Alt 60s US Navy

[NOMISYRRUC]

This paragraph is from Page 52 of "The Ships & Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet - Thirteenth Edition" by Norman Polmar and published in 1984.

The current U.S. Navy goal is 100 SSNs. Some Navy authorities have estimated that requirements in the 1990s and beyond could be as high as 100 SSNs. The navy is now building SSNs at the rate of 4 of the LOS ANGELES class per year, a rate to sustain a force of more than 100 SSNs. The replacement of older SSNs as they reach a normal service life of about 25 years, however, will probably hold the force at just over 90 submarines. (Ninety attack submarines was the Navy's force goal from 1973 to 1981 - that goal was never achieved; before that a force of 120 attack submarines, both diesel and nuclear, was authorised.)

IIRC from Norman Friedman in his book about post-war submarines (which I haven't checked) the pre-1973 requirement was for 105 attack submarines (both diesel & nuclear) not 120 and copies of Jane's from the late 1960s to early 1970s (which I haven't checked either) say 105 attack submarines too.

Who is correct?

However, if I've remembered Friedman correctly the service life of a nuclear powered submarine (SSBN as well as SSN) increased to 30 years by the middle 1970s as the interval between each refuelling increased to 10 years. That would have required an average building rate of 3 SSN a year to maintain a force of 90 boats and 4 a year to maintain a force of 120 boats.

 

[BlackBat242]

This site has scale drawings of the SCB 100/100A/101 and 103 deck layouts, although the Midway's SCB101 lacks detail.

The Coral Sea 110A landing on deck area is much longer than the FDRs 110, the former extending level with the bow cats and lacking the deck edge lift at it's forward end. The FDR (and presumably the Midway which had the same 110 rebuild) landing on area only extends level with the island, then has the deck edge lift at it's forward end.

The biggest difference between the Coral Sea and Midway post SCB101 is beam overall at the flight deck, the Coral Sea is ~232' while the Midway is ~260'. By the drawings it looks like the Midway's landing on deck angle was increased of Coral Sea and FDR. I suspect that this increase in deck area over the Coral Sea is the bridge too far that ruined Midway.

The landing-path angle for Midway & FDR's SCB-110 was 10.5°.*
Coral Sea's SCB-110A and Midway's SCB-101.66 gave them a 13.5° angle.

* As was that of the SCB-125 Essex class ships, the Forrestals, the Kitty Hawks (all 4) and Enterprise.
The Nimitz class actually reduced the angle to 9.05°.


As for flight deck areas...
Midway class as built: flight deck area 104,216.6²
SCB-110: flight deck area 121,569.9'²
SCB-110A: flight deck area ?'²
SCB-101.66: flight deck area 175,111.2'²

I have searched several times and never found a flight deck area specification for Coral Sea - but I estimate it to be around 155,000 - 160,000 square feet.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

IIRC from Norman Friedman in his book about post-war submarines (which I haven't checked) the pre-1973 requirement was for 105 attack submarines (both diesel & nuclear) not 120 and copies of Jane's from the late 1960s to early 1970s (which I haven't checked either) say 105 attack submarines too.

E.g. these paragraphs form Page 395 of Jane's 1968-69 which Norman Polmar wrote.

The attack submarines are a component of the general warfare forces and have a primary mission of anti-submarine warfare-seeking out and destroying enemy submarines. Current force levels provide for 105 attack submarines. At the end of 1968 there are 38 nuclear-powered attack submarines and approximately 70 conventional attack submarines in service.

The Department of Defense have stated that 57 "first-line" attack submarines of the "Narwhal", "Sturgeon", "Permit", and "Skipjack" classes will be required in the 1970s. In addition , the attack submarine force will have three additional "first-line" submarines of these classes for "general backup", nine older nuclear-powered submarines, the 12 post-World War II conventional submarines, and about a score of of modernised World War II-era submarines. Critics of Department of Defence policy advocate an all-nuclear attack submarine force.

That is:

60 first-line SSN of the Narwhal, Sturgeon, Permit and Skipjack classes.​

9 second-line SSN - one Tullibee, one Halibut , one Triton, 4 Skate, one Seawolf and one Nautilus class.​

12 post-World War II conventional submarines - 3 Barbel, one Darter, 2 Sailfish and 6 Tang class.​

About 20 modernised World War II-era submarines.​

​

Which makes a total of about 100 attack submarines (69 SSN & about 32 SS) instead of 120.

