Douglas Barrie/LONDON
Ramon Lopez/WASHINGTON DC
Next to acquiring an arsenal of nuclear weapons, the pursuit of an aircraft-carrier programme identifies a country's aspirations to project its political will beyond the near confines of its own territory.
Carriers, like nuclear weapons, are prohibitively expensive to develop. Only one nation (the USA) now operates a carrier fleet running into double figures, although several other states - Argentina, Brazil, France, India, Italy, Russia, Spain and the UK - operate a limited number of both conventional and short take-off and vertical-landing (STOVL) ships.
The future of the carrier concept is being debated, and some of these nations are likely to abandon this capability in the not-too-distant future. Other countries, including China, Thailand and even Japan, may join the carrier club. The USA and the UK have tentatively begun studies for next-generation carriers.
France has recently launched the hull of its next carrier, the Charles De Gaulle and is looking to build a second vessel in this class, although funding for the programme remains in doubt.
Russia's sole carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, is now nearing operational service with its wing of Sukhoi Su-33s (Su-27K Flankers). Russia's second carrier, The Varyag, languishes unfinished in a Ukrainian dockyard, while a third hull has already been scrapped.
The exact role, which is expected of Russia's only carrier is uncertain. As yet, the Su-33 appears to be optimised only for air-defence, with scant evidence that it will have a strike capability, at least in the near term. A programme to equip the aircraft with an air-launched variant of the SS-N-22 Sunburn supersonic anti-ship missile has been cancelled.
During the Cold War, the aircraft carrier became the heart of the battle group of NATO navies. By the late 1960s, its primary role for the USA was to engage the USSR's fleet of attack and ballistic-missile submarines while providing organic air cover for both the group and for envisaged Atlantic re-supply convoys.
In the wake of the Cold War, carrier proponents are now trying to find new justifications for these billion-dollar vessels, in the face of defence-budget reductions, which have already resulted in considerable force cutbacks.
POWER PROJECTION
"Power projection" is the phrase being used by those who argue that, far from being on the verge of following the battleship, the carrier is a behemoth some way from extinction.
Within a multi-polar, rather than bi-polar, world security system, the carrier, its supporters argue, provides the essential flexibility to deploy air power on a global scale, regardless of the availability of land bases in the region of conflict.
The most recent example of this is the United Nations (UN) operation in the former Yugoslavia, with France's Foch and Clemenceau, along with the Royal Navy's HMS Invincible, Ark Royal and Illustrious carriers, all having been operationally deployed in the past two years.
The initial response by the US Navy to the changing strategic climate was spelled out in the 1992 White Paper From the Sea: Preparing the Naval Service for the 21st century. This signaled a new direction for the seaborne US military forces.
The document mapped out major force reductions and initiatives which would shape the post-Cold War US naval service. War fighting doctrine, shifted away from the previous deep-water Soviet threat, to one of localised conflicts in the coastal areas of the world.
In the past few years, USN warships have also been deployed in support of operations in Haiti, Kuwait, South Korea and Somalia, as well as in Bosnia.
For now, the USN's 12-carrier force is being maintained as older, oil burning, "flat-tops" are retired. Even in the USA, however, carrier aviation is at a crossroads amid continuing debate over its cost-effectiveness.
The US General Accounting Office (GAO), the investigative arm of the US Congress, believes that the USN cannot afford the 12-carrier fleet. It suggests that the Navy could meet overseas requirements with only ten aircraft carriers, and save $2.7 billion annually.
The GAO also says that it is considerably less expensive to acquire conventional carriers, compared with the cost of building nuclear-powered carriers.
This comment will have a resonance in the UK, where the option of nuclear power for the Invincible-class replacement, the CVSG(R), appears to have been considered and discarded. A conventional gas-turbine approach remains as the more likely outcome for the UK programme.
While nuclear propulsion retains the attraction of negating the need for refueling at sea and also of freeing up space previously allocated to fuel storage, it remains expensive, apparently prohibitively so for the UK.
The USN is now seeking funding for a future carrier study, with the aim being to design a technologically superior platform, which is significantly less expensive than its present capital ships.
CARRIER WISH LIST
The long-term future carrier project would include technical and operational assessments of technology and designs. Areas to be explored include affordability, survivability, improved propulsion systems (such as a hybrid nuclear/gas turbine plant) and advanced aircraft launch-and-recovery systems. This is effectively the "wish list" at which the RN is also looking for the CVSG(R) programme, although for a much smaller class of carrier.
