RN carrier vs. USN carrier in the 70's
Sun-Ho Beck
I had a very interesting discussion with some Brits about "RN carrier vs.
USN carrier" exercises in the 1970's.
To my surprise, HMS Ark Royal with its small airwing of some 26
Phantoms/Buccaneers could manage to penetrate US defence layers of Tomcats,
Phantoms and SAM's, "sinking" much larger/modern USS Enterprise and USS
Kennedy. Even more surprising is much smaller Invincible class mini carriers
could do that in the 1980's.
The Brits said:
1. Who scores the first hit decides who wins.
2. Buccaneer was very hard to kill for F-4.
3. A larger airwing does not have any particular advantage when launching an
all-out strike in carrier vs. carrier battle, because it takes too much time
to get all of its aircraft airborne.
So, how do you think? Please post other examples of USN vs. RN exercises
from the 1960's and confirm whether the story of small Invincibles "sinking"
US monsters is true.
Below are excerpts from "The British Navy" webboard of www.insidetheweb.com.
(Because the British Navy posters did not provide their E-mail addresses, I
could not get their permission to quote their writings. Sorry for Mr. John
G.)
¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú
The British Navy
Re: Correction
Monday, 05-Apr-99 13:52:41
195.92.194.44 writes:
Defending against a US Carrier attack would be difficult, but its not an
impossible goal, nor is the goal of 'sinking' a US carrier group. The small
Invinsible's with their Sea Harriers have been judged to have sunk US Super
carriers on a few occasions, so the Ark would have had a fair chance.
The Buccaneer would not have had too much trouble from the F-4s, since a
fully loaded and fueled Bucc is faster and more manouverable than a fully
loaded and fueled F-4.
While there are large numbers of US aircraft, you don't put your entire air
wing in the air at once. For a US group, at most you have 8-10 F-4s in the
air, with maybe another two on deck. To launch the rest of your fighter
cover takes time, even on effecicent US carriers with good crews, and it
only takes a few seconds to score the vital hit with stand off and even iron
bombs.
As for the US strike, the same pattern applies. It is very difficult to get
the entire strike complement of a US Carrier in the air at once, you'd need
tankers in the air to fuel up the early aircraft, so that they could wait
for the last to take off. If they attack piece meal, then the British
fighters could attempt to pick them off as they arrive.
While the probable outcome is a US victory, it is by no means impossible for
even a small carrier to make a successful attack or a successful defence.
There are advantages in having a small airgroup sometimes.
John G
¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú
Re: Correction
Monday, 05-Apr-99 14:55:43
195.166.139.130 writes:
Against the missiles and aircraft of the time the bucc's were a difficult
kill. Flying at 100 feet (or less), as they were designed to do, they were
difficult to track on radar (below surface radar to 60 miles or so, lost in
clutter from the air). Very few fighter jocks would attempt to catch them
from any altitude because of the danger of diving into the sea, remembering
that the F-4 was built like a truck and handled like one at low levels. Heat
seeking missiles at the time found it difficult to lock on a target that low
(especially if the sea was choppy). If the bucc's were using missiles then
they would not have come within range of gunnery.
For carrier defence you would need aircraft both at high and low level
(twice as many aircraft in the air), to have the vaguest chance of
intercepting a strike. High level is required to find the incoming aircraft
(even intercept a naughty high level attack), low level to carry out the
intercept (it would take too long to bring aircraft down from 30K). In
addition it was customary for attacks to be timed to allow the aircraft to
strike from several directions at once (if at all possible), so the
defending fighters would be even further stretched.
A strike from American aircraft would be a different matter, practice then,
was to attack as a flock, travelling at medium altitude therefore very
visible. The extra visibility of an attack formation would give extra
minutes to react, in favourable conditions even to launch extra fighters to
intercept. Overall therefore the requirements for defence aircraft is lower.
This brings everything back to who can get the first scoring strike in as to
who wins.
ray
¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú
Re: A-6
Wednesday, 07-Apr-99 07:57:25
195.92.194.15 writes:
The US has been building large carriers because of their flexibility,
excellent uses and large airwings, plus their 'scare' value.
Large Carriers are still the best, WW2 showed that to be the case. However,
I was just pointing how a small airwing can, sometimes cause upsets.
If you want real exercise examples, you'll have to check the records.
Normally I'd go look, but to find all those examples from the admiralty
vaultes would take forever.
However, exercise 'Solid Shield' and 'Ocean Safari' both showed how the
tactics I showed could work, with many RN successes. While the RN Carrier
and her group often took major 'damage' and was judged to have been sunk
several times, the same was true of the USN Carriers, which were Kennedy and
Enterprise in the late 70s.
USN exchange pilot Lt 'Hollywood' Seider said the Arks level of 'training
and personnel quality would've been the envy of any USN Air Wing Commander'.
