The Cold War: A MILITARY History (36 page)

The most important technical innovation in the early post-war years was the jet-powered aircraft, first with straight and later with swept wings, but greater performance was matched by ever-increasing demands on the carriers. The speed and weight of the new aircraft presented totally new requirements for take-off and landing, while their ever-increasing size made new demands on handling facilities, hangar and deck space, and deck lifts, their
fuel
consumption increased the bunkerage requirement for aviation fuel, and their load-carrying capacity demanded more armament space. The US navy’s reconstructed Essex class, for example, was the typical front-line carrier of the 1950s and carried 1,135,620 litres of fuel and 736 tonnes of ordnance for its aircraft, while a 1980s carrier, the Nimitz class, carried 12,730,000 litres and 2,611 tonnes, respectively.
^fn1

To provide longer and wider flight decks and hangars, the ships simply became bigger, while aircraft handling was greatly improved by installing side (as opposed to centre-line) lifts – a US innovation. Many other inventions, however, came from line officers of the British navy, including the angled deck, the steam catapult and the deck-landing mirror, although all three innovations first went to sea with the US navy’s first supercarrier, USS
Forrestal
, in 1955.

US CARRIERS

Carrier Development

At the end of the Second World War the US navy found itself with a large fleet of carriers, but these were rapidly made obsolescent by the advent of jet aircraft. The first attempt at a modern carrier was the design for the USS
United States
(CVA-58), but this was rejected by the defense secretary (largely at the prompting of the newly formed air force) and there was then a pause until the Korean War demonstrated the continuing need for carriers. This resulted in the Forrestal-class carriers, which were the largest warships built up to that time.

The last of the Second World War carriers, the Essex class, had a full-load displacement of 31,643 tonnes, whereas the Forrestals displaced 71,222 tonnes and were over 30 m longer. These proved a most successful design and, with regular modernizations, the four ships, which joined the fleet between 1955 and 1959, each gave some forty years of service. They were followed by two carriers of the Kitty Hawk class, both commissioned in 1961, which were essentially a refined version of the Forrestal and were intended to be the last to use conventional propulsion. Thus the next carrier,
Enterprise
(CVN-65), was the first to have nuclear propulsion, which made it extremely capable, but so expensive that Congress baulked at the idea of more at the same cost and insisted that the navy revert to conventional (i.e. fossil-fuel) propulsion, which it did, building two more Kitty Hawk class.

Thereafter, the navy managed to persuade Congress that it really did
need
nuclear carriers, and the result was the Nimitz class, the first of which was commissioned in 1975 and was followed by four more before the Cold War ended. The cost of these carriers was enormous and became a matter of dispute within most administrations and within Congress. There were also criticisms from inside the navy itself as various factions fought for larger slices of the budget.

One consequence of these criticisms was that designs for smaller and cheaper carriers were repeatedly examined. In the 1960s the Medium Carrier Project was considered, which was initially a 40,000 tonne, conventionally powered carrier, but, as almost invariably happened, the design grew to 60,000 tonnes in the course of the examination. This design was dusted off and re-examined in 1973, again in 1975 and, finally, in the early 1980s, but, when the navy managed to persuade Congress of the need for nuclear propulsion, more Nimitz class were built instead.

Another 1960s project was for a ‘Sea Control Ship’, displacing some 12,400 tonnes and operating V/STOL (i.e. Harrier) aircraft; and the then chief of naval operations (CNO) spoke enthusiastically of obtaining eight such carriers for the price of one nuclear carrier. The next CNO dropped this in favour of the V/STOL Support Ship, which would have been somewhat larger and operated more aircraft (a mix of Harriers and helicopters), but this too was dropped.
^fn2
In the end, and despite repeated examinations of the alternatives, the US navy continued to build its super-carriers.

The huge size of the US carriers since
Forrestal
has enabled them to accommodate numerous facilities apart from those directly related to the air wing. These included an integrated combat information centre and an airborne ASW classification and analysis centre, with the latter being on-line to the United States and also enabling the carrier to share its ASW information with other ships in its task group.

