In 2018, the press got statement by Deputy Prime Minister Yuri Borisov that on behalf of the Supreme Commander in our country is the creation of a fighter with a short takeoff and vertical landing (SCVVP). In fact, everything is somewhat more complicated, but Yuri Borisov then did not give any details, and they exist and matter, but about them later.
This statement worked like an emergency valve. Immediately after it, a wave of publications broke through in the press about how badly such an aircraft was needed, and immediately after our fleet was set as an example the American fleet, where universal amphibious ships are used as a force projection tool using aircraft with short takeoff and vertical landing. A little later, the Spanish UDC of the Juan Carlos type with the ubiquitous "verticals" was set as an example for the Russian Navy to emulate.
The fleet is still silent on this topic. In the "Shipbuilding Program 2050" there is a "naval aircraft carrier complex", but without any details. Let's just say that there is a certain consensus among naval sailors that if you build an aircraft carrier, then it will be normal and for normal aircraft. Alas, this point of view also has opponents. There are few of them, and they, as they say, “do not shine”. On the other hand, the Internet is filled with calls to build large UDCs capable of carrying airplanes and developing "vertical aircraft". This, by the way, is also not just that, and we will talk about this too.
Due to the fact that the idea of replacing a normal aircraft carrier with catapults and aerofinishers with a kind of ersatz with vertically taking off reincarnations of "Yakov" clearly found its supporters, it is worthwhile to analyze this issue a little. An idea that has taken possession of the masses may well become a material force, and if this is a wrong idea, then it is worth “slamming” it in advance.
Light aircraft carriers and their aircraft in wars
You need to immediately separate the flies from the cutlets. There is a concept of a light aircraft carrier - the SCVVP carrier. There is a concept of a large universal amphibious assault ship - the carrier of the SCVVP.
So, these are DIFFERENT concepts. An aircraft carrier, even a light one, is designed to support the deployment of aviation, including aircraft, as part of naval formations. UDC is intended for the landing of troops. They substitute for each other equally badly, and this issue will be analyzed too. In the meantime, it is worth taking as a starting point a light aircraft carrier and aircraft based on it with short or vertical takeoff and vertical landing. How effective can such ships be?
The effectiveness of an aircraft carrier consists of two components: the strength of its air group and the ability of the ship itself to provide the most intensive combat work of the air group.
Consider how light aircraft carriers and their air groups show themselves from this point of view in comparison with a normal aircraft carrier and full-fledged aircraft.
The most striking and intense example of the combat work of such ships is the Falklands War, where light aircraft carriers and vertical takeoff and landing aircraft (in fact, short takeoff and vertical landing) were used by Great Britain. Some domestic observers saw in this the gigantic capabilities of the "Harriers" and their carriers. Representatives of the military scientific community also added fuel to the fire. For example, thanks to the 1st rank captain V. Dotsenko, from one domestic source to another, wanders the myth long exposed in the West about the allegedly successful use of vertical thrust by the Harriers in air battles, which allegedly determines their success. Looking ahead, let's say: for all the training of the Harriers' pilots, which was at a very high level, they did not use any such maneuvers, instead of maneuverable air battles, in the overwhelming case, interceptions took place, and the success of the Harriers as interceptors was there and then was due to completely different factors.
But first, the numbers.
The British used two aircraft carriers in battles: "Hermes", which was once a full-fledged light aircraft carrier with a catapult and aerofinishers, and the "Invincible", which was already under construction under the "vertical". 16 Sea Harrier and 8 Harrier GR.3 aircraft were deployed on board the Hermes. At first there were only 12 Sea Harriers aboard the Invincible. In total, 36 aircraft were based on two aircraft carriers. In the future, the composition of the air groups of ships changed, some helicopters flew to other ships, the number of aircraft also changed.
And the first numbers. The total displacement of the "Hermes" could reach 28,000 tons. The full displacement of the Invincible is up to 22,000 tons. We can safely assume that with approximately this displacement they went to war, the British had no one to count on, they carried everything they needed with them, sometimes there were more aircraft on the ships than the norm.
The displacement of the two ships, thus, was about 50,000 tons, and they provided the basing for a total of about 36 "Harriers" and during combat work somewhere around 20 helicopters, sometimes a little more.
Wouldn't it have been better at one time to spend money on one aircraft carrier of 50,000 tons?
