"Sortie generation from a USN CVN (2000 ish)?" Topic

I have uploaded the "purple prose" report of the campaign to the original thread to keep it all together. Next installment will be the purple prose battle report as opposed to the analytical battle report.

I know/can find how many aircraft a CVN carries. I understand the types of aircraft and thier missions.

What I'm looking for – in support of a forcible entry scenario- are how many sorties the carrier strike group can devote to air supremecy and strike missions (having taken out neccassary CAP, tanker and other required missions.

What is the surge rate for the "first night of operations" where the coalition force is achieving air/sea superiority.

What is the sustained rate.

The scenario is going to require forcible entry against a (acknowledgedly unrealistically capable) third world country equipped with MIG-29s, SAMs, and surface to surface missiles.

The way I understand during an 'early surge,' the CAW is likely to launch a coordinated combined arms package; the alpha strike. How many A/C is in a alpha strike. Of those how many are counducting counter-air, how many ECCM/tanking…, and how many are conducting ground to air strikes. I understand that alpha strike would normally be employed to 'defeat the enemy aviation and air defense assets. How often can this package be employed, including time to plan, rearm/refuel and launch?

During sustained operations (roughly day 2 – 6) how many strike sorties can they sustain?

I assume a CAW has equivalent idea of strip alert, where on- call A/C can be requested with 45 min (?) delay (allowing for 15 min strip alert and 30 min to close to the operations area (~300 miles away). Is this roughly realistic?

I know there are huge variables. I'm certainly not looking for anything classified or even sensitive, just a rough order of magnitude to allow the players to make decisions on where they will allocate X number of sorties to achieve air/sea dominance and shape the battlefield and Y number of sorties per day in support of indertiction and/or close air support.

I'm looking at '4 hour operational turns,' which will set conditions for '15 min tactical turns" I'm planning on using the old combined arms for the ground fight.

How often would a ground commander expect to have a section of aircraft check into either a CAS stack or be available for a strike mission?

I understand the Maritime Component and Air Component command constructs. I'm going to 'highly simplify it, and allow the "JTF staff" (my players during the "operational turns) allocate aircraft, with Naval (US Navy and Marine) aircraft being rather flexible while USAF aircraft have to be tasked 72 hours in advance.

They can operate 24/7/365, so a lot, should they be needed.

My guess is probably 5 – 6 in a 24 hour period, given a number of variables.

Perhap 3 – 4 sorties/day in sustained ops, would probably be realistic.

If really pressed, I suspect the above could be exceeded even more, by perhaps 50%, but they'd probably be more likely to have planned it out, and brought in a second, and/or third carrier if they thought they needed to exceed the above.

I'd approach this by looking at time to fly to/from the area of ops (roughly an hour, for out and back, given 300 miles away), plus time on station, a little time in the landing queue, tanking up outbound if necessary, sleep, etc., etc..

Also, you need to figure out the available aircraft too – perhaps 80% – 85% readiness for the initial attack, and dropping to around 60% over time, due to breakdowns, repairs, servicing, etc..

I honestly can't imagine a carrier NOT having all birds available for a deliberate strike. IIRC, the fastest you can reload the cats for another launch is 5 minutes.

I'd figure 6 birds minimum dedicate to CAP, based on Vietnam operations. Two birds directly overhead, two more on Barrier CAP between the carrier and the shore, and the last two on the cats waiting. Not sure about how many birds for tankers versus in the strike package, but I'd feel confident using Vietnam-era numbers to approximate things.

100% readiness with such complex birds is very difficult, if not impossible to achieve.

Just look at the breakdown/abort rates for the punitive attack on Libya, back in the day, against "'daffi".

A bunch of A-6s and F-111s had to abort from that raid, due to "gripes", and who knows how many weren't launched because of them.

Hi,

I served in two CVNs and was a TAO on a CGN back in the day. My knowledge is a bit dated, but I don't think things have changed very much. So, here goes….

