Chapter 27: Aircraft Carrier Fleet

  The composition of the aircraft carrier task force of the South China Federation Republic is as follows:

  1 aircraft carrier of the Sea God class, 2 large destroyers of the Sea Lion class, 4 frigates of the Seal class, 2 attack submarines of the Sea Wolf class, 2 special supply ships of the Sea Elephant class, and 1 large multi-purpose comprehensive ship, together with 5 minesweepers form a single aircraft carrier combat group, totaling 17 vessels.

  The number of ships will also increase according to the needs during wartime, forming multiple aircraft carrier fleets or a fleet composed of multiple aircraft carrier fleets.

  Carrier-based aircraft and escorting destroyers, frigates, and submarines formed a combat fleet centered on the aircraft carrier, jointly establishing a deep, multi-layered, and concentrated firepower defense system.

  The warning machine was jointly developed by Dawn Industrial Company and Grumman Company in the United States, installing a new radar on the C-1A small transport aircraft, modifying it into an XTF-1W early warning aircraft, which made its first flight on December 17, 1956.

  Later improved and equipped with new electronic devices, it made its first flight on March 3, 1958, and was officially designated as the E-10.

  January 20, 1958, began formal equipping of the South Vietnamese Federal Navy and simultaneously equipping the United States Navy.

  The E-10 is the world's first practical early warning aircraft, which initially had the ability to detect sea and air targets, identify friend or foe, and guide its own aircraft to attack enemy targets.

  Its radar detection range is 200 kilometers and can simultaneously guide 20-30 friendly aircraft for attack.

  But the E-10 airborne radar's resolution is still not very strong, and radar data cannot be transmitted to the command center of the aircraft carrier, and its guidance capability is also limited.

  An aircraft carrier carries 60-90 planes. If they all take off at the same time, 2-4 early warning aircraft are needed to guide them, otherwise it would be easy to cause confusion.

  Advances in pulse-Doppler radar and airborne moving target display technologies gave the AWACS excellent look-down capability over land and sea.

  The application of three-coordinate radar (which can simultaneously determine the target's azimuth, distance and height) and electronic computers has enabled the warning aircraft to develop its function from alerting to commanding and guiding multiple batches of targets at the same time.

  Thus was born a new generation of early warning aircraft, represented by the E-20.

  The modern AWACS is an airborne radar station and command center, so it is also called Airborne Warning and Control System aircraft.

  It can detect and identify threats from enemy aircraft 480 km away, automatically and continuously track at least 250 targets simultaneously, and simultaneously command and guide friendly aircraft to intercept the 30 most threatening targets.

  The AWACS can increase the effectiveness of its own fighter jets by more than 60%, so it plays an extremely important role in modern warfare.

  This originated in the late 1950s, to strengthen its fleet defense system construction, at that time the Southern Huafeng Military Research Institute proposed to establish a sea tactical elements system.

  The system requires that all information gathered from ships, submarines, land bases and aircraft be integrated and used jointly.

  To unify command and coordination of air, ground, surface and underwater warfare, enhancing the overall defensive combat capabilities of the fleet.

  In modern terms, it means enhancing the Navy's integrated air-land-sea combat capabilities.

  This concept was strategic and forward-looking at that time, undoubtedly leading the trend of the world.

  The main system of this set of maritime tactical elements is set on the aircraft carrier, requiring corresponding subsystems in other aspects such as air, land and sea to cooperate. In the air, it requires establishing a subsystem of airborne tactical elements system.

  At that time, the South China Federation Navy had equipped E-10, which was the first generation of practical shipborne early warning aircraft.

  The aircraft is equipped with two turboprop engines and has a large oval-shaped radar antenna radome on its back. The main onboard equipment includes search radar, communication systems, identification friend or foe, directional instrument wireless command system, etc.

  Although it has a certain ability to detect surface ships and air targets, it can also guide a small number of aircraft for combat, but most of the equipment is primary products with immature technology and limited overall performance.

  Especially lacking in devices for transmitting radar data to aircraft carriers, communication performance is poor. Therefore, it cannot meet the matching requirements of the sea tactical elements system.

  The Navy of the Southern Federation then proposed to develop a successor to the E-10, which was the initial intention for designing the E-20.

  The new airborne early warning aircraft was primarily developed by the Dawn Industrial Company and Grumman of the United States, with major onboard equipment provided by General Electric, Nan Hua Communications and Alinco.

  Design began in March 1956 and after argument over the design three prototypes were built.

  The first prototype took to the skies in October 1958.

  On April 19, 1959, after the aircraft equipped with a full set of airborne equipment completed its first practical flight, the Chinese Navy was officially designated as E-20.

  One year later, this new type of early warning aircraft began to be delivered for use.

  Compared with E-10 AEWC, E-20 has greatly improved performance.

