strike package PLAN needs cats and traps, steam catapults, lift 3+ regiments etc etc if they want a true blue water carrier strike group, but in the meantime Liaoning is a great start

Wait, so an 80 plane airwing x 3 sorties per day = 240? But each CVN usually deploys with a 72 standard airwing (still double liaoning's 36 standard total), and only a proportion, maybe two thirds of that or three quarters of 72, are fixed wing planes, so a standard CVN would generate 54 x 3 sorties = 162 which is still more than liaoning's 24 x 2 = 48

But I expect both would have a similar bomb on target rate, assuming f-18s and j-15s on both ships take off with similar loads (contingent on whether j-15 can take off full from the ski jump as the data sheet suggested — but for the sake of discussion let's say it can), and also assuming both planes use similar munitions (ie both guided and similar accuracy and similar weight).
So once liaoning crew is fully experienced and the airwing is fully equipped I expect the "bomb on target per strike sortie" won't be too different — ie: j-15 and f-18c/d/e/f can carry similar loads of bombs and drop with similar accuracy.
Assuming a multiplier of ~2 bombs/missiles per sortie, liaoning's 24 planes may be able to put 100 bombs on target per day, and a CVNs 56 planes can put well over 300 per day (assuming three strike sorties a day and 2 bombs a sortie)

But realistically both ships could put more or less bombs on target depending how many fighters are allocated to CAP and whether a plane carries more or less bombs per sortie (such as hauling SDBs instead of a single large 500kger)

Perhaps a more impartial standard will be tons of munitions dropped per day.
Also important measures include the range of munition dropped.

There is a lot of truth in what you say but there can be no reason to go to steam cats. EM cats promise to be lighter and more efficient and it makes no sense for China to also develop this obsolescent technology.
A second point is what is the right amount of threat a naval ship should represent. US diplomacy atrophied because it too easily pointed to big carriers. See this article about Foreign Secretary insisting that the Syrian government is responsible for the poison gas outrage without giving other evidence than that the US say so: .
The three comments WaPo selected from the 106 present when I looked all said that the US has no credibility.

delft said:

There is a lot of truth in what you say but there can be no reason to go to steam cats. EM cats promise to be lighter and more efficient and it makes no sense for China to also develop this obsolescent technology.
A second point is what is the right amount of threat a naval ship should represent. US diplomacy atrophied because it too easily pointed to big carriers. See this article about Foreign Secretary insisting that the Syrian government is responsible for the poison gas outrage without giving other evidence than that the US say so:

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.
The three comments WaPo selected from the 106 present when I looked all said that the US has no credibility.

Click to expand...

Don't take shots at us when we don't deserve it (there are plenty of legitimate issues to put our feet to the fire), the UN also said there are evidence the Syrian Govt. used CW on their own people.

delft said:

There is a lot of truth in what you say but there can be no reason to go to steam cats. EM cats promise to be lighter and more efficient and it makes no sense for China to also develop this obsolescent technology.
A second point is what is the right amount of threat a naval ship should represent. US diplomacy atrophied because it too easily pointed to big carriers. See this article about Foreign Secretary insisting that the Syrian government is responsible for the poison gas outrage without giving other evidence than that the US say so:

Please, Log in or Register to view URLs content!

.
The three comments WaPo selected from the 106 present when I looked all said that the US has no credibility.

Click to expand...

US Intelligence going to be more reliable than a UN inspections team (at least when it comes to knowing things). One is more likely to have real time information and more comprehensive intelligence. The followup shelling by Assad's government right after their use when the UN announced it was sending investigations is also suspicious (though not conclusive of course). Don't know why you'd cherry pick three comments to make an argument about credibility. Let's not resort to argumentum ad populum.

Anyways, I think it's important to point out that China at this point has far more experience with electromagnetic rail technologies than with steam catapults. I think that's one very strong argument for China jumping straight to an EMALS.

The Syrian Government is not able to prevent people from using their chemical weapons. Whether the people who used the Syrian chemical weapons are regular troops or rebels doesn't matter. The Syrian chemical weapons are no longer under save control, that is the problem. But this is off topic.

240 sortie rate for ford is for short periods only, a surge period of a day or two. its goal for a more sustainable sortie rate is 160 sorties a day. Nimitz's limit is 200 for surge, 125 for prolongued operations.

Actual wartime operations over several weeks time ALWAYS offer even smaller sortie rates than that.
They basically tend to drop towards a single sortie per aircraft per day, in normal conditions - no excess pilots, realistic distances crossed to target, maintenance needs etc.

Land based planes have always had a little better sortie rates than carrier planes, but they too, as history teaches us, don't do much better over longer air campaigns. In the last 4 air campaigns US took part, 2 of them were around 1 sortie per plane per day (serbia, iraq 2003), one (Libya) was even under 1 sortie and one (first gulf war) barely made it to 2 sorties.

Also, for a decade now, standard usn combat air wing trained with a structure of four squadrons, each having no more than 14 planes, often 12, sometimes just 10. 48-52-56 combat planes is a realistic number for Ford carriers in the future. Of course, those 160/240 sorties also count in growlers and hawkeyes. While theoretically Ford could do 4 sorties per plane for a day or three (as shown in one staged exercise at the above link), a more realistic maximum limit is 2.5 sorties per plane. Even that won't be sustainable over a period of several weeks. granted, not many operations may need such long commitments from a carrier force. Judging by history, after 2-3 weeks that should fall under 2 sorties per plane per day and keep dropping towards a single sortie per plane per day for campaigns that last more than two-three months.

Limiting factor for nimitz, ford or liaoning isn't the deck, catapults, ski ramp or arrestor system. Real limiting factor are air crews, their number and the fact combat missions are quite tiring. Ground crews suffer from the same limit, once we're talking about day after day after day operations. Then, after several days of hard hitting tempo, maintenance becomes a factor too. few hours of maintenance per plane stops being enough and overnight maintenance needs to be performed.

Basically, limit is crew numbers and available space for all any additional crew. Unless Liaoning has a worse ratio of air crews/ground crews per plane than Nimitz, it won't have much worse sortie generation rate either. A fairly small force of 24 J15 planes should be, in my opinion, quite decently served by Liaoning's crews and achieve similar sortie rates.

Bltizo said:

Does the ford count include helicopters?

If we include liaoning's chopper wing (along with CVFs), you could get a near 100 sortie rate per day (considering both liaoning and CVF have full capacity for 50 planes)

Click to expand...

Yes helos count.. so do C-2 Greyhounds.

If need be the USN CVNs could operate with an air wing similar to one I deployed with on the USS America CV-66 in 1981.

CVW-11 as deployed on CV-66 in 1981

14ac= VF-114 Aardvarks F-14A(TARPS)
12ac= VF-213 Black Lions F-14A
12ac= VA-192 Golden Dragons A-7E
12ac= VA-195 Dam Busters A-7E
15ac= VA-95 Green Lizards A-6E/KA-6D
04ac= VAW-123 Screwtops E-2C
04ac= VAQ-133 Wizards EA-6B
06ac= HS-12 Wyverns SH-3H
10ac= VS-33 Screwbirds S-3A
01ac= VQ-2DET. Batmen EA-3B
02ac= VR-24DET. Lifting Eagles C-2A
92 total aircraft.

I'm sure there are enough accommodations aboard a Ford or Nimitz class to support more sailors and an larger air-wing as necessary.