One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power

by Smith, Douglas V.

  9.Drawings showing the progression from the 35,000-ton carrier envisaged in 1945 to the much larger flush-deck carrier are in Spring Styles, vol. 4, a book of drawings held by the Cartographic Division of the National Archives, College Park branch. Studies C-1 and C-2 (15 February and 8 April 1946) show the more or less conventional carrier. The first real departure is CVB-X Study 1 (30 May 1946), followed by CVA-58 Study 1 (3 July 1947), and then by four more CVA-58 studies (26 August, 2 October, 10 October, and 12 December 1947). In retrospect, C-1 and C-2 had considerable impact on later designs, because they introduced the idea of a waist catapult. To clear the arresting gear aft, it had to be sponsoned off the centerline (to port, like the later angled deck—but for a very different purpose). C-1 was essentially a re-designed Essex, retaining the bow elevator of the earlier design, but with deck-edge elevators on the starboard side fore and aft of the island, and a port deck-edge elevator abaft the sponson. To reduce the effects of underwater hits, C-2 had her machinery separated into four units, the pairs of units being well separated; each pair of units had its own uptakes. Thus the island was split into two well-separated elements. War experience showed that elevators on the centerline tended to interfere with air operations, so in C-2 the forward elevator was replaced by a fourth deck-edge one, forward of the big sponson. In this design the flight-deck guns of an Essex were relocated to sponsons, and the after starboard deck-edge elevator was placed between the two island units and the port side elevators fore and aft of the big sponson. The ship was slightly larger than a wartime Essex. CVB-X was a special-purpose carrier to operate heavy attack aircraft: she had no hangar at all; the aircraft would spend their lives on the flight deck. She had an island much like that of the Midway class, but a single massive centerline catapult (using two parallel tracks) ran down much of the forward third of the flight deck. The ship would have been 1,190 feet long overall (1,124 feet between perpendiculars) with a beam of 130 feet (132 feet over the flight deck, 154 feet over the sponsons); standard displacement would have been 69,200 tons (about 82,000 tons fully loaded). Speed would have been 33 knots (240,000 SHP). In effect CVA-58 was a much-enlarged C-2 without any island (and with a second sponson for a fourth catapult), but with a hangar. CVA-58 Study 1 showed the flush-deck configuration adopted in all the studies: essentially an axial deck with two big sponsons abaft amidships, each carrying a long catapult, and another two catapults in the bow. The ship had two deck-edge elevators on the starboard side, one forward of the sponson, the other abaft it, plus a centerline elevator right aft; in addition, a ramp connected the hangar deck across from the forward deck-edge elevator with the flight deck, so that aircraft could be pushed up onto the flight deck. This ship would have been 1,000 feet long, 125 feet in beam (hull, not counting the flight deck), with a draft of 34.5 feet, displacing 60,000 tons standard (75,000 fully loaded); She would have made over 34 knots on 240,000 SHP. The air group was given as twelve heavy bombers (ADR 42) and fifty-four fighters (F2D-1s). The flight-deck arrangement was retained for the larger Study 5; intermediate studies showed no ramp. As in the later Forrestal class, there were gun sponsons on each bow and on each quarter, in this case each carrying two single 5in/54 guns and a twin 3in/70 (at that time the preferred anti-aircraft gun—only later did it turn out to be a dismal failure). The hull showed an open bow, with another twin 3in/70 on it, two more such guns on the stern, and another on a sponson abaft the forward starboard elevator. Study 4 showed a bow centerline elevator between the two bow catapults and a centerline elevator right aft, plus one deck-edge elevator on the starboard side abaft the starboard sponson. The drawing showed massive twin-engine bombers on the bow catapults, probably about the size of Neptunes, with a folded version on the elevator between the catapults. This sketch was marked with ship’s data: 1,030 feet overall × 154 feet maximum beam × 34.5 feet designed draft; standard displacement would have been 67,200 tons (79,700 tons fully loaded). The ship would have made 33 knots on 260,000 SHP. This was much the configuration of Study No. 3, except that it was smaller, so the flight deck extended further forward on its hull (No. 3 was 1,130 feet long, 69,000 tons standard). The album also includes a CVE dated 26 April 1952. Spring styles, so called to suggest women’s fashions, were sketch designs from among which naval decision makers could choose which to buy.

