Future Russian Aircraft Carriers and Deck Aviation.

Something I've noticed with the new choppers is the huge ferocity of the new missiles they are carrying. Not that dissimilar from fixed wing jets.

However, the problem of choppers as I see it is twofold. Lack of stealth and also lack of range. America and its vassals are starting with the F-35. Ok shit plane in some ways, but it has advantages over a chopper. And they could be put on a heli carrier.

I wonder how serious the UAE and Russia are about a VTOL/STOL plane?
Russia was really ahead of the field back in around 1990 with the Yak.
So I wonder how far off a resurrection of that is. I know the Yak was limited vs other planes. But thats not the point. The fact is, having a jet with its range and arnaments without the need for a Kuznetsov or Storm class carrier is a palpable weapon.

VSTOL aircraft are limited in performance and very expensive to buy and to operate and have a poor safety record in terms of aircraft lost.

It would be a total waste to develop a new VSTOL aircraft now.

It makes more sense to spend a little more money on a conventional takeoff and landing aircraft in the 60k ton range with conventional aircraft based on PAK FA or MiG-35 or Su-35 or a new 5th gen light fighter... an amphibious helicopter carrier is for landing forces... helos are more use than VSTOL fighter aircraft for that.

If you develop a VSTOL aircraft an put it on a Heli carrier it stops being a heli carrier and becomes a retarded fixed wing carrier with relatively slow short range jets.

Better to keep the carriers separate with real fighters and a proper helo carrier.

GarryB wrote:VSTOL aircraft are limited in performance and very expensive to buy and to operate and have a poor safety record in terms of aircraft lost.

It would be a total waste to develop a new VSTOL aircraft now.

It makes more sense to spend a little more money on a conventional takeoff and landing aircraft in the 60k ton range with conventional aircraft based on PAK FA or MiG-35 or Su-35 or a new 5th gen light fighter... an amphibious helicopter carrier is for landing forces... helos are more use than VSTOL fighter aircraft for that.

If you develop a VSTOL aircraft an put it on a Heli carrier it stops being a heli carrier and becomes a retarded fixed wing carrier with relatively slow short range jets.

Better to keep the carriers separate with real fighters and a proper helo carrier.

An simple support carrier build without all the new electronics can be as cheap as a Mistral class. US navy had plenty of them during WW2, they were build very fast and provided important air support to the fleet. They are not main carrier but they already have the K, so a Mistral class with a ski jump and 6 mig-29k and some Ka-27 and maintaining its landing troops capabilities would be very good.

Japan is planing to do this with their heli carriers and F-35.

But why?

Another 60K ton ship makes more sense... far more aircraft and far more supplies of aviation fuel and weapons for the aircraft and itself.

Small Mistral sized carriers are great for helos and landing craft and armour for a landing force... they are not so great for air support alone.

Putting a ski jump and MiG-29s means you have to ditch all those helos and to be honest the main purpose of the ships is to get helos to the landing area.

Don't get me wrong... MiG-29Ks could really deal damage to shore based defences but for transporting supplies and troops and weapons, ammo and equipment they are bloody useless.

For most of the roles they are likely to actually use them for... flood/famine relief, good will visits and the odd bit of landing training, MiG-29s would have no value... and nor would F-35s.

On a larger carrier a fixed wing 5th gen light fighter should have the thrust to weight ratio to get airborne easily even with a medium weapon load without a ski jump. In stealth roles it would not carry external ordinance so would not approach max payload capacity.

If you just want a plane carrying barge then some sort of modification of a container ship with multiple levels able to stack containers during peace time and able to carry and launch aircraft in times of war could be made but British experience shows civilian ships are seriously vulnerable to weapon damage, so they would need to be designed from the ground up to be military vessels first with a secondary container role. The use of container based missile systems currently includes Uran and Kalibr but could easily be expanded to include TOR for instance for self defence... in fact a container with a side mounted AESA antenna array could be placed centre front centre both sides, and centre rear with the containers next to it filled with vertical launch TOR missiles... they don't need to be tied in to the ships systems... just act by themselves, with a human controlling them to defend the ship. The new TOR missiles are smaller and can fit 16 missiles in the turret of the land based TOR system so a 40 foot container could have hundreds of missiles each...

Obviously only during conflict... not when transporting container freight.

GarryB wrote:........
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Supplementing these ships with figter jets would definitely not make any sense.

