Modern Carrier Battle Group..Strategies and Tactics

Of course not. Unless, from my limited understanding, you have dedicated carrier force yourself and have an equal standing navy with your oponent. But then again, as stated before, that is not the nature of the question. Again, to semi-quote Jeff Goldbloom, The question is wether or not to question if one should, but rather how one could.

Pardon my pickiness.

A carrier is a just an airbase. You would attack a carrier at sea as if it was an airbase on land. Find it, overwhelm the defense in numbers, and bomb the remains.

Originally Posted by Roger604

A carrier is a just an airbase. You would attack a carrier at sea as if it was an airbase on land. Find it, overwhelm the defense in numbers, and bomb the remains.

A mobile air base with more sophisticated defenses than almost any land base I know of.

You have stated a mouthful.

1) Find it. In war time a very difficult taks to do on the high seas.

2) Overwhelm it. You'd better have a huge air force, or an equally expensive naval air arm yourself...and the will to potentially lose a large part of it.

3) Bomb the remains. I believe that the telling blows in an air assault would be from missiles...both air launched and surface to surface....again only if you could reliably locate the carroier, and then overwhelm its defenses.

I personally believe the sub surface threat is the greatest to any carrier strike group and that a nation has as much chance of accomplishing such a mission from that perspective as any other. For the nations who can afford both, the chances of accomplishing a mission kill or an actual kill rise dramatically...but that does not mean any kind of a sure thing...its like rising from a 3% chance to an 8% chance (and those numbers are not meant to be definitive, onluy illustrative), if that nation is willing to take the risk of making the attempt. Because when that attempt is made, win or lose on the single attack, there is going to be hell to pay if it is made against a nation like the US that has eleven more waiting to extract a complete revenge.

A nation would have to be to the point of having a signifcant number of its own carrier task forces and associated at sea and land based assets for defense after the fact, to ever contemplate the attack, successful or not.

Just my opinion.

I dunno if this has been addressed before...

What countermeasures do carriers have against torpedoes launched from submarines? Putting aside the anti-submarine defenses that are obviously vital, if a sub gets within effective range and fires off a salvo of torpedoes, what are the options of the carrier (battle group) and is the carrier itself designed to (physically) withstand torpedo attacks? Or is there somewhat of a safety net around it?

Thanks.

How to hide a carrier task force
http://www.navweaps.com/index_tech/tech-031.htm

Very good read by a guy named Andy Pico. Popeye, I think he was in the Navy at the same time as you.

Originally Posted by The_Zergling

I dunno if this has been addressed before...

What countermeasures do carriers have against torpedoes launched from submarines? Putting aside the anti-submarine defenses that are obviously vital, if a sub gets within effective range and fires off a salvo of torpedoes, what are the options of the carrier (battle group) and is the carrier itself designed to (physically) withstand torpedo attacks? Or is there somewhat of a safety net around it?

Thanks.

Pretty much all ships carry torpedo decoys. You could try to move out of the way or outrun the torpedo. I'm not sure about this but firing depth charges (if anyone carries those anymore) in front of the torpedo could kill it.

Carriers themselves could probably withstand a torpedo hit or two but the ship's listing would make air opeerations impossible.

Originally Posted by Finn McCool

Carriers themselves could probably withstand a torpedo hit or two but the ship's listing would make air opeerations impossible.

That's right! All an enemy should do is cripple it, and then, if possible, take it as a war prize! In the Cold War, Soviet SSGs/SSGNs routinely shadowed USN CBGs, besides long range bombers/patrol planes. If the general location is known, a few land/submarine based ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads could also knock it out. The EM pulse alone will put all radars & other electonics out of commission in a few hundred miles radius.

The Soviet Union conducted significant research into producing nuclear weapons specially designed for upper atmospheric detonations, a decision that was later followed by the United States and the United Kingdom. Only the Soviets ultimately produced any significant quantity of such warheads, most of which were disarmed following the Reagan era arms talks. EMP specialized nuclear weapons belong to the third generation of nuclear weapons.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electromagnetic_bomb
http://www.globalsecurity.org/milita...996/apjemp.htm
http://www.abovetopsecret.com/pages/ebomb.html

BLUEJACKET sez;

That's right! All an enemy should do is cripple it, and then, if possible, take it as a war prize! In the Cold War, Soviet SSGs/SSGNs routinely shadowed USN CBGs, besides long range bombers/patrol planes.

Being a "Cold War " warrior this statement is so true. Shadowing.. But remember those Soivet subs were shadowed by USN SSN's and SSBN's also. I've seen many flyovers with the long range bombers . Usally they were the great Russian Bear.

[QUOTE=BLUEJACKET;45818]That's right! All an enemy should do is cripple it, and then, if possible, take it as a war prize! In the Cold War, Soviet SSGs/SSGNs routinely shadowed USN CBGs, besides long range bombers/patrol planes. If the general location is known, a few land/submarine based ballistic missiles with nuclear warheads could also knock it out. The EM pulse alone will put all radars & other electonics out of commission in a few hundred miles radius.
[QUOTE]

Blue,

1.)Would you risk nuclear war just to have a better chance of sinking a US carrier? That is major escalation you are talking here

2.)The EM pulse will also put out your radars and electronics systems.

