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Príncipe de Asturias aircraft carrier
USS Nimitz
USS Enterprise
USS Forrestal
American amphibious assault ships
Soviet/Russian aircraft carriers
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The classical aircraft carrier, provided with catapults, angled deck and arresting wires is a complex and expensive vessel. Because of that very few navies
possess them, and the most habitual types are those operating with STOVL (Short Take-Off Vertical Landing) aircraft and helicopters. Some of them, as the two
classes shown in this article, even wear the designation of cruiser due to their characteristics of armament and construction. For example, the
Príncipe de Asturias, which is presented in a separate article, can seem at first glance to belong to the same category than the Invincible class or the
Giuseppe Garibaldi, but it is in fact a different type. While the Príncipe de Asturias is a pure aircraft carrier built with a full-beam hangar the other
two feature heavier armament, larger superstructures and smaller hangars.
Note: V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take-Off Landing) and STOVL (Short Take-Off Vertical Landing) aircraft are the same type, and
the two acronyms just differentiate how the aircraft having these capabilities are operated. V/STOL operation is no longer used because a vertical
take-off drastically limits the payload of an aircraft, so the acronym STOVL is more adequate to the procedures of nowadays.
The Invincible class
When in the 1960-1970s United Kingdom retired the HMS Ark Royal, HMS Eagle and HMS Victorious, that country renounced to possess any conventional aircraft
carrier. At the outbreak of the Falklands War, the only conventional aircraft carrier that took part (the HMS Hermes, built during the Second World War and
modernized thrice) operated with STOVL aircraft and was already half assigned to India, where she arrived in 1986. The war caught the Royal Navy in a
quite bad moment, almost without aircraft carriers, and with only one ship of the Invincible class in service, of the three that finally composed the class.
In the late 1960s the British were projecting a rather innovative vessel (actually she was more an amphibious ship and less an aircraft carrier), which in a
first moment was denominated "all-deck cruiser" or "through-deck cruiser". Basically she was a vessel of medium size fitted with a flight deck and a hangar,
with some capability to transport troops, whose main role ought to be to serve as command ship in amphibious operations and as base of the assault/cargo
helicopters. With the availability of V/STOL aircraft, the project became an aircraft carrier of new type capable of operating either with the already
provided helicopters or, once perfected the take-off by means of the "ski-jump", with STOVL aircraft.
These ships have an overall length of 209 meters, a beam of 27.5 meters, a draught of 8 meters and a standard displacement of 16000 tonnes, reaching
22600 tonnes at full load. They are propelled by four gas turbines Rolls-Royce Olympus TM-3B actuating on two shafts through a COGAG arrangement,
developing 97200 horsepower and granting a top speed of 28 knots, while operational range is about 7000 nautical miles at 19 knots. The complement
comprised 685 crewmen (including 60 officers) and other 366 (including 80 officers) for the air wing, and if necessary up to 600 Marines could be
embarked.
These ships were criticized because of the modest armament onboard (having into account that they were classified as cruisers), which comprised a twin launcher
for antiaircraft missiles Sea Dart (with 36 missiles carried), three CIWS mountings and two 20-millimeter cannons Oerlikon GAM B01. During the mid 1990s
the three ships had the Sea Dart removed and the flight deck prolonged all along the forecastle. The HMS Ark Royal was distinctive for having installed the
American CIWS Vulcan Phalanx instead of the Dutch Goalkeeper found in the other two ships.
The electronic equipment includes the air search radar Marconi/Signaal Type 1022 with a range of 265 kilometers, located atop the command bridge, the
surface search radar Marconi Type 992R or Plessey Type 996 and the navigation radar Kelvin Hughes Type 1006/1007. The fire control was entrusted to two
radars Marconi Type 909/9091, located at each end of the isle inside voluminous domes. There was also a dotation of ESM/ECM devices and decoy launchers.
The combat system was not uniform in the three ships.
The air wing, with a total of 22 elements, comprised variable numbers of STOVL aircraft British Aerospace Sea Harrier FA-2 and helicopters Westland Sea King and
EH-101 Merlin. The hangar in these ships was not of the full-beam type so it was narrower than that of a proper aircraft carrier, causing a less favorable
displacement/aircraft ratio (1027 tonnes in Invincible class, 769 tonnes in Giuseppe Garibaldi and 593 tonnes in Príncipe de Asturias). The ski-jump
had an angle of 12 degrees in the HMS Ark Royal, which was the last ship of the class, and only 7 degrees in the other two. During a modernization in 1989
the HMS Invincible had her ski-jump raised to 12 degrees as well.