John G
¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú
Re: Thank you very much Mr. John G
Wednesday, 07-Apr-99 08:30:22
195.92.194.15 writes:
Oh yeah, the Big Carriers are the best for almost all operations and no
admiral is going to turn them down if his defence department offered to give
him the funding for them *s*
As for the exercises, both came from the 1973 records, which also includes
exercise 'Sally Forth', fairly well known for its record number of launches
from the Ark, but not so much for its actual combat performances.
The time of the exercises is in the summer. The Squadrons on the Ark were
892, flying the Phanton FG.1. I think that the US airwing might have been
VF-11 and VMFA-531, but I can't be sure, the US side of things isn't so
clear from the UK records.
The combat exercises included multiple practice attacks on each other, with
and without certain features of each airwing like AEW, Tomcats, Phantoms
etc.
Attack Sorties were also flown on USN ranges against hulks, and joint
attacks on the Vieques Island range.
There was also a large number of cross-decking operations during 'Solid
Shield' which involved the arrival of the legendary USN pilot Cmdr James
Flatley III on the Ark.
Getting more info on Combat specifics would be hard, I'm sorry. A lot of it
remains MoD classified for some reason. Maybe USN records would be easier to
look at?
John G
¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú¡Ú
Regards,
Beck
**** Posted from RemarQ - http://www.remarq.com - Discussions Start Here (tm) ****
Paul J. Adam
<foy...@unitel.co.kr> writes
>To my surprise, HMS Ark Royal with its small airwing of some 26
>Phantoms/Buccaneers could manage to penetrate US defence layers of Tomcats,
>Phantoms and SAM's, "sinking" much larger/modern USS Enterprise and USS
>Kennedy. Even more surprising is much smaller Invincible class mini carriers
>could do that in the 1980's.
A considerable source of pride, and very valuable training exercises for
both sides, but I wouldn't want to _rely_ on it working in wartime.
>The Brits said:
>
>1. Who scores the first hit decides who wins.
>2. Buccaneer was very hard to kill for F-4.
>3. A larger airwing does not have any particular advantage when launching an
>all-out strike in carrier vs. carrier battle, because it takes too much time
>to get all of its aircraft airborne.
#3 is the kicker - a larger air wing gives you more aircraft with which
to find and kill the enemy, while knocking down _his_ searchers.
He who finds the enemy without being seen wins...
--
There are four kinds of homicide: felonious, excusable, justifiable and
praiseworthy...
Paul J. Adam pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk
Cheng Tseng
>> #3 is the kicker - a larger air wing gives you more aircraft with which
>> to find and kill the enemy, while knocking down _his_ searchers.
>>
>> He who finds the enemy without being seen wins...
>>
>That was probably true in WWII, but today we have AEW systems and advance
>surface radar so there would be little advantage in more aircraft trying to
>find the enemy as the USN vs. RN exercises prove.
Okay... What about the "knocking down" part?
Consider a scenario that assumes that HMS Ark Royal (The old one) was playing
the part of Red Force:
26 aircraft strike from Red Force Carrier- USN detects by AEW, sends up two
squadrons of Tomcats + whatever extra fighter aircrafts that might be
necessary to go 1 on 1 to intercept.
AEW also detects Red Force Carrier Group- USN sends up the REMAINDER of its
air wing, against a Red Force that no longer have any aircraft to intercept.
Result: USN probably splashes Red Force Sierra Strike, while Red Force is
going to be short a couple of ships.
The point is that a larger carrier, with a larger fighter group, allows you to
do more at the same time. That is not an insignificant advantage.
C.T.
Karl
Chris Manteuffel
wrote:
What sort of AEW did the Brits have in the 1970's? I seem to recall a
rather hasty adoption of helicopter AEW after a certain war that was
in the South Atlantic. Of course, back when the Brits had fixed wing
planes, they might have had *real* AEW, capable of C3I instead of just
datalinking the information back to the CVS;-)
Chris Manteuffel
Sun-Ho Beck
radar.
Hope this helps.
Paul J. Adam
<foxb...@aol.com> writes
>What sort of AEW did the Brits have in the 1970's?
Gannet turboprops with (IIRC) APS-120 radars on the carriers,
Shackletons with APS-120 flying from land.
Matt Clonfero
>What sort of AEW did the Brits have in the 1970's?
The Gannet. A pug-ugly aircraft with a counterrotating propeller on the
nose.
Aetherem Vincere
Matt
--
Matt Clonfero: Mat...@aetherem.demon.co.uk | To err is human, To forgive
My employer and I have a deal - I don't speak | is not Air Force Policy.
for them, and they don't speak for me. | -- Anon, ETPS.
