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A single aircraft carrier is enough to markedly
change the level of a nation’s military
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might.
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These ships are one of the strongest single
assets a military can have.
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In general, under international law, aircraft
carriers can legally position themselves up
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to 14 miles or 22 kilometers from any country’s
coast.
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Clearly, the strategic influence of being
able to place a military airbase just miles
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from any coast in the world is enormous especially
given that 80% of the world’s population
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lives within 60 miles or 100 kilometers from
the ocean.
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While plenty of military vessels are capable
of launching helicopters, there are just 19
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aircraft carriers worldwide currently in service
capable of launching fixed-wing airplanes.
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China, Thailand, India, Russia, and France
each have one; Italy has two; and the US has
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the eleven largest in the world.
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These largest carriers require over 6,000
people to operate and often stay deployed
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for up to a year.
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They are fully fledged cities at sea.
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The most advanced aircraft carriers like the
French Navy’s Charles de Gaulle are capable
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of launching an aircraft every 30 seconds.
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That means that, for a brief period, when
launching aircraft at its maximum rate, the
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aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle becomes
busier than Charles de Gaulle Airport in Paris.
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To be able to achieve such a capability on
a moving ship is no easy feat.
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While the operation of these vessels gives
militaries enormous strategic advantage, they
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also represent one of their greatest operational
challenges.
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An aircraft carrier’s offensive weapon is
its aircraft.
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Onboard, carriers tend to only have a small
number of defensive weapons such as surface-to-air
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missiles and machine guns.
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But of course, just like any powerful military
asset, these carriers are big targets.
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It is for this reason that carriers never
travel alone while on deployment.
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While the exact composition can change depending
on the mission, the carrier strike groups
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American carriers travel with are typically
made up of a guided missile cruiser equipped
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with tomahawk missiles, two guided missile
destroyers, an attack submarine, and a supply
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ship.
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An aircraft carrier is the flagship of this
strike group meaning that, in it’s command
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area, it not only has a bridge and air traffic
control center, it also has a flag bridge
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where an admiral commands the entire strike
group.
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Each of the group’s ships serve some combination
of offensive and defensive roles.
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The only exception is the supply ship.
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Most aircraft carriers don’t need regular
refueling.
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All eleven American carriers and the French
one are nuclear powered meaning they can sail
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an unlimited distance for twenty-five years
without refueling.
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Even conventionally powered aircraft carriers
like the UK’s HMS Queen Elizabeth can travel
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up to 12,000 miles or 18,000 kilometers without
refueling making the need for stops infrequent.
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While an American or French carrier could
hypothetically sail nonstop for years or even
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decades, what they can’t do is carry enough
food, which is always needed, and aviation
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fuel, which is needed for combat operations,
to stay at sea for more than a few weeks at
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a time.
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It would be inefficient and place the carriers
in a position of vulnerability to have to
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visit a port every few weeks to restock especially
during combat operations so they don’t—they
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restock while at sea.
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The supply ships that move as part of the
strike group will sail off to a nearby port
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to take on fuel, ammunition, food, and mail,
sail back to the strike group, then match
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speed and maneuver alongside the carrier.
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From there the two ships will shoot lines
across to each other.
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These lines are used to pull hoses over to
the carrier which are used to transfer aviation
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fuel.
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To transfer solid supplies, there are two
methods.
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The first is attaching pallets to dollies
that wheel cargo across to the carrier like
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a zipline.
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The second method, which is considered simpler
yet more dangerous, is using helicopters to
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pick up pallets from the resupply ship and
flying them over to the carrier.
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These transfers bring both crucial supplies
like food and some less crucial items like
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mail but this isn’t the only way mail arrives
on American aircraft carriers.
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Each carrier actually has a mailing address
just like any building in the US.
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For example, this is the USS Gerald R. Ford’s
address.
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Families of sailors can send mail to these
addresses in the same way that they would
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to to any other and, in fact, it costs the
exact same as a shipment to any other US address—even
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if the ship is on the other side of the world.
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Sailors can even order packages online to
their ship.
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Expedited mail often makes it from an address
in the US to a carrier sailing somewhere around
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the world in just ten days.
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Having this speed requires more frequent deliveries
than those of the logistics ships but conveniently,
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carriers are airports at sea.
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American carriers currently use a fleet of
C-2 Greyhound’s as cargo aircraft providing
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a high-frequency, often daily connection between
carriers and shore.
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When cruising in the South China Sea, for
example, as the USS Ronald Reagan did in November,
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2018, mail might be sent to Singapore via
conventional means.
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A C-2 Greyhound would then fly from the ship
to Singapore, pick up the mail, and fly back
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to the ship.
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As carriers sail around the world, the pick-up
points of the C-2 Greyhounds are continuously
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shifted to nearby friendly nations.
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While mail does wonders for increasing crew
morale, that’s actually the lowest priority
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cargo for the C-2 Greyhounds.
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The aircraft are integral for bringing on
spare parts for all the carrier’s aircraft
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and transporting VIP’s, press, and other
individuals to and from the carriers.
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This C-2 Greyhound is about the same size
as an Embraer 145—a civilian aircraft capable
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of carrying 50 people—so it’s not tiny.
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The longest aircraft carrier in the world,
which also happens to be the newest, is the
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USS Gerald R. Ford but even she is only 1,106
feet or 337 meters long.
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With commercial airports, a runway of 5,000
feet or 1,500 meters, like the one at London
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City Airport in London, is considered short
while large airports like London Heathrow
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will have runaways longer than 10,000 feet
or 3,000 meters.
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So how do C-2 Greyhounds and other aircraft
on carriers deal with having runways of only
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1,100 feet or 330 meters long?
