CVA 01 vs Soviet carriers.

wasn't the soviet's strategy to fight carriers simply to fire fifty missiles at each ship?
 
wasn't the soviet's strategy to fight carriers simply to fire fifty missiles at each ship?

Pretty much. In an Anglo-Soviet naval war the English would use their aircraft as their primary weapons, striking against the Soviet surface ships. The Soviet Union's aircraft would largely be interceptors, keeping the English planes off of the missile cruisers and subs as they engage the English surface fleet.

I'm also not optimistic enough to think that the Soviet subs would restrain themselves from using their nuclear torpedoes if it came down to any kind of sizable naval conflict. That would get very messy very fast.
 
The CVA airgroups by the mid-late 80s would be substantially upgraded spey Phantoms and Buccaneers, E2 Hawkeyes and Sea King HAS 5.

By mid to late 80s I figure if Britain is willing to pay for the CVAs, they'd probably want the fatboy Buccaneers gone, too. I figure by the late 80s about 2/3 of the fighters are F-4 Phantoms with seriously worked over Spey engines, and the other F-14 Tomcats used for fleet air defense.

AHP, I stated in the first post that a proposed clash would be in the late 80s, with early arriving Yak 41M from a Kiev and Mig 29K and/or Su27K from the Kuznetsov which would be built instead of the Gorshkov. I stated this because I understand that in earlier years the Soviet planes just weren't up to scratch no matter how good/bad their aircrews were. But by the late 80s the Soviets had been operating carrier wings for 10-12 years and helicopter sqns for 20 years and could hardly be called beginners. In addition the bar for Soviet carriers isn't as high as the RN and USN, that's why I used the examples I did. Because of the powerful missile fits in their ships the Soviets don't have to learn how to conduct sophisticated alpha strikes, which does take time and experience.

A Yak-41M or MiG-29 would be a tought fight for a built Phantom, but would be a much more even fight against a F-14 Tomcat. Hence, I figure if the RN is playing in the big leagues, they'll want the best, and the Americans owuld be almost certainly happy to help.

And the Soviets, as a bunch of people mentioned, did have a lot of focus on anti-ship missiles, and a Shipwreck will do serious damage to a CVA-01, and completely destroy anything smaller than a cruiser. The RN would probably want to get good air defense for that carrier.

So the issues as I see them are; Can the Soviet airwings/SAMs defend against an CVA alpha strike, or would such a strike cripple the Soviets? Can the Soviet muscle their way into missile range, and can the CVA group defend against a massed AShM strike?

1 - A CVA Alpha Strike would hurt like hell, but how much damage it does depends on what the Soviets have for air defenses and how many planes are flying BARCAP when they strike. If there is a bunch of MiG-29s or Yak-41Ms and a Kirov is watching over the carrier, maybe half the planes will come home, and they'll likely take a few ships but not shut the CBG down. Cripple the fleet, probably not. Damage it, yes.

2 - What happens if the Soviets strike hard at the RN fleet depends on what defenses, as well, and what they hit with. If they send a stack of Shipwrecks right with the fighters, The RN fleet better hope they get lucky and the Sea Darts take out the Shipwrecks. If even one gets the carrier, that is out of commission. If they do one or the other, the problem can be handled. The E-2 Hawkeye's radar coverage is good enough that the fighters probably could take a few of the Shipwrecks themselves with Sidewinders. The Sea Dart would be well advised to be complemented by a gun CIWS, perhaps the Phalanx or later on a Goalkeeper.
 
Don't forget the subs! (a numerically smaller fleet than the West Edmonton Mall's, but, hey, after Trudeau we were lucky to have rifles for our infantry, eh?)

Yeah, but they are good frigates, and when the Province-class destroyers are built to replace the Iroquois class, we'll be doing better. I agree that they shoulda replaced Bonaventure in the early 70s. Though there are plenty of Canadian military WIs out there.
 
I don't understand your first paragraph. The USA was in the forefront of development of naval aviation - we had the first plane launch from a warship. Developing carriers as a serious arm took quite a long time and it wasn't until the 1930s that carrier doctrine was developed sufficiently to make them dangerous in anything but a scouting role or to attack things sitting in ports.

You are making the opposite poitn to what you intend with the rest of your argument. Yes, it's possible to get yourself a useful carrier in operation, as you mention below - but these were all small ships of limited function, and many were wastes of money taken on for prestige purposes. 25 de Mayo didn't really amount to much and was expensive to man and maintain. A couple of new ASW frigates would have been a much better use of money. What is it you think 25 de Mayo did "surprisingly well"? It managed to keep afloat, but that's about it.

