Carrier (1999) (72 page)

“Littoral” regions are defined geographically as those areas lying within several hundred miles/kilometers of a coastline. Since the majority of the world’s population, finance, industry, and infrastructure reside in littoral regions, the sea services focus on operations there.

For more on the ARG and MEU (SOC), see:
Marine: A Guided Tour of a Marine Expeditionary Unit
(Berkley Books, 1996).

The primary Zeppelin base for operations against England and the North Sea fleets was at Tondern near Whelimshaven (on the German/Danish border). In July of 1917, seven Sopwith Camels flying from the flying-off deck of HMS Furious attacked the Zeppelin sheds there; three Zeppelins were destroyed in their hangar.

Battle cruisers, a British invention, combined a large hull and power plant with a battleship’s armament. While as fast as a cruiser (twenty-five-plus knots) and as heavily armed as a battleship, they lacked the armor protection of a traditional dreadnought. This made them vulnerable to enemy fire in a gunnery duel, though they could normally run away from a stock battleship.

The “5:5:3 ratio” represented the allowable naval tonnage under the treaty for the U.S., Great Britain and Japan respectively. The treaty held until the 1930s, when the run-up to World War II began.

Though it would be two decades before practical experience would prove it, the single most important characteristic of carrier design is aircraft capacity. No other factor, including speed, antiaircraft armament, or armor protection is so desirable as the ability to carry and operate lots of aircraft. The British found this out the hard way, when they sacrificed aircraft capacity for armor protection in their
Illustrious
-class carriers, which could only carry about thirty-six planes (while the American
Yorktown
(CV-5) and Japanese
Shokaku-
class carriers could carry ninety).

Of the three battleships that sank to the bottom of Taranto Harbor, the
Littorio
and
Caio Duillo
were eventually raised and returned to service. The third vessel, the
Conte de Cavor,
was not repaired prior to the Italian Armistice in 1943.

Unlike the Japanese, who tended to keep their warriers in combat until they died, the United States developed a rotation system to rest and replenish its combat personnel at all levels—even admirals. Thus, the fast carrier fleet had two sets of commanders and staffs: the 3rd Fleet under Admiral Halsey, and the 5th commanded by Admiral Raymond Spruance. After each operation, the two fleet staffs would switch, allowing the outgoing group to rest and plan the next mission. Thus, when Halsey was in command, the fleet was known as Task Force 34; and when Admiral Spruance took over, the carrier force was known as Task Force 58.

In addition to the loss of the
Hiyo,
the Japanese also lost the two large fleet carriers
Shokaku
and
Taiho
to submarine attacks.

One of the few survivors of the purge was Admiral Arleigh Burke, later to become—arguably—the Navy’s greatest modern leader.

The CSS
Virginia
is more widely, though incorrectly, known as the
Merrimac,
after the Union ship that she was built from.

In 1995, the Air Force signed an agreement with the Navy and Marine Corps to retire their fleet of EF- 111A Raven electronic warfarc/jamming aircraft for a series of joint squadrons composed of EA-6B Prowlers. These joint squadrons, which have personnel from all three services, have been formed to provide suppression of enemy air defense (SEAD) services for joint component commanders, and deployed CVWs.

Navy jargon for a rookie flier on their first cruise or deployment.

The most extreme of these engagements occurred early in the Battle of Leyte Gulf, when the commander of Air Group Nine aboard the USS Essex (CV-9), Commander David McCampbell, and a single wingman, Lieutenant Roy Rushing, engaged an incoming Japanese fighter force of over fifty enemy aircraft. McCampbell shot down at least nine, while Rushing killed six. No other American fighter mission—in any war—shot down so many. For this performance, McCampbell was awarded the Medal of Honor, and Rushing the Navy Cross.

A pun. For the Navy, Airedales are not a breed of English terrier but the nickname used by ship’s personnel to describe the Naval aviators of the embarked air wing.

