And a little more about aircraft carriers
The campaign of our only heavy aircraft cruiser Admiral Fleet Soviet Union Kuznetsov "to the coast of Syria, as well as the first combat experience gained by the Russian deck aviation, as well as its first losses in conditions close to combat, gave rise to a lot of articles, comments, reasoning and speculation. Of course, no one expected that such a momentous event for the Russian Navy would go unnoticed. Of course, the sacred war lasting for many decades between opponents and supporters of aircraft carriers could not help breaking out with renewed vigor. And certainly, no one doubted that Kuznetsov’s failure in the warm waters of the Mediterranean Sea would provoke further statements about the uselessness of decked aircraft and its flaws compared to air force planes.
Here, perhaps, begin. The fact is that there is one indisputable fact - deck aircraft, with proper use of it, are not inferior in efficiency to land-based aircraft. This fact, if someone doubts, Oleg Kaptsov irrefutably proves in his numerous articles on aircraft carrier topics.
Dear readers will surely be surprised by such a statement - after all, among the authors of TOPWAR, there is probably no greater opponent of aircraft carriers than O. Kaptsov. The number of articles published for his authorship and dedicated to carrier-based aviation is already in the tens, and in each of them Oleg Kaptsov draws conclusions about the inferiority of carrier-based aviation ... everything is so. But if we give less attention to the conclusions that the distinguished author draws, and focus on the facts that he gives in support of his point of view, we will be surprised to find that ...
One of the fundamental proofs of the theory of O. Kaptsov about the futility of carrier-based aviation is his analysis of the use of deck-mounted aircraft in the famous “Desert Storm”. Here, for example, in the article “The Flyers believe in the power of heaven. And, of course, in the landing cable ", dear author writes:
It would seem - well, really, what can be discussed if the total number of sorties of carrier-based aviation with 6 AUG USA reached hardly 15-17% of the total number of air force sorties ... And if you also remember another article by O. Kaptsov “Storm in the Desert . Strike deck aircraft ", in which he writes:
That, of course, remains only to unconditionally agree with the statement of the author:
But after all, what the matter is ... Let's take the article by O. Kaptsov “How victories are forged. Operation Desert Storm, which lists in detail all types of aircraft, and how many sorties each made. And then - let's analyze the figures presented by the author.
So, according to O. Kaptsov, the US Air Force was represented by the following combat aircraft:
Heavy fighters of air supremacy - F-15 “Eagle”, 120 units.
Stormtroopers - A-10 Tandrebolt, 132 units.
Tactical bombers - F-111 "Anteater" (modifications E and F), 82 units.
Other tactical combat aircraft, in the number of 395 units, including:
F-16 Fighting Falken - 244 units
F-117A "Nighthok" - 42 units
F-15E "Strike Eagle" - 48 units.
F-4G Wild Weasel - 61 units
And all, it turns out, 729 tactical aircraft machines, but in addition to it was also involved a strategic - 66 units. strategic B-52G Stratoforthress. As for the many supporting aircraft, such as EF-111 EW-XNUMX “Raven” aircraft, flying Sentry radar, refueling aircraft and so on and so forth, today we will leave them behind the scenes, especially since Oleg Kaptsov does not give statistics on departures .
But not the same air force ... In addition to the air force, 190 US Marine Corps aircraft operated from ground airfields:
AV-8B Harrier II - 86 units
F / A-18 “Hornet” (mod. A, C and D) - 84 unit.
A-6E Intruder - 20 units
To be fair, let us clarify that some of the Harriers "worked" from the landing craft, but nevertheless they were not included in the carrier-based carrier aircraft.
Based on the US aircraft carriers:
F-14 "Tomcat" - 99 units
F / A-18 - 85 units
A-6E Intruder - 95 units
A-7 Corsair II - 24 units
All in all, it turns out that the Americans threw 985 land based aircraft and 303 of deck-based aircraft, that is, 1288 combat aircraft, with the proportion of deck-based aircraft being very noticeable 23,5%.
Could the Americans ensure the basing of the mentioned 303 aircraft carrier planes + a bunch of E-2C Hokai and other deckers on land? On the one hand, as if no problems. Everyone knows that the US has more than 800 military bases around the world, and that there are several hundred planes just lost ... probably. But in practice everything is a little more complicated, which we know again thanks to Oleg Kaptsov. Indeed, despite the fact that the crusade against the evil Saddam, who had offended little Kuwait, lined up a whole line of democratic (and not so) countries, neither American bases, nor bases of their allies (Saudi Arabia, Spain, Turkey, and other etc.) ) for the basing of aviation MNS for some reason did not have:
In other words, even the existing forces had to be based at international airports, and if you still had to deploy deck aircraft there too? Would there be enough airports? On 303, aircraft with the aviation supporting their operations would require 10-15 of large aerodromes (capable of operating an aviation regiment with attached planes) —and large aerodromes were already dismantled.
