"Submarine Aircraft Carriers and Submersible Planes" Topic

"If submarines possessed the high vision and quick speed of aircraft, they could dramatically extend their reach. If aircraft took off and landed from underwater platforms, their staging and strikes would be stealthier and more secure.

But combining the two epoch-making weapons has proved difficult. Only one country really pulled it off—and too late to win a war. But the tremendous potential of the aircraft-sub combo may make an historic comeback thanks to drones and Special Operations Forces.

The underwater stealthiness of submarines comes with a great downside—blindness. Subs rely on a few sensors—and help from other military assets—to comprehend their environments…"
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Amicalement
Armand

A logical progression, given surface vessels' vulnerability to attack.

The UK should have bought a fleet of these, instead of those two, silly, conventional carriers and F-35s:

No doubt, would have been cheaper, and operationally ready, sooner, not to mention the major manpower reductions to operate these high-tech, stealth vessels.

Yay: SkyDiver!!

John T

(smile)

Amicalement
Armand

A logical progression, given surface vessels' vulnerability to attack.

And you think submarines, especially submarines of the size you're talking about, aren't?

The idea of a submarine aircraft carrier has been booted around since the '20s. And no one has been able to make it work. And probably never will….

would have been cheaper,

They'd certainly save on uniforms :

Nothing says navy like a hard wearing string vest….

And '70s hair (must have the '70s hair).

You think Ford-class carriers are expensive?

Just wait till you see the pricetag for a submarine that can launch conventional aircraft! Not to mention how many SSCVNs you need to equal the strike group of a single Ford-class.

This doesn't get into the realities of setting up a conventional catapult deck from a submarine (I'll give you a hint: You're talking 30+ minutes to surface and ready the flight deck, and probably 15 minutes to dive from flight ops)

Perhaps they could just launch those sea-gull/albatross-like drones, instead.

Not having pilots in the aircraft would certainly make them a bit more economical.

Launch the aircraft from under the sea, missile-like, and then have them swim down to a hangar deck for recovery below.

Granted, very different tech than we have now, but certainly doable with a bit of creativity.

@Mako: You mean the LockMart Cormorant ( link )?

Yeah, but that had another set of issues: namely, the need to put divers over the side to recover the beast, not to mention the technical challenges of keeping seawater out of the inside of the drone.

I will admit that I still think we should have fielded the beasts, they would have really enhanced the abilities of the Ohio SSGNs to support the SEALs ashore. But you're talking about a total buy of probably 32 of the drones, assuming one drone per tube (it might be possible to fit 2 drones per tube, but each drone would need to be no more than 20 feet long) and 4 tubes per sub, plus some spares. Makes for expensive drones, even if you buy enough to field 8-12 per SSGN and spares.