Drone CVEs and CVLs abound (except in the US)
I know you guys are together and bathe regularly and don’t need me to point stuff like this out, but drone carriers are seriously becoming a thing.
In the past couple of years, Turkey has decided to turn Anadolu, their 25,000-ton/762-foot variant of the Spanish LHA Juan Carlos I, into a floating airdrome for their domestically-produced UCAVs such as the Bayraktar TB-3, an aircraft roughly equivalent to a late model General Atomics MQ-1 Predator.
Plans have shown the ‘phib with 40 TB3s on deck, not counting those that could be stored below deck.
Then came news from Thailand that the small 1990s-built ski-jump equipped 11,500-ton HTMS Chakri Naruebet, long stripped of its working second-hand AV-8S Harriers, is to be upcycled to operate drones.
HTMS Chakri Naruebet with locally made MARCUS drone
Further, the Portuguese Navy is in the design phase of a 10,000-ton multifunctional LPH that can carry UAVs as its principal air wing.
The fixed-wing UAVs are launched via a ski jump. Portuguese Navy image.
The mothership is shown with two notional fixed-wing UAVs on deck (they look like MQ-1C Grey Eagle but the new MQ-9B STOL may be a better fit) as well as 6 quad-copter UAVs and one NH90 helicopter. The design seems to lack an aviation hangar. Below decks is a modular area to launch and recover AUV, UUV, and USV. Portuguese Navy image.
Speaking to adversarial countries, Iran has shown off a one-way drone carrier made from a converted coaster, and China built a pair of small catamaran “drone mini-carriers.”
Iran’s budget “drone carrier”
Chinese catamaran drone mini-carrier, with five VTOL spots
Now it seems the PLAN has gone the distance and is close to completing a much larger, 300-foot, drone carrier catamaran.
Via Naval New. The previously unreported drone carrier (A) is longer but narrower than two drone motherships (C, D) built in the same yard. There are also several high-tech target barges (B, F), including one miming an aircraft carrier (E).
We need American CVE-Qs
It seems that a quick program to rapidly construct a series of navalized drone-carrying jeep carriers should be pushed through.
Think this but with UAVs:
USS Altamaha (CVE-18) transporting Army P-51 Mustang fighters off San Francisco, California on 16 July 1943. NH 106575
Commercial hull. Perhaps even taken up from the glut of vessels already for sale at just above scrap value. Minimal conversion reconstruction while resisting the desire to add all sorts of gee-whiz gear and weapons. Could even go supersized and use converted VLCCs and supertankers.
Minimally manned (15-20 vessel crew, 20-30 UAV techs and operators). Expendable vessel if push comes to shove, with the crew given ready access to a couple of quick-release free-fall lifeboats.
Fill it with a few dozen MQ-9B STOLs until something more advanced comes along.
This General Atomics rendering shows it running from an LHA, but surely a smaller and more dedicated CVE-style vessel could work. Note the underwing armament
DARPA is working on its Ancillary Program of six different design concepts for a low-weight, large-payload, long-endurance VTOL uncrewed X-plane to operate with the fleet, so the idea of an all-UAS Carrier Air Wing is just over the horizon.
ANCILLARY design concept renderings from all six performers, clockwise from lower left: Sikorsky, Karem Aircraft, Griffon Aerospace, Method Aeronautics, AeroVironment, Northrop Grumman.
Add a couple of CVEQs to a DDG (commodore and AAW commander) and LCS (Surface Warfare commander) for an instant sea control group.
The ghosts of Kaiser and Zumwalt would approve.
