shrinking USN carrier air wings

“to suggest that USN is letting conventional capabilitiy slip is a gross understatement and factually not backable.”

So what else is new?

Actually its good for the USN that they are still being underestimated, now for well over 200 years.

It will make the next victories much more sweeter.

LOL

The Russians still think they have the best ships and navy.

Good for them.

But is nonetheless:

” factually not backable.”

LOL

What a world!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

fear should be that if, heaven forbid a war breaks out between the US and China or Russia then the US will be sending the most elite force of terrorist busters the world has ever known against a conventional advanced enemy that has been training for a bloody long time for the occasion. The AWACS guided flankers, the teen series SAM umbrellas and the modern naval fleets really dont care much if their facing a pilot whos been spending the last 5-10 years putting JDAMS on target from medium altitute with basically no surface to air or air to air threat so to speak of.

How then do you explain the USN singlehandedly carrying the Aim-120C7 and D programs ( specially when the AF reduced its funding for them) and the Aim-9X and JHMCS programs ? Moreover they are transitioning into Hawkeye2000’s and adv hawkeye’s which they dont really need to bomb terrorists either . Then comes the apg-79 etc etc , to suggest that USN is letting conventional capabilitiy slip is a gross understatement and factually not backable .

It might be good to actually see the UCAV replacing the long lost A-6 Intruder – meaning an air wing of:

24 x F/A-18F
24 x F-35C
12 x A-47 (a production version of the X-47, but enlarged a bit)
6 x EA-18G
4 x E-2D

Plus the usual detachments of MH-60 ‘R’ and ‘S’ versions.

The point still remains that a force of SH and JSF would almost certainly offer more AIRCRAFT READY ON DECK then the f-14 and f-18 fleet before it due to obvious reasons and design requirments , moreoever once the J_UCAS goes active it would offer some capability aswell . USN has over the years seen increases in sensor rech , situational awareness , strike capability , targets per sortie , lower MTBF , lower Mission failure rates etc etc therefore they have adjusted accordingly and with newer technology the capability remains the same but the recources required to acheive that capability has fallen .

Reduced carrier wings are largely (but not always) academic. Historically (Falklands, WWII) most navies SUDDENLY discover an ability to increase their airwings in times of war. Peacetime capabilities are not always a reflection of what a navy can field when it feels its back is up against a wall. Besides with silver bullet forces of F22As, B2As and tomahawk initial strikes, we may find the U.S Navy taking a secondary strike role after air supremacy has been achieved by these stealth assets. This may mean the carriers will not be forward deployed at the beginning of a conflict (say Taiwan straits) which obviouisly maybe to the detriment of U.S forward projection capablities.

It used to be approx. 85:
One squadron of F-14 Tomcats;
Three of F/A-18 Hornets;
Four EA-6B Prowlers;
Four E-2C Hawkeyes;
Six S-3 Vikings;
Two ES-3A Shadows;
Eight SH-3 Sea Kings or SH-60 Seahawks

So, basically F-14 sqdn replaced by F/A-18, plus Vikings/Shadows gone. However, didnt the CVN all get a marine party and a complement of UH-60 transports? (Theodore Roosevelt and CVW-8 began their third deployment, teamed with the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) to test the concept of embarking a multi-purpose Marine force in a carrier.)

Hell at one point it was:

24 F-14s
24 F-18s
10 Intruders for strike
4 KA-6s
4 EA-6 Prowlers
10 Vikings
4 Hawkeyes
8 CH-60s
and maybe an E-2 COD (The number was 89 aircraft but I don’t recall the exact mix of choppers and non-strike intruders)

A nice fantasy loadout would have been:

24 NATFs
24 F-35s
10 A-12s
And maybe replace the other Prowlers with tanker and electronic warfare versions of the A-12. Would have been able to carry a butt load of fuel as a tanker.

Keep the Hawkeye as is (the Advanced Hawkeye with the 8-blade props and an AESA).
Don’t know what you’d replace the Vikings and the ASW choppers with though. Maybe the V-22 but it’s got a huge footprint and I can’t imagein firing one up just for at sea replenishment.