ANDREW BREEN
>rather hasty adoption of helicopter AEW after a certain war that was
>in the South Atlantic. Of course, back when the Brits had fixed wing
>planes, they might have had *real* AEW, capable of C3I instead of just
>datalinking the information back to the CVS;-)
Fairey Gannet. The Sea King conversions bodged up in the aftermath
of the Falklands used radars salvaged from the scrapped Gannets,
but the Gannet had a much better operational ceiling and a very
much longer loiter time.
The Gannet, to explain, was a large and plug-ugly twin-turboprop
aeroplane, originally designed for ASW, AEW and possibly strike
in lower-threat environments. Unusually, the Gannet had its
twin engines grouped in the nose of the aeroplane, driving
contra-rotating props. This meant that it could loiter with
only one engine running, then kick in the second engine when
needed.
The French Alize was about the same generation as the Gannet,
but was (and is) smaller and less capable.
--
Andy Breen ~ PPARC Advanced Research Fellow
Solar Physics Group
University of Wales, Aberystwyth
My posting, my opinions..
M.J.Powell
<Ma...@aetherem.demon.co.uk> writes
>In article <37222299...@news.erols.com>, Chris Manteuffel
><foxb...@aol.com> wrote:
>
>>What sort of AEW did the Brits have in the 1970's?
>
>nose.
Specifically designed for naval pilots to fly standing up.
(RAF joke.)
Mike
Thomas Schoene
<7fv8hk$5ri$1...@osfa.aber.ac.uk>...
recall a
> >rather hasty adoption of helicopter AEW after a certain war that
was
> >in the South Atlantic. Of course, back when the Brits had fixed
wing
> >planes, they might have had *real* AEW, capable of C3I instead of
just
> >datalinking the information back to the CVS;-)
>
> Fairey Gannet. The Sea King conversions bodged up in the aftermath
> of the Falklands used radars salvaged from the scrapped Gannets,
Really? I've always been under the impression that the AEW helos had
Searchwater radars derived from the Nimrod radar, not the APS-20 on
the Gannet.
--
--------------------------------------------------
TomSc...@worldnet.att.net
*Insert pithy quote here*
Martin Sinclair
>
>>What sort of AEW did the Brits have in the 1970's?
>
>of the Falklands used radars salvaged from the scrapped Gannets,
Err.....sorry, no.
The radars from the Gannets went into the Shackletons, or so it
was described to me on a tour of 8 Sqn in RAF Lossiemouth c.1980
(Shackleton - large, four-RR-Griffon, eight-propellored rivet
formation that was an upgraded Lancaster) and APS-120 is
_far_ too high a number. APS-20.....
The radars that went into the Sea King AEW were Racal Searchwater,
same as in the Nimrod. The radar that will be in the Sea King AEW
upgrade is the Searchwater 2000.
Apocrypha : RAF Lossiemouth is also home to 12 Sqn RAF, who then
flew Buccaneers in the maritime strike role (now it's Tornado
GR.1B). The 8 Sqn unofficial sticker read "eight screws
is better than two blow-jobs"......
More apocrypha : the 12 Sqn film was one of the better ones; lots
of nice photography of Buccaneers to the strains of Vangelis.
Yet more : Of course, the UK's attempted choice of AEW aircraft
runs from WWII bomber upgrade (until 1991 or so), to world's
first jet airliner, before settling on the US airliner which
benefited from the problems of the first jet airliner....
Martin
First of Foot, Right of the Line
ANDREW BREEN
Martin Sinclair <martin....@gecm.com> wrote:
>In article <7fv8hk$5ri$1...@osfa.aber.ac.uk>, a...@aber.ac.uk says...
>>
>>>What sort of AEW did the Brits have in the 1970's?
>>
>>Fairey Gannet. The Sea King conversions bodged up in the aftermath
>>of the Falklands used radars salvaged from the scrapped Gannets,
>
>Err.....sorry, no.
>
>The radars from the Gannets went into the Shackletons, or so it
>was described to me on a tour of 8 Sqn in RAF Lossiemouth c.1980
>(Shackleton - large, four-RR-Griffon, eight-propellored rivet
>formation that was an upgraded Lancaster) and APS-120 is
>_far_ too high a number. APS-20.....
I knew that some of the ex-Gannet radars went into the AvShacks,
but I'd thought that the original AEW Sea King bodges -the ones
lashed up as the Falklands progressed, but not ready until after
the end - used ex-Gannet radars. The production AEW Sea Kings
I knew had Searchwater.
I'm quite prepared to be proved wrong on this, though.
>
>The radars that went into the Sea King AEW were Racal Searchwater,
>same as in the Nimrod. The radar that will be in the Sea King AEW
>upgrade is the Searchwater 2000.
