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#31
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FYI I have looked at several websites and have found photos of her when she arrived in New Orleans - and what arrived was a useable ship that arrived under her own power and in good condition - she appeared to be well maintained and in good condition upon arrival in 1989 - https://delange.org/CabotR/CabotR.htm
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except for two factors on this particular light carrier
she had been in active service until 1989 and was delivered in working condition with fully serviced engines, navigation gear, etc.. - she wasnt towed into port in late 1989 she was sailed in by a full crew of Spanish sailors and she went into drydock and came out in 1993 with a fully blasted and painted hull, asbestos removed on several decks and otherwise worked on this isnt a ship thats been sitting around in the Reserve Fleet since the 1950's or Vietnam - she was flying sorties as late as August 1989 |
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To be fair to The Dark though, I had made a general statement regarding the reserve fleet and his answer was in response to that.
Last edited by StainlessSteelCynic; 05-04-2018 at 06:31 PM. Reason: adding missing word |
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Speaking of Aircraft carriers, I was reading The RDF Sourcebook and noted that there's a whole (small) carrier battle group still standing and operational, built around the LHA-3 Bellau Wood. The book notes that its air wing stands at 3 UH-60s, however, it (and its sister ships) are still active and protect oil transports going to the US, moving troops around, etc.
There's at least 2 USMC air wings in the region as well with operational Harriers; if "carrier" ops were needed, the resources are right there. (note LHA-3 and her sister ships are oil-fueled steam turbine ships). Anyway, thought that was pretty interesting.
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This is a bit of tangent, but I wouldn't be surprised to see container ships converted to ersatz escort carriers during WWIII. I seem to remember reading that both the U.S./UK had contingency plans to do just that during the Cold War. Essentially, on the said container ships, you lay runway matting over a single layer of shipping containers. The containers contain workshops, spare parts, weaponry, etc. The matting acts as a makeshift landing pad for helicopters and/or STOL/VTOL aircraft.
The idea is to provide convoys with ASW protection, without dedicating fleet carriers or amphibs to the task. I suppose that such a conversion vessel could also provide air support to amphib operations. IIRC, during the 1982 Falklands war, a container ship (the Atlantic Conveyor or similar vessel) was used as a floating base for Sea King and Wessex transport helicopters). I suppose a container ship runway could be used to launch STOL turboprop light attack aircraft such as OV-10 Broncos and/or A-1 Skyraiders, as well as Harrier jump jets. IIRC, there's a thread about the above somewhere around here.
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Shipborne Containerized Air Defense Systems? Containerized system to deliver the needed supplies to convert a container ship for Harrier operations. Was an early 1980s effort I think.
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Reminds of early in WWII where some British merchant ships were fitted with a catapult-launched Hurricane for use against German Fw 200 Condors acting as spotters for U-boats. The Hurricanes were usually successful in driving off the Condors, but later finding the convoy so the pilot could ditch nearby (the ships had no way of recovering the aircraft) was a bit tricky ...
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I have been told part of the Cabot debacle was because the museum's board hired a goofball to command the ship with a made up resume as a retired navy Captain. By the time they realized he was a nut case and had no idea what he was doing A LOT of damage due to his incompetent neglect and bungled repairs/maintenance/conversion work had been inflicted on the ship. They were never able to crawl out of the hole he left in the budget to get her in any kind of shape for museum tours.
I understand the Navy was extremely pissed, because they had recommended several officers for the job that the board ignored for the guy they selected, who apparently had some political pull with someone on the board. There may have been a lawsuit filed by some of the investors...not sure. Last edited by mpipes; 05-06-2018 at 04:29 PM. |
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Shipborne Containerized Air Defense Systems
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#44
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The American equivalent was ARAPAHO, which looked to outfit containers with ASW electronics and load 6 to 8 helicopters or Harriers on board, taking up about 30% of the cargo space of (then-current) container ships to convert them to ASW carriers/convoy escorts. When tested (by the Royal Navy) on RFA Reliant off Lebanon in 1984, the lack of watertightness proved to be a problem; helicopters had to be washed down twice daily to prevent salt corrosion, and despite being in the (relatively calm) Mediterranean, the hangar was often awash in 2-3 inches of salt water from spray and rolling.
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Actually no it was not ARAPAHO Army Pre-positioned Sustainment Maintenance Facility. Was a concept convinced by Naval Air Systems Command for a portable, modularized aviation facility intended for installation aboard container ships.
