In the vast chess game of global politics, naval power has long been a deciding factor for centuries. In the modern day, the aircraft carrier has reigned supreme since World War 2 as the ultimate symbol of maritime dominance; we discussed this back in August of this year. But…what if the rules of the game are changing? What if smaller nations, or even non-state actors, could suddenly challenge the naval superpowers – the United States, Britain, France, India and China – with their own fleets of makeshift aircraft carriers?
While this might sound like the plot of a bad conspiracy movie, it isn’t. The future of naval warfare might be closer to a DIY project than you’d think.
Historically, the concept of aircraft carriers revolutionized naval warfare. In World War II, after the twin strikes on the Italian fleet at Taranto, and the attack on Pearl Harbor (which used Taranto as its base model). The strike on Pearl Harbor left the US Navy without the force it had planned to use to fight Japan, leaving only its aircraft carriers to hold the line until the nation could fully mobilize. These floating airfields – now holding up to 70 attack aircraft – has allowed nations to project significant combat power far beyond their shores, changing the very nature of maritime strategy. Fast forward some eighty years, to the early 21st Century, and carrier battle groups are still the backbone of naval power for the United States, and those states trying to join in.
But – there’s a catch: traditional aircraft carriers are expensive. Really expensive. Multiple billions of dollars expensive. This high cost, along with serious and complex technical issues, has kept carrier capabilities out of reach for most nations.
Until now.
The emergency conditions of World War 2 sparked a need to both transport aircraft to a distant theater of war without having to actually fight until they got there, and/or escort convoys of slow-moving, mostly defenseless, civilian merchant ships. The answer to this problem was the concept of the “escort” carrier – a comparatively small ship, capable of transporting fewer than 30 aircraft. These types of vessels filled the gap, allowing the US and British Royal Navies to both escort convoys, protecting the ships from enemy submarines, and delivering combat aircraft ti the battle area…and sometimes, actively engaging the enemy, even though not equipped to do so, as happened in the three-day Battle of Leyte Gulf, in 1944.
Following World War 2, the United States maintained carriers as its primary fleet element. And the carriers became the linchpin of a new method of power projection. No one has seriously contended with US naval dominance in the 80-odd years since World War 2 ended. To be sure, the tensions of the Cold War saw the Soviet Union present a serious threat to US naval power with its huge and very capable submarine force, but no country ever attempted to match the US Navy’s carrier fleet.
But, as time advanced onward, so did technology. In 1969, Britain aircraft designer Hawker Siddeley came up with something new: the Harrier. Unlike conventional jets, the Harrier was designed to take off and land vertically, a system known as V/STOL. As a subsonic aircraft, the Harrier could not seriously contend with the high speed, supersonic interceptors of its time, but it carried a useful weapons payload, and did not require the complicated launch and recover system, known as “CATOBAR“, that conventional fighters needed to launch from a rolling and pitching deck.
However, the Harrier was an outgrowth of an abandoned Hawker Siddeley project: the P.1154. Designed for a NATO requirement for a supersonic V/STOL fighter-bomber, the P.1154 fell victim – publicly, at least – to “mission creep” and bureaucratic infighting…Maybe. We’ll come back to that.
During the Cold War, with NATO’s desperate need to guard the GIUK Gap against it being closed by the Soviet Union during the critical opening phases of World War 3, in a manner similar to Nazi Germany’s U-Boat strategy of World War 2, one of the ideas to maximize the use of old, mothballed carrier hulls came in the form of the “helicopter carrier“. As the name suggests, this type of vessel was intended to only carry helicopters. In response to NATO needs, the idea was to pack the ship full of helicopters carrying air launched anti-submarine weapons and detection systems, which would allow the ship to protect convoys carrying war material to defend Europe against a Warsaw Pact invasion, from attack the very real threat of Soviet submarine forces. Clearly, a supersonic V/STOL would have been a great asset to ships like this in carrying out their mission.
But, the helicopter carrier concept was ultimately seen as wasteful, and it was eventually ended. The US Navy was happy with its upcoming LHA and LHD classes of amphibious warfare ships, which could operate Harrier’s for protection, and that was deemed sufficient.
But then, History intervened. During the Falklands War of 1982, the British suddenly found that the Royal Navy – after near-lethal budget cuts had left them with only two helicopter-type carriers – was forced to convert civilian cargo ships impressed for the war into makeshift aircraft carriers by the simple expedient of welding a solid landing platform on top of a base of shipping containers, and lashing Harriers and CH-47 helicopters to the deck. Ultimately the ship, the SS Atlantic Conveyor, would embark some five CH-47’s and six Westland Wessex helicopters, and then embarked fourteen Harriers as well, during the reorganization of the fleet at Ascension Island. Her sister ship, the SS Atlantic Causeway, would be fitted out to carry twenty-eight helicopters. (The Atlantic Conveyor was sunk by Argentinean Exocet anti-ship missiles on May 25th, 1982, taking most of her helicopter cargo down with her…the Harriers, however, had been flown off beforehand, significantly aiding the British war effort.)
It wasn’t pretty, but it worked.