But even if they were enough - there is another problem. The fact is that the entire power of the MNF, relying on the global technical superiority of the United States, did not cope with the most primitive Scuds of Saddam Hussein. And if Iraq would have had modern tactical missiles (OTR)? And if Iraq had, albeit many times the weakest, but still efficient aircraft? In this case, would the Americans with their allies be able to provide air cover for all airfields, which could protect the latter from the threats listed above? And what extra strength would such a cover require? At the same time, aircraft carriers cannot be hit by OTR, as they represent a moving target, and the US AUG air defense system has extremely powerful defense against air attack. Accordingly, in any assessment of the comparative effectiveness of carrier-based and ground-based aviation, one should remember that the bases and infrastructure of the latter are much more vulnerable to the impact weapons the adversary. In the case of admonishing some "barmaleev" on the edge of geography, who do not dare to dream of an ordinary MANPADS, this is probably not critical. But in the event of a war with a serious and technically developed adversary, the advantages of a mobile and well-protected aerodrome, such as an aircraft carrier, cannot be overestimated.
But we were distracted - we will return to the comparison of the aviation capabilities of the deck and ground based on materials kindly provided to us by Oleg Kaptsov.
Of course, an extremely important indicator that demonstrates the combat capability of an aircraft is the number of sorties made by it in a certain period of time. We now count the number of sorties per aircraft for the entire war - with all the conventionality of this indicator, it is a good demonstration of the technical capabilities of each type of aircraft.
And from these materials we clearly see that deck-based aviation is almost as good as ordinary land-based combat aircraft. On average, one Air Force aircraft for this war made 47,9 departures, while the aircraft of carrier-based aircraft - 46,3, i.e. According to this indicator, the advantage of the Air Force planes was already 3,5%. If we compare the number of sorties of all ground-based aircraft, i.e. Air Force and Marine Corps with a baton, then the superiority of "land carriers" will be as much as 2,9%. In essence, this value is within the limits of statistical error; according to it, it is generally impossible to diagnose any superiority of ground aviation.
It becomes even funnier if you do not compare deck-based aviation with the air force en masse, but look at the types of aircraft. By the number of aircraft flights per plane, undoubtedly, Thunderbolt is in the lead (almost 65 aircraft flights per plane), but for the most mass F-16 this indicator is only slightly (by 2,5%) higher than that of deck F / A-18. Interestingly, the F-15 of any modification pretty much loses to the deck "Hornet."
In general, for the umpteenth time, you need to remember the proverb that there is a lie, there is a big lie, and there are statistics. On the one hand, yes, in the total number of sorties, deck aircraft "gained" only some 15-17%. And everything seems to be right (because in this case, not only are there any stratotankers and so forth, but also, it seems, aviation of other countries of the MNS), and the conclusion seems to be that the carrier-based aircraft is completely incapable against the ground aircraft basing ... but let's look at the question a little from a different angle.
If we count fighters and ground attack aircraft of tactical aviation (excluding the B-66 “strategists” of the 52 airplanes), then we get that the US military had the 1222 tactical aircraft of the specified types, of which the descendants were 303 or 24,8%. And these 24.8% made 23% of all sorties of the total number accomplished by US tactical aviation combat aircraft (46 866 of land aviation sorties against 14 014 - deck). And now we will analyze the total number of departures according to their types.
And when we are surprised to find that the US carrier-based aviation, which had only about a quarter of the total number of American tactical aircraft, turned out to provide 41,3% of all heavy fighter sorties and 30,9% of all attack aircraft, we can estimate the role carrier-based aviation of the US Navy in Operation Desert Storm, isn't it?
As for the bomb load ... It’s pointless to compare how many bombs dumped ground-based tactical airplanes and how many deck-based airplanes and to draw conclusions on the basis of the usefulness / uselessness of those or others. First, because in this parameter, the absolute leader is US strategic aviation. Sixty-six "Stress Fortress" was only 5,12% of the total number of US combat aircraft (listed in the table above), but at the same time, according to Oleg Kaptsov, carpet bombing
In fact, the number in 38% is somewhat doubtful, probably, this is a trivial typo, but rather it’s all about 29%. For example, the article “B-52. Combat use ”, published in“ Aviation and Astronautics ”2001 04 points out 25 700 tons of free-falling bombs. In this case, the total mass of ammunition consumed by the B-52 is obviously higher, since the latter also used guided munitions (the same AGM-86C cruise missiles).
