In Russian doctrine, a fleet of huge aircraft carriers like the U.S. is unneccessary and low cost-effectiveness.
Actually, at the moment Russia already possess a lot of aircraft carriers already. The different is that, while U.S. aircraft carriers float on the water surface, Russian carrier can fly. And while U.S. carriers use manned aircrafts, Russian carriers use unmanned suicide aircraft.
Ah yes, what I am talking about is the "flying carrier" named Tu-24/22/16/95/160, Su-30/33/34/25, Ka-xx, and the unmanned suicide aircraft named Yakhonts, Oniks, Brahmos.
Of course, the cruise missile, aka "unmanned suicide aircraft" is smaller than manned aircraft, and aircraft with computer pilot has much better trajectory than human pilot, and when unmmaned cruise missle was destroyed you do not need to hold a funeral ceremony like a manned aircraft.
So basically, in anti-ship naval combat, Russia used flying aircraft carrier (Tu-xx) and unmanned suicide aircraft (cruise missile) to destroy the American floating airbase and manned aircraft carrier. Well, in some case, there are Russian floating "airfield" for unmanned suicide aircrafts, something we called Kirov or Slava.
Meanwhile, the U.S. is over-obsessed with the humiliating defeat of Pearl Harbor, therefore the U.S. is over-obsessed with aircraft superiority in naval battles. American aircraft carrier is nothing but a floating airfield with minimum self-defense. In order to survive, the U.S. aircraft carrier need a whole huge fleet to protect it. Just like the useless defenseless termite queen need a whole colony to protect it.
And the ironic story is that, while the U.S. usually blabber about their aircraft ejectors and blabber about "Russia does not have them", actually the position and mechanism of ejector is a severe weakpoint of the U.S. aircraft carriers. U.S. aircraft carriers rely 100% on ejector, and a aircraft carrier only has 2 of them. That means each turn, only 2 aircraft can taking off. And then wait, and then other 2. Just like a huge army goes through a very tiny and thin bridge.
Meanwhile, although Russian aircraft carrier does not have proper ejector, there is 10-12 taking off position for airplanes their. That means in one instance Russia can launch 10-12 airplanes into the battlefield.
Another ironic story is that, American F-18 has shorter range than Russian unmanned suicide aicraft aka cruise missiles. That means Russian Tu-xx stays in a safe range, unleashes all missiles, and goes away, and F-18 cannot do anything due to out of range.
Back to the main problem, I has mentioned that in anti-ship naval combat - the main parts of naval battles, Russia does not used aircraft carriers with manned aircrafts, but flying (Tu-xx) and floating (Kirov, Slava) carriers with unmanned suicide airplanes (P-xxx, Klub,...). Newest Russian suicide aircrafts like Yakhont, Oniks , or Brahmos have new turbofan with very high efficiency and the capability to fly at low speed and high alitude at the initial part of the trajectory, and they only decrease the alitude and increase the speed at the very end to bypass the enemy defense system. The Russian suicide airplanes has very long range (1500 km), very fast maximum speed, and stealthy cloaks to fool the enemy defense system.
Besides the suicide unmanned aircrafts aka cruise missiles, in anti-ship naval combat the Russian also launched unmanned mini "locator". These machines receive the radar beam from the Russian broadcaster, and function similarly to the satellites of the GPS. These mini "sattelites" is only 90km high (GPS is about 20000km), they broadcast a very high intensity waves, close range cover, with rapid change of frequency and can hardly be jammed (meanwhile the GPS can be jammed more easily). With these mini "sattelites", Russian suicide unmanned aircrafts aka cruise missiles can hit the enemy ship with very high accuracy. Meanwhile, American UAV and cruise missiles used the GPS with lower accuracy and can easily be jammed, that's why many Tomahawks fall in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and that's why Iran caught an U.S. UAV, the U.S. UAV mistook Iran as its own home.
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So, because the anti-ship naval combat , the main part of naval battle, is carry out by super accurate suicide unmanned aircraft (aka cruise missile), Russian traditional style of aircraft carrier is designed to fulfil the role of... cruiser. That is further enhance the control and domination of the water surface. That is the reason why Russian aircraft carriers have a very large space for helicoper like Ka-xx. Of course fixed wings aircrafts like MiG-xx and Su-xx can use these carriers for very long range combat. But Russian aircraft carrier will not function as the trump card in anti-ship naval combat like the U.S. Because Russia already has unmanned suicide aircraft like Yakhont and Oniks to do the anti-ship parts.
And because the role is similar to a cruiser, Russian aircraft is heavily armoured and has strong self-defense capability, like a true cruiser.
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