by Orr Kelly
Instead of spreading his F-14s out in a grid pattern all around the carrier, a battle group commander may instead decide to assign his more numerous Hornets to that job. As soon as an attack is detected, the F-14s, either loitering in the air near the carrier or on deck-launched alert, can all be sent to intercept the attacking force.
As the task force moves closer to Soviet bases, it comes under repeated assault by waves of bombers accompanied by long-range fighters. The outer air battle, many miles from the carriers, degenerates into a series of swirling dogfights as the bombers press forward to get within missile range of the carriers and the defenders try to beat them back. The goal of the Backfire pilots is to cross an invisible line in the sky where their missiles will come within range of the carriers, to launch their weapons, and then turn for home. The goal of the Americans is to prevent a single plane from crossing that line. Unfortunately for the defenders, they cannot be sure where the line is. Some of the missiles may carry a small warhead but a large supply of fuel and be capable of flying nearly 500 miles. Others, with a big warhead and limited fuel, may be rigged to fly only a hundred miles.
Down below, American cruisers fitted with Aegis antiaircraft systems monitor the battle with their powerful radar and help to beat back the attack with barrages of missiles. But once the cruisers turn on their electronic equipment and enter the battle, they signal their location and put themselves in danger of attack.
Inevitably, a few of the attacking planes get close enough to fire their antishipping missiles. Like the kamikaze planes of World War II, the missiles streak toward their targets, oblivious of the missiles fired by the vessels defending the carriers and of the rain of bullets poured out in a last-ditch defense by the ship-based Phalanx gun system. EMCON is cast aside as electronic signals seek to confuse the missiles and cause them to go astray. But even one missile making its way through this curtain of fire is enough to disable or sink a destroyer or frigate or to put a carrier out of business for at least several hours. Even a relatively brief disruption of carrier operations could be a disaster if planes cannot find room on another carrier and the pilots are forced to ditch in those frigid northern waters. In the Battle of the Coral Sea, it will be recalled, the Japanese carrier Zuikaku survived the battle but lost most of its planes and experienced aviators.
If the task force survives this initial battle, the attacks by Backfires and other land-based planes gradually diminish, a result of the fierce air battles along the Norwegian coast. Then it is the turn of the attack planes aboard the carriers to strike at the naval bases, air fields, and army staging areas from which a Soviet attempt to capture Norway’s North Cape would come.
Planners in Moscow have for decades assumed that Soviet cities could come under attack by carrier-based planes, although the U.S. Navy has long since given up its plans to take part in such a major assault. But one important result of this fear has been the creation of an extremely formidable air defense system. The allied fleet has already met the first line of defense. As planes take off from the carriers and head inland, they encounter one layer after another of defenses.
In effect, the roles of the two forces have been reversed. But there is one major difference. When the Backfires came out to repel the task force, they didn’t know where the carriers were. But the American pilots have been briefed in detail on the fixed land targets they are to attack. The coordinates of their targets and their aiming points have all been punched into their inertial navigation systems so they know precisely where to go.
The first attacking force is made up of A-6 bombers, accompanied by F-14s. The F/A-18s come along on this first long-range mission, carrying both air-to-air weapons and HARM antiradiation missiles to knock out the defenses, but no load of heavy bombs. The goal of this first wave of bombers is to crater the enemy airfields, destroy as many planes as possible on the ground, and put radar and missile sites out of action.
The threat to the attacking force is not limited to the surface-to-air missiles and antiaircraft guns down on the ground. High overhead, modern Su-27 Flanker and MiG-31 Foxhound interceptors circle. With their state-of-the-art radar, they are able to detect low-flying planes and then shoot down at them with supersonic missiles. As the attacking forces come closer, they swoop down, guided by traffic controllers on the ground, to join in the battle to keep the bombers from reaching their targets.
The ensuing air battle strains the situational awareness of even the best-trained pilots. The F/A-18 and the Flanker look remarkably alike, each with tall, twin vertical tails and a leading edge extension sweeping forward below the bubble canopy. In fact, the most distinctive feature of each of the four planes—the F-14, F/A-18, Su-27 and MiG-31—is its set of twin vertical tails.
Losses in this first attempt to penetrate the Soviet defenses are severe, especially among the A-6s. But the attack serves its purpose in knocking out defending aircraft and missile sites.
The carriers, facing less threat from enemy bombers, move closer to shore. With a shorter distance to fly, many of the F/A-18s are loaded with bombs and sent off to hammer away at the naval and army installations from which an attack on Norway and Iceland might come. Each day, missile and antiaircraft sites and airfields are subjected to repeated attack. The mistake committed so often in Vietnam, of permitting the enemy to rebuild his defenses, will not be repeated here.
As the threat on the northern flank recedes, the allies have a choice. The carriers can be sent further north to provide air cover for an assault by submarines and perhaps even by surface ships on the Soviet “boomers”—their big, missile-firing submarines. Or, if the threat that the conflict will degenerate into a nuclear exchange seems slight, the carriers are moved south off the coast of Denmark. From there, the F/A-18s and A-6s join in the battle to attack Warsaw Pact land and air forces threatening Western Europe, and hammer away at Soviet ships in the Baltic Sea.