However, completely modifying them into escort aircraft carriers would be worth considering.

Basically remove any troop/vehicle carrying function, modify the deck and maybe even go with nuclear propulsion/catapults (if you want to go all in)

Logic behind this would be the fact that they will be building at least 4 of these amphibious ships so by then they will have production worked out and it would be much quicker and cost effective to modify existing platform rather then develop now one from scratch.

It will also allow them to acquire more of them in less time and for less money than completely new model.

But why?

Another 60K ton ship makes more sense... far more aircraft and far more supplies of aviation fuel and weapons for the aircraft and itself.

Small Mistral sized carriers are great for helos and landing craft and armour for a landing force... they are not so great for air support alone.

Putting a ski jump and MiG-29s means you have to ditch all those helos and to be honest the main purpose of the ships is to get helos to the landing area.

You can easily switch the Migs for Ka-27 if you are planing a landing.  If you need to face a enemy navy you can send it as a escort carrier. That what british "carriers" did in the Falkland war and they did very well. Without their fighters they would have lost all their ships.

I'm not saying to change it into a true carrier, just adding some capabilities for low cost. In WW2 big destroyers and cruisers had some planes on them to lunch and found the foes. They were meant for specific roles and limited support in a global strategy, the strategy wasn't based on them like US do with their F-35 today. Just adding some capabilities.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spanish_ship_Juan_Carlos_I

Look it cost 460 million $ and has fighters, helicopters and troops on it. Mistral has only helicopters and troops for the same price. Indian small carrier cost 4 billions $ ...

I agree 6 Mig-29 won't be decisive against a US carrier battlegroup but in a potential war with Japan for exemple they could do lot like detecting their ships lunching salvos of Kh-31 and 35. It provides you a bigger picture of the battlefield.

Helicopters will help you land your troop but if you need to destroy a strategical bridge for exemple deep in enemy teritory protected by Long range SAM a squadron of Mig-29 will have a chance while helicopters won't.

Supplementing these ships with figter jets would definitely not make any sense.

However, completely modifying them into escort aircraft carriers would be worth considering.

Basically remove any troop/vehicle carrying function, modify the deck and maybe even go with nuclear propulsion/catapults (if you want to go all in)

Logic behind this would be the fact that they will be building at least 4 of these amphibious ships so by then they will have production worked out and it would be much quicker and cost effective to modify existing platform rather then develop now one from scratch.

It will also allow them to acquire more of them in less time and for less money than completely new model.

I disagree totally. If you add some Mig on it with a basic ski jump you add a big capability to your ship for a low cost. If you change it into a small carrier it would have the same limited capacities but for a astronomic cost. Better go fora 100kT class carrier in this case.

However, completely modifying them into escort aircraft carriers would be worth considering.

They are driving a multirole concept for their new vessels... having a cheaper vessel with plenty of internal capacity that could be used for transport, or for aircraft, or as a landing ship would be interesting.

Basically remove any troop/vehicle carrying function, modify the deck and maybe even go with nuclear propulsion/catapults (if you want to go all in)

I would probably go nuke propulsion anyway... high initial costs, but operational costs and support would be greatly simplified.

With modular weapons and systems you could use the decks for troop transport, for fixed wing transport, for rotary wing transport... even container ship transport...

I am thinking more of airships for AWACS, which means cats are less necessary... even an air ship tender ship, or a mother ship for special forces operations with UAVs, helos and light armour...

Logic behind this would be the fact that they will be building at least 4 of these amphibious ships so by then they will have production worked out and it would be much quicker and cost effective to modify existing platform rather then develop now one from scratch.

It will also allow them to acquire more of them in less time and for less money than completely new model.

Agreed.

That what british "carriers" did in the Falkland war and they did very well. Without their fighters they would have lost all their ships.

They lost several civilian ships because they lacked EW systems to decoy AShMs... one of the ships lost held most of their helicopters and was a serious problem for the landed force.

Helicopters will help you land your troop but if you need to destroy a strategical bridge for exemple deep in enemy teritory protected by Long range SAM a squadron of Mig-29 will have a chance while helicopters won't.

A fixed target like a bridge would be better hit with a cruise missile... but I understand what you are trying to say... a Helicopter cannot fight a fixed wing fighter on anything like equal terms so fighter cover is necessary.

I just don't like the idea of trying to put everything on at once... having a landing ship with helos makes sense... taking helos off to put a token number of MiGs does not in my opinion.

