See subject. Today, even, I’ve never seen a photograph of a carrier at sea unless it is in splendid and proud isolation. That can’t be, right?
No carrier ever travels alone. There is always a few destroyers and maybe a cruiser in attendance. Ditto WW2. They take pictures of them solo because a) they are big, picturesque ships, b) distances at sea are rather large, and even wide-angle won’t catch the rest of the group.
I don’t think so. A carrier can’t carry enough defensive planes or guns to protect itself from air attack. Not to mension basics like fuel. Even the Hornet on its stealthy mission to Tokyo for the Doolittle raid had a sizable task force:
[cite]In addition to the carriers Hornet and Enterprise, fourteen other U.S. Navy ships made up the raid task force, which was led by Vice Admiral William F. Halsey and designated Task Force 16. Three were heavy cruisers, Salt Lake City (CA-25), Northampton (CA-26) and Vincennes (CA-44). USS Nashville (CL-43) was a light cruiser. The eight destroyers were Balch (DD-363), flagship of Captain Richard L. Conolly’s Destroyer Squadron Six, Benham (DD-397), Ellet (DD-398), Fanning (DD-385), Grayson (DD-435), Gwin (DD-433), Meredith (DD-434) and Monssen (DD-436). Vital members of the long-range team were the oilers Cimarron (AO-22) and Sabine (AO-25).[/cite]
http://www.history.navy.mil/photos/events/wwii-pac/misc-42/doolt-s.htm
Kinda depends on how the photo’s composed. This photo shows the USS Abraham Lincoln and her battle group in a tight formation, but I’m sure that’s just for photo purposes. I’m no sailor, but my impression is that a battlegroup is usually spread out over several square miles of ocean, just to give adequate independent maneuvering room to all members. Also, since the escort warships are largely present to protect the carrier from threats, they’d be surrounding the carrier at a distance such that if their protective efforts don’t work, the carrier itself still has time to engage in last-second defensive reactions (like evasion, or point-defense weapons).
In WWII a carrier group would have been known as a carrier task force. Look up any of the big carrier engagements of the war and you can see this was the case: Pearl Harbor, Coral Sea, Midway Island, Marianas Turkey Shoot, Leyte Gulf, all were fought with task forces of three or more carriers at their core. Some of those battles did not involve carrier-to-carrier engagements, but the carriers involved were still grouped in carrier task forces.
Along with the carriers at the core of the task force are the indispensable supply ships. These unsung heroes are still present in today’s nuclear carrier strike groups. You can power a carrier so it will run indefinitely but it will always be the consumables (food, airplane fuel, and ammunition) which limit its endurance. Surrounding the carriers providing early warning and air cover plus protection from submarine attack was a screen of destroyers and destroyer escorts. This screen is deployed miles away from the carriers at the heart of the task force to provide warning time and room to engage the enemy, certainly a reason why so many in action photos only show one ship.
Today the carrier strike group is built around a single carrier, but it still never travels alone. Along with ships carrying out the above duties a strike group will have a couple of attack submarines performing anti-submarine duties in its defense. The core of a task force or a strike group remains the same, however: it’s the carrier. And those ships traveling with her still deploy miles away from her while on normal deployment. I have been watching PBS’s 2005 series Carrier and the only other ship you ever see are one or two destroyers in trail, a couple miles aft, performing plane guard duties. It’s a really big ocean out there.
If may ask a related question: what ships are present in the modern US Navy? The battleships are all gone, right? Besides carriers and submarines, there’s destroyers, guided missle cruisers (does any other type of cruiser still exist?), and supply ships. What am I missing?
Sometimes the WWII carrier groups would include a battleship or two.
There are modern frigates which are basically small destroyers, mine-clearing vessels, various landing and landing support craft, and small patrol boats. The USN also operates two command ships which are basically office and living space for Admirals, their staff, and countless communications systems.
Absolutely. Cruisers too. Towards the end of the war we had a positively embarrassing overwhelming strength in the Pacific. Whereas early in the war we needed a miracle at Midway for our three carriers to prevail, by the end we had no less than 23 new Essex class carriers prowling about, looking for employment.
And the run down on modern strike groups was rough too. There are usually two Ticonderoga class guided missile cruisers in the mix to coordinate and provide anti-air capabilities. It’s still all about protecting those flat tops in the middle though.
the British Courageous was travelling alone, apart from two destroyers of its normal screening force of four, on a so-called anti-submarine patrol when torpedoed and sunk in the Western Approaches in 1939. Such foolish patrols were stopped after another, unsuccessful, attack on Ark Royal two weeks later.
The US carrier captain calls the shots (literally?)?
In the Wiki cite kindly provided me, it talks about a French CG so:
This group is commanded by a rear admiral (contre-amiral, in French) on board the aircraft carrier. The commanding officer of the air group (usually a capitaine de frégate—equivalent to commander) is subordinate to the commanding officer of the aircraft carrier, a senior captain. The escort destroyers (called frigates in the French denomination) are commanded by more junior captains.
More likely the admiral in charge of the carrier group.
Don’t forget the escort carriers – there were over a hundred of them. Too slow to keep up with the big boys, in the Pacific they mostly ferried planes and acted as emergency landing strips (save one glorious battle). In the Atlantic, though, they escorted merchantman convoys as an effective anti-submarine measure.
The “air group” is not the fleet, but rather the airplane crews. There is an officer in charge of all the pilots. He is subordinate to the officer in charge of the fleet. He may also be subordinate to the captain of the carrier itself. The captain of the carrier is subordinate to the officer in charge of the fleet.
Murderers row at Ulithi atoll photo taken December 1944.
One of Courageous’ sister ships was also sent to sea with inadequate escort - HMS Glorious, which was on its way back from Norway with two destroyers when it ran into the German battleships Scharnhorst and Gneisenau. With disastrous results, although the escorts put up a good show. And HMS Hermes was sunk by Japanese dive-bombers in 1942 with only one destroyer escorting. I get the impression these losses were a painful learning experience for the RN (Prince of Wales and Repulse even more so).
There’s also a new type of ship the Navy has developed in the last decade: littoral combat ships. These ships are designed to work along an enemy coast. Three have been launched so far with plans to have twenty in service by 2015.
Yes, but the admiral is also expected not to micromanage the running of the flagship. The admiral gives orders on things relevant to the fleet as a whole, but all of the ships’ captains, including the captain of the flagships, still run their own ships. The admiral could, of course, override any of them on anything, but it would be a breach of protocol.
Yes indeedy. That one glorious battle was the main reason I included Leyte Gulf in my list of carrier actions. True heroism.