One Hundred Years of U.S. Navy Air Power (75 page)

The small size of British carriers made catapults even more important than they were for the U.S. Navy. The U.S. problem was to launch super-heavy bombers. The British were more interested in high-performance fighters, with high stalling speeds. Jets needed catapults because they did not develop sufficient thrust for takeoff on a
short deck (the power of a jet engine depends on how fast the airplane is moving, so jets need long runways to accelerate). A British catapult developer, Colin C. Mitchell, became interested in the steam catapult the Germans had developed to launch their wartime V-1 missiles. There was apparently no British interest in the explosive catapult the U.S. Navy was then developing; Mitchell's steam catapult was the alternative to the earlier (and too limited) hydraulic units and also to the wartime practice of sometimes using booster rockets (JATO) for takeoffs.

Initially the U.S. catapult developers showed little interest in the British steam catapult. By 1952 their situation was critical, because the heavy attack bomber that had survived the 1949 cuts was about to enter service. There was an urgent project to modernize the
Midway
-class carriers to accommodate it. The air branch of OpNav demanded quick action, and the U.S. naval attaché in London (an aviator) made sure that details of the steam catapult reached Washington. Ultimately he arranged for demonstrations by the British steam catapult test carrier. U.S. catapult developers maintained that the explosive catapult would ultimately succeed, but the steam catapult was a most satisfactory substitute. In effect the steam catapult and the angled deck made it possible for carriers to operate aircraft entirely equivalent to contemporary land-based types—they ensured the survival of carrier aviation. It appears that prior to the steam catapult episode, U.S. naval aviators showed little interest in British innovations, considering their own technology entirely superior. With the adoption of the steam catapult, this attitude reversed, probably accounting for the quick adoption of the angled deck.

A third British innovation can also be traced to the problem of small carriers. The British aircraft test establishment (Farnborough) analyzed in great detail the problem of landing high-performance jets. By the end of World War II the Royal Navy used the U.S. system, in which a Landing Signal Officer (LSO) watched the descending airplane. He signaled the pilot to correct errors and then to cut his engine while he was still in flight just prior to snagging the wire of the arresting gear. Thus the pilot and LSO were part of a feedback cycle. The faster the approaching airplane, the tighter that cycle should be—but it was limited by the reaction times of the pilot and the LSO. A British engineer realized that the pilot had to make his own corrections, based on something he could see, rather than on the LSO's observations. Using a paperclip and a makeup mirror, he proved to himself that a pilot could do what was needed on the basis of what he could see in a stabilized mirror mounted alongside the flight deck. This idea was quickly adopted (in modern form a Fresnel Lens replaces the mirror). The pilot watches banks of lights to indicate whether he is too high or too low or on the correct glide path. Again, the mirror landing sight was key to using high-performance jets on board carriers.

Angled decks and steam catapults were installed on board the three
Midway
s and also on board modernized
Essex
-class carriers (as SCB 27C). The modernized
carriers also received enclosed (“hurricane”) bows; the idea may be traceable to the damage suffered by the carrier
Bennington
during a severe storm. U.S. carriers had suffered similar flight deck damage during the great 1944 typhoon, but that seems not to have affected early postwar designs such as SCB 27A and
United States
.

Forrestal
was followed by three very similar ships (
Saratoga, Banger
, and
Independence
). All represented the simplest possible redesign of the original flush-deck carrier, with elevators arranged so that one would feed each of the four catapults. When the angled deck was introduced, the forward elevator on that (port) side was relocated aft on the starboard side. It was soon clear that this arrangement was unfortunate, and in the fifth postwar carrier (
Kitty Hawk
) the positions of island and elevator were interchanged.

Convinced of the value of these powerful carriers, the Eisenhower administration adopted a policy of building one each year.

By this time another new technology, nuclear power, was nearing maturity. A carrier was a natural application; the first program for systematic reactor development (1955) included large surface ship plants for carriers and cruisers. Nuclear power offered effectively unlimited high-speed steaming, which in turn would make submarine attack nearly impossible (prior to the advent of Soviet nuclear submarines backed by ocean surveillance systems). The severe corrosion due to stack gases would be eliminated. Stack gases also affected aircraft approaching the carrier by reducing visibility. Because a nuclear carrier would not produce any smoke, her design became an opportunity to rethink the position of the island and hence carrier configuration. Possibilities included a pair of angled decks, one on each side of the island, crossing at the bow, and a two-deck configuration reminiscent of some prewar British carriers. Ultimately all these possibilities were rejected, and the nuclear carrier used much the same flight deck configuration as
Kitty Hawk
(CVA-63). To attain the required power, the new ship needed eight reactors, all linked together into a single power plant. This massive structure in turn demanded a larger hull (not least for buoyancy), so the resulting
Enterprise
was considerably larger than the
Forrestals
. One unexpected feature of the design was a vast aircraft fuel capacity: fuel was part of the side protective system defending against torpedo hits, and the sheer size of the hull made for a larger system and hence for more tankage. The nuclear carrier was considered experimental, so the next carrier (USS
America
, CVA-66) was essentially a repeat version of
Kitty Hawk
.