Clearly, the notion of V/STOL fighters taking off from converted cargo was well grounded in realism. In fact, it was reinforced a year later in 1983, in the “Alraigo Incident“, when Royal Navy Sub-Lieutenant Ian Watson – unable to locate his carrier after a flight systems failure, made an emergency landing on the Spanish container ship “Alraigo” in mid-Atlantic before crashing from running out of fuel.
Enter the world of the 21st Century.
The “People’s Republic of China”, desperate to strengthen its flagging position in the world, is attempting to claim essentially all of the South China Sea, international arbitration be damned. However, the cold fact remains, that China has nothing to counter the firepower of even one US Navy carrier battlegroup…or, does it?
Aside from accelerating development of anti-ship ballistic missiles, the so-called “carrier killers”, the PRC has been trying to float their own aircraft carriers, without much success. The main problem comes down to CATOBAR systems and training. The launch and recovery system for fixed-wing aircraft is highly specialized, and requires extensive training and years of crew experience to work effectively. The US Navy has had over 70 years to perfect its own CATOBAR operations, and it shows in the low accident rates and relatively smooth operational pace on all US carriers.
With the deployment of the F-35B & C models – the “naval” variant – is being heralded as the solution to turn amphibious assault ships into “mini-carriers”; whether that is true or not remains to be seen. However, the US, along with Australia and Norway, are developing air-launched anti-ship missiles for the F-35B.
These weapons are designed to take out large, expensive supercarriers, especially if fired in swarms, to overcome a carrier’s anti-missile defenses. Ultimately, though, if enough missiles are fired at once, at least a few are bound to get through. The loss of a “supercarrier” like the USS Theodore Roosevelt or the new USS Gerald R. Ford would be a catastrophic blow to US confidence and foreign policy…But what about a smaller carrier? That’s a much harder target to hit, and a much less catastrophic loss if one is sunk.
More to the point, what if a country operating V/STOL fighter-bombers capable of launching anti-ship missiles suddenly converts a number of seized container ships and/or oil tankers into improvised aircraft carriers? Let’s take a hypothetical (and admittedly unlikely) scenario involving Australia or Indonesia.
Australia, with its vast coastline and strategic position, could theoretically convert some of its large merchant ships into makeshift carriers. Equipped with STOVL aircraft armed with anti-ship missiles, these DIY carriers could dramatically alter the balance of power in the South Pacific and Indian Ocean.
Or consider Indonesia, an archipelagic nation with a growing economy and increasing regional influence. If Indonesia were to suddenly develop a fleet of converted carriers, it could potentially control key maritime choke points and challenge established naval powers in the region.
Neither of these scenarios are likely to happen tomorrow, if ever. Both Australia and Indonesia are stable countries with good relations with major powers, including the United States. But in our rapidly changing world, what might happen in a decade or two? Recall that Iran went from a close U.S. ally to a sworn enemy practically overnight.
The point is, the potential for rapid, fundamental shifts in naval power is now here, and it’s something that traditional naval powers need to consider. In fact, this author has a suspicion that this very circumstance was the real reason for killing the Hawker Siddeley P.1154: the admirals of the late-1960’s and early-1970’s were all well-versed in carrier operations against other carrier forces in active combat as many, if not most, had been in combat against enemy carriers in World War 2 as junior officers, and would have wanted to limit the spread of functional carrier forces to small – and highly unstable – nations. Now, however, those veterans are gone, and navies have spent so long without a major naval war, the “institutional memory” of combat in this realm has been lost.
The only bright light in this darkness is the fact that there are very few V/STOL fighters out there, and none that can match the theoretical performance of the F-35B. The closest aircraft is the ancient YAK-38 of the Soviet era, an airplane that was plagued with problems from the start. In the modern day, the PRC has been trying to get its own V/STOL aircraft, the “J-18”, off the drawing boards for years. So far, they have failed to get it to work.
But what if that changes? What if the Communist designers make a breakthrough, and create a missile-carrying V/STOL fighter-bomber that can at least operate at sea? Without a need for CATOBAR systems, such an event could seriously alter the nature of naval operations, especially if coupled to more exotic – but proven – projects.
So – what does this mean for the future of naval warfare? For one, it could lead to a more distributed form of naval air power. Instead of a few large carrier battle groups, we might see more numerous, smaller carrier groups. This could make naval forces more flexible and resilient, but also potentially more unpredictable.
It could also change the calculus of naval combat. Anti-ship missiles launched from converted tankers lurking among civilian shipping could pose a serious threat to traditional naval forces. The line between civilian and military vessels could become blurred, complicating rules of engagement. Moreover, this trend could democratize naval air power. Countries that could never afford traditional carriers might suddenly find themselves able to project power far beyond their shores. This could lead to increased regional conflicts, but it could also create new deterrents against aggression by larger powers.
For major naval powers like the United States, this trend presents both challenges and opportunities. On one hand, it could erode the dominance of traditional carrier battle groups. On the other, it could open up new avenues for cooperation with allies and partners who adopt these capabilities.
While the reign of the supercarrier is far from over, the future of naval warfare might be more diverse and unpredictable than we now imagine. The potential for DIY carriers and distributed naval air power could reshape maritime strategy in the coming decades.
One thing is clear: the nations and leaders who can adapt to these changes will be the ones who shape the future of naval power. The game is changing, and it’s time for everyone to rethink their strategies.