In the Far East, a similar scenario unfolds. The U.S. goal there is to control the straits that connect the Sea of Okhotsk and the Sea of Japan with the open Pacific. If those straits can be blocked, this will bottle up the Soviet Far Eastern Fleet and prevent it from attacking the lines of communication between the U.S. and Japan and South Korea.
The Soviet goal is twofold. The first effort is to control the straits so their ships will be able to move back and forth but American ships will not be able to enter the inland seas to attack the missile submarines in their sanctuary in the Sea of Okhotsk. The second goal is to keep the U.S. carriers at bay so they will not be able to come within easy striking distance of such major military centers as Vladivostok and Petropavlovsk.
The U.S., with land-based aircraft already on hand in Japan, Okinawa and South Korea, attempts to gain air control over the vital straits both to prevent movement of hostile ships through them, and also to try to beat back missile-carrying bombers flying out in search of the approaching carriers.
As the carriers move within 1,200 miles of Soviet bases, they come under attack by missile-launching planes and submarines. Again, the fate of the carriers depends on the outcome of the outer air battle in which F-14s and F/A-18s team up to knock down the Soviet Backfire and Badger bombers before they come within missile-launching distance of the carriers.
Those two battles, off the coast of Norway and in the northwestern Pacific, play out in an ultimate way the navy’s Maritime Strategy. It is a high-risk strategy that deliberately puts the carriers in harm’s way in the knowledge that the sinking of even two or three of the big ships (with their crews of more than 5,000 men and nearly a hundred planes) would be a grievous loss. Just as in the 1940s and early 1950s, the navy sees itself having a major role in taking the battle to the Soviet Union in the event of war. This is a distinct change from the long period of the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, when the major focus for the navy was in keeping open the supply routes to Europe with the line to be drawn from Greenland to Iceland to the United Kingdom in an effort to bottle up Soviet forces in the Sea of Norway.
“It is important,” he told Congress, “that we make the Soviets understand that in war there will be no sanctuaries for their forces. Keeping the Soviets preoccupied with defensive concerns locks up Soviet naval forces in areas close to the USSR, limiting their availability for campaigns against sea lines of communication or for operations in support of offensive thrusts on the flanks of NATO or elsewhere, such as in the Middle East or Asia.”
When the Reagan administration came into office in 1981, Navy Secretary Lehman spoke out as the most vocal advocate of the navy’s reborn aggressive strategy, with all that it implied in the way of big carriers, a 600-ship force, and even surface action groups built around four battleships resurrected from the mothball fleet.
Both the strategy and the type of fleet needed to support it are certain to become matters of increasing debate during the 1990s. The dramatic changes in the Warsaw Pact alone will raise questions about what kind of navy the U.S. needs and how big it should be. Just as the defeat of the Japanese in 1945 deprived the navy of its role as the nation’s defense against a major naval power, the easing of tensions between East and West brings into question the navy’s mission to defend the U.S. against a major land power. But even if the rapidly changing relationship between East and West did not force such a debate, the effects of time on today’s fleet certainly will.
Between now and the end of the century, the U.S. could have available what would be, in many ways, the most powerful naval force ever to put to sea, with as many as eighteen deployable carriers, half of them nuclear powered. But in the first decade of the new century, half the carrier force will go out of service. From the time the decision is made to buy a new carrier until it puts to sea is nearly a decade. So, if the ships scheduled to be retired between 2000 and 2010 are to be replaced, the decisions on what size ships to build, how many to build, and when they are to be built will all have to be made in the next few years.
The admirals have already begun to be heard, arguing that a powerful navy will still be needed to deal with third-world countries that are increasingly arming themselves with first-rate modern weapons. With a price tag of perhaps $20 billion or more for a carrier, its air wing, and support ships, the debate over the navy’s future is sure to be a fierce one. Even friends of the navy may well argue, as many have in the past, that new carriers should be smaller and therefore cheaper.
But Vice Adm. Richard M. Dunleavy, who took over as assistant CNO for air warfare in the spring of 1989, argues vigorously in favor of supercarriers—about 1,000 feet long, 160 feet wide, and with a flight deck of about 250 feet. Only such a large vessel is big enough and stable enough to permit flight operations in any weather anywhere on the world’s oceans, he says.
How does the Hornet fit into this uncertain future?
Despite all the early controversy, the seven years that the F/A-18 has been in service have demonstrated the value of its versatility. For a task force commander, the ability to change a plane—even in mid-air—from a bomber to a fighter or interceptor dramatically multiplies the forces he has available—whether to defend the fleet or do damage to the enemy. New models of the plane now coming off the production lines or planned for the future provide even more flexibility. One version is a single-seat plane with improved cockpit displays that enhance the pilot’s ability to carry out low-level attacks at night. The other is a new, two-seat version with weapons controls operated by a naval flight officer in the rear seat so the plane can be used for night attacks under the weather. In use by the marines, the two-seat version will replace the all-weather A-6 Intruder. Both planes are designed to carry a package of reconnaissance equipment that can be inserted to replace the gun in a few minutes, further increasing the number of different jobs the same basic aircraft can be called upon to do.