The HMS Invincible, HMS Illustrious and HMS Ark Royal were decommissioned in August 2005, August 2014 and March 2011, respectively. As 2016 goes by only the
HMS Illustrious remains in existance, with unknown fate.
The Giuseppe Garibaldi
Until the 29th January 1989, the Italian Navy was affected by an outdated legislation dating back from the times of Italo Balbo and Benito
Mussolini, which in practice prevented it from possessing any kind of fixed-wing aircraft. However, since the 1960s the Italian Navy operated
with cruisers provided with a flight deck astern to operate exclusively with antisubmarine helicopters, for the NATO directives during the
Cold War assigned to the Italian Navy the role of defending the Meditarranean against the powerful Soviet submarine fleet.
Because of this, when the 21st November 1977 it was ordered the construction of a cruiser provided with a through flight deck (in imitation of the
British Invincible class), it was expected that the air wing would be formed by helicopters, for the V/STOL aircraft seemed unaffordable so
far. However being contemporary, this project presented notable differences with the British one, for having a smaller displacement it
posed a superior offensive capacity as well as a similar or superior defensive capability. In turn, the air wing and the hangar are smaller
and amphibious capability is inexistent. Regarding the ski-jump, very important in this kind of ships, the inclination is lesser (6.5 degrees
versus the 12 which are usual), which limits the payload of fixed-wing aircraft.
The Giuseppe Garibaldi has an overall length of 180 meters, a beam of 33 meters, a draught of 6.7 meters and a standard displacement of 10100
tonnes, reaching 13850 tonnes at full load. She is propelled by four gas turbines LM-2500 actuating on two shafts through a COGAG arrangement,
developing 80000 horsepower and allowing a top speed of 30 knots, while operational range is about 7000 nautical miles at 20 knots. The
complement comprises 630 crewmen, 100 of them belonging to the air wing.
The armament in the Giuseppe Garibaldi is, leaving apart the Soviet/Russian designs, the most powerful one in ships of her class, which
indicates that the project was made in a moment in which the ideas about what to do were not very clear. It comprises four antiship missiles
OTO-Melara Teseo Mk 2 (removed in 2003), two octuple launchers for antiaircraft missiles Aspide (being carried a total of 48 missiles), six
40-millimeter 70-caliber cannons installed in three twin mountings Breda and two triple launchers for 324-millimeter antisubmarine torpedoes Mk 46,
which were being replaced by the national model A-290.
The Giuseppe Garibaldi was the only aircraft carrier in the western navies armed with antiship missiles. The Teseo Mk 2 is a subsonic missile (0.9 Mach) with
a range of 180 kilometers and a 160-kilogram warhead, later replaced by the Mk 3, with a range of 300 kilometers and a 210-kilogram warhead. However in
2003 the surface-to-surface missile system was suppressed to improve the flight deck and satellite communications. We can see the launchers
installed astern in the first photograph above (six launchers instead of four, however).
The Aspide is a missile with a semiactive radar seeker, a range of up to 13 kilometers, a speed reaching Mach 2.5 and effectiveness from 15 to 5000
meters of altitude. Another part of the antiaircraft/antimissile system are the three twin mountings Breda; each cannon has a rate of fire of up
to 300 rounds per minute, with a range of up to 12.5 kilometers in antiship fire and 4 kilometers in antiaircraft fire. The RTN 30X, monopulse
device operating in I band (8-10 GigaHertz), is the fire control radar associated to the Aspide and the Breda; there are three of these devices
in the Giuseppe Garibaldi: two on the fore top of the isle and another one just behind the cannon mounting astern, visible in the photograph below.
The air wing comprises a maximum of sixteen STOVL aircraft AV-8B Harrier II or eighteen helicopters SH-3D Sea King, but generally is a mix of
both. It is remarkable that the first STOVL aircraft did not operate in this ship until December 1994, which meant a delay of a dozen years in
respect of the Spanish, British and American counterparts. The two elevators, of internal type, are located just before and after the large isle.
On the other hand, this superstructure houses the Combat Information Center (CIC), which is the most important service in a modern warship, in a
place rather exposed to missile impacts. Installed on both flanks of the isle, the ESM/ECM device Nettuno SQL-732 provides wide cover against the
detection from enemy radars.
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