However the idea of having two vessels... one with helos and troops and armour and another with all the decks full of aircraft... now that is interesting.

Used together with proper 60K ton carriers I think that is a good idea.

I disagree totally. If you add some Mig on it with a basic ski jump you add a big capability to your ship for a low cost. If you change it into a small carrier it would have the same limited capacities but for a astronomic cost. Better go fora 100kT class carrier in this case.

Adding a couple of MiGs to a Mistral type ship wont magically make it anything like a Kuznetsov, and will actually make it less like a Mistral in a bad way.

Leave the fighter cover to a real carrier, because you will need all the landing craft and helos you can get to the landing area.

Having another ship of the same design with all the levels filled with fighter aircraft and attack helos on the other hand becomes interesting... and we are talking fighters... anything to do with strike missions can be cruise missile jobs, though a few large UAVs could be deck launched to enter deep into enemy territory to keep an eye on enemy forces with a few MiGs flying escort to protect it from enemy fighters and SAMs.

In terms of recon and jamming the MiG-35 should have the electronics to do a good job as well as CAP.

In places like Somalia or Yemen there would be little indigenous resistance in terms of air power and any foreign aircraft would soon leave with the presence of Russian air power I would think.

BTW Russia will never need a 100K ton carrier.

GarryB wrote:

That what british "carriers" did in the Falkland war and they did very well. Without their fighters they would have lost all their ships.

They lost several civilian ships because they lacked EW systems to decoy AShMs... one of the ships lost held most of their helicopters and was a serious problem for the landed force.

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That's not an argument. Mistral are totally defenceless. EW won't hide such a big ship from a modern missile.

Helicopters will help you land your troop but if you need to destroy a strategical bridge for exemple deep in enemy teritory protected by Long range SAM a squadron of Mig-29 will have a chance while helicopters won't.

A fixed target like a bridge would be better hit with a cruise missile... but I understand what you are trying to say... a Helicopter cannot fight a fixed wing fighter on anything like equal terms so fighter cover is necessary.

I just don't like the idea of trying to put everything on at once... having a landing ship with helos makes sense... taking helos off to put a token number of MiGs does not in my opinion.

However the idea of having two vessels... one with helos and troops and armour and another with all the decks full of aircraft... now that is interesting.

Used together with proper 60K ton carriers I think that is a good idea.

Actually, these big ships are underarmed. No air defence, no anti ship capabilities, so it's not putting everything at once, it's just giving it more power to defend itself and to attack soft targets.

Russia has one carrier and it needs lot of time to go from Northern bases to somewhere else like near Japan. Having like you said two of these for 500 million each and one armed with 12 mig and the other with kamov is a possibility.

A true carrier is not really needed unless you want to invend a country and not just some strategical islands. That's not the case of Russia.

I disagree totally. If you add some Mig on it with a basic ski jump you add a big capability to your ship for a low cost. If you change it into a small carrier it would have the same limited capacities but for a astronomic cost. Better go fora 100kT class carrier in this case.

Adding a couple of MiGs to a Mistral type ship wont magically make it anything like a Kuznetsov, and will actually make it less like a Mistral in a bad way.

Leave the fighter cover to a real carrier, because you will need all the landing craft and helos you can get to the landing area.

Having another ship of the same design with all the levels filled with fighter aircraft and attack helos on the other hand becomes interesting... and we are talking fighters... anything to do with strike missions can be cruise missile jobs, though a few large UAVs could be deck launched to enter deep into enemy territory to keep an eye on enemy forces with a few MiGs flying escort to protect it from enemy fighters and SAMs.

In terms of recon and jamming the MiG-35 should have the electronics to do a good job as well as CAP.

In places like Somalia or Yemen there would be little indigenous resistance in terms of air power and any foreign aircraft would soon leave with the presence of Russian air power I would think.

BTW Russia will never need a 100K ton carrier.

Cruise missiles against moving posts or air defences are not good.

Against most countries or situations 12 Mig-29 are enough. France has a few Rafales in Africa and can control most countries out there...

UAV won't last more than 1 hours on a battlfield. They are defenceless and are good training targets for fighters.

Again I wasn't thinking of turning a Mistral into a carrier but just giving some basic and cheap capabilities to lunch a few fighter which will help a lot. Helicopters are carried by other ships too. Even civilian ships can lunch them.

