Re: Jet Seaplanes

Yuh huh?

Old WWII event related to seaplanes attack....

A little known fact is that during World War II, the Japanese actually bombed the U.S. Mainland with a submarine-launched seaplane to attempt to start a forest fire in the forests of Oregon.

To quote from the article, "Bombs Fall on Oregon: Japanese Attacks on the State," "On September 9, 1942 Japanese pilot Nobuo Fujita catapulted from the (submarine) I-25 near the coast of southern Oregon aboard a seaplane and headed east toward

 Mt. Emily. His mission was to drop an incendiary (fire) bomb on the thick forest and cause a massive fire that would shock Americans and divert resources from fighting the war. Once over forested land, Fujita released the bomb, which struck leaving a crater about three feet in diameter and about one foot deep." The bomb started a small fire which was promptly extinguished by the Forest Service. This was "the first aerial bombing of the United States mainland by a foreign power."

Although the Japanese launched several balloons carrying incendiary and conventional bombs, which were carried from Japan to the United States by the high altitude winds of the jet stream, the Japanese seaplane attack was the first and only airplane bombing attack on the US mainland during World War II. This information is from the same article.

Wonder who's the military genius who actually thought starting a forest fire using just one seaplane was enough to deter a country on the warpath.

But militarily it isn't very smart isn't it? I don't think Nobuo Fujita was actually expecting to go home when he went on this mission.

With current technology isn't it better to use UAVs ? I mean it may actually be possible to retrieve the things after a mission.

Historical account of the link to XF2Y a supersonic intercepter seaplane....

the whole idea of the birth of Seadart was considered if the US Navy needed a forward area without a landbase in the 50s....but of course it was a fail project and they face similar challenge that was highlight in the DTIC report.

But i wonder if vertical take off technology basically take out some of the problems of take off on choppy water with highlight from the report that uses supply ships or barge as docking host.  

http://home.att.net/~jbaugher1/f7.html

Between V/STOL and carriers, the who,le Seadart concept's redundant.  As for the featherbrained Oregon idea, why use UAVs when you've got missiles?

The only current role for seaplanes relates to functions whete the plane actually serves as a boat, a la the PBY role in WW2.  Anything else is simply redundant.

UAVs are useful for ID-ing a target esp a moving target/targets of opportunity. The problem about UAVs is load. Currently, limited to hellfires which is a little light for many targets. UAVs do have disadvantage of penetration into hostile airspace compared to missiles. Having said that, missiles for many countries (sg included) can be limited to MTCR meaning that can't have missiles above 300km in inventory.

Not every nation can afford VSTOL or carriers. Whilst such concepts may not be applicable in countries the size of US, it might not be redundant for a country like SG.

Seaplanes would probably need sea-refuelers, sea-technicians, sea-hangars, sea-ammunition, and boats to carry pilots from their comfy sea-ready rooms to their sea-planes.

They might not really score too well on the "sustainable" air power projection category though.

Originally posted by weasel1962:

Not every nation can afford VSTOL or carriers. Whilst such concepts may not be applicable in countries the size of US, it might not be redundant for a country like SG.

You're missing the question upon which the issue of carriers and V/STOL is predicated, namely, why would you need these?

The express purpose of carriers and, to a great extent, the forward air bases from which V/STOLs can operate, is power projection.  Since power projection involves more than aircraft and ships, if you're asking if you can afford carriers or V/STOLs, the question you should really be asking is if you can afford to project power.

Good point. I agree that seaplanes are generally predicated on the principle of extended area protection or power projection.

The former as in the case of the Japanese in WW2 is to protect its LOCs across vast oceans whilst the latter eg submarine launched seaplanes were meant to project power beyond traditional a/c range (which as the 2004 DTIC study indicates was superseded by the ability of carriers to project far greater power).

Carriers offer a slightly different dimension. Whilst carriers are often seen as tools of power projection, these are equally highly effective defensive weaspon. Examples are Coral Sea and Midway in the defense of Australia in the former and Midway island in the latter. The 1982 Falklands war is a hybrid example where fleet defense superceded concept of island defence. These showed that carriers are also defensive weapons (though it provides a dimensional approach). In Midway, its land base was attacked first (and part of accepted concept), however carrier based a/c provided an alternative dimension of defense. Whilst land bases  could be suppressed, carrier based a/c were more difficult to suppress by virtue of its mobility. That same dimension could be argued for Singapore (see carriers thread).

In 1941, Japan was more concerned over the Prince of Wales and Repulse (navy) as opposed to theRAF air bases during the invasion of Malaya for obvious reasons. This despite that RAF a/c sunk more ships than the 2 battleships could (and only because they got rid of the 2 battleships early).

V/STOL concept is different. It was developed for a European concext to allow a/c to operate under severe Soviet interdiction of airfields whilst maximising sortie rates due to proximity to target as it could operate near the FLOT. This does not require a navy but it was UK who merged the two concepts operating vstol carriers to defend its claim to the falklands.

Originally posted by weasel1962:

V/STOL concept is different. It was developed for a European concext to allow a/c to operate under severe Soviet interdiction of airfields whilst maximising sortie rates due to proximity to target as it could operate near the FLOT. This does not require a navy but it was UK who merged the two concepts operating vstol carriers to defend its claim to the falklands.

Agreed, but given that V/STOL is being discussed in the context of seaplanes, the issue of interdicted airfields doesn't really apply.

That said, the Midway example shows how carriers would fill a gap that neither land-based aircraft or seaplanes could fill - the land-based aircraft were compromised by having the airfields attacked, while sending seaplanes so far out without support would have been impractical as well.

Yeah, i think thats more plausible.  Being more of a non-combat and ferry role.  

The problem with seaplanes IMO is that they have very restricted roles.  A seaplane fighter would probably suffer from really significant aerodynamic penalties.  Another thing would be the relatively high "touch down" speeds of most jet planes.  Might be okay if the sea-state is fine, but if it gets rough, its still a no-go on landing. 

Originally posted by weasel1962:

Pure speculation here. Reclaiming land on Pedra Branca (PD) is going to be an issue so no airstrip?

Would it be more feasible/useful to build a seaplane base instead?

From a commercial aspect, add a ferry from PD to mainland and it could ease airspace congestion. Rich pple land their seaplanes at the base and take the ferry into SG (and vice versa).

Considering that the southern islands are meant for the rich anyways, maybe having one there + ferry flights to batam, bintan or further out?

Given the ranges involved, helicopters could probably just do as good a job if not better, since helipads are probably easier to build or improvise compared to piers.

In most cases the consideration of the military is to serve political goals. While the carrier provide power projection, the constraint for carrier with SG is obvious in limited resources in both Human capital and number of carrier it can maintained. But  SG most likely need is to negociate and have access to maritime trade lane as compare to power projection.

Technology of seaplane will probably need to catch up and new concept will need to be developed to achieve political goals to compensate for the constraint?

If the objective here is to protect sea lanes, there is no issue of range - all of the lanes of interest are well within range of Singapore's airbases, especially with tanker support.  The seaplane has no gap to fill.