Charles-of-Gaulle (aircraft carrier)

Characteristics

The Charles-of-Gaulle , registered R91, is a relatively small building compared to the American aircraft carriers. It is 261,5 meters long, 64,36 m broad, and 75 m in height. With a mass of almost: 40600 tons, it can embark approximately: 1950 people on her board, with a supplement of 800 soldiers in Transport of troop S. The surface of the flight deck reaches them: 12000 m ² and have a surface of hangars aircraft of: 4600 m ².

The Charles-of-Gaulle is equipped with a nuclear propulsion and can carry out: 650 km per day without time limit. Its autonomy in vivres is 45 days. It was conceived to leave one year at sea (with only of the supplies in vivres).

Armament

Its air park reaches the 40 aircraft of the type:

- Rafale Navy;

- Super-Standard modernized;

- Plane of guet Hawkeye;

- Helicopter Panther.

The air maximum capacity is of 100 flights per day during 7 days. Charles-of-Gaulle can catapult a plane every 30 seconds To note that the catapults before overflowing on the oblique track, the simultaneous landing and catapult-launching are impossible. He can carry 500 tons of Munition S.

System of weapons

The Charles-of-Gaulle has a whole of sensors radars of day before with short and average range. Its weapons of self-defense put in work electronic countermeasures, but also of the Ground-to-air missiles, in particular the SAAM (system of anti-missile weapons) made up of missiles Aster.

It lays out of the tactical data link L16. It takes part in the network as a control center and of command (C2). It can for this reason take the control of hunters, send its detections radar to them and assign various missions to them.

Electronics

- radars of day before air tridimentionnel

- radars of remote day before air

- radars of day before surface air low altitude

- radars of infra-red day before

- lure anti missile Sagaie

- anti lure torpedoes SLAT

- electronic System of war SAIGON

- System of transmission by satellites

- system of combat SENIT

History

Context

The aircraft carrier Charles-of-Gaulle replaced the '' Clemenceau '', an aircraft carrier with conventional propulsion in 2001. The '' Clemenceau '' and its sistership the '' Foch '' were armed respectively in 1961 and 1963; the need for a replacement had been identified in 1973.

Construction

The construction of the Charles-of-Gaulle began the November 25th 1987.

The structure was assembled in April 1989 with the shipyards of DCN, with Brest. The aircraft carrier was completed in May 1994 and, with 42 500 tons, it was the largest man-of-war launched in Western Europe since the HMS Ark Royal in 1950.

The ship was baptized Richelieu in 1986, in memory of the famous French politician Armand-Jean of Plessis, duke and Cardinal of Richelieu (a traditional name for the important ships in the French Navy), but it was renamed Charles-of-Gaulle the following year by the Prime Minister for the time, Jacques Chirac.

The construction of the Charles-of-Gaulle will have cost 3 billion euros (20 billion francs).

Espionage

In 1993, a group of officers of MI6 who had been made pass for engineers was surprised inspecting the vessel in construction. It is thought that they were appraising the equipment of screen of the nuclear reactors.

Tests and engineering problems

The first tests at sea of the Charles-of-Gaulle in January 1999 made it possible to identify the need for lengthening the landing strip to allow the landing of E-2C Hawkeye with degraded configurations of the bits of stop (indeed, the aircraft carrier in the beginning was dimensioned to accommodate F/A-18 American Hornet, plane with the characteristics different from the Dassault Rafale Marine finally selected). This operation was badly perceived by the French population, whereas same work had had to be realized on the Foch and the Clemenceau when the plane '' F-8 Crusader '' was brought into service, and whereas the five franc million for lengthening accounted for only 0,025% of the total budget of the project Charles-of-Gaulle .

February 28th, 2000, the test of a nuclear reactor caused the combustion of insulating elements, causing the emission of a thick smoke.

During the night from November 9th to 10th 2000, whereas the aircraft carrier crossed in the western Atlantic, towards Norfolk, in Virginia, the propeller of port side broke, and the ship had to turn over to Toulon to replace the defective element. The investigation which followed highlighted that the propellers of replacement comprised the same defects of structure: bubbles (blisters occurring during the cooling of the metal run in the mould) close to the center of the propellers (realized of a part in an alloy copper-aluminum); this defect is due to the Fournisseur. While waiting for a final solution, the less sophisticated propellers of the Foch and Clemenceau were used, which was to limit maximum speed to 25 nodes, instead of the 27 nodes envisaged (that does not obstruct the air operations).