  Adopted AN/APS-96 radar, single delay line fixed target cancellation technique, can suppress sea clutter interference.

  Capable of executing early warning and tactical command tasks on the sea surface, with capabilities including sea surface surveillance, friend-or-foe identification, bearing measurement, target tracking, and commanding combat operations.

  The typical E-2C operational procedure is: after the search radar discovers airborne and sea-borne targets, it processes data through the onboard tactical information system, then transmits target distance, speed, altitude and heading information in real time to the shipborne tactical information main system on the aircraft carrier, while commanding and guiding friendly combat aircraft and other weapons.

  It can be seen that the initial intention of developing the E-20 early warning aircraft has been basically achieved, and it is not necessary to mention the better performance of future models.

  From the ordinary concept of an airplane, the E-2C's shape is indeed very peculiar, and the main differences are as follows.

  First is the back-mounted large circular disk, actually a large radar antenna cover, connected to the fuselage via struts, with a diameter of 7.3 meters and maximum thickness of 0.79 meters.

  The radar antenna and identification friend or foe antenna are installed inside, driven by a hydraulic motor, which can rotate 6 turns per minute.

  The antenna cover can also be raised or lowered by hydraulic control, and the maximum descent height when stopped is 0.64 meters, which is convenient for storage.

  The radar antenna is an eight-element Yagi end-fire array, with the IFF antenna array mounted back-to-back with it. The radar and IFF signals received are transmitted to aircraft internal equipment through a three-channel rotary coaxial coupler.

  This is the first feature of E-20 and also a common feature of most early warning aircraft in the future.

  The benefit of this design is that it solves the installation problem of large antenna arrays, and also provides some lift, but affects the overall aerodynamic characteristics and maneuverability performance, increasing resistance.

  Secondly, four vertical fins were installed on the horizontal tail, which is also uncommon in general aircraft.

  The two outer vertical surfaces extend below the flat tail, while the middle two are fixed on top of the horizontal stabilizer with no undersurface.

  The reason for adopting so many vertical tail surfaces is mainly due to the influence of the forward radar antenna fairing and the afterbody flow, which reduces the aerodynamic efficiency of the vertical tail.

  Through theoretical calculations and experiments, it is shown that under the premise of ensuring the directional stability of the aircraft, only 3 rudders are needed to achieve lateral control, so there is no active directional rudder on the second vertical wing surface on the left side.

  In addition, in order not to interfere with radar work, most of the 4 vertical surfaces (including engine propellers) used glass steel materials.

  The third is that the wings can be folded.

  The E-2C Hawkeye features a rotating dome radar antenna system, known as the APS-120, which is mounted on top of the fuselage. The E-2C also has a retractable tricycle undercarriage and a wing with a negative angle of incidence.

  The trailing edge of the wing is divided into three sections, with the outer section being the ailerons and the middle and inner sections being flaps. The horizontal tail has an 11-degree anhedral angle. All these are quite common, but what's different from general aircraft is that most of the outer wing can be folded back at a 90-degree angle, while most carrier-based aircraft use upward folding.

  Originally, the wingspan was as long as 24.56 meters, but after folding, it was only 8.94 meters, less than half of the original, greatly reducing the storage space on the ship.

  Under the fixed wing section near the fold line, two T56-A-8A turboprop engines are suspended, with a single power of 2353 kilowatts.

  Later equipped with T56-A-427 type engine, single unit power increased to 3803 kilowatts.

  Adopting 4-blade fixed-pitch propeller with a diameter of 4.11 meters.

  The cabin layout can accommodate 5 people under normal conditions.

  The front has the pilot and co-pilot cabins; in the rear cabin, there are: radar, IFF equipment and computer cabinets, radar operator, combat intelligence officer and air controller workstations, and a toilet at the back.

  When performing long-range patrol flights, one more aircrew member can be carried for relief purposes.

  "Great River, what stage have we all changed into?"

  "Dawn in North America will take at least five years, now we already have 5 aircraft carrier fleets, 6 amphibious assault fleets, according to what you said all of which should be 10, one of which is a training fleet."

  "It's already quite good, let's take it one step at a time, can't rush this. What about personnel?"

  "This doesn't matter, there's a special training team for this. However, the cost is too high, I'm thinking of where to get more money."

  "There isn't a good way to do this, after all we only have thirty-five percent of the US GNP now and there's still much to be done."

  "Old uncle, let's take action, this way we can gain more resources, and dealing with some countries without cutting-edge technology is still manageable."

  "Of course, I was supposed to start from 1965. My age is getting bigger and my brain is starting to not work well, so it's ahead of schedule, what can be done. In addition, the fishing industry must be developed, and the scale of offshore fishing must be doubled."

  "Early preparations have been made, all of which are 50,000-ton class, and the future Victory ships will be gradually used for trade between near seas and Asia."