They are going to need a mix of LHAs and LHDs. LHDs don’t have enough aircraft for the initial landing, but LHAs cannot deliver heavy equipment to the beach they are likely to need to break out. It is a synergistic combination.

I'll say it again:  The next CVN built will be the last, and this is the best proof.

 

This class of ship could easily be modified to support sustained air operations with upwards of 36 F-35Bs, and future UAVs.  It can pass through the Panama and Suez Canals.  It has a crew of 1050, not 5000.

 

The CVNs we have plus whats in the pipeline will keep us in supercarriers until 2050.  But the CVN concept is dated - either because of the capabilities of the F-35B, the increasing threat to CVNs from ballistic missiles and stealthy subs & cruise missiles, if not the budgetary ax.

 

True these ships do not have nearly the same capacity/capabilities of something twice as large, but they have enough (or could be modified) to do the job at a much more sustainable cost structure. 

The article is extremely misleading in implying the USN stopped using helicopter carrying amphibs when in reality the only thing that happened is they've debated having a well deck or not.

 

The notion that small carriers can replace large carries is simply rubbish.  Firstly LHA-6 is designed to operate 20 F-35B's.  The RN designed a carrier to operate 36 F-35B's and they created a 65,000 ton carrier.  The Charles De Gaulle at roughly 40,000 tons operates about 36 smaller aircraft and is generally considered too small, including by the French.  Basically cutting a carrier in half gives you less than half the capacity.

 

The importance of a carrier is how many sorties it can put up per day and how many days between replenishment. For non nuclear carriers you get to add in refueling the ship as well.  Moreover, conventional carriers can operate fighter sized UCAS which many would argue are more important to the future of carrier aviation than the F-35 or any other manned aircraft.  The X-47B or it's follow on has greater range and is probably less observable than the F-35.  For ISR and some strike missions is significantly more capable.

 

Aircraft carriers are mobile airfields.  When aircraft are obsolete that's when the carriers will be.

Minor correction.

 

Catapult launched aircraft have higher payloads than ski jumped launched ones. And VTOL’s have much smaller payloads than either. Even if all the combat aircraft are replaced drones, the full size carrier with catapults will be the optimum solution.

GGentlemen, these are NOT "Aircraft Carriers". They are Amphibious Assault Ships. The aircraft that they carry are there for the transport and support of those 1600 Marines that the America-class will invest on hostile LZ's...period.

BTW the reason that the Navy got rid of the LPH-class was the design: Robert MacNamara, that Naval genius (Sarcasm) purposely eliminated 100 feet of overall length, two boilers, a second engine room and the #2 messdecks, in a typical MacNamara cost-cutting measure, thereby cutting the LPH's capabilities severely hampered. They sailed on, eventually replaced by the LHA/LHD classes. My LPH, USS New Orleans (LPH-11) was sunk off Hawaii during a Rimpac Sink-ex; sustaining 17 Tomahawk missle hits, repeated 5" gunfire, and a 500lb bomb from aircraft, before sinking...and that was with Conditition Zebra set...

A quick one: LPH does NOT stand for "Landing Platform Helicopter". Ask anybody who ever served on one. They'll tell you it stood for "Long Pulsating 'Hemorrhoid"...A bit of "Gator-Navy" lore for you...

Current case, given that we have a dozen CVNs.

 

I'll stand by my proposition however that if these ships have the capacity to support 20 F35Bs and hold 1600 marines, future builds could easily be modified to support sustained ops for 30 - 36 F35Bs and zero Marines.

 

Fact is that we have too many CVNs as it is.  It's a LUXURY having a dozen, the proof of this is that no one else has even ONE.  Even if we only had 6, we'd still have enough CVNs to support each Long Pulsating Hemorrhoid that was actually gonna have jarheads hit the beach.

 

For sabre-rattling purposes a 'Light' aircraft carrier or a CVN off the coast of Somalia accomplishes just as much:  Either would be capable of putting the hurts on any turd-world shithole.

 

Please note that the 65,000 ton QE class includes the enhanced air wing support AND the capacity for marines.

 

 

Okay, HeavyD now I get you...and you're on to something. The America-class LHA does seem to have roughly the same size and configuration as a WWII Essex-class CVA, which steamed on throughout the entire Vietnam War, not only as a CVA, but three were early LPH's (Princton, Valley Forge and Boxer). One can easily do double duty as another in a pinch...interesting, hmmm.....