Where do these model planes come from? Hundred of miles away? What launches and controls them? How can you target a fuel tank on an aircraft, somewhere on an aircraft carrier, moving at 25 kts, in perhaps another 15 kts of wind, and in possibly heavy weather? Assuming we did “mess up the deck”, where would these gliders land?
Might take more than a bit of HE therefore a larger RC model. The fuel tanks are self-sealing to protect from fragments and projectiles passing through them.
If the carrier does indeed have Mr. Evil on board, the entire group will be on full alert. More guards and weapons will be deployed/broken out. There will be P-3 Orions out looking for surface and subsurface contacts along with helicopters from the other ships. The attack sub(s) will also be on full alert. The E-2 Hawkeyes (AWACs) will be up extending the sky search to hundreds of miles in radius around the group. You will have a couple (at least) fighters aloft with either a strategic tanker or buddy tankers. There will be another couple of fighters on ready in the catapult lane with pilots aboard ready for launch. And you have a half dozen of so AEGIS radar equiped ships monitoring from local airspace up to 150 miles toward space. Add in a bunch of other radars. The full electromagnetic spectrum will be monitored. They might not be able to decrypt or understand unusual signals, but there existance will certainly set off alarm bells. It’s tough to sneak up on these guys especially in a high alert situation.
I just thought of another issue: When an aircraft carrier conducts flight operations, it steams into the wind. Between operations, it heads downwind to “reset” so it doesn’t get out of range of the area where the aircraft need to operate. This means that either the carrier will have planes in the air to deal with an attack, or the attackers will likely have to land without the benefit of a headwind. Perhaps they could solve the problem by rigging up some sort of treadmill.
Landing a glider accurately would require a fixed landing field. Once a carrier moved, altered course, changed speed, etc, the poor glider would be destine to land in the sea. Additionally, the turbulence common to the flight deck of a moving, pitching carrier would make landing a glider a nightmare if not impossible.
This from a glider training site on landing wind speeds.- the first speed is for a student pilot, the second for an experienced pilot. (different models may vary some)
Max Wind (including gusts) 15 knots 20 knots
Max Crosswind Component 7 knots 12 knots
Max Gust Factor 7 knots 10 knots
If you’ve ever watched the Navy land on a carrier, they are not smooth, flared touchdowns. They come in hot and hit the deck, hard, at a predetermined point. There is extra weight/strength in the undercarriage due to those stresses. That extra bulk and weight would defeat a glider’s need to be light and agile.
IMHO, if a glider assault targeted a carrier, they better have floats and engines.
The issue of stand-off distance is a whole 'nother can of worms. Anyone who attempts to attack a carrier has to do so from outside the effective range of its aircraft. Basically, to board a carrier you would have to have a way of getting within a a few hundred meters without anyone realizing you are a threat. Not an easy thing to do.
Most of the doctrinal attack models I’ve seen involve saturation raids with land-based maritime attack aircraft (think B-52s or TU-22Ms) launching long-range anti-ship missiles from the edge of the CBG’s defense bubble. And the attacker would still have losses.
If a non-conventional attacker is using VERY stealthy aircraft (including masking radar returns from personal weapons) and attacking at night, and has operational surprise (target isn’t otherwise expecting trouble), I wonder if they might get through. Assuming they can launch from somewhere close and non-unusual (maybe from a passing supertanker… if the CBG’s operating or transit area is reasonably close to sea lanes).
They don’t need to roll over for the dozen guys to win. While they are busy trying to comprehend what they hell jut happened, the bad guys set off several large explosives charges leaving the CVN with several large holes in her flight deck and it’s out of action.
They can’t. Anything big enough to do even remotely that kind fo damage will easily get picked up from very far away. Man-portable explosives don’t have enough punch. Second, even if they did damage the flight deck, so what? That won’t get them any closer to controlling even a part of the ship.
While I’m sure any Navy sailor has at least a basic familiarity with hand weapons and rifles, I don’t know how many on board are dedicated riflemen, you know? I’m sure that a Marine grunt could knock hang gliders out of the air as easy as plinking tin cans from a hundred yards out or more, but I don’t know how many of those sorts there are on a carrier. Google has failed me in pulling up the numbers-- do you happen to know?
MarDet is small, maybe 20-30 Marines. But every hatch is heavy steel and easy enough to rig close. In close quarters the sailors will be able to take out some of those trying to come aboard using fire fighting equipment and whatever else comes to hand. It will be very slow going trying to get through the hatches and during GQ every major space is manned and the men are on sound powered phones.
Remember fire hoses are very effective anti-terrorist weapons.
It is very hard to fight your way through a carrier. To run the carrier you need to get control of main spaces, DC control, the Bridge, both steering gear rooms, etc.
The longer it takes the riflemen to takes over these spaces, the harder it gets.
When I was on the USS Ranger, we had a mock invasion by a Seal team. This was in port and they were not trying to take control but just to disable which is far easier. Even a Seal team failed at night in port. The word went out and we secured DC central at least. I believe they never made it to the bridge but I am not sure and they only achieve 1 machine space (There are 4 MMRs and 2 Aux spaces) and I think they did take out the partial Mardet that was on board in port. Not sure what forced them to flee but it was probably just failure to secure their targets in a given amount of time.
So again, once GQ is called, a glider invasion taking over a Carrier is just plain silly in concept and as you know all Carriers underway are protected by a fleet with plenty of weapons to take out gliders. Also the planes in the air would make approach suicidal. There are usually plains in the airs, though what they are these days is beyond me.
BTW: Marines have portable 30 cal machines IRC.
Oh, as to sailors and guns: Not so much. We had no access to guns. That is why I stressed firefighting gear. Steam and High pressure water to defend against intruders if needed.
I participated in an actual “Repel Boarders” alarm on board the USS Enterprise.
Our first line of defense wasn’t rifles or sidearms, it was a 2.5" fire hose pumping seawater at 200+psi. A lightweight glider would be spinning into the sea without a shot fired.
The scenario hinges on the bad guy taking control of all the automated systems on the carrier with a computer super-virus hidden in his glass eye. So the phalanx guns, the drones, and the automated machine guns mounted in the ceiling of every room are all under his control.
Yes, even the automated machine guns mounted in the ceiling. Really, the entire game is so nonsensical that the idea of landing on an aircraft carrier Buzz Lightyear style is actually one of the more believable aspects of the whole bit.
Save your ammo. Park three or four jets on the flight deck and set brakes and wheel chocks. Wind the engines up to about 50% and watch the gliders try to land. Post videos on Youtube.