Cycle time on a CVN catapult is about 30 seconds. You can simultaneously launch from one bow catapult and one waist catapult, alternating between catapults. For instance, you can simultaneously launch from #1 and #3 catapults, then #2 and #4 catapults a few seconds later. It will take about 30 seconds to retrieve the deck rat, reset the catapult and position the next aircraft. That presumes that the aircraft are staged to support such a launch. I have witnessed a launch of 54 aircraft in 15 minutes. Believe it or not, one of the hardest parts of such a mass launch is maintaining the list and trim of the ship as you move all of the aircraft around.

As stated by Mako11, CVNs are manned to support flight operations 24 hours per day, unlike the big deck amphibs that can really only support about 16 hours/day as matter of routine.

The number of sorties a CVN can sustain depends upon several factors: available aircraft, available pilots, weather, distance to target, refueling assets, etc. From the ship's standpoint, if you can position an aircraft on the catapult, they'll throw it off the front end.

Aircraft allocation, especially CAP, depends on the nature of the threat, the placement of your CAP stations, whether you will have distant and close-in CAP stations, and whether you will have continuous coverage when on station. If you want continuous coverage by two aircraft 250nm down range, you'll need at least 8 aircraft dedicated to that station: 2 on station, 2 returning from station, 2 enroute to station and 2 preparing to launch. I would expect an entire squadron of 12 aircraft to be dedicated to CAP if you wanted continuous coverage. That's one of the reasons we normally have two fighter squadrons embarked.

One thing to consider regarding the time to allocate to a sortie, is the time it takes to marshall the aircraft prior to their departure for the target. A small strike package of 3 bombers and an EW bird can be launched in just a couple of minutes and can marshall enroute. A air wing strike of two bomber squadrons and an escort of a couple of flights of fighters and a couple of EW birds (call it 36 aircraft) will take nearly 10 minutes just to get everyone in the air. Then, they'll need to marshall (assemble) and possibly refuel, especially if they took off light on gas due to weapons loading. Depending on how far the target is, you might only be able to do that twice, or mayby three times a day.

Unsupported, a CVN should be able to support continuous combat operations for a couple of weeks. They carry a stupid amount of ammo and jet fuel.

I hope this was helpful.

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

Thanks for that info, Scott.

I've also read that they can land jets about every minute, or so, on average.

Mako11,

It's possible to stack them that tightly, but you'll have frequent wave offs if there are delays in clearing the landing deck.

Regards,

Scott Chisholm

Thanks Gentlemen:

Taking the above information as a input:

The CVN will remain in 'international waters' but enter the 'claimed exclusion zone' of the enemy around 1000 the day before hostilities commence (this allows the 'defenders to try a first strike), they establish a near CAP and postion the carrier ~250nm away from the objective area. The local CAP is maintained troughout.

Hostilities are authorized to commence at midnight.

Initial strike from the CVN will follow B-2 strike and will cross the coast (feet dry) at 0100 and contain 36 strike aircraft, primarily directed at command and control nodes, radars and airfields, and enemy submarines.

2d strike will commence at 0430 and contain 36 strike aircraft, targets are reattack of any high value targets not confirmed destroyed by first strike, followed by surface to surface missiles and high threat ground systems (EN Atk Helos and BM-21s)

3rd strike will commence at 0900 and contain 36 strike aircraft. Primary targets are the EN ground forces, prioritized to destroy C2 assets, armor and artillery formations).

Two aircraft armed with both air to air missiles and precision guided munitions (JDAMs) establish a far CAP over the objective area begining at 1000. With USAF tanking support, these aircraft have fuel to remain on station for 2hours. The plan is for the aircraft to maintain the CAP for 1 hour then either strike identified targets, join the CAS stack (they can loiter for one hour (four turns) or conduct armed recc (go down and look for targets.) before they return home. Net effect is 2 strike aircraft available every hour (begining at 1100), while maintaining a CAP over the objective.

-The next 2 aircraft are kept on strip alert and will show up within 45 min of being requested. This can be done no more than once per day.

Beside the 48 sorties devoted to CAP/strike, six additional sorties are available for specific tasking. The other six aircraft can be requested at a specific time/with a specific load out.

Does this sound like a reasonable/feasabile employment?

Might be a bit tight on rearming your strike waves, but I'm sure there's an ordnanceman somewhere around here that could provide a better answer.