Трамплин против катапульты, часть 2

The carriers employed two modes of flight operations, cyclic operations and Alpha strikes.

During cyclic operations, a carrier would launch and recover 25 to 40 aircraft every hour and a half during its twelve-hour assigned period of flight operations, conducting eight cycles or events during each flying day. The first event would launch, the second event would launch an hour and a half later, and the first event would immediately land. Planes from the first event would be quickly refueled and rearmed, pilots briefed, and then launched again before the second event landed. Launch and recovery times were staggered among the carriers during the day to keep planes over the target area at all times. The largest number of aircraft committed to a single target in one strike under the cyclical mode would be 15 or 20.

Alpha strikes were used when it was needed to put a very heavy weight of effort on a single target complex in a very short period of time, either for the shock effect or because of the necessity to penetrate very heavy defenses, such as in the case of attacks in the vicinity of Haiphong and Hanoi. On an Alpha strike, all available aircraft on the carrier were organized into a single strike group. Alpha strikes were normally coordinated with the other carriers on the line and quite often with major U.S. Air Force strike efforts coming out of Thailand. On occasion, as many as five carriers could be available on the line due to overlapping of carriers arriving and departing. Then five Alpha strikes could pound a single target within an hour, with the Air Force also coming in before and after the Navy effort. To prepare for an Alpha strike, air operations were suspended for about two hours prior to launch time to permit all aircraft to be refueled, rearmed, and spotted for the launch. It took up to an hour and a half after the recovery of an Alpha strike to resume cyclic operations, which could then continue for the rest of the flying day or night.

It is interesting to compare the Air Force and Navy tactical air operations during the Vietnam war. The Air Force flew out of bases mainly in Thailand. Because of the distances involved, the strike group would refuel once or twice enroute to the target, and after the strike would rendezvous over the Gulf of Tonkin and refuel from tankers under Navy control. Air Force tactical operations were basically a continuous series of Alpha strikes. On the other hand, the Navy conducted mainly cyclic operations, with occasional Alpha strikes when targeting demanded. In this way, more targets were being covered on a more continuous basis, but with much lower level of effort per individual target than was provided by either the Alpha strike or the Air Force system.

The carriers were able to move about within the Gulf of Tonkin to bring their aircraft closer to their targets, thereby eliminating or substantially limiting the amount of refueling necessary. This was important because aerial refueling facilities from the carriers were limited. Carrier-based tankers were normally used only in emergency situations when planes became inadvertently low on fuel because of unplanned occurrences, such as rescue operations or striking fleeting targets of opportunity. On one occasion, for example, for an Alpha strike on Haiphong, the Enterprise moved to within 30 miles of that port city to launch its strike group, and the A-4s were able to remove their drop tanks and carry three 1,000-pound bombs into the target.