The US Department of Defense's 1993 "Bottom-Up" Review determined that 12 (11 active and one operational reserve) aircraft carriers and their tactical aviation (ten active-duty air wings and one reserve wing) should be fielded by 1997. The John F Kennedy (CV-67) is earmarked to become the reserve training carrier.
In keeping with this plan, Newport News Shipbuilding, the only US shipyard capable of building nuclear-powered carriers, is due to deliver the John Stennis (CVN-74) later this year, and the Harry Truman (CVN-75) in 1998. It is now under contract to build the $4.5 billion Ronald Reagan (CVN-76), the ninth Nimitz-class nuclear carrier. This will be delivered in 2003, and is intended to serve for 50 years.
As it now stands, the USN will need another Nimitz-class carrier, the CVN-77, to replace the conventionally powered Constellation (CV-64) around 2008. Long-lead funding would be requested in 2000 or 2001.
Depending on available funding, the CVN-77 could either closely resemble the current nuclear carrier or incorporate some technology developed for a new carrier, which would be available in the 2015 timeframe.
The John Stennis is intended to replace the America (CV-66) at the end of fiscal year 1996, while the CVN-75 replaces the oil-burning Independence (CV-62) at the end of FY1998. The Kitty Hawk (CV-63) will be retired when the CVN-76 enters the fleet.
Although the Nimitz-class aircraft carriers will be at the heart of the USA's power-projection capabilities for many years to come, a future class would serve to the end of the next century.
The USN believes that this class of carrier must be affordable "during an extended period of austerity", while tailored to the operational challenges of the mid-21st century.
The Bottom-Up Review has directed the USN to evaluate "...a full range of sea-based platforms to project air power and meet our military needs in the period 2020 and beyond". A Future Sea-Based Air-Platform Study Group was formed, but the course of its work was hampered by the lack of continuing aircraft-carrier research-and-development (R&D) programmes.
The study group believes that, without sufficient funding for research, the USN can do little other than make incremental improvements to the existing Nimitz-class design. It recommends that the USN pursue a two- pronged strategy: near-term acquisition of the CVN-77; and creation of a long-term plan for defining and developing follow-on, sea-based, air platforms for the 21st century.
The R&D programme would allow the tenth Nimitz-class carrier, the CVN-77, to act as a bridge to a potentially new-design CVX-78. It could play the role of transition ship, providing the opportunity to test new technologies and concepts in an operational environment before they become an integral part of a future carrier's design.
The US study group's draft report has been circulated within USN circles since 1994, and the final report will go to the office of the navy secretary for review in September.
In arguing its corner for a replacement to the Invincible class, the RN takes a similar line to that of its US counterpart, flagging up the operational flexibility which an aircraft carrier provides.
RN sources claim that, on more than one occasion, the only air power available to the UN in Bosnia was from a carrier. Land-based aircraft in Italy were unavailable, they say, because the airfields were fog-bound.
The Adriatic deployment for the RN, however, has also exposed the limitations of the UK's Fleet Air Arm (FAA) British Aerospace Sea Harrier FRS1 and, implicitly, the potential weakness of a single-role-oriented fixed-wing air group. Designed to provide defensive air cover for battle groups, the FRS1 is ill suited to the kind of ground-support role required by the Bosnian operation.
This became apparent when an FRS1 was shot down by a shoulder-launched surface-to-air missile after several repeated passes attempting to identify a target. The aircraft's air-to-surface armament consisted of "dumb iron" bombs.
The RN has progressed in rectifying this by providing the FRS1 and Sea Harrier F/A2 with the capability to drop Paveway laser-guided bombs. Originally dubbed the FRS2, for fighter/attack it was rechristened by the RN, to reflect its changing role. Eventually, the F/A2 should also have the GEC-Marconi Thermal Imaging and Laser Designator (THIALD) pod.
Along with supplementing the Sea Harrier's ground-attack capability, the UK Ministry of Defence (MoD) is now in the process of qualifying the Royal Air Force's Harrier GR7 for carrier operations. The RAF aircraft would not be permanently deployed on board the RN ships, but could be called upon to supplement the RN's own aircraft, if it was deemed operationally effective.
JUDICIOUS DECISION
In launching studies on the CVSG(R), the UK MoD is signaling its intention to remain a carrier operator. When the time comes to inject more cash, it will be seen whether its political masters, support the multi-billion pound acquisition.
