Size matters. I‘m not saying bigger is better,
but you definitely get more bush if you got a bigger trunk! And when it comes to the
military, the single largest and heaviest piece of equipment
is an aircraft carrier.
Size is one of the determining factors in how seriously we take an aircraft carrier,
and even though technically the US Navy only has 11 aircraft carriers, there are another
nine aircraft carrying ships in the US Navy. It’s just that they go by a different name.
They’re called Amphibious Assault Ships, and as you can tell by the name,
they’re very different from the traditional supercarriers.
But why the United States has two different types of aircraft carriers, why those carriers are used
by separate branches of the military, the reason they rarely work together,
and why doubling the size of a ship doesn’t double its volume … is Not What You Think!
Take a look at these two carriers side by side. At a glance, one is obviously bigger than the other,
but the question is, how much bigger and what difference does that make?
On average, American supercarriers are 1,092 feet
long, while amphibious assault ships are typically around 850 feet long.
That difference may not seem that significant when measuring flight decks, but it says a lot about
the intended function of each ship. For example, the amphibious assault ships use their decks more
like a landing pad than a runway, which means only aircraft capable of vertical take-off and landing,
such as the F-35B, AV-8B Harrier, V-22 Osprey and other helicopters can operate on these vessels.
It’s for this reason that the official designation of these ships is LHD or LHA, which stand for
Landing Helicopter Dock or Landing Helicopter Assault. When the aviation wing of these ships
performs a mission, it is to provide short-term support to smaller landing craft and ground forces
nearby, since helicopters and Harriers do not have the range to maintain constant airspace dominance.
This is a direct contrast to how the US Navy uses its supercarriers. A Nimitz or
Ford-class carrier is more like a floating airport than a ship. That extra length of
deck space allows supercarriers to launch heavier fixed-wing aircraft like the F-18
Hornet and E-2 Hawkeye, in addition to the aircraft launched by amphibious assault ships.
These heavier airplanes serve important missions related to maintaining air dominance, performing
reconnaissance and electronic warfare in contested airspaces, as well as providing continuous support
to ground forces, which further reinforces the long-term nature of supercarrier missions.
But it’s not just what’s on the surface of these ships that matters.
You see, the length of a ship directly impacts its most important physical property: volume.
The sheer difference in volume between supercarriers and LHDs is so great that
it impacts every aspect of their mission. Take for example the fact that the larger a ship is,
the more easily it moves through the water. This may seem counter-intuitive, but it's due to
something known as the square-cube law. Basically when increasing the dimensions of an object,
its volume always increases much faster than its surface area. This is why doubling the size of a
ship doesn’t double its volume. It increases it 8 fold. When ships are scaled up in size,
their volume, which determines their displacement or buoyancy, increases faster than their surface
area, which determines the resistance or friction experienced in the water.
This is why even though the difference in ship length between the supercarriers and LHD is only
340 feet, the overall difference in volume makes the supercarriers far more efficient
at moving through water as it experiences less surface friction proportional to its volume.
This results in greater fuel and energy efficiency for larger ships, but It also means that the
amount of aviation fuel and supplies that the ships can carry would increase exponentially.
This significantly extends the mission duration for a carrier and its airwing before the need for
underway replenishment. Take into consideration that all of the bombs, missiles, and other weapons
carried by combat aircraft are stored in magazines deep within a carrier's hull for protection.
With the difference in volume, the supercarrier can carry about 375,000 cubic feet of ordnance,
while amphibious assault ships are maxed out at only 16,000 cubic feet. This means a supercarrier
can perform up to two weeks of continuous operations at full capacity without needing a
munitions restock, while an amphibious assault ship would deplete its fighting capability in
only one week with just six aircraft. That said, an Amphibious Ready Group, which is made up of 3
ships, is able to be completely self-sufficient for 15 days of continuous operations.
You can’t deny the size advantages, but bigger is not always better. Sometimes,
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Even though the LHD class of carriers has a much smaller carrying capacity than its big sister,
it can deploy forces both above and below the deck. This is thanks to its well deck,
which is an internal housing bay that can carry either three hovercraft,
12 Mechanized Landing Craft, or 40 Amphibious Assault Vehicles depending on the mission.
This ability, paired with the variety of VTOL aircraft the ships can deploy makes LHDs far
more suited for quick reaction missions with smaller but more intense operational timelines.