Both the navy and McDonnell Douglas have done a good deal of research on a follow-on version of the plane, called the Hornet 2000. With a larger airframe, improved engines, more fuel, and improved electronic equipment, the Hornet 2000 would be virtually a new airplane. Whether it will ever be built is questionable, given the increasing pressure to hold down defense expenditures. What is more likely is that the basic F/A-18 will continue to be improved. The fact that improvements, even in the flying qualities of the plane, can be made by writing new computer software rather than by bending sheet metal, makes this an attractive possibility.
In addition to improving the F/A-18, the navy is also at work on two new planes. The A-12 will be a new, medium bomber to replace the A-6. The Naval Advanced Tactical Fighter will be a new fighter to replace the F-14.
But both will build on the lessons of the F/A-18, because both will be dual-purpose planes. Although its basic role is to serve as a bomber, the two-man A-12 will also be capable of engaging in air-to-air combat. Similarly, the one-man tactical fighter will also be able to drop bombs.
“We’re not going back to having separate aircraft for different missions,” Dunleavy says. “We’ll have, as far as I can see into the future, multi-mission aircraft. The strike-fighter is the wave of the future. Depending on how things work out with the budget, I think you’ll find us buying more strike-fighters, whether they be F/A-18 or some follow-on aircraft.” Although he is a naval flight officer—the first non-pilot to hold the navy’s top aviation job—Dunleavy has become an enthusiastic supporter of the F/A-18 and often flies in the rear seat of the two-man trainer version. “We love it,” he says.
The navy of course faces a difficult—and familiar—task, because it has been ordered to adapt the air force’s Advanced Tactical Fighter for carrier operations, despite the lessons of the 1960s and 1970s that should have convinced everyone that it makes much more sense to develop a plane for use aboard a carrier, and then adapt it for use on land, than to do things the other way around.
The F/A-18, in fact, has achieved widespread acceptance as a land-based strike-fighter. Canada has purchased 138 planes, with three squadrons in Europe. Australia has bought seventy-five and Spain seventy-two. Kuwait has forty on order, with deliveries beginning in January 1992, and Switzerland has expressed its intent to buy thirty-four Hornets after an exhaustive comparison with the F-16. In December 1989, South Korea chose the F/A-18 over the F-16 and plans to acquire 120 of the planes. In a deal worth $3.5 to $4 billion, the Koreans will buy twelve complete airplanes, assemble thirty-six more from parts purchased from the U.S., and build the remaining seventy-two planes in its own factories.
France, whose navy strongly favored the purchase of F/A-18s to replace the 1950s-vintage F-8 Crusaders on its carriers, decided late in 1989 to develop and build its own new plane as a way of keeping its aerospace industry competitive in the world’s arms market.
The early emphasis on reliability and maintainability by a few stubborn men such as Admiral Lee and Will Willoughby has paid handsome dividends in the fleet.
The F/A-18 has turned out to be at least twice as reliable as other navy warplanes and to require less than half as many manhours of maintenance. While the older F-14 suffers an equipment failure of some sort every half-hour it flies, the latest model of the Hornet, the F/A-18C, is expected to fly five times as long before anything goes wrong.
But it is not at all certain that the navy, the Pentagon, and Congress will be willing in the future to spend the money that is needed up front to build in reliability, so that planes will be ready to fly when they are needed. Willoughby is devoting his formidable energies to institutionalizing his doctrine of reliability and maintainability, and Dunleavy says he is even willing to buy fewer planes if that is what it takes to build in reliability.
But Vice Adm. Richard Seymour, who served as commander of the Naval Air Systems Command in the early 1980s, put it this way in an inte
rview shortly before his death in 1989: “We talk life-cycle costs, but we don’t really believe it. In this kind of climate, it just doesn’t work. For me to reduce the costs of the P-3s [antisubmarine aircraft] I was buying, I would have to lose two F/A-18s. I would not make that choice.”
The F/A-18 in the fleet today is a far cry from the cheap, lightweight fighter envisioned in the early 1970s. With all expenses, including research and development, counted, each Hornet costs about $30 million. But almost all of the increase from the cost projections made in the mid-1970s was the result of the high inflation rates that continued into the early 1980s. A Congressional Research Service study found that the actual cost increase, between 1975 and 1985, was just four percent.
As the inflation rate came down, the navy also benefited from a relatively high production rate and even more from the fact that foreign buyers were helping to share the cost of operating the aircraft, engine, and radar factories.
Whatever the decisions on the navy’s future, whether there will be more carriers or fewer, bigger carriers or smaller, the Hornet seems assured of a major role well into the next century. If the decision is to continue to build supercarriers, the F/A-18 will have an important place in the carrier air wings. If the decision is to build smaller carriers, the Hornet strike-fighter will fit in perfectly, as the experience with the Coral Sea in the Libyan operation demonstrated.
APPENDIX I
F/A-18 Vital Statistics
Speed: Mach 1.8-plus
Combat Ceiling: 50,000 feet
Ferry Range, unrefueled: 2,000-plus nautical miles
Combat Radius—attack: 575 nautical miles
Combat Radius—fighter: 400 nautical miles