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They don’t.
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They take off with just 325 feet or 99 meters
of space.
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All US and French carriers use a system of
catapults to get aircraft up to takeoff speed
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within three to four seconds.
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This allows these carriers to launch decently
sized aircraft, like the C-2 Greyhound, with
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their relatively short decks.
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Other carriers, like the Chinese and Indian
ones, don’t have catapults so they can only
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launch lighter, shorter range aircraft capable
of taking off with a very short runway.
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Both these two types of carriers have arrestor
wires that aircraft catch on landing to decelerate
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with the short distance given.
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Every other aircraft carrier out there can
only operate with aircraft capable of vertical
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landing.
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What takes place on the flight deck is carefully
choreographed chaos.
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On American carriers, everyone’s job is
easily identifiable by the color shirt they
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wear.
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Yellow shirts deal with navigating aircraft
around the deck.
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Blue shirts are assistants to yellow shirts
driving tugs, operating elevators, delivering
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messages, and more.
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Red shirts do all the handling and mounting
of ammunition.
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Purple shirts manage aircraft fueling.
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Green shirts are worn by a few different groups
including catapult crews, maintenance personnel,
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cargo handlers, and more.
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White shirts are also worn by a mix of personnel
including those helping aircraft land, working
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as medical personnel, and more.
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And lastly, brown shirts are worn by plane
captains who are not those that fly the aircraft—they’re
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individually in charge of overseeing all work
for getting an aircraft ready for flight.
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The flight deck is a dangerous place given
its small size.
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It’s so small that all the carrier’s aircraft
can’t fit on it but of course just below
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the flight deck is the hangar.
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A large carrier can carry up to 100 aircraft
so massive elevators bring aircraft from the
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flight deck to the hangar for storage when
not in use.
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About 6,000 people work and live aboard each
American carrier.
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3,200 of them have jobs relating to running
the ship itself.
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That includes everything from working in the
engine room, maintaining the nuclear reactor,
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cleaning the decks, to actually working up
in the bridge commanding the ship.
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Many of these jobs are below deck and, since
all the above deck space is used for flight
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operations, many onboard can go weeks without
seeing sunlight.
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2,500 other personnel are part of the carrier’s
air wing.
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If this was an airbase on land, these would
be everyone working there including air traffic
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controllers, aircraft mechanics, fuelers,
pilots, and more.
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The few hundred remaining personnel work assorted
other jobs.
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In terms of personal space, enlisted personnel,
the vast majority of those onboard, only get
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a single bunk in a room with sometimes more
than a hundred others.
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Higher ranked individuals, though, of course
have more spacious accommodations.
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As long-term homes for thousands of people,
these ships also have a few small luxuries
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like stores, gyms, barber shops, lounges and
more but space is at a premium when 6,000
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people are packed into one floating hull and
the mission is paramount.
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Since their heyday in World War Two, some
have started to question the place aircraft
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carriers have in modern warfare.
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Every operating country aside from the US
tend to, at any given moment, have their ships
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either in combat, in training, or at home.
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The US tends to use its carriers for a forth
function—power projection.
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At any given moment, there is almost certainly
an American carrier cruising somewhere in
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the world.
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In fact, January 2017 was the first time since
World War Two that there was not an American
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aircraft carrier on deployment.
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Even if there wasn’t an aircraft carrier
on deployment, they’re fast.
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They have a top speed of 35 miles or 56 kilometers
per hour meaning that a Norfolk, Virginia
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based carrier could get to the Middle East
in just a week.
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In the Pacific, the US has an even greater
advantage since it has the USS Ronald Reagan
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based in Yokosuka, Japan from where it could
reach the shores of North Korea, for example,
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in just 29 hours.
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American carriers spend plenty of time just
cruising around the world’s oceans reminding
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other country’s of the US military’s power.
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For example, the USS Ronald Reagan returned
from a four-month deployment from August to
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December 2018 during which it saw zero combat.
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It spent much of the time cruising around
the South China Sea—an area in which China
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is attempting to assert military control much
to the US’ displeasure.
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Elsewhere in Asia, American carriers also
regularly make visits to the Korean peninsula
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to remind North Korea of their presence.
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This reached a peak in November 2017 as tensions
with North Korea reached a peak when three
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American carriers loomed near the Korean shores.
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With their enormous power, though, aircraft
carriers represent an enormous target especially
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in the era of stealthy drones and precise
missiles.
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The sinking of a single US aircraft carrier
could result in more American military deaths
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than the entire Iraq war in addition to the
loss of tens of billions of dollars in military
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assets.
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While no aircraft carrier of any nation has
been sunk since World War Two, it’s potentially
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more possible than one would think.
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US carriers regularly participate in war games
where combat conditions are simulated with
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allies.
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There have been two concerning incidents in
2005 and 2015 where Swedish and French submarines,
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respectively, have “won” the games against
US carriers.
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What this means is that the two country’s
submarines approached close enough to the
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carriers where they could have, if they were
an enemy in real combat, launched torpedoes
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and potentially sank the carriers.
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This, in essence, proves that aircraft carriers,
with all their defense, are not as unsinkable
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as some may say.
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Meanwhile, the US has already received the
first of ten in a new class of carriers while
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China, India, and the UK each have carriers
under construction so, despite their possible
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obsolescence, we can be sure that the aircraft
carrier won’t be leaving the world’s oceans
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anytime soon.
00:11:00
I have a logic question for you.
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Suppose there are two doors and the first
has a sign on it saying, “If this door is
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safe, the other door is deadly.”
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If that sign is false, what do you know about
the doors?
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Which are deadly and which are safe?
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Take a moment to think about it and, if you
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