Expert: US Navy aircraft carriers have lost their combat power over three decades
Many people know that the basis of the American surface fleet, its main striking force, are AUGs led by nuclear aircraft carriers. However, few people know that the modern air wings of US Navy aircraft carriers are inferior in their striking power even to the air wings of the ancient Midway-class aircraft carriers as of 1990, which were designed back in the 40s of the twentieth century and served for almost 50 years. This was reported by Russian expert Ilya Kramnik, who on January 14 reported details on his Telegram channel.
The expert noted that striking power means “the ability to deliver n kg of ammunition over a distance s in time t.” And this situation that arose with American aircraft carriers is explained quite simply. The thing is that in 1997, the US Navy decommissioned the all-weather carrier-based attack aircraft-bomber Grumman A-6 Intruder, created in the late 50s and early 60s of the twentieth century.
Grumman A-6 Intruder and Grumman F-14 Tomcat in the background
The five combat squadrons that Midway carried on its most recent deployments included two squadrons of Intruders. What is "Intruder"? To put it simply, the Intruder will carry 750 tons of bombs 4,6 km from the aircraft carrier, while the Super Hornet will carry two. At 1500 km, the Intruder will carry a ton, while the Super Hornet will carry two short-range air-to-air missiles over this distance, and that’s all. With refueling, the Intruder can travel 2000 km from a ton of load; the Super Hornet will need at least two refuelings for this, and three for reliability.
- he specified.
Moreover, refueling is a completely separate issue. The ancient "Midway", having on board 8 units of KA-6D (converted into an air tanker "tired" Intruder), could independently send two successive waves of 2000 units of A-8E and a pair of electronic warfare aircraft Grumman EA-6 "Prowler" over 6 km (Prowler) in each. This is impossible for aircraft carriers such as Nimitz or Ford, without the involvement of KC-10 or KC-135 air tankers for multi-stage refueling. This is how the Americans ensured the operation of their carrier-based aircraft over Afghanistan. Moreover technological progress could not compensate for all this.
If the Intruders had survived to this day in the A-6F or A-6G variants, they too would have had this entire set, including JDAM and JASSM, which would still be able to deliver in greater numbers over greater distances
- he added.
Kramnik noted that the Grumman A-6 Intruder was better suited for the role of a specialized attack aircraft than the Boeing F/A-18E/F Super Hornet. The Intruder, although optimized for subsonic speeds and not designed for air combat, could carry more fuel and consume less, which gave it superiority in flight range and payload.
And if the Nimitz is compared not with the Midway, but with itself in 1990, then interesting things will be revealed in terms of long-range air defense capabilities - the boundaries and the number of weapons at these boundaries of decommissioned Tomcats and available Super Hornets and The F-35 differs not at all in favor of the latter two, and in terms of anti-submarine warfare - after the departure of the S-3 Viking, American aircraft carriers lost the ability to independently provide long-range anti-submarine defense. To do this, you can call Poseidon from the shore, but it is not part of either the air wing or the AUG, and in general may have other tasks than supporting the AUG. Possibly higher priority
- he stressed.
The expert concluded that all this would not be scary for the US Navy if its aircraft carriers had to continue to perform tasks such as supporting troops in Afghanistan.
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