That's not an argument. Mistral are totally defenceless. EW won't hide such a big ship from a modern missile.

The Russians are not building Mistrals... Mistral is a French design.

The Russian design will have proper air defences and EW systems.

Actually, these big ships are underarmed. No air defence, no anti ship capabilities, so it's not putting everything at once, it's just giving it more power to defend itself and to attack soft targets.

New Russian systems are modular... a landing ship does not need anti ship weapons, it will almost certainly have weapon systems even just for self defence. Worst case scenario a TOR vehicle could be parked on three corners of the main deck to provide protection.

Russia has one carrier and it needs lot of time to go from Northern bases to somewhere else like near Japan. Having like you said two of these for 500 million each and one armed with 12 mig and the other with kamov is a possibility.

A vessel carrying aircraft is one thing... a real carrier is another. To suppliment real carriers a few aircraft carrying ships makes economic sense to boost aircraft numbers.

A true carrier is not really needed unless you want to invend a country and not just some strategical islands. That's not the case of Russia.

A true carrier is needed to defend ships... whereever you send them. Having a few aircraft carrying ships to add aircraft numbers without the enormous cost of a 60K ton carrier makes a lot of sense. If it can be used for other roles as well when not needed as an aircraft carrier support vessel all the better.

Cruise missiles against moving posts or air defences are not good.

No they are not really, but most air defence infrastructure is fixed... big radar sites, major SAM bases, communications centres, major HQs, parliament buildings... Hit them first and the enemy will be degraded... take out their major Air bases and you can operate UAVs to do the looking for targets without the need for deep strike fighter bombers.

Against most countries or situations 12 Mig-29 are enough. France has a few Rafales in Africa and can control most countries out there...

12 MiGs wont control a whole country... even a third world one.

That means 3 CAP of four aircraft, so you can control one piece of air space 24/7 assuming no losses with three rotating teams of 4 aircraft.

In other words you can fly over the landing area and that is about it.

And if those 12 MiGs are operating from your Mistral class ship that means no helicopters... transport or support so those MiGs are flying combat air patrol and CAS missions...

UAV won't last more than 1 hours on a battlfield. They are defenceless and are good training targets for fighters.

That is the job of the fighters... dealing with enemy air power. In the mean time cruise missiles will be taking down major radar sites, major airfields, comms centres, HQs, etc etc and ports.

Again I wasn't thinking of turning a Mistral into a carrier but just giving some basic and cheap capabilities to lunch a few fighter which will help a lot. Helicopters are carried by other ships too. Even civilian ships can lunch them.

A Mistral sized ship is relatively small so you are either going to completely ruin it capacity as a landing ship by taking away armour and helos to fit fighter aircraft... making it useless for what it was supposed to do and a half assed attempt at a real carrier, or you leave the mistral type ship as it is and add another vessel of similar design that has all the armour and helos replaced with fixed wing aircraft to carry a decent force... together they would be useful...

Remember this is about a ship that doesn't just carry MiG-29s but can actually launch and recover them.

Russia wanted Mistral  and would be using them today if there wasn't sanctions.

But when I say Mistral I mean something of it class or little bit bigger. Not specially the Mistral class. I mean an amphibious ship.

They can carry " 16 NH90 or Tiger helicopters, four landing barges, up to 70 vehicles including 13 AMX Leclerc tanks, or a 40-strong Leclerc tank battalion,[3] and 450 soldiers"

A mig is similar in size to a NH90 helicopter. So you can have 10 helicopters and 6 Mig on it. The capacity for troop won't be changed as they are not in the same hangars. If you want to use it in the open sea for naval battle and NOT for a landing you can fit easily at least 12 Mig 29 or more if you built a bigger "Mistral" of let's say 230m, that's modularity.

12 MiGs wont control a whole country... even a third world one.

That means 3 CAP of four aircraft, so you can control one piece of air space 24/7 assuming no losses with three rotating teams of 4 aircraft.

In other words you can fly over the landing area and that is about it.

And if those 12 MiGs are operating from your Mistral class ship that means no helicopters... transport or support so those MiGs are flying combat air patrol and CAS missions...

That's what I said. They can't control a country, they can just be used in some situations like retaking an Island or attacking some strategical targets or helping a landing by attacking deeper. Even K won't be enough to control a country ... Even US needs more than 1 to control Afghanistan ...

British carriers allowed them to take an Island, they would never allow them to control Argentina if they wanted to.


