Vikramaditya (formerly Admiral Gorskhov) Vs INS Viraat R22 (former HMS Hermes R12)

In post #98 [pg 4], Obi Wan Russell wrote:
“I think you are referring to the post CVA-01 cancellation offer by the US Government in 1966 of THREE Essex class CVs to the RN in order to keep it’s main ally in the carrier club. The actual ships have not been named, although most writers assumed they would be three of the six SCB-27C/ SCB-125 modernisations (ie two steam catapults, angled deck, hurricane bow etc) but now it seems they may have been offering unmodernised vessel held in reserve which could be modernised to British standards as a ‘blank slate’ (British catapults, arrestor gear, radars etc).”

There were 4 basically unmodified Essex class carriers available in 1966 (plus 3 with relatively minor modifications):
CVS-13 Franklin – decom 17/2/47; stricken 1/10/64 (sold for scrap 27/7/66 [AVT-8 1959])
CVS-17 Bunker Hill – decom 9/1/47; stkn 1/11/66 (test ship > Nov 1972; Scrapped 1973[AVT-9 1959])
{both of these were being held for “ultimate modernization” after having been repaired from severe battle damage in WW2}
CVS-32 Leyte – decom 15/5/59; stkn 1/12/69 (sold for scrap _/_/70 [AVT-10 1959])
CVS-47 Philippine Sea – decom 28/12/58; stkn 1/12/69 (sold for scrap _/3/71 [AVT-11 1959])

CVS-36 Antietam – decom 8/5/63; stkn 1/5/73 (sold for scrap 28/2/74 [CVT-36 1957])
{had been the test ship for USN angle deck experiments, and had only a small angle extension (without a supporting sponson), and no other significant improvements)}

CVS-39 Lake Champlain – decom 2/5/66; stkn 1/12/69 (sold for scrap 28/4/72)
CVS-40 Tarawa – decom 13/5/60; stkn 1/6/67 (sold for scrap 3/10/68 [AVT-12 1961])
{these had the basic SCB-27A upgrade, but were not fitted with an angle deck}

Bunker Hill, Leyte, and Phillippine Sea seem to be the most likely, as they were the ones with the least usage… Franklin was likely already well stripped of useful equipment for the ships still in active service.

“Ultimate” Reconstruction: This was a never-realized program to upgrade Essex class ships to a final, completely modern configuration. The SCB-27A/27C programs were seen as a temporary measure pending development of an “ultimate” configuration for the class. Ships of this configuration would have operated with the “supercarrier” United States in large nuclear-strike groups. The design would have been completely flush-decked, with no island at all.

With the death of United States and the development of the angled deck, the “ultimate” plan was reconfigured but probably stayed alive. It is unclear when it was realized that the “ultimate” modernization of Essex class ships should be dropped in favor of SCB 125 and new construction.

Two ships were excluded from other modernization programs to make them available for the “ultimate” conversion — Bunker Hill and Franklin. These ships had been heavily damaged near the end of the war, fully repaired, and laid up in excellent condition. Ultimately they went to the breakers unmodified.

SCB 27A: First major upgrade program applied to Essex class. This was a general, all-around upgrade, including a completely rebuilt and reconfigured island, strengthened flight deck fitted for jets, new arresting gear and hydraulic catapults (H-6 replaced by H-8), new aircraft fueling arrangements, and all deck-level 5 inch guns removed. The gun armament was reduced to 8 single 5/38 DP and 12 to 14 dual 3/50 AA; the gun battery was gradually reduced over time. The rebuild did not include an angled flight deck. Displacement was 40,600 tons, with hull bulging from 93′ to 101′.

SCB 27C: This program replaced the SCB 27A, and went one slightly further. Most details were the same as SCB 27A, but the ships carried C-11 steam catapults rather than hydraulic, and had only 4 5/38 guns. The change to steam catapults was a major operational improvement, and allowed the ships to operate much larger and heavier aircraft with stronger arresting gear, more flight-deck strengthening, and aft elevator moved to starboard deck-edge. Displacement was 43,600 tons, with hull bulging to 103′.

SCB 125: This program was applied to ships already modernized under the SCB 27A/27C programs. The principal changes under SCB 125 was the addition of an angled flight deck to replace the old axial deck arrangement, lengthening the forward elevator, and enclosing the bow. Other features of the ship, including the hydraulic/steam catapult separation between SCB 27A and SCB 27C, were not changed. In some cases this modernization was performed at the same time as an SCB 27A/27C conversion, leading to confusion between the two programs. The prototype conversion for this program was applied to an otherwise unmodified ship (CVS-36), yielding an odd ship with all her WWII features intact, but with an angled deck.