But even if we assume that out of the total mass of air munitions that hit the long-suffering Iraqi heads in the number of 88 500 tons, "only" 25 700 T was dropped by strategic bombers - it turns out that 5,12% of the planes threw 29% of all ammunition on the enemy. In other words, according to the results of such an analysis, tactical aviation must be scrapped, it is outdated, incapable, and instead of any Igls, Fighting Falcons and other Raptors, there is a need to build a B-2 Spirit, which, of course, will tear all ... funny? Here I am about the same.
The second problem of the “bombing” approach is that it simply does not take into account the tasks that were set for the deck and ground planes. Some may suggest that this is a pretense, but let's be impartial. A simple example: US strategic bombers usually covered fighter planes of carrier-based aircraft - they preferred to go to Iraq’s borders across the sea, which was to a certain extent justified by the location of the airfields on which the “super-strongholds” were based. According to some reports, 20 B-52 operated - from the Spanish base Moron, eight - from the English airfield Feyford and 20 - from the atoll Diego Garcia. Well, if we compare those 10 thous. Tons of bombs that deck aircraft expended to 78,5 ths tons, which other aircraft dropped, then it seems like little is obtained - deck aircraft spent unfortunate 11,2% of the total (88 500 tons) of their numbers. And if you compare with the same 88 500 t 35 700 t bombs that were dropped on Iraqis during the joint operations of the strategic and carrier-based aviation of the US Navy (and also the latter - independently)? Then it turns out that 369 aircraft of the US Navy and "strategists" (28,6% of the total number) dropped on the enemy over 40% of all ammunition, is not it?
Statistics, she is such statistics ... just close your eyes to several factors, recognize them as irrelevant, and - please, the rationale for your point of view is ready. By the way, the last thesis cited by the author of this article (about 40% of the total amount of bombs dropped by deck and strategic aviation) is also not correct. This is an example of how manipulation with tsifiry allows justify any point of view.
It remains only to repeat that the mass of the bombs can in no way serve as a measure of the efficiency of the aircraft. The deck aircraft of the US Navy made 14 014 sorties, of which 4 004 departed to perform air defense missions with heavy fighters. So, about a third (28,6%) of all sorties were limited to providing air defense. At the same time, a similar ratio for land-based aircraft is only 12,1%. Different goals, different tasks, so why should we measure combat effectiveness exclusively “in bombs”?
And finally, third. Despite the fact that the "bombing" approach to evaluating the effectiveness in this case is not applicable, using it, we find ... that the aircraft of carrier-based aircraft and in this parameter are not inferior to the ground!
So all in all, 88 500 t bombs were dropped on Iraq. Of these, 10 000 T is carrier-based aircraft and 25 700 T-strategic aviation. Accordingly, the share of tactical aviation accounted for 52 800 t bombs.
At the same time, with the exception of the F-15C (which were engaged almost exclusively in air hunting), ground aircraft made an 39 561 aircraft departure. But here's the thing, bombs on Iraq were dropped not only by planes of the US armed forces ... Oleg Kaptsov writes:
It’s hard to say how many airplanes the combat aircraft made and how many providing the allies of the United States, the author doesn’t have exact data on this. But some assumptions can still be made. Oleg Kaptsov indicates that all the aircraft of the MNS has made 98 000 sorties. 18 117 airplanes made deck aircraft, another 17 300 - Allied aviation. Total for the share of the USAF and KMP remains 62 583 of departure, of which combat aircraft (according to our table) made 46 866 departures. Accordingly, all other flights that ensure the operation of combat vehicles constituted 15 717 sorties. Those. the actual sorties were 46 866 / 62 583 * 100% = 74,9% of their total number.
Applying the same relation to the allied sorties, we get that from 17 300 purely combat sorties were of the order of 12 975. Probably, some of them were done to provide air defense, rather than shock missions, the Americans have this ratio for ground aviation 12%, but we assume that the MNS aviation made 10 000 sorties for attacking Iraqis (this is an exaggeration, but okay ). In this case, the total number of MNS ground aviation sorties (except for heavy fighters performing air defense tasks) will be 39 561 + 10 000 = 49 571 aircraft sortie, for which 52 800 t bombs were spent. Or approximately 1 065 kg of ammunition for one sortie.
And what about deck aircraft? Everything is simple - “Hornets”, “Intruders” and “Corsairs” made a total of 10 010 aircraft sorties, having spent 10 000 t bombs or 999 kg for one aircraft sortie. In other words, by the mass of delivered ammunition, the aircraft of deck aircraft lost to the ground (minus the strategic bombers) ... by as much as 6%!
