Korean War Carrier Task Force

[stormtrooper271]

I am trying to construct a Korean War era AI carrier task force for FSX but I am not able to find much information on the subject. I want to know...

How many ships accompanied a carrier?

What kinds of ships accompanied a carrier?

With the exception of the plane guard were there other helicopters around a carrier?

How close were ships from each other?

What kind of formation were the ships in?

I have the Essex class carrier for FSX as the carrier in the center of the task force. Any help will be greatly appreciated.

[Dangerousdave26]

I am sure that the tactics might be different under different circumstances but here is what I have experienced with modern day carrier maneuvers.

In 2009 I got to go on the Tiger Cruise from Mayport Florida to Norfolk Virginia on CVN-71.

While underway the carrier is escorted by at least 1 submarine that you will never see.

We were escorted by at least three other ships although I do not know what classification they would have been. It was very strange to me but we were preparing for the air show and my brother and I were on the deck. One minute we were the only ship on the ocean. The next second the other ships were less than a mile away. I had no idea they were even there. I asked my brother about it and he said while they are under way you can not see the other ships. They are ahead or behind the carrier just over the horizon.

When this formation was developed I can not say.

[Dangerousdave26]

For reference here are some pictures

This one is of the first escort ship I noticed.



This is another one. I am not sure of their position anymore other than they were on the starboard side.



None of these ships were visible prior to the airshow.



For comparison this ship is a container ship that was just on the horizon. When I took this picture there were no other ships visible on the whole ocean.

[stormtrooper271]

I found a list of ships that were included in a two carrier task force, but I can't find any information on positions of the ships within a task force.

Thanks for posting the pictures, I would have never imagined that escorts would be so far from the carrier.


(Information on carrier operations in Korea)
http://www.history.navy.mil/branches/cvg.htm

[roger-wilco-66]

Maybe this helps:

http://www.18inchfly.net/naval/basic/rep.html

with an overview here

http://www.18inchfly.net/naval/

Interesting answer to a similar question:

http://warships1discussionboards.yuk...r#.TiUdtWHDq58

HTH and Cheers,
Mark

[lazarus]

Carrier ops off Korea were conducted much like ops off Vietnam 12 years later. Allied forces enjoyed naval and air supremacy at sea, so the carrier task groups consisted of single or pairs of carriers with half a dozen or so destroyers, though usually,only one or two destroyers stayed in close to the flat tops, the rest spread out over 50-80 NM to expand radar coverage. CVL's and CVE's operated in the Yellow sea, and the CV's operated off the east coast in the sea of Japan. The really big second world war type task groups were not seen, except at Inchon, and that was a scratch force;a shadow of WW2 Amphibious fleets, as the US and comomwealth navies had run down naval strength dramaticaly 1946-1950, as 'the bomb' was thought to have made large naval forces obsolecent-Ha. On 25 june, 1950, the USN had only 3 Midways CVB's, 4 Essexes CV's , 2 Independence and 2 Saipan CVLs, and 4 CVE's in commission, and only Valley Forge with CVG 5 embarked in the far east, and 108 aircraft of all types in the Pacific. Valley Forge was joined on 1 july by HMS Triumph out of Hong Kong, and TF 77 as it was called, carried the war to the enemy untill august, when additional carriers came available. In closer to shore, small task groups of Cruisers and Destroyers (4-8 ships) steamed on the 'Gun Line', providing gunfire support and conducting interdiction of road and rail targets, mine warefare operations, radar pickett and SAR coverage- as well, all of the Iowa class BB's patroled the gunline during the conflict- only one on station at a time. The Carriers would Unrep on station, latter in the conflict as more ships, and criticaly; manpower as reservests were called up, became available, the Carriers would rotate out of bases in japan.
So, for FSX, USS Leyte CV, USS Cabot CVL, and the Casablanca's will cover the US Carriers, Only the Essexes ,CVL's and CVE's served off Korea. Bruce Fitzgeralds Fletcher class DD for escorts, the Pepper-OBIO HO3S-1 for a plane guard. The Fletchers, and there is a pilotable Iowa on FS.com thats in WW2 configuration, and converts well to AI carriers - Bruce Fitzgerald's Iowa is in the 1980's missile configuration; and Bruces pensacola class can fill in for the CA's. Earl watkins Missipilon AOR works well in AI carriers for an UNREP ship. Commonwealth Carriers were Colossus and Majestic Class CVL's- Problematic as there is only a FS9 static scenery model of a light fleet. A reasonable facsimilie can be had with the Retro AI Carrier package, in that thread in this FSX forum, which also has appropriate plane guard Dragonflys and non-Fletcher escorts- reflagged Uruku's, but they look a bit like a River or a Bay class- Properly, Tribal class destroyers were widely used by the RN, RAN and RCN off Korea.
If you give me a week or so( other projects going on !), I can bash a quick zip of generic korean ops stuff up- Ai carriers configuration sets and AI ship conversions- sim configs and folders, though you'll have to download the model files so I can keep the file size under controll. The only suplementary repaint needed would be a plain Haze grey for one of the CVE's.