The fear should be that if, heaven forbid a war breaks out between the US and China or Russia then the US will be sending the most elite force of terrorist busters the world has ever known against a conventional advanced enemy that has been training for a bloody long time for the occasion. The AWACS guided flankers, the teen series SAM umbrellas and the modern naval fleets really dont care much if their facing a pilot whos been spending the last 5-10 years putting JDAMS on target from medium altitute with basically no surface to air or air to air threat so to speak of.

The fact that the majority of the US military is slowly unlearning how to fight a conventional war in its rush to defeat the ‘terrorists’ to the point that it may not have the basic skill and training levels required in the dark arts of conventional warfare.

China isn’t a force on force issue. I would assume you would mean a Taiwan situation. First of all there China, while they sabre rattle, aren’t stupid most days of the week. We are not going to attack one piece of hardware on their mainland because that would go right to nuclear war. China has said that already. So… Taiwan. Any Taiwan situation where the old guard Chicoms decide on a military campaign to force the issue means many senior Chicoms have their rice bowl upset with all the current graft they are getting from the current economic condition. War would only upset this and make a lot of people there very unhappy as their graft/payoffs would dribble down to nothing with a sudden closed trade gravy train from conflict. Going back to my force on force not needed as a response,…. China gets a lot of their oil via the South China Sea <-> Indian Ocean. They don’t have a great deal of oil reserves either,…They don’t have a hardcore blue water navy to keep all of that traffic from getting cut off. Not to mention other merchant traffic. So again, the Chinese aren’t that dumb. They aren’t dumb like us and just do war for no end gain or plan.

Russia. Doubtful here too, as the most potent thing they have right now is their nuke force.

Conventional air war is not our problem. There isn’t any crisis here. Other countries using legacy jets will die in the face of F-22 like solutions. Fact: Our aircraft and netcentric warfare means a lot of targets die in any weather with sub 2 meter accuracy.

Navy aviators have in fact said that 4-5 Super Hornets in one sortie can take out more targets than what took a whole squadron of Navy strike aircraft to do, in Desert Storm and oh by the way, if it is a fixed target, it dies even if the weather is bad. Not possible with dumb iron and LGBs. A mission carrying dumb iron is a wasted and dumb mission today. We have gone from the era of sorties per target, to the era of targets per sortie.

The smaller carrier air wing is a cost/efficientcy thing for peace time. Pushing that ratio further. A carrier today with less modern cheap near all weather PGM jets can hit far more targets in a day of work ( 2-3 sorties per airframe ) than the carrier of yesterday. We are talking dead targets. Not the old way of having a whole flight or squadron go after 1-2 targets in an area and shotgun it with dumb iron, and the occasional fair weather PGM. Add to that, in times of war , they will put extra squadrons on the carrier deck as needed. No big deal. Carrier aviation, inspite of some bland airframe selections because of dumb decisons, won’t be too bad off. And yes it could be improved. However, with advanced sensors, networks/netcentricity, shorter kill chains and cheap PGMs as a staple diet for strike warfare, the only one at a disadvantage is an enemy. Our problem isn’t the things you outlined. Our problem is engaging in an endless cycle of no-gain_Team America/World Police expeditionary warfare which burns up a lot of cash. A process that hasn’t stopped since the end of the cold war.

Nope, it is not the lack of planes that’s making USN do this. it’s something else. (probably money) Cause USN has some 280 superhornets, 461 C/D models and is still operating 78 of A/B models. That is over 800 combat planes for a total of 11 carriers. basically, if they somehow lose entire air wings on 6 carriers, they could replace them with new airplanes.