I hope you understood me. I'm not saying it's a magical ships that will replace carriers. I'm just saying that big amphibious ships have the place needed to give them more capabilities by adding some fighters on it (not replacing all its helicopters but a mix of them) and giving a second role for high sea deployment against other navy by having it's small number of fighter patroling and giving them better visibility. Japan navy is planning to do this with it's F-35 BTW. Even fiting one Mig is giving it a enormous advantage over a navy that is not or can't employ its aviation during a battle far from homeland.

Imagine you confront 2 navies: 5 destroyers against 5 destroyers. They will be affected by radar range and missile range. Now you send your amphibious ships with 2 Mig-29 on it

>> It becames   5 destroyers + 2 Mig-29 radars (300km against destroyers) + a better picture of the battlefield + fast moving vectors armed with anti ship missiles which can be carried in big numbers on the amphibious ship and rearmed AGAINST 5 destroyers.

Even if you are facing a US carrier having 12 Mig-29 can be usefull to intercept attack by giving the position of the Harpoons to the ships and destroying some Hornets AND lunching surprise air attacks from long range.

If you don't have the money for a big modern carrier, a cheap basic ship lunching modern fighters is really enough.

Isos wrote:Russia wanted Mistral  and would be using them today if there wasn't sanctions.

But when I say Mistral I mean something of it class or little bit bigger. Not specially the Mistral class. I mean an amphibious ship.

They can carry " 16 NH90 or Tiger helicopters, four landing barges, up to 70 vehicles including 13 AMX Leclerc tanks, or a 40-strong Leclerc tank battalion,[3] and 450 soldiers"

A mig is similar in size to a NH90 helicopter. So you can have 10 helicopters and 6 Mig on it. The capacity for troop won't be changed as they are not in the same hangars. If you want to use it in the open sea for naval battle and NOT for a landing you can fit easily at least 12 Mig 29 or more if you built a bigger "Mistral" of let's say 230m, that's modularity.

12 MiGs wont control a whole country... even a third world one.

That means 3 CAP of four aircraft, so you can control one piece of air space 24/7 assuming no losses with three rotating teams of 4 aircraft.

In other words you can fly over the landing area and that is about it.

And if those 12 MiGs are operating from your Mistral class ship that means no helicopters... transport or support so those MiGs are flying combat air patrol and CAS missions...

That's what I said. They can't control a country, they can just be used in some situations like retaking an Island or attacking some strategical targets or helping a landing by attacking deeper. Even K won't be enough to control a country ... Even US needs more than 1 to control Afghanistan ...

British carriers allowed them to take an Island, they would never allow them to control Argentina if they wanted to.


I hope you understood me. I'm not saying it's a magical ships that will replace carriers. I'm just saying that big amphibious ships have the place needed to give them more capabilities by adding some fighters on it (not replacing all its helicopters but a mix of them) and giving a second role for high sea deployment against other navy by having it's small number of fighter patroling and giving them better visibility. Japan navy is planning to do this with it's F-35 BTW. Even fiting one Mig is giving it a enormous advantage over a navy that is not or can't employ its aviation during a battle far from homeland.

Imagine you confront 2 navies: 5 destroyers against 5 destroyers. They will be affected by radar range and missile range. Now you send your amphibious ships with 2 Mig-29 on it

>> It becames   5 destroyers + 2 Mig-29 radars (300km against destroyers) + a better picture of the battlefield + fast moving vectors armed with anti ship missiles which can be carried in big numbers on the amphibious ship and rearmed AGAINST 5 destroyers.

Even if you are facing a US carrier having 12 Mig-29 can be usefull to intercept attack by giving the position of the Harpoons to the ships and destroying some Hornets AND lunching surprise air attacks from long range.

If you don't have the money for a big modern carrier, a cheap basic ship lunching modern fighters is really enough.

It's cute you think 12 Migs will stand up to the Grouping of Aircraft on one of my countries carriers.....

Russia would be to be insane to challenge us in the open ocean.

Russia, unless we are talking about VTOL aircraft putting any aircraft on a ship like this, is stupid.

That also removes the Choppers which is the entire reason the ships are built.

Sorry your logic makes no sense here, these ships do not need fighters and that would be beyond counter-productive for them. End of the day what you think is a good idea is a silly idea.

WW2 escort carriers had on average 30 plus planes.

Pre WW2 Escort carriers were beyond useless in the war with their maybe eight planes at best.

