Pilot from CVN77 who shot down the Syrian SU-22
 

Up close with a US super carrier and the pilots fresh from combat operations | Save the Royal Navy


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So around 200 days "in action" but conducting combat sorties for only about half of that time. Not very efficient.Just saying like.

Not jingoistic at all ! :-) Reminds me of some of the wartime Pathe newsreels

Don't ASRAAM and AIM 9-X share a seeker head? ex-Hughes, now Raytheon?

Actually, that's pretty damn "efficient". To put this in perspective, in WW2 it typically took four to five months for a B-17 to rack up 25 missions, or roughly 1 mission per week. Further, a carrier battle group does far more than generate aircraft sorties. It is not idle when it is not generating sorties.

So you're measuring the efficiency of a modern day carrier with a WWII land-based bomber?

To put a more modern perspective on it, 7 years ago in Kandahar, it was 7-days a week ops. Just saying like.

"7-days a week ops" for 7 straight months is absurd. I deployed twice to the Persian Gulf aboard a carrier. Conducting combat operations for 7 months straight would be impossible and attempting or expecting a carrier to do so absurd. The fact that they conducted combat operations for about half their 7 month deployment period is damn impressive.

I'm not lying, nor mistaken.


Units usually stood down 1 day per week but it was rotated so that the flying units covered those that were stood down.


So as a base, Kandahar operated 7 days a week, with only 1 or 2 detachments stood down per day, leaving all the other dets flying combat ops. Every day. Non-stop.


I wasn't asking if a carrier could conduct combat ops for 7 straight months, merely pointing out that carrying them out for less than 50% of the time was not very efficient when compared to modern land-based operations.


Sorry for any misunderstanding.

Both land based and carrier based aviation have advantages and disadvantages. I would fully expect the massive footprint at a place like Kandahar, with multiple units rotating though, during the heat of a major operation/war, to operate 7 days a week. That is all well and good as long as you have access to the airfield. And how many pilots, maintainers, host country folks, bottle-washers, donut makers, contractors, air and ground supply runs did it take to keep up the OPTEMPO? I suspect many folks and massive $ was involved.


99 days of combat ops from a carrier during a cruise is quite an accomplishment. Yes the carrier may go off line for a bit for R&R, resupply, other tasking, or there may have been days where there was no tasking, cease fires, politics etc. Syria is not Afghanistan.


Both take a massive amount of investment. Sure a land based airfield is usually going to have greater sortie ability (more efficient in your words). But how efficient would Kandahar be in a conflict in Syria, Africa, China, etc?


I say good on LCDR Tremel and the fine men and women in the BUSH battle group.

Carriers have to replenish their stocks of weapons and fuel, as well as allow crews to maintain the aircraft. After a short intense period of operations surely a pause to regroup is essential.

Land operations are different; other units may be more readily available, or can be made so. Not the case in carrier operations where an air group will be embarked and will go through a work up period before any operations can be undertaken.

(Thank you sandiego89 - you put that much better than I did. Our postings overlapped. I agree, excellent effort by the group.)

99 days of Operations is a bit misleading really. One flight one day, 2O the next maybe, so I suppose the number of sorties is more pertinent.

Still, it's not as if they were sunning themselves whilst afloat. I'm sure it would have been busy.

Aaaah! I missed your point. You were comparing land based vs sea based operations. My bad.

May I ask, of those "dets flying combat ops", how many stayed in Kandahar for 7 months at a stretch? My guess is none. How many stayed in Kandahar three months at a stretch? Two months? I really don't know.

If you're going to be in one place for years operating combat aircraft, I agree that a land base is certainly more "efficient" than a carrier. But how long did it take to get the airbase in Kandahar combat ready? Weeks? Months? Years? A carrier can be on station, ready for combat, in days. Now suppose the fight moves elsewhere. An "efficient" base like Kandahar is utterly useless when the war is in Syria. How many bombs did aircraft from Kandahar put on target in Syria? None you say? That's miserable "efficiency." That's the advantage of a carrier. It goes where the war is, and can arrive at most any hotspot very quickly and ready for combat. If you're going to have a sustained airwar in one place, then by all means, take the time to build a land base there. But that's a pretty big investment that ends up being useless and gets abandoned when the war ends or moves elsewhere.

I agree that my WW2 example was less than ideal. But consider Vietnam and Yankee Station. Despite having "efficient" land bases in South Vietnam and neighboring nations, carriers were called on to support the ongoing sustained airwar against North Vietnam. To compare those days to what Bush just accomplished, consider that it took THREE carriers to maintain round the clock ops. One was assigned to provide air ops from noon till midnight, a second from midnight till noon, and a third provided additional coverage on an as needed basis during the more effective daylight hours. A single carrier today can generate the same number of sorties it took three carriers to generate and each sortie is much more effective than the Vietnam days. Now, please consider what happened to all those "efficient" land airbases in Southeast Asia when the war ended in 1973. They were lost forever. The carriers by contrast went home and continued to serve into the next century. The South China Sea is now an international hotspot. How "efficient" is Da Nang airbase in today's US operations in the South China Sea?

Bottom line: there are many ways to measure "efficiency." Be very careful how you measure.

Ken V
I'm sure that what the Ford Battle Group achieved was highly commendable and carried out to the best traditions of the USN. However your rant on carriers and fixed base ops is perhaps a little one sided. Let's be honest, one conventional ASM can stop or even sink a carrier. It takes an awful lot more or escalation to a Nuke to take out a land base.

It often only takes the political winds of change to take out land base, no nukes needed.

My dad had one of those mig silhouettes on the side of his plane but they only wiped off enough dirt to spray it on.

I believe a few of the Vietnamese fighter pilots (south and north) are coming to the US to hang out with their former enemies next month.

http://vnafmamn.com/untoldpage/Mig17_killed6.jpg

Tks for posting the A-1 pic. Spad vs. Mig-17 was quite an accomplishment.

"So you're measuring the efficiency of a modern day carrier with a WWII land-based bomber?"

It's what he does.

So carriers really pay off when you lose the war KenV ?!

And here we are again... Bad guys, good guys, like in a Hollywood movie.

Like in Vietnam, Yugoslavia, Ukraine soon ... ?
No, Ukraine will be another set of gloves, and it will never happen - even with all the Brad Pitt, George Cloney and Tom Cruise in the shop....

Let's be honest? The claim that a single ASM can hit never mind take out a carrier is not anything approaching honesty. And honestly, how many land bases have been "taken out" without a single shot fired? Essentially every US land airbase in Vietnam was "taken out" with the stroke of a pen in 1973. The same thing happened to all the US airbases in the Phillipines in 1991. Indeed Clark AFB was the largest oversees US military installation prior to its closure. And if memory serves, the land airbase on the Falklands was "taken out" by a single bomber and a single stick of bombs.

And on the subject of honesty, what would happen if the Russians lobbed several cruise missiles onto the Kandahar airbase the way the US lobbed several cruise missiles on the Shayrat airbase base in Syria? Probably the same thing. A lot of rhetoric and saber rattling, but precious little else. Now what would happen if the Russians lobbed those missiles at a carrier? By definition, that carrier is sovereign US territory. Do you honestly believe the US response would be the same? Honestly? If the US response would be different (and almost certainly be far more violent and forceful) do you think the Russians would think twice before doing it?