[formation.xx]
title=CV32 Korean war
unit.0=USS_CV-32_AI, 0, 0
unit.1=DD445_ai , 800, -800
unit.2=AI_UH-51, 150, 120,
unit.3=DD445_ai , 0, 1200
unit.4=DD445_ai ,-600, 600


Thats one of the Essex sets I'm using in AI Carrier. The guard destroyer usualy cruises port side, 3/4 to a mile astern to keep an eye out for any one ditching, close enough to dash in and get a whale boat away, far enough off to stay out of the way of the carrier as the ship turned into the wind and worked up revs for a flying evolution. The helio will also cruise off the port side, a few hundred yards off along side and aft to keep out of the way of flight ops. Doctrine for coming aboard a straight deck is a curving approach from port astern, about a mile and a half off. When taking a wave off, aircraft are to turn off to port, so the helio stays far enough off and astern to not get run over. The reason the starboard side island became the standard ( the IJN tried port and starboard) was that pilots tended to turn left on a bolter most all the time- engine rotation and psycology. During fixed wing operations, only the plane guard helio would be hanging around the ship. The Helios of the day were rather short legged, and rotary and fixed wing flying ops did not mix well on the straight decks, so the pedro was launched at the begining of a flying evolution, and recovered at the end. The fixed wing ships only carried a 2-4 aircraft detachment of HO3S or HUP1's in those days, though the CVE Thetis Bay operated an all helio ( HO3&4S) airgroup as the first LPH by '53.




Hope that helps!

[Helldiver]

I don't know what happened in Korea, all I know is what the USS Leyte CV-32 had and that was two Fletcher Class Destroyers hanging back about a half mile. One off the port side and the other at starboard.

[lazarus]

Hey Helldiver, you old gunner! Long tme. Hope you're well!. Yup. Thats how that formation is set up. The USN had run down quite dramaticly by 1950. Saipan spent the first 3 months of her commision along side at Quonset for want of a crew, so things were spread rather thin, with a lot of the deployable ships in the Med (Greek civil war, uppity Russians) and in the Formosa straights( uppity chinese).
Stormtrooper; go rent yourself a copy of the film 'Bridges at Toko-ri' All korean war carrier ops, amazing footage, great film.

[stormtrooper271]

Thanks for the help so far, I have seen parts of 'The Bridges at Toko-Ri' in the past, I will try to rent a copy and watch it again.

[FlameOut]

I will try to rent a copy and watch it again

Better yet get yourself a DVD copy to own from Amazon...a good used one for mere $$$

[lazarus]

Duh-oh. I should have said plane guard to starboard- right side. Got my signs reversed. Thats what you get for posting late at night- lousey brain! The fingers are often way ahead of the brain in the wee hours!


[formation.xx]
title=CV32 Korean war
unit.0=USS_CV-32_AI, 0, 0
unit.1=DD445_ai , 800, -800
unit.2=AI_UH-51, -150, -120,
unit.3=DD445_ai , 0, 1200
unit.4=DD445_ai ,-600, 600

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XAdwasXRJhs

[expat]

Dropping your entries into my AI Carriers.cfg and off to do some F9F ops. Many thanks for this.

[Sieggie]

Where would I get the AI UH-51 to use as called out in the configuration?

Dave

[delta_lima]

Here is the FSX-converted model, both flyable and AI:

http://www.sim-outhouse.com/sohforum...dName=X_eidos2

cheers,

dl

[Sieggie]

Thanks Delta-Lima. I tried searching on UH-51 not S-51.

Got it now.

Dave

[delta_lima]

Any time, Dave.

I still struggle finding certain items on the Library - sometimes requires a bit of "tribal knowledge" to find things - but it's invariably worth the hunt. Some fantastic stuff here not available elsewhere ...

Bear in mind, anything older than I believe Jan 2010 is in the archive section, so sometimes you have to search in both "index" and "archive". Another bit of an "oops" is that some repaints are actually in "aircraft", rather than "skins" - Medic's lovely RCN Phantom repaint, as an example - it's under "American Aircraft" rather than the skin section.

just FYI ....

[lazarus]

USS Sicily CVE118, Korea,1950. Repaint for the Phil Crowther version of Mark Fitch's Bouge class CVE. See readme file for directions to file on AVSIM.com.
This fills in a missing post war carrier type. These ships were a Commencement Bay class; they don't look a whole lot different. A good home for Korean era Skyraiders, Corsairs, Avengers(-3S's/W's/CODS) Guardians, HO4S's, and from 1953 on-Trackers. Vietnam era as aircraft transports- UH-1's,Shawnee's, H-34's, CH-46's/47's O-1's, OV-1's, OV-10's. Screens were FIGS for repaint, so theres been a cleanup, weathering, and alpha fixed on railings. Now back to the Woolworth CVE`s.