The differences are 1. It be installed in less than twenty-four hours and included all components necessary for V/STOL aircraft operations: flight deck, hangar, fuel, and crew accommodations. 2. ARAPAHO was designed be taken off a ship, and moved shore, to be set up as a complete self-sustaining facility to do Aviation Unit Maintenance (AVUM), Aviation Intermediate Maintenance (AVIM), and selected depot work. https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...ip/arapaho.htm
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https://www.globalsecurity.org/milit...ip/arapaho.htm
Copied from the above link in case you can't get it to work ARAPAHO Army Pre-positioned Sustainment Maintenance Facility In the Arapaho program, the Naval Air Systems Command developed a portable, modularized aviation facility intended for installation aboard container ships. It can be installed in less than twenty-four hours and included all components necessary for V/STOL aircraft operations: flight deck, hangar, fuel, and crew accommodations. It was estimated to cost less than $20 million per set. ARAPAHO was a research and development project to demonstrate the feasibility of equipping merchant ships with emergency aviation support in wartime and of operating ASW helicopters and other combatant aircraft from these vessels. ARAPAHO at-sea testing was completed 07 October 1982 at the Norfolk International Terminal, Norfolk, Va., when the 18,000-ton container ship Export Leader - configured with a portable modular aviation facility - returned to port after having logged 178 day and 45 night helicopter landings. The history of the floating maintenance facility goes back to World War II. There was a big fight between the Army Air Force and the Navy over the need for a floating aircraft repair facility. After a great deal of debating among themselves, they came up with three ships. These ships were used in the Pacific when the Americans were island hopping. Before troops could get a facility ashore, they were going to another island. So they put these repair facilities aboard these small ships that were converted for it and they would island hop with the invasion force and were very successful. After the end of World War II, there was no need for them and they were all dismantled and done away with because no one saw the need for that type of thing in the future. In Korea, there was not a need for them; or if there was, it had such a low priority that no one ever resurrected the concept. In the early 1960s the AV-5 Albemarle, a WWII seaplane tender, was taken out of the James River Fleet off of Fort Eustis and taken down to Charleston. She was converted and renamed ARVH-1 Corpus Christi Bay [ARVH = Aircraft Repair Ship, Helicopter]. Then there was a plan in the late 1960s and early 1970s for a floating aircraft maintenance facility which would have consisted of a small aircraft carrier [an escort carrier] with a hanger built on the flight deck. That was considered to be cost prohibitive at the time and the idea was dropped. By the mid-1980s there was a plan to resurrect this capability with the project Arapaho, building a modular facility aboard a container ship. The advantage of the Arapaho over the floating aircraft maintenance facility such as the Corpus Christi Bay is that it could be taken off the ship, moved shore, and set up as a complete self-sustaining facility to do Aviation Unit Maintenance (AVUM), Aviation Intermediate Maintenance (AVIM), and selected depot work. The ability to support the planned force development in all of its potential roles was essential to accomplishment of the Army's missions under the National Security and National Military Strategies. During 1992 the Army took several steps to improve its ability to support its forces in combat and in operations other than war. These covered a wide spectrum of logistical issues such as war reserves; repair parts; tactical water; petroleum, oil, and lubricants; and the industrial base. In the process, the Army leadership had to balance considerations of force structure design, mobility, and personnel end strength with the available resources to properly sustain its forces. To provide non divisional Aviation Intermediate Maintenance (AVIM) and limited depot support in an operational area, the Army established its Pre-positioned Sustainment Maintenance Facility (ARAPAHO) program. Operating as either a sea-based or land-based facility, ARAPAHO consisted of a designated non divisional AVIM unit's personnel with equipment installed in shelters. Logisticians designed the unit for loading on board a C-5 Seawitch class or larger container ship within twenty-four to thirty-six hours of receiving movement orders, and they envisioned deployment at sea within six days. The unit can use on-board Operational Ready Float (ORF) and Forward Repair Activities (FRA) and will use extended prescribed load list/authorized stockage list (PLL/ASL). ARAPAHO's ability to deploy rapidly would hopefully save forces from waiting sixty days for a ground-based AVIM unit. As a self-transportable unit, ARAPAHO can also quickly redeploy after completing its initial mission.
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Here is a link for pictures and stats for RFA Reliance (A131), already talked about there is a really good picture here too
http://www.navypedia.org/ships/uk/br...astronomer.htm Other examples of ships like this are: RFA Argus (A135) of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary which began her career as container ship. The ship was requisitioned in 1982 for service in the Falklands War and purchased outright in 1984 for use as an Aviation Training Ship RFA Engadine (K08) was a helicopter support ship of the Royal Fleet Auxiliary. The need for Engadine was seen in the mid-1960s as more and more helicopters were deployed from Royal Navy aircraft carriers and surface combatants. She was decommissioned in 1989 and sold to new owners in Greece and left the UK in 1990. Broken up in India in 1996
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Now, there's an interesting possibility -
Sale of the Cabot, operational if disarmed, into private hands, who turn out to be New America, who load up say 500 well-armed troops, half a dozen helicopters, and go William Walker on Jamaica in 1998/9, in order to provide a safe secure home base... It isn't going far, and some refill fuel an be raided from the Dutch ABC islands... Uncle Ted |
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Per canon, as in, printed by GDW, how much of the US Navy is left as fleet-in-being?
