Carrier readiness?

Hi

Somebody who knows nothing here :-)

I was wondering how alert a carrier is during a normal peacetime cruise
Do they constantly have early warning aircraft aloft?
If something untoward happens how long would it take to be fully battle
ready?

roball- I was wondering how alert a carrier is during a normal peacetime
cruise
Do they constantly have early warning aircraft aloft?
If something untoward happens how long would it take to be fully battle
ready? BRBR

We stood alert all the time when at sea, normally alert 15 but sometimes alert
5(airborne in that time frame). Ship was always 'ready', cats with steam, etc.
E-2 and other assets also stood alert all the time. If in a fairly benign
envirnment, I'd say about 15-30 minutes.
P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer

On Tue, 14 Sep 2004 21:22:21 +1200, "rob" wrote:

I was wondering how alert a carrier is during a normal peacetime cruise

What kind of cruise? You mean deployment? Or training cruise? Or
Tiger Cruise? Or stateside going-from-here-to-there cruise? They
might not even have any aircraft aboard, depending on the
circumstance.

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

In article ,
Andrew C. Toppan wrote:

I was wondering how alert a carrier is during a normal peacetime cruise

What kind of cruise? You mean deployment? Or training cruise? Or
Tiger Cruise? Or stateside going-from-here-to-there cruise? They
might not even have any aircraft aboard, depending on the
circumstance.


In Navy parlance (at least CV/CVN) a "cruise" means a 6 or 6+ month
deployment.


Training deployments are not called "cruises" (at least not by people in
the Navy); they are called "work-ups"...and there is ALWAYS at least
some aircraft aboard (minimum 2-3 helos) I don't think anybody
interprets a tiger cruise as a cruise, although they very often are at
the tale end of real cruises (in the Pac fleet, on return from a real
cruise and coming aboard at Hawaii).

To answer the original poster; Even in peace time, a carrier and it's
CVW can achieve war time footing very quickly even in peace time. All it
takes is moving the missiles, bombs, ammo, and torpedos up the weapons
elevators and getting them loaded.


In an HS example (which is all I can speak competently about), we're
talking maybe 2-3 hours to get the torps and depth charges up to the
flight deck and loaded and maybe 30-45 minutes to get the door guns up
and loaded.


--Mike

On Wed, 15 Sep 2004 01:39:06 GMT, Michael Wise wrote:

In Navy parlance (at least CV/CVN) a "cruise" means a 6 or 6+ month
deployment.

Since he said it was a newbie question, I figured it was a more
generic definition of "cruise", not the Navy's specific (and somewhat
obscure) version.

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

Thanks to all for the replies

Typical carrier operations on deployment call for various aircraft to be in
a ready status for launch. The amount of time for an "alert" depends on the
area of the world and the current threat estimates for the operating area.
These can range from about 30 minutes to 5 minutes (which is folks in the
cockpit and on the catapults). A carrier air wing is always "fully battle
ready" when on deployment. Again, depending on the alert level you can have
a fully armed and ready strike group in the air in a matter of minutes. Of
course, you must remember that just because you are in the air, you still
have to get where you are going and that's a question of physics.

"rob" wrote in message
...
Hi

Somebody who knows nothing here :-)

I was wondering how alert a carrier is during a normal peacetime cruise
Do they constantly have early warning aircraft aloft?
If something untoward happens how long would it take to be fully battle
ready?






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On Mon, 20 Sep 2004 09:47:59 -0400, "Theecmo"
wrote:

A carrier air wing is always "fully battle
ready" when on deployment.

Even during a Steel Beach or while in a foreign port?

Perhaps the definition of "fully" is variable.

--
Andrew Toppan --- --- "I speak only for myself"
"Haze Gray & Underway" - Naval History, DANFS, World Navies Today,
Photo Features, Military FAQs, and more - http://www.hazegray.org/

andrew- Even during a Steel Beach or while in a foreign port? BRBR

Steel beach picnic in Indian Ocean, Midway. Some boilers off line and hardly
any wind over the deck. A-7s, with 1 sidewinder each, standing Alert 5...the
rest of us(F-4 guys) getting our 'tan off the coast of Iran'.


P. C. Chisholm
CDR, USN(ret.)
Old Phart Phormer Phantom, Turkey, Viper, Scooter and Combat Buckeye Phlyer

In article ,
Andrew C. Toppan wrote:

A carrier air wing is always "fully battle
ready" when on deployment.

Even during a Steel Beach or while in a foreign port?


During all our steel beaches, there were always alert-5 and alert-15
aircraft.


--Mike