An example of an aircraft carrier with a displacement of about 50 kilotons is the British aircraft carriers of the Audacious class, namely the Eagle, which, according to the results of earlier modernization, had a total displacement of about 54,000 tons.
In 1971, the typical Igla air group consisted of 14 Bakenir attack aircraft, 12 Sea Vixen interceptors, 4 Gannet AEW3 AWACS aircraft, 1 Gannet COD4 transport aircraft, 8 helicopters.
By that time, there were already significantly outdated machines, but the fact is that the ship was being tested as a carrier of F-4 Phantom fighters. They were successfully launched from this ship and successfully landed on it. Of course, regular flights required additional modernization of catapults and gas reflectors - the regular hot exhaust of the Phantoms was not kept, they needed liquid cooling.
Video of flights from the Igla deck, including flights of the English Phantoms:
However, then the British decided to save money and cut their large aircraft carriers in order to lay several new ones in just a few years, albeit less than half. How many Phantoms could such a ship carry?
More than two dozen, this is unambiguous. Firstly, the dimensions of the "Buckeners" and "Phantoms" are comparable: the first has a length of 19 meters and a wingspan of 13, the second - 19 and 12 meters. The masses were also about the same. This alone suggests that "Backers" could be replaced by "Phantoms" as 1: 1. That is 14 "Phantoms".
The Sea Vixens were two meters shorter, but wider. It's hard to say how many Phantoms would fit into the space they occupied on the ship, but how many would fit exactly, no doubt. And there would still be five different "Gunnets" and 8 helicopters.
Let us ask ourselves the question again: is there a need for a transport "Gunnet" in such an expedition as the war for the Falklands? No, he has nowhere to fly. Thus, 12 Sea Vixens and one transport Gunnet could free up space for the "Phantoms" from the British. A minimum of 10 Phantoms instead of them would fit on board the ship with a guarantee. What would make possible the following composition of the air group: 24 Phantom GR.1 multipurpose fighters (British version of the F-4), 2 search and rescue helicopters, 6 anti-submarine helicopters, 4 AWACS aircraft.
Let's count some more. The Gannette with its wing folded was placed in a rectangle measuring 14x3 meters, or 42 square meters. Accordingly, 4 such aircraft - 168 "squares". This is a little more than it takes to base one E-2 Hawkeye. Someone may say that one AWACS aircraft would not be enough, but in reality the British with their two light aircraft carriers did not have AWACS at all.
Moreover, an analysis of the performance characteristics of Argentine aircraft could well make it clear to the British that they will not attack targets at night, which would drastically reduce the time when the Hawkeye is needed in the air. In fact, the time "window" in which Argentina could massively attack British ships was "dawn + flight time to Falkland and minus flight time from base to coastline" - "sunset minus return time from Falkland to coastline". With daylight in the spring at those latitudes of only 10 o'clock, this made it possible to really get by with one "Hawkeye".
Moreover, the British bought Phantoms. Could such a ship be upgraded to accommodate normal AWACS aircraft? If we start only from the displacement, then, probably, yes. The Hawkai carried ships much smaller in size and displacement. Of course, the height of the hangar, for example, could make adjustments, as well as the size of the lifts, but the same Americans are quite practicing deck parking of aircraft, and there is no reason to believe that the British could not do the same.
True, the catapult would have to be redone again.
The meaning of all this is as follows. Of course, "Eagle" with an AWACS aircraft on board looks somewhat fantastic, but we are not interested in whether it could actually be placed there, but how it was possible to dispose of 50 thousand tons of displacement.
The British "made" of them two ships, capable of carrying 36 "Harriers", in the limit somewhere up to forty, zero AWACS aircraft and a significant number of helicopters.
And if in their place there was a full-fledged 50,000-ton aircraft carrier, and even, for example, not a hundred times altered old man "Odeshes", but a specially built ship, for example, offered by CVA-01, then instead of the "Harriers" of the Argentines in the same the place would be met by several dozen "Phantoms" with the appropriate combat radius, patrol time, the number of air-to-air missiles, the quality of the radar and the ability to fight. Perhaps, with an American AWACS aircraft, in the case of a specially built aircraft carrier - not one.
Again, let's give an example: on the French "Charles de Gaulle", in addition to 26 combat aircraft, 2 AWACS aircraft are based, and it is 42,500 tons. Of course, it is unfair to compare a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier with a non-nuclear one, it does not have the volumes occupied by marine fuel, but this is still significant.
