Special Operations Aircraft Carrier and Airwing

[proditor]

Inspired by this guy over on Model Warships: http://www.shipmodels.info/mws_forum/viewtopic.php?f=59&t=107385&hilit=specops+nam&start=0  and paraphrased below, though I do recommend giving his thread a scan as he did some yeoman work over there.

The ship: My basic idea is to make a Vietnam era conversion to a what-if angled deck carrier specifically designed for Marine Recon and Seal operations. The carrier's main distinguishing factor is that she is entirely self-supporting for special ops missions, the largest being smaller than platoon sized groups.

All of her air wing will be specifically reserved for supporting her spec ops ground forces. The air wing and it's pilots will all be Marines, specially trained in extreme close air support. She will not embark any fighters, as the Navy and USAF had the air to air thing covered pretty tight.

We will have some PBR's on board, with several on the flight deck pre-rigged for slinging under helos to drop in for an additional extract option and/or riverine fire support.

the ship will have minimal armament, but extra super secret squirrel coms gear, so lots of antennaes and warts around the island and deck.

I'm taking a look at a more modern take on it though.  I'm still thinking of using the same base model as he did; an Essex with an angled flight deck, but I wanted to update the idea and have a different airwing.  Also, a different small craft group, possibly including a stiletto, as I have one in resin and it looks awesome.  The reason for the angled Essex is that I want to include some really different aircraft then I could on an LHA.  

Pics will follow in a few days, and this will be a longer term build as the idea is still sort of gestating.  Current airwing ideas:

RQ-9 Reapers (Maybe just Predators?  Not sure yet)
X-47B Pegasus
Chinooks
Stealth Blackhawks
UH-60L Blackhawks

The X-47 covers the strike role pretty well IMHO, but I'm pondering gunships and/or manned strike aircraft for close air support of SpecOps missions.

I'm looking for some feedback and ideas as well, so hit me with your best shot.

[Captain Canada]

Go with new Hueys and Cobras....way cooler than Blackhawks !



And Harriers never hurt anybody 

[Go4fun]

I realize as a Special Forces/SEaL operations vessel operating on it's own is a good way of getting the troops as close to 'Feet Dry' as possible is a good goal. But an aircraft carrier out there by itself if detected would make a tempting target. Hopefully you would do something to reduce the size of the radar signature like reducing the height of the bridge as much as possible.
I'd want a screen of maybe four of the new 'stealth' Guided Missile Cruisers for two purposes. If they are closer to the radar station they might cause an operator if not to get a return to just get one off the upper parts of the Carrier and deduce it was much farther away or just a 'glitch' or 'ghost'.
I'd also want a full aircraft carrier wing at hand to throw up a smoke screen somewhere else and be ready to respond should any enemy aircraft get too close. I'm old school and believe the best defense against a fighter is two fighters (At least!) of your own. Trusting someone in a trailer half a world away not to spill his soda in his lap during aerial combat just doesn't warm my heart. I still believe in the Mark 0 Mod 1 human in the cockpit of a fighter.
Having this or several of these on call along with Marine Expeditionary Unit(s) (MEU) would give the security of having something for NIRT (Need it Right NOW!) missions that pop up too often today.  

[FAR148]

When I think about the idea of a Special Op's Aircraft Carrier this is what come to mind...



Hear me out... During the day it acts and looks just like any other container ship. Full naval crew but dresses for the clandestine shipping role. Travels from port to port dropping off and pick up containers(rearming and resupplying the ship in plain view) But what about the air wing  80% of the containers are just a shell to cover the flight/hanger deck. At night, the roof opens and flight op's can begin. I would have an all helicopter air wing. Sea Hawks and or Blackhawk, modified Chinooks to operate on the "boat", some MH-6 Little Bird's, Apache's as gunship/armed escort and maybe a few Ospreys. No need to operate drones from the carrier/container ship especially with modern data links and satellite communications. And for SAM's, anti-shipping and other missiles, they're hidden in containers themselves.



Just another definition of "Stealth"
Steven L

[Diamondback]

MH-53E Sea Dragons or Super Stallions refitted with Pave Low nav gear? Quite easily done in 1/700, the Pit-Road helicopter set includes a Pave Low nose and both sponson options for its Super Stallion/Sea Dragons.

[pyro-manic]

Turbo-prop Skyraiders.

