Allied Aircraft Carriers?

Post by **George Geczy** » Feb 13 2005

OK, here's a general question - should a player's air squadrons be able to land on an ally's aircraft carrier?

I have assumed the answer to this is 'No', as I don't think it happens in real life. Anyone want to correct me on this?

-- George.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Feb 13 2005

Im pretty sure during ww2, that british aircraft were landed on american carriers.BUT i believe this was strickly a way to transport the aircraft from one base to another .

I not sure about modern times.Its an interesting question.

I would bet that english harriers have landed on american carriers,but cant support this yet.
Ill look for some info.

i would also bet, that even though they did land on american carriers it was for a testing,exercise, or transport reasons.

Again ill look for some info.

Also a thought occurred to me- alot of nations are buying the f35 for naval operations-soo maybe it should be allowed but only by aircraft type shared by the nations for the same purpose ?

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Feb 13 2005

"Royal Navy pilots received their operational introduction to the type on the US Navy carrier USS SARATOGA in the fall of 1969, and the type served on British carriers for ten years. On 27 November 1978, ten FAA Phantom FG.1s launched off the HMS ARK ROYAL for the last time. The carrier was coming home on her final voyage.

The Phantom FG.1 was the last conventional take-off carrier fighter flown by the Royal Navy. There was an anxious period from December 1978 into June 1979 where FAA fighter pilots had nothing to fly, until they were finally relieved by the arrival of the Hawker Sea Harrier. "

So far, than we have 2 aircraft flown by both the US and britain that have landed on american carriers and 1 more on the way.

Harrier
Phantom
JSF

http://www.faqs.org/docs/air/avf4_3.html

Penta · Post by **Penta** » Feb 13 2005

Generally, yes.

In NATO planning, anyhow, that was the whole reason why there was standardization on things requisite to carrier aircraft ops generally.

They may never have had reason to do so, but there was (and remains) the capability for it to occur if need be.

red · Post by **red** » Feb 13 2005

I would not expect aircraft to be able to land on an ally's carrier. Yes, there has been training and standardization among unusually close militaries, but it doesn't look like combat operations have been conducted from allied carriers even among militaries with this high level of cooperation. And in SR2010, good will is much, much rarer and it might be assumed militaries have not been training with each other.

Iceman · Post by **Iceman** » Feb 14 2005

Perhaps S/VTOL aircraft and helos could land on allied ships, but carrier aircraft such as F-14/F-18 and the russian Su-27 (I forget which designation could land on their carriers), should not be able to based on diffrences with arrestor wires/hooks, catapult technology and runway length.

Post by **George Geczy** » Feb 14 2005

I like red's point about the rarity of "good will" even among allies in the world of 2010. Hey, in our multiplayer testgames it is certainly not unheard-of to have an ally turn on you

Combine that with the fact that they would not have had the chance to train together before becoming allied, and in some cases the equipment would be very different (ie NATO versus Russian etc). The idea to allow short-takeoff units to land on allied ships is one possibility, but even then you run into an issue with incompatible weapons loadouts etc.

There is also a difference in how resupply is done with carriers - when an ally is in your territory on land, their fuel/ammo still comes out of their own region's stocks (unless their region is dry, in which case your stocks are used). In a carrier, the stock for fuel and ammo comes out of the limited supply that the carrier has on board - obviously you don't want everyone and their brother fueling up on your limited carrier resources. A possible solution would be to "give permission" to land, and only accept "compatible" equipment, but that is very complicated to do in the user interface (and very micro-managy and hard to figure out in the heat of battle).

Hey, when I first tested Carriers I was grumbling "why won't the darn air unit land on it!" before I thought to look at whether the air unit was carrier-landing capable (it wasn't

) The allied thing would add lots of gameplay complications, just as it would add a lot of complications in real life if carriers started to accept allied air wings "on the fly".

-- George.

tkobo · Post by **tkobo** » Feb 14 2005

Well, id still be for it. Although Red does have a point- we are talking about allies here.i see no reason why allies couldnt develope teh same closeness that exists now in rl in the game.

So I think it should be possible.
BUT it should only be for certain aircraft .
It should only be for allies.
And it should only be possible with a treaty- the basing treaty would be fine OR a new seperate treaty covering that specific topic would also be fine.