Can you read correctly what I said before answering please.

Again, I said to add some fighters and not replace all the helicopters with fighters. Replace them only if you need fighters for a naval battle in open sea and if you are not planing to land troops. And I said they could help your fleet if you are facing a carrier in open sea, I never said you could win but protect your fleet so that Hornet job would be too dangerous and complicated and your fleet would have a better picture of the sky and they could act like another line of defence.


This is no more WW2 era. Most countries have less than 150 fighters. Argentina send just 2 Super Etandard and destroyed two British ships. Now you can lunch missiles out of the range of air defences. Maybe against a carrier it would be stupid to lunch two mig but against a strike group of 2-3 Japanese destroyers it would be usefull.

Your country use its carrier to attack poor countries without defences. It's doubtfull they try to engage a bigger competitor like Russia or china ...

Sorry your logic makes no sense here, these ships do not need fighters and that would be beyond counter-productive for them. End of the day what you think is a good idea is a silly idea.

It makes sense because British carrier during Falklands were more like big amphibious ships than true carrier. And they made a big difference.

six Migs....really that would a horrid idea.

I am sorry any third world rate nation can take down six fighters with ZERO hassle.

Modern day ships will out range the Migs, a half dozen migs would not be able to provide any kind of real cover. They would be slight annoyances at best.

Buddy...six goddam migs (which honestly is a moderate number going by your counts) would under no circumstances be able to provide Air cover against F-18's in the volume they would have to deal with.

Brits lost more ships in the War but okay?.

Close to their shores no? if we caught them in the open ocean those fleets would be destroyed, sorry my countries navy is number 1. We would take loss sure but we would sink MUCH more ships then we would lose.

Sorry, your idea is a poor one and only on the armchair does it make any kind of sense. If Russia thought this was a viable idea they would have done it. Please do not act like they have not considered it. The Juan Carlos was offered to the Russians along with the Mistral but the Ruskies denied it.

That alone tells me all I need to know.

Russia wanted Mistral and would be using them today if there wasn't sanctions.

True, but the Mistrals Russia was getting had Russian weapons systems that are better than the French alternatives.

The fact that they didn't totally modify them with UKSK launchers and Redut Poliment air defence systems suggests they were already balanced ships they didn't want to change too much.

Just slightly heavier armament, the ability to operate in ice, and a higher ceiling for the helo hangar for the Kamovs.

A mig is similar in size to a NH90 helicopter. So you can have 10 helicopters and 6 Mig on it. The capacity for troop won't be changed as they are not in the same hangars. If you want to use it in the open sea for naval battle and NOT for a landing you can fit easily at least 12 Mig 29 or more if you built a bigger "Mistral" of let's say 230m, that's modularity.

Of course... you can simply swap out a fighter for a helo... NOT. You need parts and support equipment, you need weapons and completely different landing and take off equipment...

It is not as simple as taking off a couple of Helos and putting on a few MiGs.

Even fiting one Mig is giving it a enormous advantage over a navy that is not or can't employ its aviation during a battle far from homeland.

I disagree, I think taking off helos to fit a couple of MiGs is stupid because when you take off helos you make it useless as a helicopter carrier and you can't add enough MiGs to be useful unless you remove all the landing forces and helos... which makes it a MiG carrier and not a helicopter landing ship.

If you don't have the money for a big modern carrier, a cheap basic ship lunching modern fighters is really enough.

If fighters were good at that then AWACS would not exist in land or sea based form.

I think you over estimate the value of a few MiGs.

It's cute you think 12 Migs will stand up to the Grouping of Aircraft on one of my countries carriers.....

They don't have to. They will just shoot down the Hornets that don't make land after the Onyx and Zircon sink your carriers.

Russia would be to be insane to challenge us in the open ocean.

And one side has to be rational... clearly not the US.

Russia, unless we are talking about VTOL aircraft putting any aircraft on a ship like this, is stupid.

VSTOL would be even dumber than MiGs... slower, shorter ranged, lower payload, much much more fragile... enormous heat signature that can be detected from almost any angle, high loss rate due to accidents and high operating costs.

Just to hover they need puffer jets in all "ends". ie nose, both wing tips and tail need puffer jet exhausts to blast out air to balance the aircraft in the hover... all IR sources and all vulnerable to battle damage.

Not to mention bloody expensive.

Can you read correctly what I said before answering please.

