Community Vessel Aircraft Carrier

The powerful Carrier Group is the cornerstone of the CDF Naval Service and CDF naval aviation in Sober Thought. Each branch of the Community Defence Forces is represented in appreciable numbers, the air component outnumbering the naval and the naval outnumbering the land. The aircraft carrier projects air power to distant shores, provides a combat air screen for fleets and provides ground attack for large amphibious landings.

Considering its gigantic size, its naval anti-aircraft defences are slight because it relies on the forward projection of its own air power. Similarly, its anti-submarine capabilities are augmented by the much more effective ones supplied by escorts consisting of any combination of the following vessels: hybrid cruiser-helicopter carriers, destroyers, frigates and submarines.

Building

These conventionally powered carriers are roughly comparable to the United States Navy’s Forrestal and Kitty Hawk classes of fleet carriers but with a far more predicatable building programme. Sober Thought commissions one aircraft carrier for every population wave one hundred million citizens.

The carriers' hulls are sequentially numbered from A-1 in the first wave, A-2 in the second, A-3 in the third, etc. Concurrently the warships bear the names of current or former provinces listed by order of population or nations belonging to the International Democratic Union. Individual ships would be identified on the models CV Thuvia and CV Mikitivity. For clarity, when the name is similar to another vessel or to cite its full designation, individual ships would be identified on the models CV Hochelaga Province (A-2), CV Ville de Hochelaga (C-2), CV Potato Island Province (A-9) and CV Potato Island (C-82).

Below is the building programme until defence spending was curtailed in the twenty-first wave:

Such a modest but reliable building programme means that there is steady employment for a smaller number of shipbuilders rather than unreliable employment for a larger number. This method of shipbuilding has three important implications for the nation's political economy: the navy gets better quality ships and can implement incremental design changes; the shipyards have lower overtime, training and drydock costs; and the Sober Thought government discourages the creation of a military-industrial complex and all the potential for waste and corruption that implies.

Naval component

The overall mission commanding officer and executive officer are a Vice Marshal and a Chief Commander, respectively. Although the carrier is a ship, the strongest weapon and greatest number of personnel are devoted to aviation, so the two senior officers of the carrier group are as likely to have trained as aviators they are as mariners. The most senior officer guaranteed to be from the navy is the Chief Commander responsible for the naval component.

The Bridge Section on the carrier includes the ranking officers and about 200 all ranks. Among the naval trades represented here are navigators, signalers and sensor operators. Although separate from the section, the Carrier Air Group's command and electronics squadron is closely integrated on the bridge because the island where the bridge is located makes an ideal control tower.

The largest section on the ship by both personnel and area occupied is the Naval Engineering Section under a Commander. Its 1 200 or so officers and other ranks maintain the physical capital, viz. engines, hull and interior. The Naval Support Section, consisting of about 500 all ranks under a Vice Commander, do the same for human capital by feeding, clothing, housing, medicating and administering all personnel.

Paradoxically for such a large ship, the Naval Weapons Section has only about 200 sailors serving under a Chief Lieutenant. However, the most potent weapon on this ship is actually the embarked aircraft, so by that standard there are more like 2 600.

Similarly, its anti-submarine capabilities are quite modest because it relies on its escorts to keep the U-Boote from booting it. Nevertheless, the carrier has six submarine mortars spread evenly around the perimeter of the ship. Each mortar battery is housed in its own weapons pit stocked with 120 depth charges and 90 mini-mines.

The carrier's organic anti-aircraft abilities rest upon anti-missile missiles located fore and aft of the island. Each battery of an octuple missile launcher has 480 missiles. This seems like a large number of reloads compared to that of the cruisers, upon which the carrier relies for its area air defence, but no so large when you look at the sheer size of the ship. One pair of 20 mm gatling guns is located in each quadrant of the ship below the flight deck for point air defence.

Air component

Main article: CDF naval aviation#Carrier Air Group.

The main flight deck runs 320 m, the length of the entire ship, fitted over the hull while the other flight deck stretches over the port side. The CDF Air Service component aboard the carrier consists of the Carrier Air Group. Its commanding officer is a Chief Commander and executive officer is a Commander. Together they are in charge of the 2 400 or so aircrew, 21 helicopters and 69 airplanes on board.

Vice Commanders head the two fighter and one utility wings, with Chief Lieutenants heading the twenty flying and non-flying squadrons, and Lieutenants the hundred or so flying and non-flying flights. Most of the supposed squadrons in the utility wing are made up of quasi-independent flights each composed of different aircraft from the others in its squadron. The following fixed- and rotary-wing aircraft are normally embarked as part of the CAG:

• 60 FN-1 Faina fighter airplanes
• 3 RB-78 Robert
• 12 HUBR-77 Hubert anti-submarine warfare helicopters
• 3 FNE-1 Fannie electronic warfare airplanes
• 4 TLN-61 Toulon tanker airplanes
• 3 HUS-77 Hudson search-and-rescue helicopters
• 2 HTN-55 Hortense medium transport helicopters
• 3 TNE-61 Tennie airborne warning and control airplanes

Land component

Main article: CDF Naval Service#Marine Division.

The troops and weapons supplied by the CDF Land Service to the Carrier Group are the least important of the arms of service. Nevertheless, they compare favourably to those of the helicopter carrier-cruiser.

Marines are most frequently relegated to sentry, patrol and punishment duties. They can also board potentially hostile warships or merchant vessel, being transported by the naval component's boats or the air component's helicopters. By the same means they can also conduct medium-sized amphibious assaults – with much more air support than their counterparts in the hybrid cruisers.

The normal complement is one marine light infantry battalion of 565 all ranks under a Chief Lieutenant. An additional battalion and a demi-brigade headquarters under a Vice Commander can be accommodated without any special preparations. Larger numbers of land troops can embark if the personnel and equipment from either or both of the other two components is reduced. However, this is a terrible waste of a powerful resource; one may met the goal more effectively with conventional landing and transport ships.