In a battle situation where jets are taking off, dropping bombs, how long can an air craft carrier stay unsupplied?
Do you mean just by itself, or as a part of a battle group? Aircraft carriers never go anywhere without company. They always have escorts, supply ships, air-defense cruisers, etc. around.
If what you are asking is how much jet fuel and munitions a carrier holds, the answer is: enough.
Okay how long can a battle group, if by some strange series of events gets isolated, can they go without re-supply?
A typical US carrier stores enough food for 6000 people for 70 days. Other supply cycles would be dependent on conditions: number of sorties/day, targets, rescue missions, etc.
Thank you! My brother was in a drunken stupor last night insisting they could go a year without re-supply, I Googled around but found no set time frame. But your time frame makes his outlandish, much as I thought.
I’m pretty sure I remember seeing on the History Channel that a submarine can go ~1 year w/o a resupply if need be, but that they generally don’t go longer than 9mos due in no small part to the mental health of the submariners.
Maybe he was thinking about that?
Soemone’s been watching The Final Countdown, am I right?
Please keep in mind, that no matter how drunk yer buddy is, that no carrier is an island.
They require fuel (even if nuclear, for their aircraft), ammo, etc. The carrier is the Queeen of your back row. She ain’t gonna move without support frigates, destroyers, and as you mention, ammo/resupply ships.
Tripler
It’s like an air base, you need support. Even if it’s a’floatin’.
All my time was on oil burning carriers so things were a little different as we had to take on fuel oil for the boilers fairly frequently and that supply left less room for aviation fuel.
Carriers can can be replenished by unreppinng, underway replenishment, which is mostly for fuel but cargo can be sent as well. The carrier and fuel ship sail side by side so lines can be shot across using ordinary shotguns which are then uses to string cables which hold fuel hoses. I was always told the Russians - those commie sons o’ bitches as our skipper was so fond of referring to them as, could not do this which gave us a strategic advantage. The advantage of unrepping is that an emergency breakaway can be done very quickly. It’s generally a reasonably safe manuever but I was on the Ranger when it collided with the Wichita in the fall of '83. No one injured but some significant damage to both ships. We kept sailing and worked around the broken bits and got repairs in Pearl Harbor and Subic Bay in the Philippines.
Vertrepping is bringing stores by helecopter, usually slung under an H46 but sometimes they will spot and unload cargo by hand. This is done for critical emergency supplies such as beer. Also for things like firefighting supplies. Chiefscott and I determined we probably met face to face during one of these operations during an engine room fire on the Ranger.
There is a significant store of food but the perishables go pretty quickly which takes a lot of variety out of the crew’s diet. Fresh milk and vegtables quickly become a fond memory after a short time at sea. Good morale does not live on roast beast and mashed potatoes alone.
When I did this it was with a special “line gun” using a special .45-70 blackpowder cartridge.
I’m not sure how an ordinary shotgun would be used. Surely it would at least need a special shell?
Yes. I haven’t used one but the arrangement is very much like how they fire rifle grenades with blanks. Mossberg makes a special shotgun for this purpose but AFAIk the only differences between it and an ordinary shotgun are orange plastic stock and forend and a nickel/teflon anticorrosion finish.
.45-70? That is interesting. Was it a purpose built line throwing gun or a conversion of some kind?
I believe it was designed for the purpose. It was single-shot with a “break-open” action. It included a mount for the spool of line (something similar to parachute cord).