  10.BuAer first became interested in more powerful catapults in 1944, as it sought jet fighters. On 2 December 1944 BuAer circulated a requirement to its designers and to its catapult contractors: to replace the standard H4 on board carriers, it wanted a device that could accelerate a 5,000-pound airplane to about 250 mph in about 175 feet, and a 20,000-pound load to 125 mph in the same distance at a rate not to exceed 3.5 G. The only new catapult technology in sight was the slotted tube used by the Germans to launch V-1 missiles. BuAer considered various slotted-tube propellants and chose explosives; the same German technology inspired Mitchell in England to propose using steam (which BuAer rejected as impractical). Other alternatives were also explored, such as a Westinghouse “electropult.” The 20,000 pounds clearly referred to a manned airplane; the 5,000 probably referred to a missile. The letter is in volume 4 of the confidential BuAer S83-2 file (College Park, National Archives). An 11 January 1946 letter from the director of the BuAer Military Requirements Division observed that existing catapults could not launch aircraft weighing more than 20,000 pounds with takeoff stall speeds of more than 100 mph, even with a 25-knot relative wind (the wartime H4B was rated at 18,000 pounds at 90 mph). The catapult division was to conduct a study to find the actual limits of existing catapults and to set out requirements for future ones. This applied both to jet fighters and to even the smallest of the projected heavy attack aircraft. About June 1946 the airplane requirement was changed to 45,000 pounds at 125 mph (BuAer S83-2 file, Vol. 8). As an interim step, BuAer developed the most powerful hydraulic catapult it could (H8) for installation in the upgraded Essex-class carrier Oriskany. It was rated at 15,000 pounds at 125 mph, hardly what BuAer had wanted in 1944. BuAer designed a more powerful H9, rated at 45,000 pounds at 120 mph (or 100,000 pounds at 90 mph), but it never entered service, and seems not to have been considered particularly practicable. H8 was more or less enough for the Savage. It took a slotted cylinder to provide much more power, but work on such catapults was slow (they may have been under-funded in the lean years of the late 1940s). On 10 November 1947 the Design Research Division provided relevant details of the new aircraft (ADR 42, ADR 45, XAJ-1, and XA2J-1): ADR 42 was expected to take off at 69,000 pounds and to stall at 78 knots; the 100,000-pound airplane would stall at 105 knots. Takeoff speeds would be about equal to stall speeds. That December BuAer completed the design of a catapult capable of accelerating a 100,000-pound airplane to 100 knots, which seemed to be what was required (S83-2 file, Vol. 9).

  11.The North Koreans attacked on 25 June 1950. On 11 July the Joint Chiefs agreed to postpone any further consideration of carrier force level reduction, and the next day Secretary of Defense Louis Johnson, who had killed the United States slightly more than a year earlier, offered Chief of Naval Operations Admiral Forrest Sherman a new carrier (for the FY52 program). The Joint Chiefs adopted a twelve-carrier force level; a fourteen-carrier force was approved in February 1952 over Air Force objections. Representative Carl Vinson, the Navy’s strongest advocate in Congress, informally suggested that Congress would approve a carrier significantly smaller than the United States, which meant a tonnage slightly below 60,000, compared to about 65,000 for the United States. As designed, Forrestal had the same four elevators (one right aft, two to starboard, and one to port) of the United States, but not the ramp up to the flight deck. She had an enclosed (hurricane) bow, and weight was saved by eliminating the twin 3in/70 guns of the earlier design. Detail changes included the use of individual smoke pipes rather than the two trunked smoke pipes of the earlier ship.

  12.ADM1/31003 (The National Archive of the United Kingdom) gives details of various British angled-deck proposals. The key indivi
dual was Captain D. R. F. Campbell, prospective commanding officer of HMS Ark Royal.

  13.This was a widespread fear. The great surprise was that the Soviets did not greatly quiet their submarines as they passed from first (HEN) to second (CVY) generation in the early 1970s. According to a Russian account published after the end of the Cold War, silencing of various sorts became an important Soviet R&D theme in the 1970s; the first really quiet Soviet submarine, Victor III, appeared in the late 1970s. The special Alfa class also showed substantial quieting, but it was never built in numbers comparable to those of the noisier conventional nuclear Victor I/II and Charlie (and many Soviet strategic submarines).

  14.His other important new ship programs were an abortive austere Aegis ship (DG/Aegis), the Perry-class frigate, and the missile hydrofoil (PHM). Each convoy would be escorted by a sea control ship and frigates.

  15.The most attractive prospect was blowing air through an airplane’s wings to simulate the usual circulation of forward flight. Once in the air, such an airplane could cease blowing and devote all its power to forward propulsion; it seemed that it might avoid the usual VTOL performance penalties. Unfortunately the prototype built to demonstrate this technique, the XFV-12, never managed to fly (perhaps due to overweight).