3.) US warships are EMP hardened. They are working on it long before the USSR ever did.

4.) As for shadowing, read the link that I posted before. Finding a carrier group is very hard.

5.) Your shadower (recon planes and SSN) must survive long enough to transmit the Carrier's location. Assuming they do, how long will it take for your strike planes to arm, fuel, and transit? By the time they arrive, the USN has travelled hundreds of miles or worse, put in a sam trap on your expected engress route.

Attacking a carrier at sea is very different than attacking a land base airfield. For starters, it moves at about 500 miles a day. Second, you need to find it. Third, at wartime posture, it does not emit any radar signals (E-2C does and datalink its radar picture to all ships in the task force in real time) making locating it hard. Fourth your recon planes, will be seen far longer than they can see the task force making surveillance very difficult and fatal.

A carrier task force on a defensive posture has these type of defence and counter.
1.) Not being found
2.) Intercepting recon planes (Airwing)
3.) Intercepting attack planes hundreds of miles from the carrier (Airwing)
4.) Sam trap along the threat axis. (A lone Burke is sent at flank speed on the threat axis and utilizing radar data datalink from the E-2. Once the attack force is within optimal sam range, it lights them up with SM-2. Heavy laden attack planes will have a hard time defensively manuevering against the SAMS leaving them either destroyed or ditching their anti-ship ordinance at sea. But the commander risk losing the ship)
5.) SM-2 sam range
6.) Decoys (floating decoys that emit a strong radar signiture, helicopters emiting ship radar signitures, chaff, and flare)
7.) Close in weapons (ESSM, Phalanx, etc)

Any info on the position of a CSG will get old very quickly: a carrier group can lose itself with an area of 100,000 square miles in six hours. You'd better have your strike force in the air ready to attack the moment the info comes in and that force will have to be huge in order to saturate the defences of the CSG.

For a long time i believed that sm-2 IIIb was capable of terminal guidance without ship based illuminators. I was then told my people more in the know of USN that is not the case and that first standard with its own terminal guidance will be sm-6 which will enter service in the next 5-10 years, budget willing.

Anyway, having said that, just how useful are standards in actually hitting enemy planes? Granted, they are a great deterrant and would force any incoming attackers in staying below radar horizon thus somewhat decreasing their range. I am, of course, assuming that recon planes are detecing possible USN ships from far away. If shot down by the carrier's airwing and not replaced, no attack would ever ensue.

Sticking to that doctrine, I still maintain the sam trap burke tactic is a waste of a ship. If attackers would be going on no matter what, without knowing that's out there for hundreds of km, then yeah, a sam trap could do great damage.

Anyway, finding, tracking and attacking an USN carrier group in the middle of the ocean is impossible in almost all cases i can think of today. Only if we talk hypothetical scenarios of, say, entire russian navy (mainly nuke subs) versus lone carrier group. Same goes for forseeable future, save for nuclear tipped ballistic missiles after a lucky, one in a million, satellite find. Engaging one closer to shore may be a different matter.

Even with closer to shore, though, it will come down to lots of resources thrown in the fight, more so than USN will be able to use. That's on top of of lots of platform contiuously searching and tracking the ship. Yes, it can be done but it'd be a huge undertaking.

Originally Posted by Totoro

Sticking to that doctrine, I still maintain the sam trap burke tactic is a waste of a ship. If attackers would be going on no matter what, without knowing that's out there for hundreds of km, then yeah, a sam trap could do great damage.

The reason why the SAM trap would work is that an inbound strike package (flying oveer water) uses compass locations solely to find its way. So if they get info of an enemy carrier group at point A, they will head for that location and launch at optimal ranges. A strike group usually maintains zero radar emmisions in order to prevent detection. As it nears its launch points, it climbs and turns on its radar to get an adequate radar lock on its target.


Here is what Andy Pico wrote about it on the link I posted.


A word about the opposition. The SNA strike regiments were (are) structured and armed very well to go kill naval formations. The AS4/6 on a Badger or Backfire in regimental strength backed with Bears in the recon role were and are formidable. They roughly had a Regiment per carrier. In a straight-forward engagement, the issue would have been "in doubt" at best. If a strike regiment caught a CV by surprise it would have been curtains. An alerted CV would have a better than even chance of surviving, but probable losses would have been severe. But the Regiment running through fighter opposition to their launch points and then getting back out would have taken crippling losses. They would have not been able to mount a second strike and would have been effectively destroyed if not annihilated. If a missile trap is set so that the regiment is climbing to launch altitude over a missile ship it doesn't know about until the radar comes up and missiles start impacting, the fight will be over before it barely starts. So it was critical for the target to be identified and located prior to the regiment being committed. This takes time and allows the CV time to maneuver, set decoy groups, missile traps, fighter ambushes, etc.