Which is stronger: 24 Phantoms with a supply of missiles and fuel for air combat and possibly an AWACS aircraft, or 36 Harriers, each of which can only carry two air-to-air missiles? What forces could be used to form stronger air patrols? This is a rhetorical question, the answer to it is obvious. In terms of its ability to patrol the Phantom, in its worst case, it could spend at least three times more time in the air (actually even more) than the Harrier, when flying from the deck, it could have six air-to-air missiles and one outboard fuel tank. If we assume that in terms of patrol time he alone replaces three Harriers, and also three in missiles (Harrier could not have more than two then), then nine Harriers were needed to replace one Phantom, and it would be a bad and unequal replacement, taking into account at least the radar and flight characteristics of the Phantom.
"Phantoms" would solve the air defense tasks of the British forces over the strait with a much smaller detachment of forces, this is, firstly, with the removal of the interception line for tens of kilometers from the ships, this is secondly, and with large losses of Argentines in each sortie - third. This is undeniable. It is also undeniable that one Phantom would replace several Harriers when performing strike missions.
Now about how the ships themselves could support the tactical and technical characteristics of the aircraft.
Active air operations during the Falklands War continued for 45 days. During this time, the Sea Harriers flew, according to British data, 1,435 sorties, and the GR.3 Harriers - 12, which gives us a total of 1,561 or slightly less than 35 sorties per day. A simple calculation should, in theory, tell us that this is 17.5 sorties per day from each aircraft carrier.
But this is not the case. The fact is that the Harriers carried out some of the sorties from the ground.
Due to the clearly small combat radius, the British had to urgently build a temporary airfield on one of the islands of the archipelago. According to the original plan, this was supposed to be a refueling point, where aircraft would refuel when operating outside the combat radius when flying from an aircraft carrier. But sometimes the Harriers flew combat missions directly from there, and these missions also got into the statistics.
The base was calculated for 8 aircraft sorties per day, when a stock of material and technical means was created for it, and began to operate on June 5. From that day until June 14, according to English-language sources, the base "supported 150 sorties." How many flights were made from the base, and how many landings for refueling, open sources do not indicate, at least reliable. It is unlikely that this is classified information, it is just that, most likely, no one did summaries of the data.
Thus, the average daily 17, 5 will not be typed. The most "hot" day for the "Harriers" was the day of May 20, 1982, when all aircraft from both aircraft carriers performed 31 sorties. And this is the record of that war.
There is a "flawed" number of sorties, which were able to provide carriers of "vertical". And this is logical. Small decks, not enough space for aircraft repair, plus the quality of the aircraft themselves, led to this result. In comparison with the American aircraft carriers, which easily “mastered” more than a hundred sorties a day, moreover, the sorties of normal aircraft, each of which replaced several Harriers, the results of the British are simply nothing. Only the weakness of the enemy operating against them gave them the opportunity to achieve some significant results at the cost of such efforts. However, most sources indicate that the Harriers performed well. It is worth examining this statement as well.
Super Lucky Harrier
To understand why the "Harriers" showed themselves as they showed, one must understand in what conditions, how and against which enemy they acted. Simply because the key to the Harriers' success lies in the enemy, and not in their qualities.
The first factor is that the Argentines DIDN'T CONDUCT AIRBATTLES. Maneuvering aerial combat requires fuel, especially when it comes to maneuvering a nimble aircraft and multiple turns are required or when an afterburner is required.
Argentine pilots have never had such an opportunity. All those Russian-language sources that describe some kind of "dumping" between Argentine pilots and English "verticals" provide false information.
The situation in the air was as follows for almost the entire war. The British appointed a zone above their ships, limited in area and height, all aircraft in which were considered enemy by default and on which they opened fire without warning. The "Harriers" were supposed to fly over this "box" and destroy everything that enters it (it turned out rarely) or exits it (more often). Within this very zone, ships were working on the Argentines.
The Argentines, having no fuel to fight, simply flew into this "box", made one approach to the target, dropped all the bombs and tried to leave. If the "Harriers" managed to catch them at the entrance to the zone or at the exit from it, then the British recorded a victory for themselves. Argentine attacks were carried out at heights of a few tens of meters, and the Harriers at the exit from the zone, having a warning from surface ships about the target, attacked the Argentines in a dive from a height of many kilometers. It is naive to think that in such a battle scenario, some kind of "dump", "helicopter techniques" and other fiction, which have been feeding the domestic reader for many years, were possible. Actually, checking English sources speaks directly about everything.