From the post this quote is taken from you seem to be suggesting taking fighters when no landing will take place... if that is what you are saying then you are pretty much saying that when not used as a helicopter landing craft carrying MiGs in numbers makes sense... which is what Papadragon and I were talking about... that makes sense to me... sometimes landing forces will be more useful and other times more fighter aircraft will be effective.

When MiGs... either the MiG-29 in the next five years or a light 5th gen stealth fighterbomber a decade from now will likely get a Zircon-M light hypersonic anti ship missile too... which will make any navy cringe... number one navy or not.

I understood your points Garry. In my opinion fighters give you an extraordinary bonus in terms of naval fight. They are fast, they can look for target at 300 km they can go 1000 km from the ship while a destroyer or cruiser is limited in speed and in detection range so it would cover max 400 km from where it is and this would be with lot of dead zones.

The idea of adding a fighter to a naval group is just the best you could do today. To put it on a helicopter carrier can be argued however. Now in my opinion something like a bigger Mistral with a modified structure to allow the use of fighters would allow you do use it as an amphibious ship and use it as a small carrier. Maybe there are some point that doesn't allow this I'm not an expert I'm just giving my opinion.

I agree that's not possible to put it on a normal heli carrier, you need to redesign it totaly. But if you do this you better go for a simple design so the cost will be low, that's the idea I defend.

I disagree, I think taking off helos to fit a couple of MiGs is stupid because when you take off helos you make it useless as a helicopter carrier and you can't add enough MiGs to be useful unless you remove all the landing forces and helos... which makes it a MiG carrier and not a helicopter landing ship.

That's exactly what I was thinking about. If you don't need as a landing ship remove all the landing equipement and put Migs and some kamov on it so you could have a small carrier. Mig are better than Ka-27 for naval warefare.

People here have a problem with carriers. They immediatly say it's should be a true carrier of 60k or 100kT to be usefull because it will face US carrier in open ocean. I totally disagree. Something smaller even not a true one can help you boost your forces. With the vertical take off F-35 many navy will use them on helicopter carrier.

From the post this quote is taken from you seem to be suggesting taking fighters when no landing will take place... if that is what you are saying then you are pretty much saying that when not used as a helicopter landing craft carrying MiGs in numbers makes sense... which is what Papadragon and I were talking about... that makes sense to me... sometimes landing forces will be more useful and other times more fighter aircraft will be effective.

When MiGs... either the MiG-29 in the next five years or a light 5th gen stealth fighterbomber a decade from now will likely get a Zircon-M light hypersonic anti ship missile too... which will make any navy cringe... number one navy or not.

He turned my quotes into " a small helicopter carrier with mig will destroy US navy". I never said that.

That's exactly what I meant.

For lunching cruise missiles you need position. USSR put much more money on plateform for detecting carriers than for destroying them. Sattelites are not enough and you don't know all the capabilites of "space warefare" of US or Ru navies. Mig with its speed can search for targets and escape Super Hornet while even a douzen of Helicopter would be detected easily by AWACS and destroyed. A 5 genration Mig would probably have the capability to destroy AWACS because of longer range missiles and better stealth.

Your opinion is balanced but at the end you think like me that it is a good idea (from what I understood). Maybe you prefere the idea of using it just with helo for a landing and just with Mig for a naval battle.

Don't forget the price and the number of crew members. It would be 500-600 million $ and the crew would be like 400. For a true carrier it's more like 3 billion $ and 1000 crews. You can easily build 2 or 3 for each fleet. Or 1 and 1 carrier for each one.

The idea of adding a fighter to a naval group is just the best you could do today. To put it on a helicopter carrier can be argued however.

On this first part, we agree.

I however think having a bigger ship in the 60K ton range like the Kuznetsov makes more sense in terms of bang for your buck.

Without catapults a small vessel even slightly bigger than a Mistral is just too small.

A bigger, nuclear powered ship that has a landing ship design where you could put armour and helos and troops on board as a landing ship or you could take all that off and replace it with light fighter aircraft that are not VSTOL aircraft, would be a useful way to get light fighters with a fleet. As a way of making more numbers I support this plan but think a proper 60K ton aircraft carrier should still be present... ie not replacing carriers... adding aircraft to the fleet as cheaply as possible, when needed and when not needed given another role/task.