The worst of these losses occurred on the 1967/68 cruise of the USS
Oriskany
(CVA-34) and CVW-16. During 122 days of action on “the line” in the Tonkin Gulf, thirty-nine CVW-16 aircraft were lost to combat and accidents, with twenty air crew killed, and another seven taken prisoner—over half the embarked aircraft, and something over 10% of the aircrew personnel. Vietnam combat cruises with losses of over twenty aircraft were not unusual.

Elmo Zumwalt was an early leader in improving conditions for enlisted personnel in the Navy. He provided much of the impetus for the necessary changes required for the all-volunteer military force that followed Vietnam. He also helped redefine the relationship between officers and enlisted personnel, greatly increasing respect and courtesy between the two groups.

The name derives from the Tailhook Association, a civilian organization that promotes and supports Naval aviation. The Association, which actually sponsors the Las Vegas conferences, had nothing at all to do with the Tailhook scandal (and was officially exonerated during the Department of Defense investigation). The Association is a fine organization, which publishes a superb magazine,
The Hook.

There are still a few enlisted billets in naval aviation, but these arc limited to personnel in charge of cargo loading, para-rescue, and some sensor operations. In general, any position of responsibility is going to have an officer in it.

The naval aviation program also trains air crews for the Coast Guard, which is technically a part of the Department of Transportation. These include graduates of the Coast Guard Academy in New London, Connecticut, as well as the Coast Guard Officer Candidate School at Yorktown, Virginia. Other nations also send their naval aviation candidates to take their training in the U.S.

Just a few years ago, service academy graduates automatically received a regular commission upon graduation. However, in an attempt to even the playing field for non-academy graduates, all new officer commissions are now reserve commissions. Once officers have risen to the rank of lieutenant, they can apply for what is called “augmentation” to a regular status.

Most new aircraft have replaced traditional dial and “strip” instruments with computer-driven MultiFunctional Displays (MFDs). These have the advantage of better presenting data to the air crews, and they can be reconfigured in flight. This means that during takcoff, for example, the air crew can pick the instruments most important to them at that time. So-called “glass cockpits” have between five and a dozen such MFDs, and have become quite popular.

In the 1960s when air-to-air kill ratios against North Vietnamese MiG fighters began to fall off, the dedicated efforts of a couple of F-8 Crusader FRS IPs (James “Ruft” Ruliffson and J.R. “Hot Dog” Brown) created the famous Topgun school. More recently, the F-14 FRS at NAS Oceana, Virginia, managed to hang a modified LANTIRN laser targeting pod onto a Tomcat, so that it could deliver laser-guided bombs. This little trick increased the number of aircraft that could deliver precision weapons in every CVW by about 25%, which is not shabby for an
ad hoc
effort!

The atomic combat requirement was outlined in a famous 1947 memorandum prepared by Rear Admiral Dan Gallery. He was a legendary Naval aviation figure (he commanded the escort carrier group that captured the German U-505 in 1944), and his paper would eventually start a virtual war between the Navy and the newly created Air Force. 28 The original carrier USS
Enterprise
(CV-6) was arguably the U.S. Navy’s greatest warship, with a combat record second to none. She fought in five of the six great carrier-versus-carrier clashes, surviving serious combat damage many times. The
Enterprise
was so hated by the Japanese that they claimed to have sunk her by name on a number of occasions.

USS
Ranger
(CV-4), was the first American carrier built from the keel up. At only about fourteen thousand tons displacement,
Ranger
was tiny compared to
Lexington
and
Saratoga,
and it showed when she went into service. With less than half of the aircraft capacity of the two larger ships,
Ranger
was simply too small to support a powerful air group, and was never considered a front-line vessel. Despite this, the Navy learned valuable lessons from building
Ranger,
and it showed in the next class of aircraft carriers.

A new reactor design under consideration for future carriers will
never
need refueling. This is a tremendous advantage, since refueling is a complex overhaul that takes three years in a shipyard.

Secretary Lehman also authorized the reactivation of the four World War II-era
Iowa
-class (BB-61) battleships armed with antiship and long-range cruise missiles.

Thomas Jefferson also appears on Mount Rushmore, but he was always skeptical about sea power, and in the Navy’s eyes he did not merit the naming of a carrier.