March 5th 2001, the Charles-of-Gaulle took again the sea with two old propellers, and carried out bursts of speed to 25,2 nodes under test. The specific propellers will be essential only starting from the arrival, envisaged in 2008, of the Rafale of new generation, whose landing requires a sailing aircraft carrier with 27 nodes.

Between July and October, the Charles-of-Gaulle again had to be given in state because of noises reaching 100 dB near the propeller starboard, which returned the poop uninhabitable.

May 18th 2001, the Charles-of-Gaulle was officially armed.

Active service

Repairing

September 16th, 2001, the French press reported that largely abnormal levels of radioactivity had been measured on board the Charles-of-Gaulle . This incident is probably due to a failing insulation (or with a mistake in interpretation of the media, coming from the decision to put in conformity radiological protection with the last standards in force, which required modifications of radiological protections).

Whereas the United States prepared their response with the September 11th, 2001 in the form of the operation Enduring Freedom , the French media complained about the lack of military power spreadable. To the same time, the Commission of Defense reported that the maintenance of the fleet was of bad quality. In this context, the Charles-of-Gaulle , then in repairs, was again the object of criticism. The former president Valery Giscard d'Estaing spoke about a “half aircraft carrier” .

Connection 16

October 11th, 2001, the frigate Cassard , four planes AWACS and the Charles-of-Gaulle took part in a test of Liaison 16 . The network allowed a monitoring in real-time of the airspace of the South of England until the Mediterranean. The collected data were also retransmises in real-time towards the Jean Bart via the old system Liaison 11 .

Incident with gas

November 8th, 2001, a sailor who carried out a maintenance action of routine of a valve related to the waste water tanks lost consciousness because of a toxic gas leak. A officer-marine spontaneously tried to help it and disappears in his turn. They were immediately helped by the medical team of edge and envoys at the hospital of Toulon. Both survived.

Afghanistan: Mission Héraclès

November 21st, 2001, France decided to send the Charles-of-Gaulle in the Indian Ocean to support the operations of NATO in Afghanistan.

The Task force 473 , with 2 900 men under the command of the rear-admiral François Cluzel installed on December 1st. The task force included/understood the nuclear aircraft carrier Charles-of-Gaulle , the frigates the Mound-Picquet , Jean of Vienna and Jean Bart , the submarine of nuclear attack Rubis , the supply craft Meuse and the Aviso Commander-Ducuing .

The air force included/understood 16 Super-Standards, a E-2C Hawkeye, two Rafale and several helicopters.

December 17th, 2001, the task force 473 was integrated in an international force, beside the American naval groups of the Theodore Roosevelt and John C. Stennis , and of the Italian . The force included more than one hundred ships, French, American, Canadian, British, German, Italian, Dutch, Australian, Spanish and Japanese under an interallied centralized command with Bahrain.

The Super-Standard carried out their first missions on Afghanistan on December 19th, carrying out reconnaissance missions and of bombardment, covering more 3 000 kilometers. On the whole, they carried out 140 missions, 12 per day on average, escaping five missiles Stinger.

February 18th, 2002, a satellite of observation Helios located abnormal activities close to Keep. The following day, after members of the American special forces in the area confirmed these observations, the Charles-of-Gaulle launched two Super Standards of recognition. The 20, of the British and American forces entered the valley, and on March 2nd, the Opération Anaconda began.

In March, from the Super-Standard and six Mirage 2000 dealt with air raids against targets of Al-Qaida. Some targets proposed by the American forces were refused, of fear of reaching civilians. However, the US president George W. Bush was pleased with the engagement of France, quoting: “our faithful allied, France, which deployed a quarter of its navy of war in the Opération Enduring Freedom” . At that time, the French air force had been changed to 16 Super Standards, 6 Mirage 2000 D, 5 Rafale, two supply craft air KC-135, and two AWACS Hawkeye. As from February, the Charles-of-Gaulle and the WORN John C. Stennis exchanged some planes in order to reinforce the links between allies.

May 2nd, the Charles-of-Gaulle arrived at Singapore for a stopover, and set out again towards Oman the 18. At the same time, the tension started to go up on the question of Iraq; the vice-admiral François Cluzel declared with the press: “France is opposed to any action against Iraq. If something is undertaken, we will probably not take share with the coalition” .

Mission of rescue

October 9th, the CrossMed (Operational regional center of surveillance and of rescue in the Mediterranean) accepted a distress call of the Babolin , one eight-meters whose hull took water. The Charles-of-Gaulle , in operations in the sector, sent a helicopter which winched the crew of three men, in spite of a wind of 35 nodes, an agitated sea and a bad visibility.

Anecdote

the Charles-of-Gaulle will appear in Gemo 13 , a French film of action and espionage.

References

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