It appears that the French navy is having second thoughts about its flagship, the atomic-powered aircraft carrier Charles de Gaulle. An un-verified account at strategypage.com indicates that the French are considering retiring the vessel, because of various problems.

Whether the report of French intentions is true or not, there are demonstrable problems with the vessel, and the article (which is probably a temporary one) goes through them. In brief:

1. It's expensive. Big deal. Make your economy something other than a revenue generator for a welfare state, and you'll be able to afford as many carriers as your European state will want.

2. CdG is slower than her half-century-old predecessors Foch and Clemenceau. Why that is, I haven't a clue. You'd think that a late 20th century atomic plant could provide enough raw shaft horsepower to outrun a 1950s (at best) steam plant, but apparently not. The difference in speed is significant; the Foch and her sister are reported by Warships1.com to be capable of 32 knots (a touch faster than Admiral Arleigh Burke, don't you know, but see n1) while CdG is only reported as being capable of 27 knots. Maybe CdG can run that speed longer than the Foch, but I'd be nervous about not having a fast ship.

3. Problems with the propeller design. Apparently, CdG's screws aren't working right (I think she either threw a blade or a screw proper at one point in trials) and so leftovers from the earlier CV program have been implemented.

4. Inadequate reactor shielding. Were he alive today, Admiral Rickover ("the kindly old gentleman"---of those three terms, only 'old' was supposed to be accurate) and in the service of the French navy, would have thrown an absolute fit. Per the article, the amount of leakage (be it particles or whatever; I'm not a nuc) is five times the allowable annual exposure to radiation. Good God! The appellation Hiroshima is supposed to apply to a city in Japan or to a Soviet ballistic missile submarine, not to a carrier in the West! This has been reported elsewhere to have been fixed, but the fact that it was a problem at all is troubling. I'm sorry for the poor guys who had to work next to that plant.

4. Problems with the deck design. Yes, like "It's too short to operate your AEW platform of choice." If memory serves, CdG had to have her deck lengthened (probably at considerable cost and effort) in order to operate the Grumman E-2 Hawkeyes delivered.

The blurb goes on to say that the French would like to get in on the new Royal Navy nuclear carrier program, and add a third unit to the order. That's not such a bad idea as long as the UK's shipwrights get the contract to build the thing and make money off of it. However, Glenn Reynolds tells of a further option that is a bad idea, namely joint Anglo-French operation of the completed vessels. Humbug to that, I say. [Tasteless joke about Mers-el-Kebir snipped.]

To make this a little more clear to American readers, the Charles de Gaulle is comparable in size to our Wasp-class LHDs, which are amphibious assault ships. It's worth noting that we don't try to use those vessels as aircraft carriers for the launching of conventional fixed-wing platforms.

And no, I don't hate the French navy. Once upon a time, they came to our assistance off the Virginia Capes at a place called Yorktown. They also had two pleasant-looking battleships, the Richeliu and Jean Bart.

Additional thanks to Emperor Misha I of the Anti-Idiotarian Rottweiler for bringing this back to my attention. Some of the comments for that posting reveal other problems, but I'd prefer that Misha get the traffic for the works of his visitors. Go read.

n1 According to Shield of the Republic, a post-WWII history of the U.S. Navy, the "31-knot" moniker was derogatory in nature, because Burke's destroyer group, beset with mechanical or other operational difficulties, was supposed to be capable of more than that. The public, not knowing any different, thought it was a grand name and turned it into a positive. Admiral Burke was, by several accounts, a good man to work for on-balance, and I believe America's navy was well served by his tenure as Chief of Naval Operations.

UPDATE, 02 MARCH 2005: This has remained one of the more popular articles in the TCP archives. The strategypage link is now inoperative, but it appears that this article is more or less the "survivable" version of the report that I first commented upon. The current article makes no reference to a plan to retire the carrier, but I stand by my then-current reporting, because I distinctly recall seeing a sentence or two about it. The statement was accurate for 05 December 2003; whether it is accurate for 02 March 2005 is a completely different matter.

Posted by: Country Pundit at 05:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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