Fixed Wing Export Carriers...which one would work best?

MacCaulay

Banned
...I was perusing a book at the library before work on the history of carrier warfare, and the best part of it was that only about half of it was on WWII. The rest mostly centered on the 50s through the 80s, and the advancements in carriers that brought us to where we are now.

One thing the author seemed to really be peeved about, though, was that the US gave up a fair amount of it's conventional carriers during the Clinton Administration (I don't think the author likes Democrats). This got me thinking: of all the carrier types built after 1944 (we'll let 1945 count), which one would probably be best as a marketable fixed wing CTOL export carrier, and what would be a good airwing for it?

Also...I expect a listing of what countries you'd expect to be able to buy this little gem...
 
...I was perusing a book at the library before work on the history of carrier warfare, and the best part of it was that only about half of it was on WWII. The rest mostly centered on the 50s through the 80s, and the advancements in carriers that brought us to where we are now.

One thing the author seemed to really be peeved about, though, was that the US gave up a fair amount of it's conventional carriers during the Clinton Administration (I don't think the author likes Democrats). This got me thinking: of all the carrier types built after 1944 (we'll let 1945 count), which one would probably be best as a marketable fixed wing CTOL export carrier, and what would be a good airwing for it?

Also...I expect a listing of what countries you'd expect to be able to buy this little gem...
???There are very few countries that have the wealth to run aircraft carriers - and those that do build their own. (with the recent exception of India, who is only just recently wealthy enough to buy one)

The only markets for 'export' carriers would likely be Canada, Brazil, Australia and (recently) India. Since each of those is likely to only buy 1 a piece, that's not much of a market.

The Aussies considered buying a used UK carrier. Canada briefly owned the HMCS Bonaventure, an uncompleted UK WWII carrier...

Buying new build 'export' carriers seems unlikely.
 

MacCaulay

Banned
The only markets for 'export' carriers would likely be Canada, Brazil, Australia and (recently) India. Since each of those is likely to only buy 1 a piece, that's not much of a market.

Well, you've got to remember that freaking Thailand bought a new Harrier carrier from a Spanish shipyard.
 
Well, you've got to remember that freaking Thailand bought a new Harrier carrier from a Spanish shipyard.

Sure, and they can barely keep it floating.

I don't see anybody buying full-on CVs in the 90s who can't build their own. Maybe if you ISOT'd 2010 PRC or 2020 India to 1990s, you'd get offers for two or three Forrestals and/or Kitty Hawks.
 
Sure, and they can barely keep it floating.

I don't see anybody buying full-on CVs in the 90s who can't build their own. Maybe if you ISOT'd 2010 PRC or 2020 India to 1990s, you'd get offers for two or three Forrestals and/or Kitty Hawks.

It depends, I mean think about it, if you're a moderately well of country that can afford one, it's probably cheaper to buy one already built
than it is to set-up the program, get the resources and customized parts and build it.
 
Last edited:
The problem with exporting large carriers is the manpower requirements & operational costs, which are too much for the mid-size navies that would be in the market for such a ship. This is particularly true with the Essex-class ships, which the RAN considered in the mid-60s as a replacement for their two CVLs, but rejected on those reasons, as well as the current crop of US carriers- there were some proposals a few years ago that involved India buying a Forrestal, but that too was quashed on grounds of excessive manpower and operating costs (not to mention that they were just a bit clapped-out after some 35-40 years of active service.)

As far as surplus carriers for export, what the US had that would have been suitable for the buyers in the 60s would have been the CVEs & Independence CVLs, but those weren't really adequate for the jet aircraft even of that day. Even the 'small' CTOL, ASW-oriented design studies the USN had in the late 60s & early 70s were pretty big in relative terms, falling between Midway & Forrestal in size and manpower requirements, IIRC. Australia did take a look at a derivative of the Tarawa-class amphibious ship in the early 80s, but that probably would have been restricted to VSTOL aircraft and was considered too expensive.

