The navy already has an ISR bird. Its the
MQ-4C Triton. Why not fly a variant (D?) off the carriers for ISR? After all, they landed and flew a
C-130 off the Forrestal as a test and the C-130 has the same wingspan as the Triton. Most likely, the Triton would need to have an upgrade due to the fact it needs to be able to be launched off the deck and that's nontrivial. However, between an orbit of Tritons (long distance, long endurance) and the dispersed capability of the
TERN (medium endurance and distance) launched from the destroyers, cruisers and frigates, the ISR role is more than taken care of. In fact, there ought to be a 24/7 ISR patrol if there are 5 Tritons and two TERNs per surface ship (meaning 8 per carrier battle group) of a Triton and two TERNs.
If that is the case, then the UCLASS ought to be a strike asset which can carry an ISR payload if necessary, but its main emphasis ought to be penetration and strike. In that case, I'd guess that would mean something along the lines of Boeing, Northrop or Lockheed's designs. The UCLASS strike asset then becomes useful for 'first day' or high risk operations. If that is the case, a wing of 12 UCLASS would probably be appropriate.
However, in the articles I've seen on the FA-XX, the navy has expressed a desire for a F-14 replacement. The F-14's role was as a fleet defense fighter or interceptor to prevent Soviet bombers from taking out the carrier battle group. While the F/A-18E/F has semi filled this role since the F-14's retirement, it has a shorter combat radius (390 nm vs 500 nm) and lower maximum speed (mach 1.8 vs mach 2.34). No drone currently being considered under the UCLASS would have the speed of either the F/A-18E or the F-14, but it actually has a longer range (18+ hours at 400 mph, there and back again is 3600 miles for an Avenger). So that makes you wonder...could you take one of the UCLASS proposals and turn it into a Fleet Defense Fighter?
Let's take the public stats of General Atomics'
Avenger Tail #2. Tail #2 is supposed to have an internal weapons bay capacity of 1,600 kg
(which we'll skip for now) and an external capability on 6 hard points
of 2,900 kg. We'll work with the external mount points first.
As an aside, for the moment, we are going to ignore the fact you will have to do some nontrivial upgrades (like an AAW radar at the minimum!) except to acknowledge they need to happen and will have some nontrivial impacts on the aircraft design (bigger engine to produce more power for the radar and other kit which reduces range, payload, etc).
This is an air defense UCAV. Its meant to shoot down incoming missiles and aircraft beyond the range of the surface ships defense capabilities. The F-14 carried the
Phoenix missile for this role. This missile, while having excellent speed and range, was a monster in weight and also was retired over a decade ago. The nearest equivalent is the
British Meteor. While possibly slower than the Phoenix, the Meteor is far, far lighter at less than half the weight. Assuming we can mount more than one missile per external hard point, we can easily get a total of 12 Meteors on the Avenger#2. The weight is 2,220 kg. We are left with 680 kg: it might be then possible to mount another four
AMRAAMs (no, you couldn't quite get 4 more meteors, sorry). Not that it makes sense to consider it, but you could place 2 Stingers or Starstreak on the two remaining hard points (assuming each hard point could be used as a triple mount). Unfortunately, 2 Sidewinders are too heavy (each is 85 kg and left over total is 72 kg...doh).
Just with this alone, you've outgunned the F-14 (at most 6 Phoenix or 4 Phoenix and 2 AMRAAM and 2 Sidewinders) or the F/A-18E/F (4 AMRAAM and 2 Sidewinders). Here we have 12 Meteors and 4 AMRAAMs: the missile firepower of almost 3 F-14s. However, we're not done: we have the internal weapons bay left and 1,600 kg.
Avenger with HELLADS laser
In terms of mass, you could run off and do another 8 Meteors, but in terms of volume, probably not. I am going to suggest you do not want to 'waste' this weight with missiles. Rather, DARPA is already planning on doing a test with General Atomics which points the way for how to use the internal weapons bay. You put a
HELLADS into it. A what? A Laser. A 150 kilowatt laser.
General Atomics is
already planning on putting their HELLADS laser on one of the Avenger UCAVs in 2018. Lasers have a really, really cheap 'bullets' (ie cost per shot). They also cannot be dodged and despite the popular sentiment you only need to mirror surface a munition, keeping it clean so that works is almost impossible.
Why use a laser? Consider.
Place your Fleet Defense Avenger at 8,230 m (27,000 ft) at 160 km (100 mi) from the carrier between the carrier and the threat. The distance to the horizon is 324 km (~202 mi) and theoretically, that's your engagement range. Let's assume China or Russia have developed a kick ass, hypersonic antiship missile which flies at Mach 10 and flies almost at torpedo heights. The Avenger will have a total engagement time before the missile passes the Avenger is 100 seconds and from the Avenger to the carrier is 50 seconds. If it takes 20 seconds (average, pessimistically) to bag a missile with a laser, then the Avenger will take down seven with the laser and 12 with the Meteors and four with the AMRAAMs (optimistically).
The reality is modern antiship missiles have a max speed of around Mach 5. Therefore half that of the kick ass ASM described above. That brings the total kills from the laser now up to 15. If you are assuming a 3M-54 Klub, then it flies at Mach .8 for most of its range and then speeds up when close the target. Assuming 'close' means 50 km, then even before the Klubs pass the Avenger, the laser will have bagged over 67 missiles: the Klub would be obsolete, really, under these circumstances.
The immediate reaction might be to argue to replace the missiles on our Avenger with more lasers. First of all, it will cause other problems (power generation will probably be insufficient) and if the weather is too poor, the laser will not work as well and may be constrained to four or less kills. It is best to hedge the bets then with the laser
and missiles on our Fleet Defense Avenger.
At any rate, a single FD Avenger, as a Fleet Defense Fighter/Interceptor then has the kill capability of 3 F-14s (assuming 6 Phoenix per F-14). Now for the moment, let's assume the FD Avenger is deployed in the same numbers as the F-14 Tomcat used to be: 14 per carrier. The equivalent potential kills would be as much as 42 Tomcats. For fleet defense, that's excellent. Furthermore, they can stay in the air on patrol for far, far longer than an F-14: 3x as much each.
Note, our FD Avengers are
not air superiority fighters and
cannot engage in dogfights or what have you. They are meant for fleet defense, which is a very different role. They also
cannot jump to Mach 2.3 and go hunting on the other side of the fleet formation. They are moved into position and then stay on station. They are
not interceptors in the traditional sense.
So, what does our carrier air wing look like? Given Carrier Tritons, UCLASS and the FD Avenger?
The assumption is we'd still have
5 E-2x as our AWACS (etc).
There are 'now' 5 Tritons for ISR.
We would have 10 strike UCLASS.
There would be 14 FD Avengers.
There would be 6
F-18G Growlers.
That would leave us with 20
F-35c and 24 F/A-18E/F (or FA-XX, later).
There would be a total of 6 SH-60 Seahawk for search and rescue and/or antisub work.
The 'nice' thing about the airwing above is it can potentially be put onto the carrier decks far faster than what will likely happen with the FA-XX. Theoretically, you could squeeze in another 10 aircraft, especially if the total personnel and deck space for the drones than manned aircraft, but the aircraft carrier might pop like a balloon then from being overfull.