[nighthunter]

Harriers! C'mon now!

[proditor]

And finally an update!  

I started some cutting and gluing, following the idea that I wanted this to be stealthy, but retrofitted stealth, not current.  More reduced signature, than none.  So following that idea, I latched on to the AEM/S mast that was on the Arthur Radford.  It's big, ugly, and mean.  And it looks like something from Buck Rogers, so rock on.  I also modified the original Essex bridge with a Kitty Hawk front end to get some business going on.





Work has progressed a bit beyond that, and I'll have some more pics tomorrow hopefully, but I also decided that this shouldn't be one lone carrier, drifting into harm's way...oh no.

We need us a small FLOTILLA!  So off to the stash and boneyard I went, and a short time later I had an actual Radford kit, soon to be upgraded into an homage of JoeP's Col John Glover, and then my own take on that awesome ship crossed with an OHP frigate.  Yes, they will all be getting funky masts.  

[NARSES2]

Coming along nicely

[proditor]

But wait, there's more!

I've mostly finished the carrier hull, baring some defensive additions like Sea Sparrow, but those would be blistered off the hull anyway.  So the core, close in stuff is mostly done.







I also banged out a lot more on the island, adding a Phalanx station, defensive launchers, and then cleaned up most of the putty and patching.



And while I was pondering what to do next, and re-watching season one of Dollhouse, I decided to mock up the Frigate component with the new 155mm MONARC inspired cannon, AEM/S, and 16 cell VLS.

[proditor]

I've been getting a surprising amount done lately.  I'm now into Season 2 of Dollhouse, and I finished one of the escorts, and made huge strides on the other one.

The updated OHP Frigate.  Removed the Masts, 76mm Oto Melara, and the SM-1 launcher, replaced them with a new AEM/S, MONARC style gun with a reinforced turret ring, and a 16 cell VLS for ESSM, ASROC, and Harpoon.









Next ship in the next post.

[proditor]

Then came the refit Spruance.  I left off the masts again, and went for double AEM/S because I'm getting addicted to those things.  I then replaced the 5" guns with MONARC style artillery, moved the front CIWS Phalanx, and then for yucks and giggles, I extended the hanger like they had intended to do with the Hayler.  Some in progress pics below.











On the plus side, the turret reinforcing rings turned out really well IMHO, so I have a lot more confidence for repeating this trick on my HMS Duke of Wellington.

[NARSES2]

Lovely work sir.

Can I ask a silly question ? What is this MONARC style artillery ? Turrets look very low and quite small. Barrels look out of proportion ?

[proditor]

Not a silly question at all!  MONARC (Modern Naval Artillery Concept) was an attempt by the German Navy to restore some offshore naval gunfire support to surface ships, and to do it on the cheap.  The turret is from an existing 155mm Self-propelled artillery piece, and they discovered that the turret ring of that matched just about perfectly with the ring of a 76mm cannon, they just needed some additional reinforcement and stabilization.  So they test fit the turret from an existing Panzerhaubitze 2000 self propelled artillery vehicle, and off to testing they went.  If it had worked, this would have been a comparatively easy and cheap way to get great Naval Gunfire support, and it would have had the huge benefit of using existing rounds in common with the Army, at a slight decrease in rate of fire (Due to the fact that Naval charges are all in one bag, and Ground artillery still uses the separate charges bagged system.)

For a variety of reasons, it was not considered a success.  The main one was the PzH's systems were not suitably hardened against corrosion, and they would have had a lot of issues out at sea.  Adding to that, several manufacturers were already designing shells with range greater than the PzH's boosted rounds (roughly 80 km), well, it became a case of now throwing bad money after good.  In fact, shortly after the German Navy removed the PzH Turret from the test F124 frigate, they announced they'd be fitting their new F125 class with Oto Melara's 127/64 cannon, that has a range of 120 km when using guided Volcano rounds.

So that's the story of MONARC.  Now when it first came out, a lot of people were wondering why no one ever thought of this before, as on a lot of levels, it makes sense.  So the idea for my MONARC guns is that the US did jump on the bandwagon at about the same time that the Germans did, and with a much larger development budget, they managed to solve the outstanding issues.  This gives the SpecOps guys in theatre, the capability to call in 3 gun artillery strikes from as far away as 80km.  

[NARSES2]

Thank you sir, most illuminating  I can see the SP gun turret in it now