The conclusion from the above is extremely simple. All these horror stories about the fact that carrier-based aviation is not able to keep up with land-based airplanes neither by the number of sorties, nor by the mass of transported ammunition, have no basis and are completely erroneous. That, on the basis of irrefutable facts, Oleg Kaptsov proved to us, for which he thanks us, grateful readers, a big human thanks.
Here, however, there is another nuance. Someone might say that for a long period, that is, “on average in the hospital,” aircraft carriers may be able to demonstrate the effectiveness of ground aviation, but they will not be enough for a sharp spurt. On this account there is a most interesting material about the teachings of the Nimitz wing in 1997. (A link to an English-language source can be found here) Over the course of 4-ex days, the giant aircraft carrier provided an average 244 departure per day, including attack aircraft - an average 193 departure per day.
On average, one F / A-18 made 4,5 departures per day, and one such aircraft managed to leave 4 deck (THIRTY) times in 30 days!
So, in order to properly assess the role of carrier-based aviation in future conflicts, you need to understand and accept the following. Firstly, the deck aircraft is in no way inferior to the ground class equal to it. More precisely, of course, it can be inferior, for example, if the outdated models of a chariot are compared with the newest - a “ground”. But, in addition to the inevitable obsolescence of equipment or the curvature of designers, there are no fundamental reasons why a deck tactical aircraft must lose ground effectiveness. Secondly, an aircraft carrier, representing a mobile and very well-protected aerodrome, is a much more complex goal than stationary ground air bases, especially since air force deployment plans usually provide for the use of a conventional, civilian aerodrome network.
Based on the above, it can be argued that an aircraft carrier is by no means a means of fighting “against the Papuans,” as the opponents of this type of weapons like to say. The Papuans do not care who will bring death to them - the Air Force or Navy, whether the squadron that kills them will rise from the deck or from the concrete path ... But in the war against the technically equal enemy, the presence of mobile airfields capable of striking from areas inaccessible to ground aviation basing, and even extremely vulnerable at the same time, it may well be the very straw that breaks the ridge of a camel.
At the same time, no one has ever argued that carrier aircraft should replace the Air Force - this is absurd. Deck aviation today is one of the elements of the balanced armed forces - it does not replace, but complements the air force, ground forces, navy, etc. Deck aviation will never be comparable in size to Air Force planes, and she doesn’t need this, it’s not created for these tasks. The aircraft carrier is designed to dominate the ocean spaces, providing intelligence, target designation and combat stability of surface and submarine fleet ships. In the war against the enemy, possessing a powerful land army, he is able to perfectly support his Air Force, creating a threat to which the enemy is forced to react, diverting planes, air defense systems and ground forces (and suddenly - landing?) To cover its own coast. In peacetime, an aircraft carrier is an instrument of politics and power projection.
Someone will argue that a single AUG does not constitute a big threat to a large state, because it is unable to defeat its air force and armed forces defending their home country? Of course. I would like to note, however, that the 11 frigates and corvettes of the Russian squadron commanded by SS. Lesovsky could not do the slightest harm to the British Isles. Nevertheless, they became a factor that forced Britain to refrain from entering the war and which strengthened the position of the US federal government in international relations. But Russia got its benefit from this - the coalition "England-France-Austria" against Russia and Prussia did not take place because of the change in the position of England, so that afterwards Austria even helped Russia with the Polish insurgency ... Cases of bygone days, you say? But if something distinguishes the diplomacy of those years from today, it is this that today diplomatic games have become much more complicated and sophisticated. And the presence of such a pounding weight in the form of an AUG in a political store will warm the hearts of the diplomats of any country that has this aircraft carrier strike group ...
Someone still disagree? Well, look how the world came to life after sending Kuznetsov to Syria. Western democracies will always react nervously to the movement of the naval forces not controlled by them for one simple reason: approximately 80% of world foreign trade is carried by sea transport. And as long as the main foreign trade turnover goes by sea, the one who rules the sea will rule the world.
And why should we rule the world? Maybe there is no need. But not allowing others to do this is a very important task for Russia. For one simple reason: somehow it has historically happened that as soon as a country starts to rule the seas, it immediately begins to oppose to the strongest on the Eurasian continent the alliances of smaller and weaker states. Recall England. When France was the strongest in Europe - they organized the anti-Napoleonic coalition, the Kaiser became the “king of the mountains” - please come to Entente ...
