GarryB wrote:
On land a defence against enemy attack via cruise missile or any other type of missile is much more effective with airpower included.
That is exactly what I said. Never mentioned that land based forces only like Russians never embraced layered AA defence concept.
GarryB wrote:
In terms of scouting and looking for targets ground based assets would be as slow as naval vessels to find out what that blip on the radar means that is 200km away from you. Being able to send out aircraft to check is much more useful.
Drone or satellite with 30cm resolution is not enough? Sunflower mobile OTH has like 500km range.
GarryB wrote:
An AWACS platform greatly improves that radar coverage and reach and can manage a defence so the surface vessels are even safer.
A little corvette sitting low in the water does not have the radar or sight range to hit air targets 400km away but load it with the late model S-400 based large SAMs and provide target data from aircraft near the enemy and those small vessels could defend or attack from a huge distance away.
no need for S-400 is you have UAVs satellite corrected missiles. S-400 can be either ashore based or... on Russian cruisers.
GarryB wrote:1) Russians track all carrier groups 24/7 both satellites/subs and over horizon radars
They have developed the technology, and further improved it, but they currently only have one Kondor satellite in operation which is not enough for full planetary coverage,
They have Pion and Liana constellation for that purpose. I'd assume that even without global coverage yet most important directions are fairly covered. Pls read my post for details
GarryB wrote:2) There is no way AC group can pop up by Russia coast in no time and start aggression. First anyway would be cruses missile massive volley.
If you listen to western navy professionals a carrier is both all powerful and can see all but also invisible and super stealthy.
Obviously it is not, but a lack of carrier or more specifically air support a Russian group of ships would be more vulnerable without air support than not.
That's why first RuN ships are operating close to bases and second Russia is planning small carriers?
[quote="GarryB"]
Bases in Sudan or Yemen or Syria or Vietnam or Cuba or where ever means eventually they want to expand their area of operations out to the open ocean and that means they need aircraft support that can move with them.
3) Russians developed both navy and air force to deal with amphibious forces not to mention land based Bastion/Bal batteries not to mention layered air defenses
OTH Radar in Cuba would be something or even Venzuela

GarryB wrote:
Not every situation will warrant an expeditionary force of aircraft like the one to Syria.
A carrier would make Russian ships safer when they operate far from Russia.
Second that but first priority is defending homeland.
GarryB wrote:Debated with technology form 40s yes not now. Satellites/over the horizon radars do the trick. Thousands kilometers from shores. And continuous tracking.
Tracking but no reliable ID capability.
what do you mean by Id? like large AC group you must identify if running with 30knots towards your shores group of large ships is just fishing trawlers?
GarryB wrote:In USSR you think why they developed Kh-32 Tu-22Ms and Antey subs, Kirov and Slava cruisers?
They also developed the Kiev class and the Kuznetsov and the Ulyanovsk etc etc.
sorry you provided no argument to support this statement so far.
A carrier group increases the depth of the defence of a surface fleet. It does not matter how many missiles your ship has or how many targets it can shoot down at once or their range.... any missile can defeat its defences with numbers at once. A carrier wont change this, but it will dramatically increase the number of incoming missiles that will be defeated before you start losing ships.
even if one had nuke warhead is enough.
BTW from Russian wiki for P-800
According to military expert Alexander Rastegin, the P-800 "Onyx" missiles will be very effective weapons at least until 2030 [15] [16] [17] . American shipboard air defense does not have effective interceptors, with the exception of SM-6 missiles, recently adopted and used in small quantities [18] [19] . Other anti-aircraft missiles have a low probability of intercepting Onyx. The carrier strike group (AOG) can be guaranteed to intercept a maximum of 1-5 missiles. A massive missile attack of 10-50 rockets will lead to serious losses in the ships of the enemy AUG (the aircraft carrier almost certainly will be sunk, the protection of which is assigned to other squadron ships) [20] [21] [22]. It will also be very effective to use Onyx together with the Caliber and Kh-35 Uran missiles. Also in the near future, the Zircon missile with hypersonic flight speed will be accepted for arming, which will reduce the interception of this missile to practically zero. Probably use of 5-6 Zirkons together with 10-15 Onyx or Calibres will allow to deliver a guaranteed defeat to enemy squadrons (the first targets reach Zirkons causing primary defeats to targets, thereby disabling ship systems, making it easier to destroy the ship, then damaged ships "finish off" Onyxa or Caliber) [23] [24] [25] . An important fact is that the rockets "Caliber", "Onyx", "Zircon", X-35 "Uranus"[27] [28] .
GarryB wrote:
Aircraft also offer the possibility of engaging the enemy before they launch some of their missiles... send out a naval PAK FA with four external R-37Ms and a Zircon under its belly and it could potentially kill a destroyer before it could launch any of its anti ship missiles and shoot down one or two Hawkeyes supporting the F-35s operating nearby too.... they don't have that many Hawkeyes so the loss of even one would be devastating for them."
True but this is again question of layered defense. 800 miles PAK-FA radius keeps 22800 safe + 600 miles for zircon keeps 1400 miles A2/AD zone for any carrier group.
GarryB wrote:The US loves to have superiority, without it the US does not the same. Small aircraft carriers for Russia only helps to keep the current superiority of the US aircraft carrier groups.
In my opinion you get the same benefit of air component support from a medium carrier as you do with a heavy or super carrier, because the key is long range conventional fighters and AWACS aircraft support.
This is why I don't think much of a small carrier with VSTOL or STOVL aircraft.
For taska of 40' Midway style battles no. For any other tasks more than enough. BTW F-35B on US carriers will not be STVOL one? Cannot carry BVR sat or drone AWACS corrected missiles?
GarryB wrote:
IMHO three medium carriers is better than one super carrier, but even 20 light carriers are not better than either one super carrier or three medium carriers
from follows function? Function of Russian ACs IMHO are not air battles of intimidating desert nations with tribal structures. But protecting of long range missile carriers/ on subs / anti sub warfare
GarryB wrote:
It is funny because the accelerated the retirement of the F-14 because they said the Russian threat was reduced and F-18s were good enough... but with no Phoenix missiles they are much more vulnerable to even Kh-22Ms let alone Kh-32s.
Not that F-14Ds upgraded with AMRAAM could hit Kh-22Ms at 40km altitude on their approach.
They still developed BVR missiles AIM-152 but not yet used on -F-18 AFAIK. And yes not Kh-22 but Kh-40000 m ceiling and 5400 speed is making effective envelope for AEGIS very limited if they can track and hot missile with this speed.
GarryB wrote:
Having UKSK launchers that are much more compact than the Granit launchers means the internal aircraft hangar could be enlarged... they could configure it to operate large UAVs as well, or even tethered air ships..
Yeah, that makes perfect sense...
Finally, now we're talking