In 1967, after I had become the aircraft carrier program manager, it appeared as if the Navy would not be fiscally able to maintain a force level of nine CVSs along with fifteen CVAs. The input to the carrier force was only one new carrier every two years. This was the carrier construction program in the Navy’s Five Year Defense Plan. By late 1968 the situation of carrier force levels — especially the ASW carriers — was going to become critical, and that had to be faced.
At the same time the carriers were growing old and leaving the active ship inventory for the scrap heaps, Naval Aviation was having problems with its aircraft inventory. The war in Vietnam had started with the F-8 as the standard fighter, and within a year this was replaced by the F-4 Phantom II. The A-6 began arriving in the fleet in numbers in 1967 as the all-weather attack plane in the carrier air wing. Neither the F-4 nor the A-6 could be operated from Essex-class carriers. Both required the larger catapults and additional deck space afforded by the Forrestal and later large-deck classes. As a consequence, the Essex-class carriers deploying to the Seventh Fleet for combat in Vietnam were equipped with F-8 squadrons for fighters and A-4s in the attack role. Both of these aircraft were still fine planes. The Chance Vought F-8 Crusader had a better air-to-air combat record against the MiG than any other aircraft, Navy or Air Force, in the free world. The A-4 had proved to be a tremendous workhorse for the fleet and was also capable of delivering nuclear weapons as well as six tons of conventional ammunition. Nevertheless, fighters with an all-weather capability as exemplified by the F-4s were required for fleet air defense in all theaters, under all conditions.
It had become the practice for all aircraft carriers, whether in the Atlantic Fleet, destined for deployment with the Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean, or in the Pacific Fleet, headed for combat in the Gulf of Tonkin, to be equipped with a standard air wing for its class. By 1968 the standard air wing for the large-deck carriers was two F-4 Phantom II squadrons, two A-4 squadrons (the A-4s were beginning to be replaced by A-7s, the Corsair II), one squadron of A-6 all-weather medium bombers, five RA-5C Vigilante supersonic reconnaissance aircraft, four E-2C Hawkeye radar surveillance aircraft, plus detachments of A-3 Skywarrior bombers for in-flight refueling and several helicopters for air-sea rescue and utility purposes. The Essex-class CVA air wing consisted of two squadrons of F-8 fighters, two squadrons of A-4 light attack planes, F-8 photo planes for reconnaissance, A-3s for refueling, and utility helicopters for search and rescue.
The CVS air wing included two squadrons of Grumman S-2 Tracker ASW aircraft. These workhorses were twin-engine propeller-driven planes with a crew of four: pilot, copilot, and two radar and weapons operators. In addition, there was a detachment or squadron of ASW helicopters. Whenever the deployment dictated, there would also be a detachment of four A-4s, equipped to use Sidewinder missiles for air defense. These A-4s were added to the embarked air wing when the carrier was involved in operations beyond the normal fighter cover of a deployed CVA, such as independent CVS operations in the North Atlantic.
In 1968 the CVS situation became critical. Although the CVS force level remained at nine, there were no replacement carriers for those CVSs that would be dropping out of the inventory because of old age. To resolve the situation, the air antisubmarine warfare community proposed a new construction program of ASW carriers that would be of much simpler design than the large-deck Forrestal-class ships that were being built for the attack carrier mission. At this time, the Lockheed S-3, the twin-jet ASW aircraft with a crew of four, was entering the fleet to replace the S-2. But the S-3’s weight, recovery speed, and launching requirements were substantially less than the attack carrier air wing F-4s and A-5s. This meant that the new construction CVS could have smaller catapults and arresting gear of less capacity.
Unfortunately, it was at this time that the building program for the large-deck carriers was being seriously questioned. The opponents were a group of liberal congressmen motivated to cut defense spending and a determined cadre of systems analysts in the office of the SecDef, who favored increased expeditionary capability and mobility for the Air Force’s tactical fighter wings as an alternative. Furthermore, the increased cost of the nuclear-powered attack carriers was, to some degree, complicating the large-deck carrier building program. The net impact of these potentially negative issues created a budget climate that clearly made the entire concept of a new ship construction program for CVS carriers totally unrealistic.
A solution suggested by the air ASW community with some support from the OSD and from within the CNO’s staff, was to convert three or four of the fifteen attack carriers in the fleet to CVS duties. The pressure for such a step was the potential threat of the burgeoning Soviet submarine fleet. But the priority facts were that the war in Vietnam was real, and the naval aircraft in the theater were flying combat sorties into North Vietnam. These tactical air strikes against the North Vietnamese were the only offensive action on the part of U.S. forces in the war at that time. U.S. ground forces, both Army and Marine, were being withdrawn from the theater, so that U.S. combat involvement was mainly a matter of tactical aircraft of the Air Force and Marines operating out of land bases in the theater and naval aircraft flying from carriers in the Gulf of Tonkin. The requirement for carrier-based sorties to support the Rolling Thunder and Linebacker campaigns in the U.S. air offensive against the North Vietnamese was so overwhelming, in addition to the other worldwide commitments of the U.S. Navy, such as the demand by CinCUS-NavEur to keep two carriers at all times in the Mediterranean, that any thought of converting any big deck CVAs to a CVS mission became unreal. To the contrary, the Navy was requesting authority from OSD to deploy a CVS in the CVA role in the Gulf of Tonkin, replacing its S-2 and helicopter ASW aircraft with F-8s and A-4s, of which there were sufficient in the inventory to create an additional CVA air wing.
Because the CVA level in the Navy was so very closely controlled by the SecDef, being considered the key measure of U.S. naval power, there was considerable back and forth between OpNav and OSD in 1967. It mainly concerned which CVS to convert to a CVA. The SecDef eventually authorized the employment of a CVS (the Intrepid, later replaced by the Shangri-La) in the CVA role in 1967 but did not change the authorized force levels of CVAs from fifteen to sixteen.
It was at this point that I proposed a long-term solution, referred to as the “CV Concept,” that could solve all of these carrier issues. I drafted a package of position papers and implementing dispatches and briefed them to the CNO. Admiral Moorer, as was often his style, ordered implementation of the proposal on the spot. The elements of the CV Concept were as follows:
1. All aircraft carriers in the U.S. Navy capable of operating fixed-wing aircraft with catapults and arresting gear would be designated “CV.”
2. There would be no standard aircraft complement for a CV.