Originally, CVN-75 was to have been named the USS
United States,
after the original supercarrier (CVA-58) broken up on the building ways in 1949. In fact, there exist photos of her keel being laid under that name. However, for political reasons, the Clinton Administration decided to rename her
Harry
S.
Truman.
So for the second time, Harry Truman “sank” the USS
United States
!

The
Virginia
is frequently and incorrectly referred to as the
Merrimac,
which was previously a steam frigate in the Federal Navy. Incompletely burned and scuttled when the Gosport Naval Yard (near the present-day Norfolk Naval Base) was abandoned in 1861 by Federal forces, it was raised and then used to build the Confederate ironclad.

After years of being a part of Tennaco Corporation, Newport News Shipbuilding separated in 1996 and is now a full-time shipbuilding concern.

The four catapults on every carrier are numbered 1 through 4, from the starboard bow (Catapult 1) to the port angle (Catapult 4).

For example, the tiny “LOX crew” cares for a tank of immensely hazardous liquid oxygen, which is used to refill the breathing air systems of some aircraft. This tank sits on an inclined ramp on the deck edge. A quick-release fitting allows it to be sent into the sea in the event of a fire, to prevent a catastrophic explosion.

Because of the high temperatures generated by the engine afterburners of aircraft like the F-14 Tomcat and F/A-18 Hornet, the JBDs contain a system of cooling channels, through which are pumped seawater. This system keeps the hydraulically erected JBDs from melting under the thermal pounding.

The Navy does
not
use radioactive steam to power its catapults. The steam that powers everything on the ship is actually heated in the secondary (non-radioactive) loop of the reactor plant. All of the radioactive components of the reactor plant are contained in either the reactor vessels or the primary cooling loop of the system.

Some people get lucky. In 1983, during an attempted launch on board the USS
John F. Kennedy
(CV-67), the crew of an A-6E Intruder suffered a “cold shot,” and ejected just before the aircraft pitched over the end of the bow into the water. The pilot’s ejection seat fired him up, and his parachute let him down gently, unhurt, onto the deck just in front of the JBD of the catapult that had misfired his aircraft! The bombardier/navigator was not quite so lucky. Because his seat fired an instant earlier, he was thrown farther aft and to the side, and his parachute caught the overhanging tail of an EA-6B Prowler before he hit the ocean. The emergency crews searched for over a half hour before they found the crewman hanging over the side aft of the island, bruised from banging heavily against the hull, but alive.

The only known “live” service firing of Sea Sparrow occurred in 1992, when the USS
Saratoga
(CV- 60) accidentally launched a pair of the SAMs, one of which struck the Turkish destroyer
Mauvenet.
Five Turkish sailors were killed by the detonation of the warhead, including the ship’s captain.

The name is a particularly rude reference to a habit of man’s best friend.

For those of you with a desire to fully understand the workings of nuclear reactors in detail, see my book
Submarine: A Guided Tour of a Nuclear Warship
(Berkley Books, 1992).
44
The term “Skunk Works” refers to the original Lockheed Advanced Projects Division in Burbank, California, which was headed by the legendary Kelly Johnson and Ben Rich, and was designed to produce “out-of-the-box” ideas that could be rapidly and economically produced. Examples of the Skunk Works concept in action include the F-80 Shooting Star, the U-2 and SR-71 reconnaissance aircraft, and the F-117A Nighthawk stealth fighter. A number of companies, including Newport News Shipbuilding and Boeing Military Aircraft, have set up similar organizations.
45
“Ski Jumps” were developed by the Royal Navy in the 1970’s to improve the takeoff and load-carrying characteristics of V/STOL aircraft like the FRS.1/2 Sea Harrier and AV-8B Harrier II. The addition of a slight incline to the end of a flight deck provides the aircraft an upward “push” at the critical point of takeoff. So effective are ski jumps at giving V/STOL aircraft “something for nothing,” that almost every nation with carriers, with the exception of the United States, utilizes them in their carrier designs.