  16.The prospective Sea Control Ship Air Group varied. At one time it consisted of eleven ASW and three AEW helicopters and three Harrier fighter/attack aircraft; at others, it included the futuristic FV-12 VTOL fighter, and the AEW role was to have been filled by the remote-controlled airship. The fighters had multiple roles. In experiments, Harriers laid corridors of sonobuoys down that a simulated convoy would pass. A submarine trying to attack had to pass through the corridor, revealing itself and opening itself to attack.

  17.T-CBL was sometimes compared with the 54,000-ton British CVA-01 design, cancelled in 1966; the existence of the British design seemed to show that a ship of that size would be a reasonable carrier. CVA-01 would have accommodated about half as many aircraft as a Nimitz.

  18.Some of these factors were worked out explicitly during the CVNX studies (1976). An airplane passing over the ramp at the after end of the flight deck needs clearance for the tail hook (typically at least 11 feet). Given the standard glide path slope (3.5 degrees), the ramp had to be at least 180 feet from the second wire, which had to be at least 40 feet from the third wire; and the wire had to pull out 350 feet, with another 94 feet for barricade stretch, a total of 664 feet from the ramp to the fore end of the sponson carrying the angled deck. Ideally the airplane caught by the wires is then turned into a parking area abaft the bow catapults, which are 310 feet long. The landing area is at an angle to the rest of the hull, so that the fore end of the sponson is actually less than 660 feet from the stern, but total flight deck length is still over 900 feet, whatever the composition of the air wing.

  CHAPTER 16

  Conclusions

  Douglas V. Smith

  Nimitz-class aircraft carrier USS Ronald Reagan (CVN 76) with guided-missile cruiser USS Chancellorsville (CG 62).

  Perhaps President George Herbert Walker Bush said it best in his much appreciated foreword to this book: “One of the first questions I always asked as Commander-in-Chief when American interests were threatened around the globe was ‘Where are our aircraft carriers?’”

  It is interesting to note that there have been thirteen American presidents since World War II. Of these, six have worn the uniform of the United States Navy. Presidents Kennedy, Johnson, Nixon, Ford, Carter, and Bush (41) all came to their office aware of the options afforded by, and comfortable with the strategic and operational applications of, Navy—and particularly Carrier Air Wing—aviation as an instrument of national power. Of them, President H. W. Bush also had the advantage of being a Navy carrier pilot himself. It makes sense that these presidents would be predisposed to use of Navy aviation in times of national crisis, for precisely the reasons behind President George H. W. Bush’s statement above.

  A U.S. Navy carrier today represents the ability to bring considerable sustainable firepower near to an adversary or enemy’s borders without the constraint of being subject to the political sovereignty of a nation providing a land base of operations. It can sortie considerable punch from a piloted aircraft, thus retaining the ability to cancel an attacking sortie before it strikes its targets. Moreover, if ordnance is expended, there remains sufficient capability to reload and attack again and again. Even if no strike is executed, a carrier can linger in proximity to an adversary for extended periods in a deterrent role. Thus a Navy aircraft carrier and her Air Wing gives the ability to execute immediately available options, unencumbered by the political objectives of even America’s closest allies in time of national crisis.

  In the preceding pages the evolving nature of the threat a carrier represents has been presented. In World War II for instance American carriers started the war in primarily a defensive posture, but moved to the offensive quickly on 4 June 1942 by sinking four of Japan’s large carriers in the Battle of Midway and in the process adjusting the naval balance in the Pacific to near parity. This enabled contemplation of offensive American operations at sea and amphibiously on a limited basis. The carrier battles of the Eastern Solomons and Santa Cruz ensued on 24 August and 26 October 1942, which in large part made it possible for the Marine Corps’ 1st Marine Division to land amphibiously on Guadalcanal, hold the island with support from the 164th U.S. Army Infantry Regiment of the Americal Division, and enabled Major General Roy Geiger’s 1st Marine Air Wing to attrite a critical number of Japanese carrier pilots and their airplanes in the process. Moreover, it threw the Japanese back on their heels for long enough for forces generated by the Two-Ocean Navy Act of 1940 and associated appropriations to expand the U.S. Navy beyond Japanese ability to defend.