At that time 59 first-line SSN of the Narwhal, Sturgeon, Permit and Skipjack classes were in service, building, on order or proposed. That is 5 Skipjack, 13 Permit/Thresher, one Narwhal and 40 Sturgeon class. Only 37 Sturgeon class would be built because SSN-685 was built as the one-off Glenard P. Lipscomb and the 2 Sturgeons proposed for FY1970 would be built as the first 2 Los Angels class boats.

There were actually 14 post-World War II conventional submarines but the former SSG Greyback & Growler were to be converted into Transport Submarines (APSS). However, the planned conversion of Growler was cancelled and Greyback's designation was changed to LPSS (for Amphibious Transport Submarine).

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

This table is also from the 13th Edition of "The Ships and Aircraft of the U.S. Fleet" which is on Internet Archive.
Source:https://archive.org/details/shipsaircraftofu0013polm/page/3/mode/1up



Until 1977 the U.S. Fiscal Year ended on 30th June
Therefore, 1964, 1968, 1972 & 1976 are at 30th June of those years
From 1977 the U.S. Fiscal Year ended on 30th September
Therefore, 1980, 1984 & 1990 are at 30th September of those years
n.a. = not available.
* = Plus one CV in yard for modernisation (SLEP) in 1980 and 1984.
** = Includes LPD's employed as flagships (AGF).
Total Active Ships exclude the Naval Auxiliary Force and Naval Reserve Force​

I added the totals for the lines that are emboldened. Except for 1990 my totals don't add to the totals in the first 3 lines of the table. I've checked the original and my Excel spreadsheet umpteen times, but can't find the errors. If you see any please send me a Private Message and I will make the necessary corrections.

Furthermore, there are discrepancies between the figures in this table and the tables that I posted earlier in the thread.

 

[Rule of cool]

The landing-path angle for Midway & FDR's SCB-110 was 10.5°.*
Coral Sea's SCB-110A and Midway's SCB-101.66 gave them a 13.5° angle.

* As was that of the SCB-125 Essex class ships, the Forrestals, the Kitty Hawks (all 4) and Enterprise.
The Nimitz class actually reduced the angle to 9.05°.


As for flight deck areas...
Midway class as built: flight deck area 104,216.6²
SCB-110: flight deck area 121,569.9'²
SCB-110A: flight deck area ?'²
SCB-101.66: flight deck area 175,111.2'²

I have searched several times and never found a flight deck area specification for Coral Sea - but I estimate it to be around 155,000 - 160,000 square feet.

I suspect that was a search for clearance between the landing flight path and the island. By the time the Nimitz rolled around it was so big and but its island was very small and placed well back that the angle of the landing deck could be reduced.

The question remains would the SCB11A deck layout be sufficient to operate the F111B without being so big and heavy that the freeboard issues on the Midway wouldn't arise?

 

[BlackBat242]

You mean SCB-110A, I presume.

Coral Sea hosted the F-111B carrier trials... and after landing one on, moving it to the hangar (just barely fit on the deck-edge elevator) and moving it around in there, then returning it to the flight deck and launching it (plus deck handling exercises) the various Admirals and Captains shook their heads and proclaimed (I'm paraphrasing, but not much) "That F&^%#er is too D$mn big!".

Additionally, a fully-fueled (but no external payload) F-111B was just a little above the max load of the aircraft elevators... so they needed to be beefed up a little even if they weren't made larger.

Yes, it could just work, but at the expense of reduced aircraft numbers and a higher risk of bumping into something or dropping one over the side.


The F-14 was almost as big but fit a bit more comfortably, and fully fueled with no external load was under the elevator load limit... but you could not raise the canopy to the 60 degrees required to remove the canopy so the ejection seat could be removed for servicing. Nor could you jack the Tomcat high enough to achieve full extension of the landing gear so it could be raised and lowered for maintenance because the vertical stabilizers would hit the ceiling. Both operations required 4'-5' higher clearance than the Midways' hangars had... which is why F-14s could land on and take off from Midway, but could not be stationed aboard.

If the USN really wanted to operate the F-111B, F-14, or another large fighter from the Midways, they needed to pay more attention to detail design (maybe folding tails and a canopy designed for removal when near or at the closed position).

 

[Rule of cool]

I don't disagree with any of that, the problem is that between 1962 and 1966 the future of the USN fighter force was the F111B and any carrier that cannot operate the F111B will only be able to serve until the F4 sqns last. This changed with the short-lived VFAX of 1966, but by 1968 the USN was back in a similar if somewhat better position with the VFX-F14 for another 5 or so years until the 2nd VFAX-F/A18. However this will drive decision making on the carrier fleet on and off for over a decide.

