In other ASW related news, the US Navy’s S-3 Viking is being phased out. I guess all of the CV carried ASW work will be handled by the SH-60 helos…
Wow, Cool.
I was on #7 switchboard for that, but I had a friend in the Photo Dept and I got a dozen great picutres of it. I will have to find them and scan them someday.
What rate were you? Do me a favor and Email me, my Email is public and you can get to it by clicking on my username.
Welcome aboard the Straight Dope.
Jim
I dunno, haven’t P-3s taken down more MiG 25s than the F-15s have? 
Yeah, kinda like what I said earlier, submarines may be unsurpassed in the art of making floaty things less floaty, but they’re far more limited in all the other various roles that surface warships perform, especially in wars where your fleet has naval supremacy to begin with.
IIRC, during WWI, they mined the holy hell out of the North Sea, forcing U-Boats to either take a long path out of the way to get to sea or back to base, or to run the gauntlet of the English Channel (which would have far fewer good places to hide, with allied bases on both sides). One of the things they did to compliment the minefield was to build subhunting wooden gunboats, made to have a very shallow draught so they could sprint accross the minefield, pick a fight with a U-Boat, then haul ass back accross the minefield where they couldn’t be persued.
Well, they could always just have the F-18Es handle THAT role too, since they’re hoping to have them do everything short of AWACs as it is from what I’ve read. :rolleyes:
On the question of Diesel-Electric boats, how long can a modern boat operate on quiet electric power, and how noisy and detectable are they when they are operating their diesel engines?
Establish air superiority?
In a pinch, I bet a CV would do much better at hauling large numbers of things and/or personel then a sub could.
Here’s a random hypothetical question, which I’ll start a new thread for if folks think it warrants one: A shooting war starts, and we loose most of our carriers before we establish sub supremacy, but for whatever reason, still have a sizable number of carrier-based aircraft now operating from land bases. How much trouble would it be to modify a freighter into an aircraft carrier?
I mean, it would be much slower and bulkier than a dedicated carrier is, and thus far more vulnerable to enemy action, but let’s say you decide that slow vulnerable carriers are still better than no carriers at all. Would it be possible to do this in a timely fashion?
Now that I think about it, it might just be less trouble to recommission the various retired aircraft carriers (USS Midway and Kittyhawk both come to mind as recently decommisioned ships, and no doubt there are various older ships like the USS Lexington and Hornet that might be of some use for carrier warfare)
Most of the large fifties era Carriers are in Mothball. We could roll out an entire fleet in 6-12 months larger than any Navy in the World. They Decommissioned the USS Ranger and most of her sisters in the last 10 years. There is a very large carrier fleet available. Don’t Forget we could also roll out 3-4 Battleships and a lot of DDs.
Jim
Jim
Heh so, we could lose the entire fleet, and in less time than it would take to train new sailors to replace the ones lost, we could have another fleet good to go… it boggles the mind, it does.
Thank Reagan and Lehman for laying down the ground work and the Blue Print for the most powerful Navy ever seen by a huge factor. Opinions vary, but I think it was one of the best ‘wasteful’ spendings in our history. Our Navy even in its shrunken state is incredibly powerful. Our Mothballed fleet would due to dry dock limitations, probably take up to four years to float, but yes, our mothballed fleet is the second most powerful Navy in the World. 
Jim
In WW2, a desperate need for carriers (for all kinds of duties) and aircraft ferries (basically, a ship that can fly off, but not land, aircraft, for delivery to a combat zone).
The U.S. (Henry Keiser?) came up with blueprints for converting available merchant ships into carriers. (Later called “Escort Carriers” “and Jeep Carriers”) These were originally intended to be used for aircraft ferry duties and providing convoys with air cover, but they also showed to be useful for providing air support for amphibious landings, and as a mobile aircraft and pilot resupply base for the Fleet carriers in the Pacific.
I presume that if a general naval war developed, and that it was predicted to last a few years, then yeah. I can see a similar type of ship designed and built (probably conventionally powered). I imagine that they would be physically larger than the escort carriers of WW2, as the naval aircraft of today are larger, heavier, and faster.
Also, I would expect to see the return of dedicated ASW helicopter ships, such as the USS Princeton (CVS-37), in the mid '50’s.
To directly answer your question “How much trouble would it be to modify a freighter…”, the freighters selected in WW2 to be converted to CVE’s had to be rebuilt from the main deck up.