With two hours warning for example, a CV could dispatch a surface CG missile trap 60nm down the threat axis, station the CAP Outer Air Battle Grid, put a CG decoy group stationary, and run another 60nm down range and off axis in a silent mode. Then the regiment locates a likely target at the expected point, runs into a missile trap, fighter grid, and a target that can defend itself without ever threatening the CV.

So the trick is to prevent identification and localization of the force. Decoys run out and radiate. Aircraft launch on missions running silent, fly out to a deception point at low altitude, then climb and radiate as normal. The searchers locate the pop-up point but don't find the CV. This is particularly effective if the first launch of the day locates a large, neutral merchant or cruise liner and everybody uses that as the reference deception point. Then the searchers actually see a target at the point that the flight patterns indicate. In wartime they commit, they lose their regiment, and the CV then has a free ride.

We would also deliberately provide a false contact reference. If a searching aircraft is intercepted they can draw an operational radius of previously observed intercepts and conclude the CV is in that area. That allows a concentrated search. Now if we had deliberately intercepted him at an extended range and then moved the carrier at high speed in the other direction the search effort is concentrated at the wrong point. I did that one day by tanking an A7, running him out a long range and bringing him into an intercept of two Bears that were visually searching and identifying fishing boats and merchants trying to find us. I brought him in off-axis and took him back out off-axis (in other words not directly to or from the CV). We then cranked up the 32.5 knots the Midway could then do and went in the other direction. A few hours later we observed a "large number" of search aircraft vainly saturating that area of the ocean and giving all the fishing boats a great air show.

They could identify the E2's radar. They could then draw the normal circle around the E2's location and search that area. Trouble with that was that I was particularly adept at running out long range while silent, and then running a distant patrol point and acting as if the CV was close by. I used to routinely obtain contact at extended ranges. So by drawing their datum points based on my patrols they also looked in the wrong places, and at the same time I data-linked the complete tactical picture to all the silent participants.

About Subs shadowing a carrier

A sub vectored out to find us has to have some idea of where to look. If the CV has freedom to operate it can avoid contact by "random and dynamic" movement. Only if the CV locks itself to a set operational area and pattern (as in most structured exercises which lends itself to the prevailing myth of submarine superiority) does it become predictable and hence, vulnerable. If the CV moves it forces the sub to move to catch it, thereby making the sub more detectable

Well yes, bunch of subs would still be looking for a needle in a haystack. One would still need overwhelming numbers of various sensors so that maybe, after who know how much searching the carrier is located when enough subs are ready to receive the data and are close enough to catch it. Its far from a plausible scenario but in open seas, it's best anyone's got right now.

As for coastal based airplanes vs carrier - that's where i meant the sam trap wouldn't necesarrily work. Why would the attackers go in blind? Why wouldn't they have continuous information feed about the situation both at sea and in the air? Patrol planes and various awacs platforms. If one has enough fighters to protect them from carrier's airwing, it'd be possible to form a strike at surface units, first the silent burke, then the decoy burke, then the core of the carrier group. Granted, position of those would be changing but if they're being continously tracked, it's doable. Again, at great cost for attackers. I don't see any present air force in the world which could do it without suffering greater losses than carrier's airwing. And of course ships would get out of range once the airwing is lost.

Originally Posted by Totoro

Same goes for forseeable future, save for nuclear tipped ballistic missiles after a lucky, one in a million, satellite find. Engaging one closer to shore may be a different matter.

granted, it's not easy to find a carrier, but ocean surveillance satellites can detect CBG/SSG better than 1 in 1M chance. Besides space detection, there are other methods. And planes/submarines CAN get very close to a carrier-

21 MARCH 1984: The U.S. aircraft carrier USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63) collided with a Soviet nuclear-powered Victor class (Project 671) attack submarine in the Sea of Japan. At the time of the collision, the USS Kitty Hawk is estimated to have carried several dozen nuclear weapons, and the submarine probably carried two nuclear torpedoes.

and damaging her screw shaft as a result.
http://archive.greenpeace.org/comms/...tbt/read3.html

Sometimes during the Vietnam War, this V-DA Tu-95 thundered almost directly over the USS Kitty Hawk (CV-63): two F-4s intercepted the Bear and escorted it away.

Whenever some USN carrier battle grouip would sail out of Norfolk Naval Station, pairs of Bears would "pay it a visit", trying to come as close as possible. Tomcat crews would then try to escort Soviet bombers away before they could come closer. Few such encounters were slightly "hotter" than the usual ones, with Soviet crews pushing as hard as possible towards USN Carriers, like in this case when a Tu-95RC approached the USS Nimitz while escorted by an VF-84 "Jolly Rogers" F-14A.

http://www.acig.org/artman/publish/article_285.shtml
http://www.airforceworld.com/bomber/eng/tu95.htm

If nukes are used against tactical targets-i.e. ships, bases, troop concentrations and not against continental USA there is no risk of starting nuclear war. Besides, EMP bomb doesn't have to be nuclear, and their own forces can be kept at a safe distance before other conventional attacks are launched.
http://www.sinodefenceforum.com/arch...php/t-920.html
http://www.strategypage.com/militaryforums/8-4895.aspx
http://www.combatreform.com/battleships.htm