SCB125A: (CVA-34) was the 27C & 125 with metal over the wood flight deck aft and the strongest arresting gear fitted to any Essex carrier.

SCB 144: This program was applied to the ships modified with SCB 27A and 125, but not 27C. This was part of the Fleet Rehabilitation and Modernization (FRAM) II , and incorporated an SQS-23 bow-mounted sonar dome, relocation of the side bow anchors to a single one on the extreme forward stem, and equipment changes in the Combat Information Center. [early 1960s](CVS-9, 10, 12, 15, 18, 20, 33).

Amidships even with the island, and starboard aft of the island… they are smaller than the aircraft elevators on other carriers.

The first drawing shows the original elevator positions [top view is the original layout with bow missiles, and the lower ones are early modification plans], while the second one is supposed to show the new elevator positions.

On the Vikad, where are the a/c elevators? I see two or three ord elevators but cant seem to find the a/c ones.

has the IN ever used the troop carrying the ablity on
hermes as they didn’t refit it back and still have the commando carrier converstion.
is hermes beam to small to take migs?
do the IN have the oldest carrier in commison anywer.

Wasn’t HMS ocean built to civilian standards instead of military standards? That would explain the cost difference.

There is a lot of confusion and misunderstanding on this issue. Nowadays more and more warships are using commercial class rules in design and manufactured with commercial manufacturing techniques and using standard modules for much of their marine systems such as the bridge suite, engine room machinery etc., it doesn’t mean they are just merchant ships with guns but rather it’s quite a sensible approach to not re-invent the wheel and take advantage of existing technical expertise. There is no such idea as a merchant vessel level of construction as ships are built to the customers requirements in terms of quality of materials, systems redundancy etc., and even water tight segregation.

Well I guess we would know by 2008.

its the running jump which i don’t like didn’t. know that CdG had the same problem with the lancher confliting with angled deck but looking at it is much less of a problem as it can still lanch and recover with one cat ratther than both.
i have troble beliving that the mig could take off full load with a drop tank. gorshoves su 33 have lots of troble with loads.

US has naval commitments all over the world to take out PAF no tanker is required. But the navy would still need E-2’s.

Not necessarily E-2. Organic AEW. Helicopters are better than nothing, fixed wing is better still. If an airframe could be found that could operate from ADS & Vikramaditya, with good loiter time, & carry a decent radar (Erieye-style dorsal mount, conformal arrays, retractable ventral as Jonesy suggested, whatever), I’d say “Buy it!”. It doesn’t need to have the E-2s ability to carry operators on board, as the beauty of carrier-borne AEW is that you always have a stonking great big ground station following you around, with lots of room for operators & all their kit.

If ADS was being built with cats, I’d suggest buying spare S-3s, stocks of spares, & mounting a suitable radar on them. IIRC they don’t need as much deck as an E-2, so should be fine on ADS with cats & the number of airframes available & their remaining life means that with proper airframe management you could get the same years of use as from new aircraft. But no catapults.

US has naval commitments all over the world to take out PAF no tanker is required. But the navy would still need E-2’s.

US has 400 odd Tankers and still suffers from a shortage. 12 IL-76s wont cut it for “Global Strike”, think someone is getting grand ideas way above their pay grade!

India is going for 12 tankers for IAF but the number of tankers is moot. You cannot simply line up one tanker after another to keep mig-29K’s flying. E-2 is necessary, hopefully from ADS-2 on In will have the capability.

why not global? One off global strike u can pull of with (A-50+IL-78+MIG-29K)

Because your tankers don’t have infinite range. There comes a point where the tankers need tankers. Then the tankers to refuel the tankers need tankers. The number of tankers needed goes up very fast indeed. The RAF, with far more tankers than India has, or plans to buy, found that the Black Buck raids strained its resources, & the Vulcans involved in those raids didn’t stay on station as an AWACS would have to. And they weren’t trying for global reach. India doesn’t have enough tankers, & isn’t planning to buy enough, for your fantasies.

BTW, what’s the point of this hypothetical one-off strike?

IN will most probably use carrier in Indian ocean and may occasionally use it to bome some third world countries.

For which you don’t need an Il-76 tagging along. And who are you going to bomb, & why?

http://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/mig-29k.htm
Yes, The specs for the carrier flight are max take of weight of 22400 Kg. Assuming 11000kg empty weight and 5240 kg of internal fuel and 2150 litre drop tank (assuming 2000Kg total weight). That still leaves about 4160Kg weapon load. Surely the specs are not given for a CAT assisted launch.

Harry,

On the angled-deck issue I’m afraid I dont think I follow your point!. The angled-deck has to be there otherwise, if the deck where to be axially laid out, the interaction of a ‘bolter’ and the deck park might be both unfortunate and expensive!.