For the first 20 years post WW2, the best available carriers suitable for export to such navies were the British light fleets (Majestic/Colossus classes), which although slow, could function as a functional CVL with the carrier jets of the 50s & early 60s, if a bit limited in operational capability.) Had more Centuars been built, they would have been better suited- faster, better able to operate high-performance jets, but the same compact size and manpower/operating costs as the earlier light fleets, and those might have dominated the export carrier market.

From the mid-60s onwards, the best available fixed-wing export designs in that they are capable of operating modern aircraft but not too expensive to operate would probably be derivatives of CVA-01 or Clemeanceau, but after that, I'm not really aware of anything off-the shelf that could be workable until CVF came along- there are some rumors that Brazil's interested in a derative around 2020 to replace the Sao Paulo. The Russians aren't probably being seriously considered considering the way India's been getting shafted over the ex-Gorshkov (which is leading India to start building their own) For the navies that might be interested in such a ship, I'm not sure how practical having a custom-designed ship, even if a updated CVA-01 or Clemeanceau, would have been.

Of course, the likely buyers (Australia, Canada, Argentina, Brazil, Chilie, perhaps Italy), would have needed rather more generous defense budgets from the 1970s on to be able to procure and operate such a ship and its escorts, and to have a strategic policy that would have a use for such a ship.
 
I thought China bought an old Soviet Carrier and are making their own copies of it.

The Chicoms bought the hulk of the incomplete Soviet carrier Varyag from the Ukraine in 1998 (where it had been abandoned in the yard upon the collapse of the USSR), nominally as scrap, using front companies & bribes, and have studied it to gain knowledge for their own carrier project, but haven't done any work to complete it. Similiarly, a front company for the PLAN bought the ex-HMAS Melbourne, putatively for scrap, in the 1980s, but kept the hulk for several years and removed a lot of equipment such as catapults & arresting gear to learn about various aspects of carrier design, construction, and equipment, afterwards announcing their own carrier program. Similarly, the ex-Soviet Kiev was bought as an amusement park in 2000 through a front company, and kept for a few years of examinations while being fitted for its public role.
 
Well, you've got to remember that freaking Thailand bought a new Harrier carrier from a Spanish shipyard.


The Thai carrier is essentially a merchant shipping vessel with a flight deck.

Its a piece of shit which would likely last shorter then a god damned Leander in the event of a war.
 

CalBear

Moderator
Donor
Monthly Donor
Well, you've got to remember that freaking Thailand bought a new Harrier carrier from a Spanish shipyard.


No, what it bought was a merchant ship with a jump deck and some elevators in place of the internal cranes of a merchie. God preserve anyone on board that vessel if it gets hit by even one ASM.

The best carriers for sale would be the ones that were sold, the long hull Essex ships. They were able to handle front line aircraft well into the 1980's and could handle a lightly loaded F/A-18A/B even today. Fly everything in the French inventory from them, S-3, E-2C, helos, Phantoms, Crusaders, and the little scooter what won't stop working the A-4 Skyhawk.

The Forrestals are flat too big for just about every fleet out there (except maybe the RN or MN, and that is a stretch), and the CVNs would never be let out of the USN's possession. The Midways would be a decent ship for possible sale, but the Navy used them down to a nub.
 
I could see post war Argentina or Brazil buying a Essex for prestige reasons, which means a second sale to the other.

Post 1950 Nationalist SAfrica, may buy a couple of Carriers in a attempt to South Arficanize/Control the Cape Route.

I can see Newly Independent India buying a Essex, in order to show India as one of the Big Boys able to project Air power away from it's immediate territory.
As it's Navy grows and Matures, it may buy several more.
 
The problem with an Essex is that the manpower requirements and operating costs would be too much for a lot of the potential buyers among the second-tier navies that are in the market for a carrier to afford- the ship's complement is around 2600 people, and the airwing another thousand- in the 1960s, the US offered an Essex to the RAN to replace Melbourne, but the RAN turned the offer down on the grounds that it would cost too much to operate, use too much manpower (almost 3 times that of the Melbourne, including airwing personnell) and adapting the ship to use the mostly RN-sourced equipment the RAN used at the time would have added a whole new set of expensive complications, even though from an operational perspective, the ship would have been far better than any other options available at the time.
 