In 2016, the US conducted airstrikes over Libya in support of the UN-backed government in Tripoli.
Instead of deploying, and therefore tying up a full-sized supercarrier
to support these air operations, the Navy sent the amphibious assault ship, USS Wasp,
to perform continuous strikes as part of Operation Odyssey Lighting. This turned out
to be a cost-effective solution, where using a smaller ship for a smaller operation made sense.
But even with the ability to deploy VTOL aircraft, the LHD class of ships was never intended to serve
as aircraft carriers, despite having landing decks. Their primary task is to transport
and support Marine Expeditionary Units in large enough quantities to perform a successful landing
and secure a beachhead. Marine Expeditionary Units are like the Swiss Army knife of the US Military.
They are quick reaction forces that can handle anything, anywhere and any time, anything from
humanitarian missions after natural disasters to keeping an adversary occupied long enough for the
US Army or Air Force to mobilize and respond. For example, when US forces were deployed to
Kabul for the withdrawal from Afghanistan, the first two battalions to show up were Marines.
LHDs are thus not suited for long-term operations far from shore, meaning they
cater much closer to the mission of the US Marine Corps as opposed to that of the US Navy.
Because of this, even though the ship is operated by the Navy, the majority of the
over 2,700 personnel aboard are actually Marines and only a small fraction are sailors. This means
that even though the Navy owns the ship, it's the Marine Corps that specializes in using it, and all
of the pilots on board are Marines, not sailors. This makes amphibious assault ships more like a
floating Marine base, rather than the traditional floating airport that supercarriers are known for.
Due to the differences in design and functionality,
we also rarely ever see supercarriers and LHDs on patrol together.
When a supercarrier travels, it never goes alone. It always has a complement of cruisers
and destroyers around to protect it, as well as a submarine attached to patrol. Spoiler alert,
the US Navy is getting rid of its cruisers, which were responsible for controlling the air
space around the carrier strike group. Destroyers will be taking over that role in the coming years.
Supercarriers also almost always perform underway replenishment, to ensure they never
have to risk stopping at a port for supplies. This operational model means that supercarriers act as
a whole fleet command center, with an admiral on board who commands the surrounding ships in the
strike group. This directly contrasts the way LHDs travel, since they function independently
and are more focused on transporting a Marine unit from point A to point B.
When an LHD arrives at its destination, it will often resupply at a nearby port
as opposed to replenishment at sea, even though they do have that option for longer missions.
So if amphibious assault ships are meant for projecting land forces,
and supercarriers are meant for projecting airpower, why do the two get compared so often?
Well, the reason for the confusion is because of the latest additions to the
US Navy's fleet of amphibious assault ships: the America class Landing Helicopter Assault
ships or LHA, which introduced two major changes, first of which was their size.
With a displacement of about 45,000 tons, America-class LHAs have a bigger displacement than
the French aircraft carrier, Charles de Gaulle. In addition to their larger size, 2 of the
America-class LHAs were optimized for flight operations, and to do that, their well deck was
omitted, in order to allow more room for aircraft, their spare parts, weapons, and their fuel.
America class LHAs put more focus on accommodating even more aircraft than their predecessors. These
ships are currently being built with a focus on carrying F-35B Lightning aircraft as their
main combat component, earning them the nickname of “Lightning Carriers”.
But with these new LHA ships blurring the line between assault ships and traditional
aircraft carriers, it makes you wonder, why have both LHAs and supercarriers if
aircraft technology has become advanced enough to make smaller landing decks more effective?
Well the answer is pretty simple. It's all about using the right tool for the
job. Sometimes you need a massive sledgehammer to break something down, and other times you
just need a ball-peen hammer to drive in a nail. With aircraft carriers, the cost of
swinging the hammer is billions of dollars. On average, LHDs cost two billion dollars,
LHAs cost 3.4 billion dollars, and supercarriers cost over 13 billion dollars just to build. Add
to that the cost of operating one supercarrier, which is nearly one billion dollars per year.
The US Navy and Marine Corps are just trying to continue to look
for creative ways to expand the force projection without breaking the bank.
It's not that the US Navy has a size problem or is trying to overcompensate
for something with bigger ships. They just want to have the right tool for the job.