Another new technology, long-range guided missiles, was also approaching maturity. In 1955 the U.S. Navy formed a Long-Range Objectives Group specifically to work out the likely shape of the fleet fifteen years hence, and thus to provide direction for naval research and development. The group's 1956–1957 reports were particularly significant, because they were of great interest to CNO Admiral Arleigh Burke. They give some idea of contemporary concerns; one was clearly
the rising cost of attack carriers. Up to this point, carrier size had been set by the needs of heavy attack bombers. By 1956 it seemed that the fleet might shift to long-range cruise missiles (Regulus) as its heavy strike arm. It also seemed that within a decade there might be effective vertical takeoff fighters (the Navy was then helping fund the Ryan X-13 tail-sitting VTOL airplane, with delta wings). Both a tail-sitter and a cruise missile might operate from large surface ships, in which case big carriers might no longer be needed. Their remaining key mission would be tactical attack, which at the time involved tactical nuclear weapons. The 1956 Long-Range Objectives report envisaged a return to smaller (
Essex
-sized) carriers operating a new all-weather jet attack airplane—which the Marines would share. With its limited warload, it could be designed for short takeoff and vertical landing (STOVL) operation from fields ashore. This airplane emerged later as the Grumman A-6 Intruder. When it became obvious that limited wars would be fought with large numbers of non-nuclear weapons, it also became clear that the A-6 could never be a short takeoff airplane, and the Navy felt fortunate that it was still operating large carriers. The tail-sitting VTOL fighter also never materialized, although the potential of VTOL was later raised again to justify an abortive shift to smaller carriers.

U.S. Navy, PH2 Geoffrey L. England

USS
Abraham Lincoln,
typical of modern U.S. nuclear carriers, October 1994
.

The long-range cruise missile was cancelled in favor of an even more futuristic weapon, the Polaris ballistic missile. Polaris did end the carriers' involvement in U.S. strategic war plans except for SIOP commitments that continued throughout the Cold War. To pay for the crash construction of the submarines and of the missile, the annual carrier program ended with USS
America
. Further carrier design
continued, an important object being to find a less expensive way to build a nuclear carrier. Since the size of the
Enterprise
had been determined by her eight-reactor power plant, the next step was to use individually larger reactors and to reduce the total to four.

By the early 1960s the U.S. Navy was operating a large force of
Essex
-class ASW carriers (CVS) alongside its attack carriers. Their original mid-ocean ASW role was fading, because the new P-3 Orion could cover the whole Atlantic from coastal bases, the Azores, and Iceland. Moreover, it was fast enough to reach contacts before the original information (from SOSUS and other sources) became entirely stale. However, another CVS role opened. The Soviets began to deploy nuclear attack submarines. Carriers, particularly those using conventional power, were not fast enough to outrun such craft. Moreover, the Soviets built up their own ocean surveillance system, which could cue their attack submarines. They demonstrated it in spectacular fashion in February 1968, when such a submarine intercepted the carrier
Enterprise
despite her high speed, as she deployed to Vietnam. As they were withdrawn from the mid-ocean ASW role, the ASW carriers were assigned to work with attack carriers. The ideal formation was three attack carriers working with one ASW carrier. However, the
Essex
-class carriers were clearly ageing. How vital would it be to replace them, at a time when building any carriers at all seemed difficult? Proposals for a new CVS mentioned that it would both support troops ashore (S was sometimes taken to mean support) and conduct ASW. The idea died.

To a limited extent the U.S. Navy retained a kind of reserve carrier ASW capability. By 1956 the Marines were interested in helicopter assault from the sea (vertical envelopment), and a small carrier, based on the abortive CVE, was designed for them as the LPH. Its design specifically allowed for conversion to a helicopter ASW ship, as helicopters were now seen as effective ASW platforms. The contemporary Royal Navy mixed ASW aircraft with attack aircraft and fighters on its small carriers. It soon went so far as to consider building special ASW helicopter carriers (which it wanted to call escort cruisers) to clear its attack carriers of these aircraft. The U.S. LPH was too slow for that, but in the early 1960s un-modernized
Essex
-class carriers were converted into helicopter carriers for the Marines. Later much larger helicopter carriers were built as the
Tarawa
(LHA-1) class.

Carrier construction resumed fitfully, the Johnson administration deciding to build a further ship. Secretary of Defense Robert S. McNamara was skeptical of the carriers' value. Initially he did not want to build any carriers, but the Navy's effective operations in Vietnam convinced him that they were worthwhile. McNamara also questioned whether the nuclear power plant was worthwhile. Ultimately McNamara chose a conventional power plant for the next ship, USS
John F. Kennedy
(CVA-67). Although quite different in detail, the new ship was effectively a repeat version of
America
.

Work on more compact, less expensive reactor plants continued, so that by the time a further carrier was being considered for construction about 1966, there was a two-reactor plant nearly as powerful as the eight that powered USS
Enterprise
. It was possible to wrap them in a somewhat smaller hull, but still with roughly the same flight deck as had been adopted with USS
Kitty Hawk
more than a decade earlier. The resulting USS
Nimitz
(FY67 program) became the prototype for ten more nuclear carriers, built over two decades. The Nixon administration ordered two more ships (FY70 and FY74 programs).

The completion of USS
Nimitz
coincided roughly with the end of the Vietnam War. Money was very tight, and there was little prospect of building new carriers—and none replacing the worn-out ASW carriers. Since the carrier ASW mission was now mainly about self-protection, it occurred to CNO Admiral Zumwalt that this mission could be transferred onto the big carriers. Instead of their previous attack designation (CVA), they were re-designated CV. Admiral Zumwalt went further, arguing that a carrier should be able to “swing” her Air Group from mission to mission, adding and subtracting aircraft as needed. In effect he was using the fact that carriers are largely modular, their big hangars sized to accommodate a wide variety of aircraft. They were not quite as modular as might be imagined, because different aircraft needed different command and control facilities and different maintenance facilities. For example, part of the CV modification was installation of an ASW module, which equated to (but improved) the command and control and acoustic analysis facilities of a CVS. Installation was possible because the earlier manual facility could be automated. The computers involved were beginning to shrink dramatically. This degree of automation was linked to the appearance of a new carrier ASW aircraft, the Lockheed S-3 Viking, which was also highly automated, linked directly to the ASW module both while in flight and upon landing.