  Holding Guadalcanal was critical to enactment of a two-pronged naval offensive through the Upper Solomons, Gilberts, Marshalls, Marianas, and Volcano Islands toward the Japanese home islands. So too was the expansion of the U.S. Navy and fielding of a second generation of wartime aircraft critical to the offensive. Splashing over four hundred Japanese aircraft and sinking three carriers (two by submarine attack, admittedly) in the Battle of the Philippine Sea/Marianas Turkey Shoot opened the back door at Saipan and Tinian to Japan itself.

  Once the tide irrevocably turned against the Imperial Japanese Navy in the Pacific the American Navy transformed its carrier force to the role of attacking land targets. The versatility of carrier aviation, its destructive capacity, and assistance from land-based Navy aircraft in the reconnaissance and anti-submarine roles enabled the Navy gradually to move close enough to Japan to unleash the final destructive capacity of the Army Air Forces directly against the Japanese home islands.

  So too was American Navy aviation critical in conflicts in Korea and Vietnam. It has remained so through countless conflicts and contingencies up to this very moment. The history of Navy aviation demonstrates its flexibility and ability to adapt in support of multiple and varied missions from a world war environment down to precise and limited missions in an evolving contingency. What remains constant through the range of military applications is that Navy aviation—land-based, helicopter, and carrier alike—gives the greatest flexibility to American presidents and political and military leaders of any form of military power available to them. From search and rescue, long-range surveillance, anti-submarine warfare, area defense to land attack, amphibious warfare, special operations, warfare at sea and nuclear strike, Navy carrier aircraft and their land-based counterparts excel at accomplishing their missions rapidly and precisely. But, as the chapters on aircraft and carrier developments over the last century point out, forethought and planning have to precede their use. Congressional and presidential support of programs that will continue the utility of Navy aviation in achieving a range of American goals and interests is essential to the continuation of the leading role the United States has played in world politics over the last century.

  The que
stion then becomes, What type of structure should U.S. Navy aviation take over the next century? Some might contend that aircraft carrier and antisubmarine operations will no longer be useful in crisis situations and are therefore costly additions to other options—such as unmanned drones—that are now available in the U.S. arsenal. The fact remains that of all existing options available to the national leadership only a carrier offers the combination of rapid response, considerable deliverable ordnance, sustainability, and above all the ability to gain air control rapidly over an objective area and maintain it. Then where and under what circumstances are carriers likely to be necessary?

  The current strategic communication that structures the threat environment for the U.S. Navy for the next decade and beyond is “A Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century.” The “Cooperative Strategy” articulates the areas of the world where American—and by extension Allied—interests and goals lie, and the type of naval capabilities necessary to achieve and protect them. This document obviously focuses primarily on the Middle East and Western Pacific areas. Previous concentration on the Atlantic Ocean and Mediterranean Sea is conspicuously missing from the “Cooperative Strategy.” However, possible emergent military requirements of a time-sensitive nature require American preparedness to respond. One can thus analyze the “Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century” and see that aircraft Carrier Strike Groups must be able to respond to crises on short order in the northwestern Indian Ocean, in waters of the Sea of Japan and adjacent areas, and in the eastern Mediterranean Sea.

  There has long been a paradigm of aircraft carrier availability based on the distance to sustain a Carrier Strike Group at sea in a particular crisis scenario; the proximity of the scenario to Underway Replenishment Group support; and the fact that, for every Carrier Strike Group on station, one will have just departed station for return to the continental United States and one will be in a U.S. port replenishing and resupplying. Given the two areas of vital U.S. concern delineated in the “Cooperative Strategy for the 21st Century,” and the obvious need for rapid crisis response in distant areas or European waters, the above paradigm indicates that America will need at least nine carriers to retain a rapid-response posture in only its vital areas of interest for the foreseeable future. One additional carrier should be added to support training of pilots in the Advanced Pilot Training Program and the Replacement Air Groups located in the southeastern United States and another to maintain continuous crisis reaction capacity in that at least one carrier will of necessity be in the yards for overhaul and/or nuclear core removal and replacement or some other maintenance cycle in an almost continuous basis. Assuming that one of the proposed three aircraft carriers in the Atlantic/Mediterranean could be dual-purposed to meet this requirement, a minimum of ten American carriers should be maintained to secure American and Allied objectives around the world. If a dedicated training carrier is deemed necessary—and as a hedge against a multiple-area response requirement or the sinking of a carrier—an eleven-carrier American Navy is seen as the minimum requirement to sustain U.S. and Allied interests over the next several decades and beyond. Similarly, a modernized and substantial aviation surveillance and anti-submarine capability (particularly one capable of responding to the very real diesel submarine threat possessed by many potential aggressors) is needed.