In the years immediately following the Second World War the US navy planned to deploy as many as six carriers to the Barents Sea and eight (including some British carriers) to the Mediterranean. Later in the Cold War the British no longer operated attack carriers, and the US planned to maintain four carriers in forward areas – one each in the Atlantic, Mediterranean, Pacific and Indian oceans – with eight others in refit, in pre-deployment training or in transit.

Less immediately obvious was that the carrier did not prowl the ocean alone, but moved in company with a number of other ships in a carrier task
group
. Typically, a later Cold War CTG comprised one, or sometimes two, aircraft carriers, two missile-armed cruisers, four frigates and two fast replenishment vessels.

US Carriers in the Nuclear-Attack Role

The US navy quickly appreciated that a significant area for future naval warfare lay with atomic bombs delivered against targets well inland, and as early as 1945 the service began to formulate plans for delivery systems. One area of development was ship- and submarine-launched cruise missiles, but the second was a new attack bomber, the North American AJ-1 Savage. As only a few could be accommodated by existing carriers, however, plans were made for a new class of carrier, the United States, displacing some 75,000 tonnes, of which four were planned.

As mentioned above, the newly created air force took exception to this plan, as it considered strategic bombing to be its business and was already heavily engaged in building up a force of strategic bombers with intercontinental capabilities. It therefore carried out the first of several successful congressional campaigns, in which it not only achieved the cancellation of the carrier programme in 1949 (and the transfer of the funds to the air force) but also succeeded in having the strategic role of naval aviation restricted. Once tempers had cooled, however, the navy reached an accommodation with the air force, whereby the latter would undertake the strategic nuclear role while the navy would concentrate its nuclear weapons on ports and on inland targets which could affect the naval battle, such as airfields.

From 1945 to the early 1960s nuclear weapons were both large and heavy, the Mark VI atomic bomb, for example, weighing some 4,500 kg. The US navy’s first attempt at a nuclear bomber was to convert twelve Lockheed P2V-3C Neptune ASW patrol aircraft to carry one Mark VI atomic bomb each. These aircraft had twin piston engines, their wings did not fold, and they were not fitted with arrester hooks for carrier landings. As a result, they would have been loaded on to the carrier flight deck by crane and, with rocket assistance, would have been launched on a one-way mission against Soviet targets from as near to the Soviet coast as was feasible.
^fn3

The first nuclear-capable carrier bomber, which had caused such problems with the air force, the AJ-1 Savage, was powered by two piston engines
and
one turbojet, giving it a mission radius of 1,850 km carrying a single nuclear weapon, which was delivered at a speed of 720 km/h and a height of 9,150 m. It entered service in September 1949 and could be operated from both the Midway-class (eight aircraft) and Essex-class carriers (three aircraft) then in service, but only at the expense of a large number of fighters. The Savages were based at Port Lyautey in French Morocco from 1949 and at Atsugi in Japan from 1953, and served in the nuclear-strike role until 1959.

Nor was the size of the aircraft the only complication. According to the rules for the safety of nuclear weapons at the time, the plutonium cores had to be stored in the United States and were flown out in transport aircraft to an airbase near the carriers only on receipt of warning of warlike conditions. On arrival in the theatre of operations they were transferred to TBM-3 Avenger aircraft for delivery to the carriers, but, since the protective packaging was so heavy, each aircraft could carry only one core. On arrival a team of some forty specialists then assembled each bomb in turn.

From 1956 onwards the Savage was succeeded by the twin-jet, swept-wing A-3 Skywarrior, which also carried a single nuclear weapon, but with a mission radius of 3,220 km, at a height of 12,000 m. This aircraft was designed to take advantage of the newly introduced Forrestal-class super-carriers, whose air wing included twelve A-3s, although the A-3 also served in the air wings of the older carriers, such as the Midway class (nine A-3s) and the Essex class (three A-3s). Sometimes, however, the Midway-class carriers went to sea with an air wing consisting entirely of nuclear-capable bombers: eleven A-3 Skywarriors, sixty A-4D Skyhawks and twelve AD Skyraiders.

