Johannes replied to me: > A country might be landlocked or have inconvenient geography for naval > operations (Russia would be an example).
Or the Gnomes of Zurich, if you want to get really illuminated. > A country might want to force project into a landlocked country or into an > area with inconvenient geography, without actually establishing bases. How about overflight permissions? There are treaties for commercial air travel, but they don't apply to combat ops. A neutral neighbour would be forced to intern the sky carrier until the end of the war, or risk that neutrality status. > Like you want an operation similiar to Mali, but you want to avoid > stationing ground forces for some reason, like you want to avoid cultural > conflicts with the population or you want the option to run away really > fast. Hammer the big SAMs in the target country and stay over MANPAD altitude. The troops are sent down by helicopter or VTOL plane, back up for a good sleep without IEDs, snipers, or mortars. > Or maybe China buys a significant portion of Cyprus and wants to protects > it's interest there. But if the situation gets volatile, it either has > already sea carriers in the medierran and can't get them out easily, or > they are outside and it can't get them in, both can be a strategic > problem. (You get the same tactical situation, if you propose a future > cold war between the US and the EU). Again you're assuming overflight permissions. > Are sky carriers harder to attack then bases and sea carriers? If so they > might have a role similiar to nuke shooting submarines. To make sure a > preemptive strike can't destroy your complete arsenal. Big, noisy, and up in the blue sky. I think that sky carriers have a speed advantage, but inferior stealth and toughness. Speed can become survivability, getting out of the path of an incoming strike. Plenty of WWIII scenarios had a massed raid by Soviet naval aviation against a NATO carrier group. When the carrier is almost as fast as the bombers, things look different. It still can't outrun the missiles, but the bombers might run out of fuel or fail to locate the target. > They might also allow you to build up a threat, without explicitly saying > so for diplomatic reasons. If you get a sea carrier close enough to a > volatile spot, that it can make a fast response, you implicitly declare in > public that you consider a military intervention. If you put your sky > carrier on alert at home, you can always pretend it has nothing to do with > that situation. Even if you transfer it to a closer allied country or have > it hover over international waters, with the greater reach there might > still be other hotspots it could be dedicated to. S.H.I.E.L.D. is sometimes an international organization. You could have a bunch of skycarriers, on patrol around the globe. With a bit of luck and planning, there is always one within 12 hours flight distance. But that doesn't answer the question about the loadout. Ten fighters, some AWACS, a couple of tankers, plus helicopters for search and rescue? That would be a balanced mix, but does a skycarrier need AWACS and tankers? It is an airborne base all by itself. Twenty fighters, 750 tons of jet fuel, 750 tons of ordnance from BVR AAMs all the way to FAE? That should give one strike with the proper ordnance against anything from Godzilla to an armored regiment or some guys in mountain caves. Of course a jack of all trades is master of none -- the skycarrier might run out of actually _useful_ ammunition while it has hundreds of tons of depth charges, leaflet bombs, and ASAT missiles left. Sixty aircraft, each with fuel and ammo for one sortie. That gives a 'deck load strike' similar to a big sea carrier, but only once, and only with the pre-loaded ordnance. If the target doesn't need ARMs, they're wasted. Not a problem if the sky carrier is based at some regional ground base, a few thousand miles from the target. A dozen COIN planes, two dozen helicopters, and a company or two of Marines? Not much for a 20,000-ton skycarrier. How many for a full division? A hundred? Still, a company now might be worth more than a sealifted division next month. Regards, Onno _______________________________________________ GurpsNet-L mailing list <[email protected]> http://mail.sjgames.com/mailman/listinfo/gurpsnet-l
