Charles de Gaulle (R91) is the only serving
French aircraft carrier and is the
flagship of the
French Navy (
Marine Nationale). She is the tenth French aircraft carrier, the first French
nuclear-powered surface vessel, and the first and only nuclear-powered carrier built outside of the
United States Navy. She is named after French statesman and general
Charles de Gaulle.
The ship carries a complement of
Dassault Rafale M and
E-2C Hawkeye aircraft, as well as modern electronics and
Aster missiles. She is the second largest European carrier, after the
Admiral Kuznetsov. It is a
CATOBAR-type carrier that uses a shorter version of the catapult system than that installed on the US
Nimitz class carriers, the 75 m C13-3 steam catapult.
Development
Construction
The carrier replaced
Foch, a conventionally-powered aircraft carrier, in 2001.
Clemenceau and
Foch were completed in 1961 and 1963 respectively; the requirement for a replacement was identified in the mid-1970s.
The hull was laid down in April 1989 at the
DCNS Brest naval shipyard. The carrier was completed in May 1994 and at 35,500 tonnes was the largest warship launched in
Western Europe since 1951. She was to be named
Richelieu in 1986 by the French president at the time,
François Mitterrand, after the famous French politician Armand-Jean du Plessis, Cardinal and Duc de
Richelieu (following a traditional name for capital ships in the French Navy, see
battleship Richelieu for instance).
[ ] On 7 February 1987, however, after a ferocious row, the name of the ship was changed to
Charles de Gaulle by the
Gaullist Prime Minister at the time,
Jacques Chirac.
Construction quickly fell behind schedule as the project was starved of funding, which was worsened by the economic recession in the early 1990s. Total costs for the vessel would top €3 billion. Work on the ship was suspended altogether on four occasions: 1990, 1991, 1993 and 1995.
The ship was commissioned on 18 May 2001, five years behind the projected deadline.
Spying incident
In 1993, it was alleged by
the Guardian that a group of engineers inspecting the vessel during its construction were
MI6 operatives, believed to have been evaluating the method of shielding the nuclear reactors, amongst other technical details. However, the newspaper published a denial by both the British government and the
Direction de la Surveillance du Territoire that there had been any incident.
Trials and technical problems
Satirical strip of
Le Parisien newspaper. The sign reads : "Work in progress, slow down".
entered sea trials in 1999. These identified the need to extend the flight deck to safely operate the E-2C Hawkeye. This operation sparked negative publicity, however, as the same tests had been conducted on both
Foch and
Clemenceau when the
F-8E(FN) Crusader fighter had been introduced. The 5 million francs for the extension was 0.025% of the total budget for
Charles de Gaulle project.
On 28 February 2000, a nuclear reactor trial triggered the combustion of additional isolation elements, producing a smoke incident.
During the night of 9 November 2000, in the Western Atlantic while en route toward
Norfolk, Virginia, the
port propeller broke and the ship had to return to
Toulon to replace the faulty unit. The investigations that followed showed similar structural faults in the other propeller and in the spare propellers: bubbles in the one-piece copper-aluminium alloy propellers near the centre. The fault was blamed on the supplier, Atlantic Industries, which had already gone bankrupt. To make matters worse, all documents relating to the design and fabrication of the propellers had been lost in a fire. As a temporary solution, the less advanced spare propellers of
Clemenceau and
Foch were used, limiting the maximum speed to 24 knots (44 km/h) instead of the contractual 27 knots (50 km/h).
On 5 March 2001,
Charles de Gaulle went back to sea with two older propellers and sailed 25.2 knots (47 km/h) on her trials. Between July and October,
Charles de Gaulle had to be refitted once more due to abnormal noises, as loud as 100
dB, near the starboard propeller, which had rendered the aft part of the ship uninhabitable.
On 8 November 2001, a sailor performing a routine maintenance task lost consciousness due to a toxic gas leak. A non-commissioned officer attempted to rescue him and collapsed as well. They were immediately rescued by the on-board medical team and sent to Toulon Hospital. Both survived.
Active service
Refitting
Command bridge of Charles de Gaulle
On 16 September 2001, the French press reported slightly higher than acceptable radioactivity levels aboard
Charles de Gaulle, thought to be caused by a faulty isolation element. It was later discovered that the radioactivity levels were normal, but that the regulations concerning acceptable radioactivity levels had changed. While the United States was preparing its response to the
September 11, 2001 attacks in the form of
Operation Enduring Freedom, the media complained about the lack of deployable French military power. At the same time, the Defence Commission reported the maintenance of the Fleet to be substandard. In this context,
Charles de Gaulle, then under repairs, was again an object of criticism, with former President
Valéry Giscard d'Estaing describing it as a "half-aircraft-carrier".
Link 16
On 11 October 2001, the frigate
Cassard, four
AWACS aircraft and
Charles de Gaulle were involved in a successful trial of the
Link 16 high-bandwidth secure data network. The network allows real-time monitoring of the airspace from the South of England to the
Mediterranean Sea. The collected data were also transmitted in real time to the
Jean Bart through the older
Link 11 system.
A rare occurrence of a 5-country multinational fleet of the NATO countries, the Netherlands, France, the United States, Italy, and the United Kingdom, during
Operation Enduring Freedom in the Oman Sea
Afghanistan
On 21 November 2001, France decided to send
Charles de Gaulle to the
Indian Ocean in support of
Operation Enduring Freedom against
Taliban-controlled
Afghanistan.