To get a real carrier operation going, you have to invest a lot of time and effort. The Soviets tried and failed; the Soviet Union disintigrated before their efforts could bear fruit, because it takes a long time to develop naval air power.

^ You are correct on those points AHP, but Riain is right when he says it does not take decades to get the hang of carrier aviation. It sure didn't take the Americans that long.

Karel Doornan was a bad example. It had old fighters and probably would been smoked fast against the RN, or probably even against something like HMAS Melbourne. Canada never intended Bonadventure to be used for much other than ASW, But it did that job surprisingly well. ARA Veintincinco de Mayo did its job surprisingly well for a while - I'm sure if the Argentines haven't been very slow on ASW the Brits probably woulda been concerned about it.

Are Melbourne and Veintincinco de Mayo and Bonaventure and Vikrant as capable as the CVs of the RN or USN? No. But are they useful carriers? Yes, unquestionably. And that's the point here.

The Kiovs were much closer to the above than the CVA-01 in capabilities. The Russians certainly would know this, and probably build the Ulyanovsk-class supercarrier design they were working on. That would have made the Americans sit up and take notice.
 
REALLY good question.

The RN does have the U.S., and to a lesser degree, the French, to help with the rough spots. The Soviets had no one to talk to.

I would expect it to take at least five years for the RN to work up even a decent crew backbone. You need experienced NCO's, deck division officers, and the masses of plane handlers, fuelers, armament techs, and all the other specialities.

The learning process will be very costly.

They do at least have some continuity in carrier capability to build upon, although by the time the new carriers enter service there won't be anyone left with experience on fleet carriers. But it helps that they have untinterrupted fleet aviation and the RN has an enormous logistical, training, and support establishment.

I think they'll be up to speed fairly quickly. I'm assuming they'll be attacking a lot of the issues involved while the new ships are building.
 
1 - A CVA Alpha Strike would hurt like hell, but how much damage it does depends on what the Soviets have for air defenses and how many planes are flying BARCAP when they strike. If there is a bunch of MiG-29s or Yak-41Ms and a Kirov is watching over the carrier, maybe half the planes will come home, and they'll likely take a few ships but not shut the CBG down. Cripple the fleet, probably not. Damage it, yes.

2 - What happens if the Soviets strike hard at the RN fleet depends on what defenses, as well, and what they hit with. If they send a stack of Shipwrecks right with the fighters, The RN fleet better hope they get lucky and the Sea Darts take out the Shipwrecks. If even one gets the carrier, that is out of commission. If they do one or the other, the problem can be handled. The E-2 Hawkeye's radar coverage is good enough that the fighters probably could take a few of the Shipwrecks themselves with Sidewinders. The Sea Dart would be well advised to be complemented by a gun CIWS, perhaps the Phalanx or later on a Goalkeeper.
While I don't know about Soviet naval tactics, one of the key points in the success of the missile attacks against the RN in the Faklands War was that the attacking aircraft aproached far more to the targets and launched at very low altitude. Therefore the missiles were detected when they were closer to impact than what they would be if they were launched at, let's say, 30,000 feet over the sea. Of course two of the reasons why this was possible were because the RN couldn't deploy E-2s and couldn't attack the AFBs were the fighters were based. So, while in this other scenario the RN would deploy E-2 Hawkeyes and could very well attack the carriers were the enemy fighters were based, wouldn't the Soviets try, if their fighters can reach the required additional distance, to launch at very low altitudes, witch would shorten the window of opportunity to shot down the missiles while making them much more dificult to stop with fighters or Sea Darts? Or were their missiles capables of being deployed in such a way to start with?
 
Harpoons, Exocet and Sea Eagles for F-4s?
I was not aware the F-4 could carry such weapons.

The Bucanneers can carry Sea Eagles.

As Harriers launch Sea Eagles, Super Etendards the Exocet and there is an air launched Harpoon I don't see a problem with the Air Wing's Buccaneers or even F-4s or F-14s launching them.
 
Pretty much. In an Anglo-Soviet naval war the English would use their aircraft as their primary weapons, striking against the Soviet surface ships. The Soviet Union's aircraft would largely be interceptors, keeping the English planes off of the missile cruisers and subs as they engage the English surface fleet.

Hang on, did I miss something - has there been an extra 'what if' that I didn't notice!
That is why does the above refer to the English aircraft & English surface fleet, did the Scottish and Welsh opt out somewhere along the way!?
I think you will find that there would be British aircraft & ships.
 
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