Well, with the USN retiring the USS John F. Kenndy maybe they can increase the number of aircraft per wing? I can remember when a CVW had 24 F-14’s, 24-F/A-18’s and 14- A-6’s (i.e.10 A-6’s & 4 KA-6’s)…………..plus 10 Vikings, 6-8 Helo’s and 4 Hawkeyes!

its the issue of the skill sets of the pilots beeing so narrowed down to perfecting the anti terror task that the skills to fight a modern conventional war against an advanced enemy are diminishing

Do you have breakups of how they train ?? how do you know they neglect intercept missions , fighting and practicing sukhois etc et ?? Are you familiar with their current training routines , how they train to counter a threat to a carrier , penetrate Airspace ?

you dont get my point do ya.. the weakness in all this is not the turn around rates, the available fighters or whatever, its the issue of the skill sets of the pilots beeing so narrowed down to perfecting the anti terror task that the skills to fight a modern conventional war against an advanced enemy are diminishing

the point being ?? Even if you remove the BOMB DROPPING role , the SH , JSF fleet can still give you readiness rates and turn around times that are much better ( not just margianally) better due to lesser man hours required , quick fixes , lesser down times and faster turn around times , so even with the reduced no.s you would still have more aircraft battle ready available to you all tied up with the best force multiplying asset ( NC) available through onboard , ofboard and satelite sensors.

Bring it on, that whole concept should be kinda disturbing to the U.S. military. I have read in several publications including AFM and Air International over the years that although a plane may be able to swing role and the pilot is trained in all areas, it still comes down to practice, and its not like riding a bike, as you drastically concentrate on one area (CAS against an insurgent force) you train less in other areas that could one day be very much needed if a real war breaks out (REAL air combat against REAL EFFECTIVE air forces or interdiction against something more capable than a 3rd world air defence setup with more than just a silver bullet force of a handfull of modern SAM’s).

The fear should be that if, heaven forbid a war breaks out between the US and China or Russia then the US will be sending the most elite force of terrorist busters the world has ever known against a conventional advanced enemy that has been training for a bloody long time for the occasion. The AWACS guided flankers, the teen series SAM umbrellas and the modern naval fleets really dont care much if their facing a pilot whos been spending the last 5-10 years putting JDAMS on target from medium altitute with basically no surface to air or air to air threat so to speak of.

The fact that the majority of the US military is slowly unlearning how to fight a conventional war in its rush to defeat the ‘terrorists’ to the point that it may not have the basic skill and training levels required in the dark arts of conventional warfare.

it isnt about no.s on the deck as much as no.s available to fly off the deck at any given time ( ie. fleet readiness) and what capabilities they bring , in todays times all the carriers are doing is ground pounding and the JDAM has brought quite a bit of effeciency to Targets per sortie no.s therefore less is required to do more .

Yes, but why would you want to simply keep overall capability where it is when you could increase it by buying a few more aircraft?

But isn’t the Superhornet significantly more reliable and hence fewer airframes are needed to do the same job ? Didn’t someone post up some serviceability statistics a while ago whch showed a big difference between the F-18 and anything else in the inventory ?

What is up with that? I can understand that, for example, 14 piece unit of tomcats is being replaced by 12 piece unit of superhornets, but overall the number of planes on the average USN carrier has dropped by a large amount in the last few years. If i am not mistaken before there used to be some 60 combat planes (hornets, tomcats) and now all the USN carriers operate with 4 groups of 12 hornets, for a total of just 48 combat aircraft. And in additon to that S3 are being retired too. That was 8 planes per carrier. So basically USN is operating some 20 planes than it used to. I think USN now, with new air wings, has a replacement plane for every combat plane on the carrier.

It used to be approx. 85:
One squadron of F-14 Tomcats;
Three of F/A-18 Hornets;
Four EA-6B Prowlers;
Four E-2C Hawkeyes;
Six S-3 Vikings;
Two ES-3A Shadows;
Eight SH-3 Sea Kings or SH-60 Seahawks

So, basically F-14 sqdn replaced by F/A-18, plus Vikings/Shadows gone. However, didnt the CVN all get a marine party and a complement of UH-60 transports? (Theodore Roosevelt and CVW-8 began their third deployment, teamed with the Special Purpose Marine Air Ground Task Force (SPMAGTF) to test the concept of embarking a multi-purpose Marine force in a carrier.)