NavSource Online: Escort Carrier Photo Archive
The first USN CVE was the USS Long Island. Looks like it took the Navy a year and a half to convert her.
Eventually, CVE’s were built from keel up, taking a little over a year to build. (For example, look at CVE-105)
Heh, in my naval history class, our prof talked about how someone (one of the CNOs, I think), proposed a strategy where we would build lots of Perry class Frigates, cheap, but capable modern warships, and then immediately mothball them in various ports around the US. Keep some of the active ones dedicated to training Navy Reservists, and then, if a large war breaks out, begin activating the frigates and throwing the Reservists onto them, thus ensuring that all the newly-activated Reservists are serving on ships they are familiar with.
Not entirely sure what became of the plan (for all I know, that might be what they actually did), but I do remember the prof mentioning them that one of the shipyards that would have gotten a big contract for building the frigates was in Texas, so it was of notable interest to us.
Cite? I am just a grunt, but as a patriotic gear head I do, as a private citizen, love all the US military’s equipment (besides the B2 for which I can only see more money per unit than I can comprehend, enough for more than 300k fully tricked out rifles according to my calculations…) But, when trying to give a sense of proportion to martially ignorant civilians I do cite, a few times a year, the fact that there are 10 supercarriers in the world, and we own all 10. I would love to add the mothball factoid to my arsenal. (our Ohio’s can hit some old soviet targets from port! etc.)
Symetrical warfare is a fairly unlikely scenario even at sea.
It’s what we practice, since we can practice it. But no one else has a navy that is a real threat to US Navy, except a few of the folks more or less on our side, and things will have to change fairly drastically before the British attack us.
So, what is more likely is attemtps by regional naval powers to interdict operations on a hit and run basis. But, the obvious defense against that is destroying their costal infrastructure to make it impossible to continue submarine sorties. You can’t hide a navy yard, and you can drop bombs on it from Omaha.
Once upon a time, navies fought at sea, and armies fought on the ground. Now days, everyone fights wherever they are not expected. Why attack a fleet? Attack the thing the fleet is meant to guard. Why attack an army? Attack the civilian targets the army is trying to control. Everyone knows they will loose a symetric force on force war against us. And we are busy teaching the world how to defeat us without fighting our army.
Tris
It is a difficult cite, you need to pour through the Navy’s websites to look at decommisioned ships that are Mothballed or Museums.
Starting here with the http://www.chinfo.navy.mil/navpalib/ships/carriers/cv-list1.html we can find the following carriers available: 5 Full Size Carriers
Constellation, Independence, Ranger {my ship}, Saratoga, Forrestal.
A good Start. The America has not yet been scrapped.
The Midway is a Museum and the Coral Sea has not yet been scrapped. These can handle modern Jets.
I am not sure what we could fly off this next group, but we have:
The Intrepid as a NYC Museum.
The Lexington is now a museum in Corpus Christi, Tex.
The Yorktown as a floating museum in Charleston, S.C.
So 8 Full Size Carriers and 3 old Straight Deck Carriers. A very good start that put other Navies to shame.
For Battleships we have North Carolina that might be usuable and more importantly all 4 Iowa Class BBs. BB-61 to BB-64. Iowa, New Jersey, Missouri & Wisconsin
Jim
Keep in mind that it’s really hard, costly and time consuming to bring ships back. The the reason that they are decommed in the first place is that they are just worn out and 2) they don’t support modern weapons systems. So a 1960’s carrier probibly won’t support FA-18’s, JSF(CV) etc. So what are you going to do then, bring back 1960s planes?
Also how many sailors would it require?
Ship’s company ~3,000 plus another 2,500 for the air wing.
Huh? Are we even a factor? I thought our RN didn’t have a pot to piss in these days. 
Cite please?
Why would the Ranger and her sister ships not handle FA-18s. This is news to me. It is far cheaper to bring back decomms then build new. This was part of the reason Reagan rescued the 4 BBs. I believe the Ranger had some FA-18 wings on her before her retirement.
BTW: The Forrestal class was retired as it was cheaper to run the new Nuke carriers that were put into service and we did not wish to maintain the manpower to keep most of the old Conventional carriers floating. I think most of you statement above is not correct.
Crew Complement for the USS Ranger was a little over 5,000 for the record.
**mlees ** served on the same carrier as I and we have some additional Carrier sailors. Perhaps they can weigh in on this subject.
Jim