>
>Apocrypha : RAF Lossiemouth is also home to 12 Sqn RAF, who then
>flew Buccaneers in the maritime strike role (now it's Tornado
>GR.1B). The 8 Sqn unofficial sticker read "eight screws
>is better than two blow-jobs"......
>
I remember the Shacks. The MR Shacks as well as the AEWs. Wonderful
sight.
Apocrypha: Shackletons were widely claimed to be like Elephants.
Grey and wrinkly on the outside, black and smelly on the inside.
Think 40-odd years of stray stew..
>More apocrypha : the 12 Sqn film was one of the better ones; lots
>of nice photography of Buccaneers to the strains of Vangelis.
>
>Yet more : Of course, the UK's attempted choice of AEW aircraft
>runs from WWII bomber upgrade (until 1991 or so), to world's
>first jet airliner, before settling on the US airliner which
>benefited from the problems of the first jet airliner....
>
Worlds first designed-as-such jet airliner. IIRC the first jet
airliner was a Vickers a/c, based on the Warwick (and probably
the only geodectic jet). The first four-engined jet airliner
was the Avro Ashton, which shared a wing with a certain
prop-driven maritime patrol 'plane..
>
>Martin
>
>First of Foot, Right of the Line
>
Sorry for lack of snippery. This terminal doesn't do VT100 very
well. Certainly doesn't know about DEC edit keys. Dam' IBM
nonsense...
ran...@notatnetcom.com
Sinclair) wrote:
snip
>Apocrypha : RAF Lossiemouth is also home to 12 Sqn RAF, who then
>flew Buccaneers in the maritime strike role (now it's Tornado
>GR.1B). The 8 Sqn unofficial sticker read "eight screws
>is better than two blow-jobs"......
I like unofficial unit mottos. My favorite remains, Minesweepers do
it with pigs, otters and 6 bitches. I still have this sticker from
USS Pledge but I'll wait until I retire before I put it on one of my
cars.
>
>More apocrypha : the 12 Sqn film was one of the better ones; lots
>of nice photography of Buccaneers to the strains of Vangelis.
>
>Yet more : Of course, the UK's attempted choice of AEW aircraft
>runs from WWII bomber upgrade (until 1991 or so), to world's
>first jet airliner, before settling on the US airliner which
>benefited from the problems of the first jet airliner....
What can one say about a race so clueless that they give one of their
aircraft a name like Nimrod?
random
just cleared off crutches 2 hours ago. 3 months was too long!!!!!
Pyers Symon
>
> What can one say about a race so clueless that they give one of their
> aircraft a name like Nimrod?
>
And Cush begat Nimrod: he began to be a mighty one in the earth.
He was a mighty hunter before the LORD: wherefore it is said,
Even as Nimrod the mighty hunter before the LORD.
Genesis 10: 8,9 (King James Version)
Most erudite & appropriate !!
> random
> just cleared off crutches 2 hours ago. 3 months was too long!!!!!
Pyers Symon
Martin Sinclair
>
> What can one say about a race so clueless that they give one of their
> aircraft a name like Nimrod?
...as opposed to the awe-inspiring "Freedom Fighter", "Fighting Falcon",
"Lancer" (<irony> constantly used by the media, not) and abandoning
"Lightning" for "Raptor" ?
Shame on your lack of biblical studies...
> random
> just cleared off crutches 2 hours ago. 3 months was too long!!!!!
Hey, breaking your leg by falling onto water from a couple of feet
was pretty impressive......still, you were trying to skim, I suppose :-)
Paul J. Adam
writes
>What can one say about a race so clueless that they give one of their
>aircraft a name like Nimrod?
Nimrod nimĒrod,
noun any great hunter.
[From the son of Cush in the Bible, Gen 10. 8-10]
(c) Larousse plc. All rights reserved
ran...@notatnetcom.com
<Pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>In article <37250940...@nntp.cts.com>, ran...@notatnetcom.com
>writes
>>What can one say about a race so clueless that they give one of their
>>aircraft a name like Nimrod?
>
>Nimrod nimĒrod,
>noun any great hunter.
>[From the son of Cush in the Bible, Gen 10. 8-10]
>
>(c) Larousse plc. All rights reserved
oops, tripped up by hordes of Calvinists and other theologians.
random :)
Paul J. Adam
writes
>On Tue, 27 Apr 1999 22:49:02 +0100, "Paul J. Adam"
><Pa...@jrwlynch.demon.co.uk> wrote:
>>In article <37250940...@nntp.cts.com>, ran...@notatnetcom.com
>>writes
>>>What can one say about a race so clueless that they give one of their
>>>aircraft a name like Nimrod?
>>
>>Nimrod nimĒrod,
>>noun any great hunter.
>oops, tripped up by hordes of Calvinists and other theologians.
Nah, just by superior British education. I would be an agnostic if I
were sure I could spell it right :)
Sun-Ho Beck
carriers?... :(