And who is the strongest country today (and tomorrow ... and the day after tomorrow ...) in Eurasia? Russian Federation. Despite all our (and not only our) attempts to kill our own science and education, we are still quite technologically advanced and are still the only country in the world that can powder the world hegemon (that is, the United States) in about 40 minutes. And while we will be a strong land power, but we will not have a powerful fleet, puppet governments will be viciously yelping along our borders - the offspring of orange revolutions, disguised by the authority and power of NATO. Do we need such a future?
But even here it can be argued that the Russian Federation is now unable to create a fleet capable of challenging US force at sea. This is definitely the case. So, according to many opponents, we don’t need to try - since the goal is still unattainable, let’s invest in the VKS for the time being, and we will manage to get boats on the sea, not really fat ... But then, when there is enough money, you can start building ocean fleet with aircraft carriers and all the rest. It seems to be true, but ...
Let's look at the campaign "Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov." The ship arrived within a reasonable time on the shores of Syria ... what made everyone sympathizing with the Russian Navy and the author of this article happy. Here is just a reason for joy purely ours, Russian, American, he will not be clear. Because for their aircraft carriers, the ocean cruise is a routine, and if the Nimitz has gone somewhere, its arrival is not what is expected, but simply no one even thinks that the ship will disrupt the deadlines set for it. For Americans, this has long become technology. But for us, no, we all know about the Kuznetsov’s problematic undercarriage and cross our fingers behind our backs (as long as it’s gone by, as long as it’s gone, as long as the tugs are not needed!). The Internet, and what's more insulting, TOPWAR contains links to a bunch of articles, in all the chilling details describing how heavy our aircraft-carrying cruiser is able to tear apart an American supercarrier. After all, ours is a fighter! In one fell swoop seven pobivahom! Not some miserable airfield, but a real cruiser, stuffed with anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles!
But it came to the point. The fleet seems to have passed the 24 MiG-29KR and KUBR, and the Su-33, perhaps, a dozen still remained. And how many "Kuznetsov" brought with him the aircraft? And with what intensity are they fighting? We didn’t have time to start - MiG-29 drowned, after it - Su-33 fell from the deck into the sea ... In general, if someone doesn’t see it, it’s easy to tell: the actions of Kuznetsov off the coast of Syria are pretty sad a parody of the actions of any American aircraft carrier off the coast of Iraq. And why? Because MiG-29 did not pass all the required tests? Because the pilots were not given proper training, since the simulator in Yeisk was not ready, and in NITKA in the Crimea it was not repaired? Because the ship commander did not train the crew entrusted to him properly?
And this, too, of course, but only the problem has much deeper, systemic roots. Imagine an elderly, but strong Evenk, or Chukchu, who from his youngest nails lived in unity with nature, although he did not shun civilization. But still, most of the time he walked through the forest with his faithful gun: he spent decades of his life mostly in the bosom of wild nature. A person who knows all the habits of the beast, all the features of the taiga, who started with his father, who taught him the game of hunting, and then for many years learned this wild world and understood it like no other.
Now let us imagine an eighteen-year-old student who has learned how to shoot a dash well, and even received the Voroshilovsky Arrow badge. A young man who had been taught the subject of “extreme survival” for an entire semester, he passed the subject perfectly. The guy who was engaged in school in the section of orienteering, who was curious and saw in the encyclopedia both lynx and elk, and also read and memorized descriptions of the habits of these animals.
Send these two to the wild taiga separately. Can we seriously expect that an eighteen-year-old youth will extract at least one fifth of what a seasoned hunter? Are we surprised if something bad happens to the young man?
Well, the Nimitz standoff against Kuznetsov is from the same opera. The problem of our aircraft carrier is not that someone did not learn something, or was wrong or did something wrong or wrong. All this is only a consequence, and the problem is that we simply do not know how to exploit carrier-based aircraft as the Americans can. They have experience in systemic use of aircraft carriers is not even measured in decades - it will soon be 100 years, and we? How many wars with the use of aircraft carriers have passed, and we?
But if we really want to once get a real and highly efficient ocean fleet - we need to catch up, and the most interesting thing - we are quite capable of doing it. Yes, you just have to start now, not postponing for tomorrow, which, as is well known, in such cases has the dirty characteristic of never stepping on. Because only the most intensive use of sea deck-based aviation — whether in exercises or in battle — can give us “experience, son of difficult mistakes”. The experience that will be put ... no, not our warriors of the skies - those who are now flying from Kuznetsov will come out one-on-one without any problems against any American pillower pilot. The experience that can turn an aircraft carrier into a single organism, in which all its components work in unison, creating a harmony of perfect naval weapons.
May we have only a couple of aircraft carriers today, may we not yet be able to challenge American dominance of the sea. But having saved the aircraft carriers in the Navy, we will give our descendants the knowledge and experience to do this.
Thank you for attention!
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