The RN's last conventional carrier programme was in the process of cancellation 30 years ago. Instead, the RN eventually pursued what was coyly referred to as a "through-deck cruiser" in the Invincible-class ship.
This ship design is, effectively, a compromise, which allows the RN to remain a carrier operator through the back door. It was designed initially as an anti-submarine-warfare helicopter carrier, but the advent of the Sea Harrier FRS1 allowed the navy to retain a shipboard fixed-wing capability.
It was a judicious decision on the part of the RN to fight to retain a fixed-wing capability. Without the carriers, the UK's South Atlantic campaign to recapture the Falkland Islands from Argentina in 1981 would almost certainly have been stillborn.
At a mere 19,000t, the invincible class is a far cry from the USN's 102,000t nuclear carriers. Not only does its relatively small size limit the Invincible class's operational capability in terms of the size and composition of its air group, but it is generally regarded as being more expensive per tonnne to operate.
Building big may appear prohibitively expensive in terms of initial outlay, but economies of scale will be recouped in terms of the larger vessels through life costs. Thirty years ago, as a Government Defence Review was winding up to canceling the UK's planned new conventional carrier, a 35,000t vessel was viewed as the minimum acceptable size.
The UN would certainly like the CVSG(R)'s size to be closer to this figure than the 19,000t of the invincible class. This would allow for a larger air wing than the present number of between nine and 15 Sea Harriers and six and 12 helicopters. An aircraft complement in the mid-20s, along with 12 helicopters, is thought to be the current preference.
The RN, however, is not looking seriously at a return to operating conventional fixed-wing aircraft from its next-generation carrier, at least for the moment. It is committed to the US Joint Advanced Strike Technology (JAST) programme, which is intended to produce both conventional and advanced STOVL (ASTOVL) variants of a common airframe.
The RN's view is that ASTOVL technology offers particular advantages for naval operations. "The recovery of an ASTOVL aircraft is more benign," says one senior officer. "It also offers a 4-6% increase in terms of sortie generation rates over a CTOL [conventional take-off and landing] aircraft, and you can always deploy it ashore."
There is a large gamble implicit in the RN's position, however. The JAST programme must, unlike USN predecessors such as the Lockheed/General Dynamics A-12 and the AF/X, result in an actual airframe.
So far, all the signs are that the JAST programme will continue to be supported at a level capable of producing an aircraft. The RN has also closely aligned itself with the US Marine Corps, which is also looking for a multi-role replacement for its McDonnell Douglas AV-8Bs. According to RN officers close to the programme, the USMC and RN requirements are very similar.
TRUE MULTI-ROLE
The RN sees its F/A2 replacement being a true multi-role aircraft. The F/A2, despite a laser-guided-bomb and likely TIALD capability, is still primarily an air-defence aircraft built round the Blue Vixen multi-mode pulse-Doppler radar and the Hughes AIM-120A Advanced Medium Range Air-to-Air Missile.
"The aircraft will give us a multi-role organic air capability," says one navy officer. "The aircraft will be capable in both air-superiority and strike roles," he adds.
The RN envisages its next-generation ASTOVL aircraft as having the ability to provide extended layered defence for the task force, carrying out long-range attacks on hostile aircraft and cruise missiles. It is also intended to be capable of striking against surface targets at cobat ranges of up to 800km (940nm), and carrying out strike missions against land targets.
France's maritime variant of the Dassault Rafale is intended to be such a multi-role aircraft when it enters service toward the end of this century.
By comparison with the RN, the USN continues to operate numerous types of aircraft: Northrop Grumman F-14 Tomcats, A-6 Intruders, EA-6B Prowlers and E-2C Hawkeyes; McDonnell Douglas F/A-18 Hornets; Lockheed S-3B Vikings and Sikorsky SH-60 Seahawk helicopters all continue to be operated from the nation's large-deck aircraft carriers.
By early next century, however, the core of the USN's combat-aircraft capability will rest on two types - the F/A-18E/F and the JAST aircraft. The A-6E will be phased out by the end of fiscal year 1997, with the JAST winner, eventually being given this role.
In the interim period before the JAST aircraft is available, the USN is continuing to upgrade some of its present aircraft fleet. A two-stage F-14 modernisation programme is under way. The first phase covers the F-14A/B upgrade programme, including airframe service-life enhancements and digital avionics.