Matt Weiser wrote a pretty good "fanon" writeup in GLYOYO #1; just wondering where the GDW pubs outline what ships are left. USS City of Corpus Christi, SSGN-981 an Ohio-class SSBN (The Last Sub) USS John Hancock, DD981, Spruance class (Going Home) USS Nashville, LPD-13, Austin-class transport dock (The RDF Sourcebook) USS Bellau Wood, LHA-3, Tarawa-class (The RDF Sourcebook) USS Clark, FFG-11, Oliver Hazard Perry class (The RDF Sourcebook) USS Boone, FFG-25*, Oliver Hazard Perry class (The RDF Sourcebook) USS Copeland, FFG-28*, Oliver Hazard Perry class (The RDF Sourcebook) USS Salem, CA-139**, Des Moines class heavy cruiser (The RDF Sourcebook) USS Yorktown, CG-45, Ticonderoga class (The RDF Sourcebook) ... *=the ship registry numbers are flipped, Boone is FFG-28 and Copeland is FFG-25. ** = now, this is interesting. Salem was decomissioned in 1954. Per Wikipeida: Quote:
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#52
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#53
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Jacksonville and Mayport are separated by several miles so that near miss may have devastated the areas along the coast but may have spared a lot of Jacksonville itself - also was the miss in a direct line to Mayport or was it also the south - if that is where it hit then Jacksonville Beach and places like that could have been nailed but must of the city could have been spared and not sure if the nuke was a surface detonation or airburst FYI - the idea that a nuke could have caused a wave effect is faulty - https://www.realcleardefense.com/art...s__107709.html - if it was a surface burst you can get lots of water and mud shot up in the air but not a wave - it takes a hell of a lot more energy than one megaton to create any kind of appreciable wave |
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I think you are right there - if I remember right the list actually said surface when it was a surface burst - i.e. that part at least it didnt leave to chance
Keep in mind however that the list in Howling Wilderness DID NOT exactly match the actual attacks - and before I get the usual rap in the mouth for saying that I mean that the details of the actual attacks varied from the simple list in HW versus for instance Urban Guerilla Pointed that out last night in another thread - i.e. the attack on Cape Canaveral wasnt a simple one megaton surface burst attack - it was a series of ten 0.1MT surface bursts that added up to one megaton - but if all you had was HW you would think it was a single one megaton bomb |
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That "10 hits" thing is ridiculous overkill. I mean, it's canon, so whatcha gonna do, but seriously that's just beyond silly. It's like shooting a lego building eight times with a .22 :P
Anyway, for myself, I'd take the strike list, dial it into Nukemap, and get your best estimate effects from there (but this is wandering far afield, my apologies). Back to carriers...I could swear to God there was another one mentioned as being in the Gulf, stuck in port (in Kuwait?) due to damage...grr what WAS it...I've discussed the very thing myself.
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Matt mentioned the carrier stuck in the Gulf - but it wasnt canon - but the canon really didnt mention ships very much - and it would make sense that there are ships stuck in various ports all over the world due to damage of various types - that is why the Korean Sourcebook and the East African one actually started detailing out more of what is left of the USN in those areas
and I agree its overkill - I used to work at NASA - and there is no way in hell you need 10 0.1MT nukes to take the place out - heck one was on the VAB building itself - the building is big but you dont need that much of a bomb to take it out - and nuking the pads themselves is MASSIVE OVERKILL - I can see hitting the air force base that way because its so spread out and there are so many targets there - but NASA can be taken out pretty easily with one or two nukes - you dont need ten spread out all over the place - hell just an EMP bomb would have done the job - not going to be doing much if you fry the shuttles and the launch computers |
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Well, there are shelters between the SSPF and ONC buildings. I'm sure the Soviets would've tried to fry anyone in those, too. But yeah 10 100kt warheads is massive overkill.
It does lend some credence to the idea that the reason the TDM wasn't as bad as it might have been was because we had a working SDI/Missile Shield, and coming from launches at the Cape, the Soviets might've been making sure there'd be no future missions from there (spiteful, but, eh.) EDIT: Anyway, to bring this back around, yes, there's a light aircraft carrier in the USN inventory, along with the aircraft, the fuel to fly them, the personnel to man them, etc. as outlined in the RDF Sourcebook, and it's keeping POL flowing to the US (well, trickling) as the flagship in a protective convoy...
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A debatable one: in 2000, USS Tarawa is still in service in the Atlantic per Nautical/Aviation Handbook, page 57. However, that Handbook was primarily intended for use with Merc, so I could see this one being argued either way.
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Now that doesnt mean she isnt still around - but I always look at that resource as being one for that version of the game |
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