Okay, let's give it another try if we still want to have our light aircraft carrier despite real world constrains of : budget, manpower, geopolitical development and domestic considerations ...
Introducing the Air-Sea Defence Task Force (ASD TF) - a naval battle group centered around the light aircraft carrier. But first, an over all view of the force structure of the Navy of 2040.
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| A defensive Air-Sea battle doctrine |
The primary objective of the ASD TF is to secure our Sea Lines Of Communication (SLOC) and protecting merchant fleets, ensuring a safe passage for peaceful civilian merchant activities, keeping trade routes open and not beholden to pressures from large continental powers.
The ASD TF will deploy forward beyond our strategic aerial strike envelope (i.e. without air refueling). The presence of the RSN ASD TF at such forward deployed position beyond the near seas give added reassurance to merchant fleets plying the trade routes in a possible future of a multi-polar world.
The ASD TF will bring to bear a detachment of up to 12 F-35B Joint Strike Fighters. These STOVL (Short Take Off Vertical Landing) air assets, in addition to their stealthy features, are embedded with electronic warfare suite and counter measures, rendering their detection at best sporadic, a form of deliberate aerial warfare tactic and deception. They will greatly enhance maritime patrol operating in concert with the naval combatants on attachments to the ASD TF as well as the future long-range-high-endurance integrated maritime patrol and ISR (Intelligence-Surveillance-Reconnaissance) platforms.
Remote unmanned and/or autonomous air, surface and under-sea platforms will have a greater role in the future approaching 2040, augmenting the manned assets, easing the perennial manpower constrain imposed upon our forces.
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| ASD TF possible deployment roster |
BMD defensive posture is augmented by the second asset on attachment to the ASD TF. The RSN submarine, a diesel powered, air-independent propulsion platform. It will have submerged launch capability of AAW/BMD missiles, taking initial command guidance from the integrated sensor fused combat picture of all task force assets. The silent service patrols the under sea domain securing the SLOC and the ASD TF. The future TypeXXXSG II is also Land Attack capable, but it is not armed for that role. Purely defensive for now and into the foreseeable future.
The Light Aircraft Carrier is build to be Enhance Defence Capable. In addition to its air combat assets in the form of the STOVL JSF, attack helicopters, anti-submarine and anti-ship helicopter platforms, it also possess an organic defensive arsenal of naval guns, directed energy LASER weapons, missiles and active/passive decoys. As such, it has a full suite of radar systems capable of the type multi-mission combatant able to engage AAW/BMD functions.
By 2040, the Electro-Magnetic (EM) rail gun will become a reality. The EM rail gun will come to fulfill the roles of short range anti-air / anti-surface / anti-missile. The kinetic energy (KE) rounds of the EM gun are not armed with explosive charges thereby reducing the inherent danger of magazine explosion in the event of accident and/or direct hit in combat. There will be a variety of EM rounds capable of engaging different threats. Apart from the KE rounds, punching the target by sheer force with a velocity of Mach 7 of a 100mm equivalent projectile, the EM gun will also launch missiles, albeit at a much reduce velocity to protect the hardened electro-mechanical devices packaged into the missiles. These intelligent projectiles will activate upon reaching operational velocity, deploying stabilized fins and canards, driven by miniature rocket motors, terminal guided by its on-board sensors onto the target, in a swamp attack fashion. The latter EM launch missiles will somewhat take over the roles of the current Aster 15 missiles, offering a short to medium range point defence envelope. It is expected that an EM launch missile round will be cheaper to procure than an equivalent VLS launch missile.
The Light Aircraft Carrier will also carry vertical launch systems (VLS). In keeping with the commonality throughout the force, it is assumed that the Aster family or equivalent of missile system will still be employed. Sylver A50 VLS launch tubes or its equivalent will be housed on-board the carrier in multiples of 8 per module. A much capable medium range missile in the form of the future MBDA Sea Ceptor with an operational distance in excess of 25km will replace the Aster 15 missile. Four Sea Ceptors can be housed in a single A50 VLS launch tube, thereby giving a total of 32 anti-missile missiles with the employment of just a single module of 8 VLS tubes. The remaining VLS A50s can use to house the longer range Aster 30 with an operational range of 120km, defending against air threats and also the evolved Aster 30 BMD missile systems coming on line (currently it is designed to be housed in the longer A70 tubes). A naval combatant typically carries 32 VLS launch tubes and some more. Super sonic anti-ship cruise missiles will also proliferate by then, the Sea Ceptors are capable in engaging the former. However, it is foreseeable that it will become a numbers games, thus the EM rail gun launch missile will augment the Sea Ceptors in the area of point defence even to defeat a possible scenario of an anti-ship cruise missile swamp attack.
A non through deck variable directed energy LASER gun weapon may be installed to augment the EM rail gun. It carries a much lighter weight as compared to the EM rail gun system, thus not imposing a limitation on its possible emplacement on the carrier. When engaging super sonic anti ship cruise missiles, time is of the essence. At the speed of light, the LASER weapon will inflict the remaining in-coming missile first, with partial damage rending it unstable, by then the sea ceptors and/or the EM missiles will arrived to finish the job.
With the deployment of the EM rail gun and the directed energy LASER weapon systems, of which both requires large quantity of electrical energy to function, the light aircraft carrier will generate a maximum output of no less than 30MW of electrical power to drive the ship (entertaining the possibility of an all or partial electrical drive system) as well as powering the weapon systems. With this power generating capacity, what is the possibility of the Light Aircraft Carrier moored along CNB, plugged into the island electrical power grid in times of civil emergencies, powering essential services in the eastern region of the island? A mobile power station.
There will be ample bunks allotted to mount an amphibious operation ferrying three companies of reinforce infantry guardsmen and special forces. In the event of a Humanitarian Assistant and Disaster Relief (HADR) operation, these quarters are enough to bunk up to 500 evacuees. A medical/surgical facility that provides Operating Theatres, Intensive Care Units, recovery bunks, essential bio-clinical laboratory, x-rays and a CT scanner, etc.
In the event of a high probability of combat action, the ASD TF can call upon one of the Multi-Mission Combatants out on maritime patrol. These combat ships are armed with Long Range Anti-Ship missiles (LRASM) in place of the BMD missiles, augmenting the total number of anti-ship missiles in the ASD TF, carried by the attached multi-mission BMD combatant and also anti-ship missiles aerial launch by the F-35B JSF and multi-mission capable naval helicopters. Pending qualifications of the Sylver series of VLS tubes able to fire the American evolved Harpoon derivatives and the matured LRASM by 2040.
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