That's it, there was no more air war over the British fleet. No vertical rods and other inventions of domestic writers. It was different: the British knew the place and time where the Argentines would arrive, and were waiting for them there to destroy. And sometimes they did. And the Argentines just had to hope that the missile defense system, the burst from the cannon or the Sidewinder would not get them this time. They had nothing else.
This, to put it mildly, cannot be considered an outstanding success; rather, on the contrary. The number of ships lost by the British characterizes the actions of the Harriers, which, we repeat, no one opposed, not from the best side.
Special mention should be made of the ability of the Argentines to plan military operations. So, they never managed to synchronize the strike of several groups of aircraft in time, as a result of which even ten aircraft never came out on the British ships at once. This in itself could not lead to anything but defeat. Synchronizing aviation actions is not an easy task, especially when striking to the maximum combat radius.
But on the other hand, no one bothered the Argentines, they flew freely over their territory. Poor intelligence is another example. So, the landing of the British was discovered only after the fact, when the soldiers were already on the ground. This is, frankly, amazing. The Argentines did not even have elementary observation posts of several soldiers with a walkie-talkie. Even messengers on motorcycles, jeeps or bicycles are nothing. They just didn't keep an eye on the situation.
And even in such conditions, the performance characteristics of the "Harriers" worked against them. So, I had a case of a plane crashing into the water due to the full depletion of fuel. Twice the Harriers were unable to reach the aircraft carrier, and for refueling they were put on the landing craft docks "Interpeed" and "Fireless".
The time of the Harrier's combat mission could not exceed 75 minutes, of which 65 took the flight from the aircraft carrier to the area of combat use and back, and only ten remained to complete the combat mission. And this despite the fact that none of the Sea Harriers could carry more than two air-to-air missiles - the other two underwing suspension assemblies occupied the outboard tanks, without which even these modest indicators would have been impossible.
To ensure the expansion of these modest combat capabilities, the British immediately after disembarking began the construction of the already mentioned ground airfield for refueling aircraft. Domestic sources even then managed to lie, spreading information that this temporary airfield had a runway length of 40 meters, while in fact the San Carlos Forward Operation Base had a runway length of 260 meters, from forty "Harrier" would take off only without load and flew away would be close. This refueling point made it possible to somehow increase the combat radius of the Harriers. It remains only to be surprised at the English pilots who were able to show something in these conditions.
By the way, if the enemy had at least some kind of military intelligence, "Daggers" could break through to this airfield - at least once.
The Harriers certainly made a decisive contribution to the British victory. But we must understand that this is largely due to a simple confluence of factors, and nothing more.
But the presence of the British several dozen normal fighters would have changed the course of hostilities in a much more significant way - and not in Argentina's favor.
Many years after the war, the British calculated that, on average, one Sea Harrier made 1.41 sorties per day, and one Harrier GR.3 - 0.9.
On the one hand, this is close to how the Americans fly from their aircraft carriers. On the other hand, Americans with dozens of full-fledged machines on each ship can afford it.
But British naval pilots during the time of Korea and the Suez Crisis showed completely different numbers - 2, 5-2, 8 sorties per day. The Americans, with their four catapults on the ship, can do that too, by the way, if they want to. Whether "Harriers" could surpass their results from their tears to tears, is an open question. Because in no subsequent war did they show even that.
It is high time to admit a simple fact: any other aircraft and any other aircraft carriers would have shown themselves in the Falklands much better than what was actually used by the British side there. The British "rode out" with an amazing mixture of their professionalism, personal courage, tenacity, enemy weakness, the geographical features of the theater of operations and amazing luck. The absence of any of these terms would have led Britain to defeat. And the performance characteristics of aircraft and ships have nothing to do with it. It was not in vain that the commander of the British forces, Vice Admiral Woodward, doubted victory until the very end - he had reason to doubt.
Here's how to really evaluate the actions of British light aircraft carriers and aircraft in that war.
They won in spite of their military technique, not because of it
Oh yes. We forgot something. The British were in a hurry to finish before the storms in the South Atlantic. And they were right.
