There's no country in the world that had to fight so many wars in recent history, as Israel. The Jewish State, just a tiny dot on the map of the Middle East and with less then 8 mln people (less than a third of the population of Cairo), has been either in war, or under a constant threat of war since it's foundation in 1948. Though most of its adversaries are its neighbours or paramilitary organizations it has been fighting with, operate from neighbouring countries, at the moment its biggest and most capable enemy is located over 1,000 km away: Iran, and what Israel fears most: Iran's nuclear ambitions. Israel has regularly threatened to carry out large scale bombing raids to destroy Iran's nuclear facilities, as it did previously in Iraq and Syria. Yet, Iran is a lot further away from Israel and has its nuclear facilities spread all over the country. And it has a more than capable air defense network. Any air raid carried out by the IAF, would involve over 100 aircraft and Israel would most certainly lose several of its jets. While it has a long range strike capability with its F-15I and F-16I, they would still need to be refuelled in foreign airspace. And it's not likely Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia or any of the Gulf states would be willing to grant Israeli tankers access to their airspaces in order to refuel the Israeli strike aircraft.
Though Israel has no plans for an aircraft carrier (and probably couldn't afford designing, building and operating one), a carrier that Israel could deploy somewhere in the Persian Gulf (though that would make the vessel vulnerable to attacks from Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and its nearly impossible for a vessel this size to sneak in the Persian Gulf undetected), or in the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean (which should be safer options) would give the country a powerful tool to strike enemy sites far away from Israel's air force bases and support special ops units on deep infiltration mission far from Israel's shores. It could also be called upon when Israel needs to evacuate its citizens in foreign countries, or when it has to evacuate an entire (Jewish) population as it did with an air bridge in Ethiopia in the 90s.
Though Israel has no plans for an aircraft carrier (and probably couldn't afford designing, building and operating one), a carrier that Israel could deploy somewhere in the Persian Gulf (though that would make the vessel vulnerable to attacks from Iran in the Strait of Hormuz and its nearly impossible for a vessel this size to sneak in the Persian Gulf undetected), or in the Gulf of Oman, the Red Sea or the Indian Ocean (which should be safer options) would give the country a powerful tool to strike enemy sites far away from Israel's air force bases and support special ops units on deep infiltration mission far from Israel's shores. It could also be called upon when Israel needs to evacuate its citizens in foreign countries, or when it has to evacuate an entire (Jewish) population as it did with an air bridge in Ethiopia in the 90s.
For that purpose, I've designed a multirole aircraft carrier which could enter service in the mid 2030's. I named her Ben Gurion, after the founder of the Jewish state.
The Key Numbers:
· The Ben Gurion is the largest warship ever build for the Israeli Navy. She has a length of 268.5 metres, a beam (or width) of 78 metres and a displacement (when fully loaded) of 60,000 tons.
· She has a total range of 10,000 nautical miles (when sailing 24 kts).
· She has 11 decks below the Flight Deck (2 more than most carriers have).
· Her flight deck is 26m above the water.
· She is a CATOBAR-type carrier that uses three EMALS Electromagnetic Launch Systems supplied by the United States (two at the bow and one across the front of the landing area).
· The ship will have a crew of around 640, increasing to 1,400 when a full complement of her aircrafts are embarked.
· There are 1,600 sleeping bunks.
· There are 364,000 metres of pipes inside the ship.
· She will keep 45 days’worth of food in her stores.
· The entire Ship’s Company of 642 can be served a meal within 90 minutes – 45 minutes when at action station.
When fully operational, she can carry a mix of up to 40 fixed wing and rotary aircraft, to include:
· 24 fast jets (30 in wartime) consisting of the Lockheed Martin’s F-35C (with Israeli avionics, similar to the layout of the F-35i Adir)), although
· The Israeli Navy anticipates a routine peacetime deployment of 12 F-35C’s, but a typical warload will be a 24-30 F-35C’s and (armed) UAV’s.
· up to 4 E-2D Hawkeye AEW aircraft,
· 4 Boeing V-22 Osprey’s and
· 2-4 medium-sized NHIndustries NH90 for combat search and rescue.
· The Ben Gurion can fly 72 fast jet sorties per day – which can be increased if needed.
· The maximum launch rate is 1 aircraft every 30 seconds and the maximum recovery rate is 1 aircraft every 2 minutes.
· The ship’s Artisan radar can track up to 800 potential targets at the same time and cut through radio ‘clutter’ generated by the equivalent of 10,000 mobile phones.
· The long range radar can track up to 1,000 contacts across a 250 mile radius both in the air or at sea
· The ship is furthermore equipped with an advanced maritime EW-suite from Elbit Industries and has a mix of railguns, laser weapons and missiles for self defence.
· Though she's a big ship, the design features some measures to reduce her radar, IR and electronic signature.