The final aircraft in the series was the A-5 Vigilante, which entered service in 1965 and was the largest aircraft ever to operate from carriers. This had a maximum range of 5,150 km and overflew the target at 15,000 m at a speed of Mach 1.5. It was the first bomber in any air force to carry an inertial navigating system, which, since it was passive, emitted no electronic radiations. Another feature of the Vigilante was its linear bomb bay, which ejected the nuclear weapon through a large hole in the tail.

With the entry into service of the Polaris missiles, however, the need for specialized nuclear-bombing aircraft disappeared and the aircraft still in service in 1961 were switched to other roles. The US navy still continued to operate numerous aircraft types which could deliver nuclear weapons, but by this time the weapons were very much smaller and lighter, enabling them to be carried by much smaller planes.

In the 1950s US carriers were fitted with relatively heavy gun and missile armaments, but these were gradually decreased until only a few close-in weapons were carried. Thereafter, carriers relied on their aircraft and escorting vessels for protection.

Carrier-Borne Fighter Aircraft

In addition to the nuclear bombers, the carrier-borne aircraft developed rapidly. The straight-wing Grumman F9F-1 Panther of 1950, for example, had an all-gun armament, a top speed of 1,110 km/h and a range of 1,600 km, while the F-4 Phantom of 1960 had swept wings, a mixed missile and gun armament, a top speed of 2,400 km/h and a range of 2,800 km. The fighter of the late 1970s was the F-14 Tomcat, which employed swing wings to combine great speed (maximum 2,500 km/h) with a reasonable landing performance and a range of 3,200 km. As with the F-4, the F-14’s armament was a mix of guns and missiles. These figures show an increase in speed of 125 per cent and in range of 100 per cent over thirty years, but less easily quantifiable were the increases in manoeuvrability and in the range and capabilities of the sensors, the much more sophisticated electronic-warfare capability, and the greater safety – all of which resulted in a major increase in combat capability.

Carrier Types

US carrier tasking developed during the period of the Cold War. In the 1950s, 1960s and early 1970s carriers were divided into two types: attack carriers (which were known by their US navy designation of CVAs) and ASW carriers (CVSs).

The CVA force during this period consisted of three Midway-class and two Essex-class carriers, which had been built at the end of the Second World War, plus a steadily increasing number of supercarriers. The core force aboard a CVA usually comprised three attack squadrons (one medium, two light) and two fighter squadrons, which were supported by squadrons or detachments for specialist roles such as airborne early warning, air-to-air refuelling, electronic warfare and reconnaissance.

ASW carriers (CVSs) were found from the Essex-class carriers and a decreasing number of other Second World War carriers. They embarked specialist ASW fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters, supported by a few airborne-early-warning aircraft and, possibly, a few A-4 Skyhawks as a token fighter force.

The Essex-class carriers reached the end of their useful lives in the mid-1970s, which coincided with the arrival in service of the first jet-powered ASW aircraft, the S-3 Viking, which not only replaced the piston-engined S-2 Tracker, but also provided a far greater ASW capability with many fewer aircraft. As a result, the supercarriers were re-roled as multi-purpose carriers (CVs) and the Essex-class and Midway-class carriers were paid off.

Appendix 22
shows a typical multi-purpose-carrier air wing in 1980, which consisted of eighty-nine aircraft. The functional spread included airborne early warning, air superiority, air defence, attack, fighter-bomber,
anti-submarine
warfare, electronic warfare, air-to-air refuelling, search-and-rescue, and photographic reconnaissance.

The fighters represented the ‘glamorous’ side of the air wing, but in fact made up only some 27 per cent of the 1980s air wing. The offensive reach of the carrier was provided by attack aircraft such as the long-range Grumman A-6 Intruder and the medium-range Vought A-7 Corsair, both of which were capable of carrying nuclear weapons. Photographic reconnaissance was provided by three RF-8 Crusaders (converted fighters), while electronic warfare was the responsibility of four EA-6 Prowlers (converted A-6 bombers). Long-range radar surveillance was provided by five Grumman E-2 Hawkeyes, while ASW protection was provided by four Lockheed S-3 Vikings (long-range) and four SH-3D Seaking helicopters (close-range). The air wing was completed by two KA-6D tankers and four SH-3D search-and-rescue helicopters. This was, in effect, a greater combat capability packaged into one hull than most countries had in their entire air force.