Task Force 473, with 2,900 men under the command of
Contre-Amiral François Cluzel, sailed on 1 December. The task force was composed of
Charles de Gaulle, frigates
La Motte-Picquet,
Jean de Vienne and
Jean Bart, the nuclear
attack submarine Rubis, the tanker
Meuse and the
aviso Commandant Ducuing.
Embarked air power comprised sixteen
Super Étendards, one E-2C Hawkeye, two Rafale Ms and several helicopters. The Super Étendards carried out their first missions above Afghanistan on 19 December, executing reconnaissance and bombing missions, covering over 3,000 kilometres. Overall they carried out 140 missions, averaging 12 every day, dodging five
Stinger missiles.
USS Enterprise (left), the first nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, and
Charles de Gaulle (right), at the time the latest nuclear carrier.
On 18 February 2002, a
Helios observation satellite spotted abnormal activities near
Gardez. The next day, after American Special Forces in the region confirmed these observations,
Charles de Gaulle launched two reconnaissance Super Étendards. On 20 February, British and US forces entered the valley and
Operation Anaconda began in early March.
In March, Super Étendards and six
Mirage 2000 aircraft carried out airstrikes against targets claimed to be
al Qaeda. A few targets suggested by US forces were denied out of fear of hitting civilians. Nevertheless, French involvement was complimented on 11 March 2002 by US President
George W. Bush, who mentioned "our good ally, France, has deployed nearly one-fourth of its navy to support Operation Enduring Freedom". At this point, the French air complement had been increased to 16 Super Étendards, 6 Mirage 2000 D, 5 Rafales, and two Hawkeye AWACS. From February, the air wings of
Charles de Gaulle and
USS John C. Stennis landed on each other's decks as a means of strengthening the ties between the allies.
On 2 May,
Charles de Gaulle arrived in
Singapore for relief and returned to
Oman on 18 May.
Indian-Pakistani crisis
In June 2002, according to several reports,
[ The Hindu, Retrieved November 3, 2006][ Bharat Rakshak Monitor, Retrieved November 3, 2006] while
Charles de Gaulle was in the
Arabian Sea, armed Rafale fighters participated in interposition patrols near the India-Pakistan border, marking a significant point in the Rafale M's operational career and its integration with the carrier. A number of sources have speculated on the exact nature and purpose of these flights.
[From "En Garde!" (August 2002) in the Journal of Electronic Defense, "It is fitting for the oft-delayed development of the Rafale fighter that the aircraft literally missed the boat. It was not until February 14, after 70 days at sea, that five Rafale Ms landed on the deck of Charles de Gaulle. On March 9, two more came aboard, joining the 16 modernized Super Étendards that they are designed to eventually replace.]
The Ministry of Defense curbed enthusiasts by pointing out the squadron was not certified for combat and that the Etendards were performing all close-air-support and carrier-based reconnaissance missions. Yet on returning to home port July 4, the Charles de Gaulles commander, Captain Richard Laborde, announced that on June 9 the Rafales, armed with Magic 2 air-to-air missiles, set off on a joint patrol with American fighters. He termed it, precisely, a combat mission, although the assignment was for reconnaissance over the tense India-Pakistan border."Rescue mission
On 9 October, the CrossMed
(The Regional Operational Centre for Monitoring and Rescue in the Mediterranean Sea) received a distress call from the 8-metre Babolin
, whose hull was leaking. Charles de Gaulle
, on maneuvers in the region, sent a helicopter that airlifted the three-man crew, despite wind, troubled sea, and bad visibility.Continuing operations
Charles de Gaulle
participated in further actions as part of Operation Enduring Freedom in 2005. It returned to Southwest Asia in May 2006 and shortly after supported coalition efforts over Afghanistan. The aircraft carrier regularly participates in the annual bilateral naval exercises between the Indian and French navies called 'Varuna'.First major overhaul
Charles de Gaulle refitting in the southwestern dock of Vauban industrial zone in 2008
Charles de Gaulles first major
overhaul began in September 2007. The highlight of this 15-month refit was the
refueling of the nuclear power plant, a necessary step after 6 years in service, during which
Charles de Gaulle sailed the equivalent of 12 times around the world, spent 900 days at sea, and performed 19,000 catapult launches. Several improvements will also be made, including the installation of new propellers. These will allow the
Charles de Gaulle to reach its design speed of 27 knots, replacing the vintage propellers used as a stop-gap since 2001. Aircraft maintenance and weapons stores will also be upgraded to allow operation of new
Rafale F3 fighters armed with
ASMP-A nuclear missiles and
SCALP EG cruise missiles, and satellite communications bandwidth will be increased tenfold. The refit was completed in December 2008 but following technical problems in March 2009 the carrier is back in Toulon for repairs. An intensive work-up period is planned to bring the
Charles de Gaulle and its airgroup back to operational status.
Integration in the future navy
The French Navy is theoretically a two-carrier navy, mainly to ensure that at least one ship is operational at all times even if the other is under repair. This scheme requires another aircraft carrier to be built though, as the
Charles de Gaulle is the only aircraft carrier currently serving.
Cost considerations have made equipment standardization a necessity. In this context, there is a possibility of collaboration with Britain for future aircraft carriers and France has purchased the design for the
Queen Elizabeth class aircraft carrier, which may be modified as the
Future French aircraft carrier. Steps have been taken by both countries to make such a scenario possible: the new carrier had to be conventionally propelled to meet the requirements of the
Royal Navy, and while the French Navy favoured a nuclear design, French President Jacques Chirac declared at the end of 2004 that the next French carrier would use a gas turbine engine.
Gallery
See also