Al-Buraq

Banned
I could see post war Argentina or Brazil buying a Essex for prestige reasons, which means a second sale to the other.

Post 1950 Nationalist SAfrica, may buy a couple of Carriers in a attempt to South Arficanize/Control the Cape Route.

I can see Newly Independent India buying a Essex, in order to show India as one of the Big Boys able to project Air power away from it's immediate territory.
As it's Navy grows and Matures, it may buy several more.

There were plenty of carriers surplus to requirements around in 1945. The reason that more countries did not take them up was the need to put a whole battle group together, the need for long range force projection or possession of distant territories ( Spain has the Canaries and used to have Rio de Oro, Holland acquired one while it still had Far eastern colonies--why Brazil has maintained at least one since WW2, I don't quite understand.
Also, perhaps the US and the UK didn't want too many people to have carriers

The Cape Sea route was controlled by South Africa from 1945 under the Simonstown Agreement with Britain that only expired in the 1970s. The SA Navy had a blue water capability sufficient for the task and was responsible only south of the tropic of Capricorn. Air power could be projected from land. In the event of war that threatened the Cape Sea route the SA Navy would have been subordinated to the RN which (if they had one spare) would have despatched a carrier to the South Atlantic/ Western Indian Ocean with RAN responible for the Eastern Indian Ocean.
 
There were plenty of carriers surplus to requirements around in 1945. The reason that more countries did not take them up was the need to put a whole battle group together, the need for long range force projection or possession of distant territories ( Spain has the Canaries and used to have Rio de Oro, Holland acquired one while it still had Far eastern colonies--why Brazil has maintained at least one since WW2, I don't quite understand.Western Indian Ocean with RAN responible for the Eastern Indian Ocean.

Argentina & Brazil bought carriers for the same reason they & Chile bought dreadnoughts before WW1- they saw themselves as regional powers in competition with each other, and carriers, like battleships before WW2, were among the trappings of being a significant power. Even though Argentina's really downsized its military over the last 20 years while Chile decided there were better things than carriers to spend money on in the naval budget, Brazil keeps a carrier partly because of the prestige, and partly because they want to maintain their carrier capability in anticipation of future military expansion plans. From the chatter I've seen on other naval sites, Brazil has ambitions to upgrade to major power status over the next 10-20 years, purportedly including the purchase of a CVF derivitive and some French-sourced nuclear submarines during that timeframe, and thus, keeping a carrier in service is important for preserving skills related to their future plans.
 

Germaniac

Donor
Actually the Chinese have done a ton of work on the Varyag. In fact here is an updated photo of it...
2010-PLAN-Varyag-12.jpg


They have rebuilt the flight deck and have begun rebuilding the tower... Ive been following the development since the purchase. There are rumors that work on the propulsion is ongoing
 

Archibald

Banned
From the mid-60s onwards, the best available fixed-wing export designs in that they are capable of operating modern aircraft but not too expensive to operate would probably be derivatives of CVA-01 or Clemeanceau, but after that, I'm not really aware of anything off-the shelf that could be workable until CVF came along- there are some rumors that Brazil's interested in a derative around 2020 to replace the Sao Paulo.

Some numbers (from memory). Although Clemenceaus and Essex are quite similar in size (more or less 30 000 tons and 30-40 aircrafts) the salient difference is manpower. Essex needs more than 3000 men while Clems only need 1900.

At the whatif modelers forum (highly recommended !) I had plenty of alt-histories with Clems and Essex sold worlwide. :)

In the late 50's the french navy planned bigger Clemenceaus, the Verdun class carriers.
Have Verdun merged with CVA-01 in the early 60's, and the results may be quite interesting.
 
Top