The second step is the integration of selected precision weapons. The $1.6 billion F-14 Block I Strike programme was terminated because of lack of funding. The USN is now seeking $25 million in FY96 to initiate what it describes as an affordable strike upgrade. One option would be to incorporate the Joint Direct Attack Munition on the F-14.
The scale of continuing importance of the F-18 to the USN is apparent from its plans to buy some 1,000 F/A-18E/Fs. The E/F upgrade will extend the F-18's range, improve its survivability and increase its payload.
The first aircraft, is scheduled to be rolled out, on 19 September and the E/F's first flight, is planned for early December. A variant of the E/F is being proposed as the EA-6B Prowler electronic-warfare (EW) aircraft replacement early in the next century.
SQUEEZE ON FUNDING
Unlike the RN and the Russian navy, the USN continues to operate fixed-wing airborne early-warning aircraft. Like the A-12, however, an advanced airborne early-warning (AEW) programme has been shelved. Instead, the Grumman E-2C will remain the backbone of its AEW capability.
The USN bought four E-2Cs in FY95 and has requested three more E-2C Group II aircraft in FY96. Firm plans call for 20 E-2Cs over the next five years. An additional 16 aircraft would follow, beginning in the year 2000.
With the continuing squeeze on funding, the latent rivalry between the USN and the US Air Force has once again developed into a public battle over roles. A similar, but more discreet debate is also occurring in the UK and almost certainly between all other air and naval aviators, as they struggle to retain resources.
While neither the RN nor the RAF will publicly criticise one another, behind closed doors there is considerable inter-service rivalry over roles and capability.
After over 30 years of providing the UK with a flexible tactical nuclear deterrent, the RAF is to lose this role by 1998 to the RN, with its Trident ballistic-missile submarines.
Each of the Trident boats will have some D5 missiles assigned to the sub-strategic role, with a smaller warhead. This, however, still does not provide the flexibility of a Tornado GR4-type aircraft equipped with a tactical air-launched nuclear stand off missile.
Having lost this battle, the RAF is now looking warily at the RN's next-generation carrier aspirations, and the roles that it may fulfil.
There is a perennial argument between those who advocate the long-range deployment of land-based aircraft against those who propound the in-theatre deployment of carrier-based aircraft. The Falklands war highlighted the lengths to which the RAF was willing to go in pushing long-range land-based operations, with Avro Vulcan strikes from Ascension Island. These attacks against Port Stanley airfield consumed a massive amount of fuel and required an inordinate number of tanker aircraft to support the raids, which achieved very little.
There are those within the USAF who have been pushing the Northrop B-2 as a platform for global-power projection in trying to re-assign an aircraft which was designed as a nuclear-strike aircraft. The weaknesses, however, of using this class of aircraft in such a role, are all too apparent.
During the Falklands war, the RN argued that it could carry out strikes against the airfield much more effectively, and at a fraction of the cost, from its carriers. The USN has made the same argument against the B-2, and it appears to have won.
Also fuelling the rivalry between the RAF and RN is the struggle for resources. Obtaining the JAST aircraft as a replacement for its F/A2s is a priority within the RN, but the RAF is less confident about the JAST aircraft in its CTOL configuration as a replacement for its Panavia Tornado GR4 strike aircraft.
The JAST aircraft will be a single-engine, single-crew machine. The RAF's preference for a future offensive aircraft to meet Staff Target (Air) 425 is for a two-crew twin-engine long-range aircraft, which the JAST programme will not meet.
Some senior RAF officers have expressed doubt as to the RN's procurement policy of splitting the acquisition of a next-generation aircraft from the CVSG(R) programme. They argue that the whole procurement should be considered as an integral package.
JAST OPERATIONS
Instead, the RN intends to operate the JAST ASTOVL aircraft initially from its Invincible- class ships: the JAST aircraft's footprint must fit on the deck lift of this class.
Effectively separating the two procurements will spread the cost of the acquisitions over a longer period, and will also keep them as discrete items within the defence budget. In all probability, this move will also increase the programme's chances of survival.
Survival remains the key issue for many carrier operators, although not those of the USA. The USN must, however, cut its financial cloth to suit these less profligate times. Its carrier fleet will get smaller, both in numbers and possibly in the size of its next-generation ship.
The RN also remains devoted to the concept of carrier operations, although it will face a hard struggle to convince those holding the nation's purse strings that the aircraft carrier still offers best value for money. It is an argument, which is now being rehearsed, and will be heard in many of the treasuries of those nations, which want to sustain shipborne maritime air power.
Source: Flight International