It's not just the Midways this will affect, someone said earlier in this thread that even the big C7 catapult can't launch fully loaded F111B in still air and the Forrestal and Saratoga had 2 C11s and 2 C7s so would have been in a really bad way.

 

[NOMISYRRUC]

Part of Post 201 about attack submarine requirements.

IIRC from Norman Friedman in his book about post-war submarines (which I haven't checked) the pre-1973 requirement was for 105 attack submarines (both diesel & nuclear) not 120 and copies of Jane's from the late 1960s to early 1970s (which I haven't checked either) say 105 attack submarines too.

Link to Post 203 in which I wrote that according to Jane's 1968-69 the USN had a requirement for 105 attack submarines.

I've also had a look at the copies of Jane's on Internet Archive from 1969-70 to 1974-75.

• Jane's 1969-70 says 105 attack submarines, but doesn't go into as much detail about the proposed composition of the force than the previous edition.
  • However, instead of 40 Sturgeon class, it now says 37 Sturgeon class with the 34th & 35th to be completed in 1973, but it didn't say when 36th & 37th were to be completed.
  • SSN685 (Glenard P. Lipscomb) is now shown as a one-off "Quiet Design" to be completed in 1973.
  • SSN688 & 689 are now shown separately as "High Speed Design" but doesn't have projected completion dates. On the other hand it does say that 3 ships of this design were proposed for the FY1970 shipbuilding programme, but the third submarine (SSN690) was deferred to FY1970.
• Jane's 1970-71 & 1971-72 aren't on Internet Archive.
• Jane's 1972-73 & 1973-74 don't say how many attack submarines the USN wanted.
• Jane's 1974-75 says that the current US attack submarine force goal was 90 nuclear-propelled submarines. This would not be attained until at least the early 1980s when the Navy would have 26 Los Angels class (including 3 proposed in the FY1975 programme, 53 other first-line SSNs (Skipjack & later) and 8 older SSNs suitable only for training & research. (26+53+8=87 not 90.) It doesn't say anything about this being a reduction from a requirement for 120 or 105 attack submarines.
  • 23 Los Angles class had been authorised FY1970 to FY1974 and were to complete between February 1975 and 1979.
  • 3 Los Angles class were proposed for the FY1975 programme, no commissioning dates were provided, but my guess is that they were planned to be completed in 1980.
  • Additional submarines were planned at the rate of 5 every 2 years.
  • 8 out of 9 second-line SSNs were in commission. These were Nautilus, Seawolf, Tullibee, Halibut and the 4 boats of the Skate class. Triton was decommissioned in 1969 and Nautilus could be expected to decommission in the near future. Halibut & Seawolf had been designated "mother" submarines for the deep submergence research programmes.

 

[Scott Kenny]

Jane's 1974-75 says that the current US attack submarine force goal was 90 nuclear-propelled submarines. This would not be attained until at least the early 1980s when the Navy would have 26 Los Angels class (including 3 proposed in the FY1975 programme, 53 other first-line SSNs (Skipjack & later) and 8 older SSNs suitable only for training & research. (26+53+8=87 not 90.) It doesn't say anything about this being a reduction from a requirement for 120 or 105 attack submarines.

• 23 Los Angles class had been authorised FY1970 to FY1974 and were to complete between February 1975 and 1979.
• 3 Los Angles class were proposed for the FY1975 programme, no commissioning dates were provided, but my guess is that they were planned to be completed in 1980.
• Additional submarines were planned at the rate of 5 every 2 years.
• 8 out of 9 second-line SSNs were in commission. These were Nautilus, Seawolf, Tullibee, Halibut and the 4 boats of the Skate class. Triton was decommissioned in 1969 and Nautilus could be expected to decommission in the near future. Halibut & Seawolf had been designated "mother" submarines for the deep submergence research programmes.

If Jane's misunderstood the USN saying "90 attack submarines" as only including nuclear boats when the USN was getting 87 SSNs plus 3 good SSKs (Barbel class) to make 90, it works.

But yes, ever since the USN started decomissioning the 637s, the total fleet numbers really took a dive. And the Combat Commanders like CENTCOM had mission plans written around having 90ish boats.

Edit: And those Combat Commanders STILL have mission plans written around having 90 boats!