The Gorshkov already had an angled-deck obviously though, equally obviously, this was for an entirely different kind of launch area over the bows!.

This being the case the angled-deck arrangement is remaining quite rightly – the problem is that the deck width is too narrow to deconflict the short-run takeoff spot for the ski-jump from the landing lane. Perhaps a bow catapult could have allowed for the landing run to be cleared instead of the running-jump layout but it wasnt an option and neither, it seems, was widening the beam with sponsons apparently!. The French Charles de Gaulle CVN suffers the same problem owing to a narrow beam so the Indiand and Russians can hardly be faulted for the situation.

The smallest carrier I’ve heard of launching an F-18 was one of the French Clemenceau boats when the Hornet was being touted to replace the Aeronavale Crusaders.

Broncho,

The Mig-29K’s can safely carry a full tank and centreline drop tank containing 2150 litre of fuel along with almost 4 tonne weapon load. I don’t see a big problem with range or load.

Question is can a Fulcrum-K get off a STOBAR deck in the centreline tank plus 4000kg payload configuration?

The Mig-29K’s can safely carry a full tank and centreline drop tank containing 2150 litre of fuel along with almost 4 tonne weapon load. I don’t see a big problem with range or load.

[
Harry,

I’ve not heard of any specific angled-deck issue regarding the conversion?. Any vessel utilising arrested-recovery techniques requires an angled-deck for reasons of safety and optimum deck-flexibility. It simply makes no sense to try and use an axial (single) deck for an arrested-recovery technique carrier these days….unless of course you build it bloody huge!!!.

The problem with Gorshkov is that the takeoff run for the Mig-29’s is so far back it encroaches on the angled landing deck – at least according to published artwork. This means that to land-on an aircraft that launching spot must be clear. Conversley it means that to launch a number of aircraft in rapid succession will take time as the following fighters will have to wait, prior to being spotted, for the launching fighter to be up and emergency free. This also means that the first aircraft launched may have to be buddy-tanked to top-off fuel wasted whilst waiting for the launch evolution to complete etc!.

STOVL on the other hand can see a fighter spotted for launch, a fighter land vertically in front of it then taxi away, then complete the launch immediately when it has a clear run. Very much easier and safer!.

jonesy
you hit the nail on the head of why i don’t like the lanch encroacheing on the the angled deck. because of the lack of a runway if their is the invitable emegency and their are planes in the air and they can’t land.
thats why i do not like the angled deck on Gorshkov seems to be too risky and removes the angled decks saftey and speed if the end is blocked .

i didn’t know that the migs were configered for buddy tanking i would have thought they could carry that much fuel kusenofes su33 seems to have told us that they couldn’t carry a full tank of fule and a meaningful load.

would they indiens have enough migs to act as tankers if they wanted to strike? is 20+ – enough.

also what was the smallest carrier that an f18 had operated off

Why use the Mig-29K then? Su-30 MKI+IL-78+A-50(phalcon) could do the same.

Su-30 does not have the range of A-50/IL-78. bomb laden Su-30 is even less. and that difference increases with airrefuelling of larger aircraft. u need aircraft carrier for transporting fighters.

The carrier will definitely protect its fleet but also needs offensive capability to take the fight to enemy’s territory. I don’t mean just anti-ship role but also establish some sort of air superiority which requires a decent AWAC’s. Unfortunately E-2 can barely get off from gorky or ADS.

I havent seen any airsuperiority based on E-2. Land attack aircraft and bases are more critical.

Why use the Mig-29K then? Su-30 MKI+IL-78+A-50(phalcon) could do the same.

The carrier will definitely protect its fleet but also needs offensive capability to take the fight to enemy’s territory. I don’t mean just anti-ship role but also establish some sort of air superiority which requires a decent AWAC’s. Unfortunately E-2 can barely get off from gorky or ADS.

Not really global. 🙂 Carrier strikes which need land-based AEW seem absolutely pointless to me.

why not global? One off global strike u can pull of with (A-50+IL-78+MIG-29K)
IN will most probably use carrier in Indian ocean and may occasionally use it to bome some third world countries. PS-90 powered IL-76 has extended range, better cruise speed and most probably better radar range because of bigger radar and transmitter. I cannot see India fighting Argentina.

What purpose is the carrier serving? Might as well leave it at home.

carrier is mostly use for fleet defence as long range anti-ship missile are more commonn so u need to intercept those aircraft. and can hunt enemy ships.

E-2c is very much required if the carrier has to operate far away from the shores. phalcon can’t follow it around the sea. Ka-31 can only act as a defensive system with limited capabilities.