People here have a problem with carriers. They immediatly say it's should be a true carrier of 60k or 100kT to be usefull because it will face US carrier in open ocean. I totally disagree. Something smaller even not a true one can help you boost your forces.

Many think to be a carrier it needs to be what the US uses or it is second best.

Russia does not need a super carrier... it just needs air support/defence for its ships. It will continue to use supersonic and soon hypersonic missiles to defeat enemy ships/carriers.

In the same way as on land the Russian Army uses Tochka and Iskander against enemy hard targets, yet still operates under the umbrella of the Russian AF. It does not defer all targets to the AF, it will engage them itself.

Mig with its speed can search for targets and escape Super Hornet while even a douzen of Helicopter would be detected easily by AWACS and destroyed. A 5 genration Mig would probably have the capability to destroy AWACS because of longer range missiles and better stealth.

Even a MiG-29K could carry an R-37M (export code RVV-BD) with a 300km flight range and ability to destroy targets just like AWACS aircraft from land and sea based models... without AWACS most fleets lose a lot of their capability immediately.

Maybe you prefere the idea of using it just with helo for a landing and just with Mig for a naval battle.

Yes.

I mean situations can escalate rapidly so most of the time if there is a planned landing (you don't just decide to land or not without a LOT of preparation... unless you want to lose a lot of your force) a landing vessel or two will be there and a carrier to support operations will be there too but having one or two other vessels similar to the landing vessels adding another 20 or 30 MiGs would make a lot of sense against some opponents. Sometimes you don't know who the west will suddenly decide to support so having more aircraft in the air makes your forces safer and more capable.

You can easily build 2 or 3 for each fleet. Or 1 and 1 carrier for each one.

Personally I would want about four proper carriers in the 60-80K ton weight range with 6-8 landing ships that can convert to carriers... that is 2-4 landing craft and 4 support carriers carrying extra aircraft.

Two full carriers for each of the Northern Fleet and the Pacific Fleet, and one to two landing craft for each fleet and two light support carriers... the advantage is that most of the time those two light support carriers can perform other roles including troop transport, hospital ship for PR visits to poor countries offering medial aide, and also very useful for famine relief/disaster relief ops.

Then you will need to discuss again the price and the ability of Russians to build true carrier and we will have the same discussion as we can found in every thread of this part of the forum. Not my intension.

My idea as you understood is to add the speed of fighter in small numbers to power-up your forces for a very small price and for somme situtation, clearly not WW3. At the end true carrier is of course better than a small ship lunching a few fighters maybe 4 time every day.

I think we can end this duscussion.

GarryB wrote:

.....................

I gotta say Garry you definitely seem exceptionally critical of VTOL aircraft and they do have dodgy track record but these are not 70s. Technology moved on.


Fact is that Russia is building these helicopter​ carriers and they will be in production and use. That is their primary purpose.

Now, to theorize, we know that UAE have ordered new light 5th gen fighter jet. If it ends up having standard configuration then there will be no effect on this topic.

However if UAE ended up being less than frugal and decided to go for VTOL config then it will mean that Russia will have both:

- 5th gen fighter jet with VTOL option, development of which has been already paid for in full by foreign customer

and

- flat top vessel already long in production capable of carrying those VTOL aircraft

If that happens then not combining those two would be extremely wasteful. They will not be able to fight WW2 style naval battles of course (and they won't have to because we live in the age of missiles) but they will be more than useful as fleet support and as tools for expeditionary operations.

And those two roles are pretty much only reason Russia has for acquiring aircraft carriers.

Skyjump is more efficient the VTOL.

Actually the skyjump IS a VTOL.


If anyone start to thinking about it then the VTOL means a lot of equipment on the aircraft that used only for brief period of time, and afterwards it is just weight.

With VTOL you don't need airfield anymore. You can operate them anywhere and lunch them from basicly anywhere. It's worth considering this option even for air force. With the introduction of hypersonic and very low observable cruise missiles, airfield are more and more in danger. I know there is little to no chance they go for VTOL but who knows.

Isos wrote:With VTOL you don't need airfield anymore. You can operate them anywhere and lunch them from basicly anywhere. It's worth considering this option even for air force. With the introduction of hypersonic and very low observable cruise missiles, airfield are more and more in danger. I know there is little to no chance they go for VTOL but who knows.

They did trials in the 50s with ZELL aircraft.
Fit an aircraft onto a truck,and launch it from anywhere.

Impractical and expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-length_launch

Singular_Transform wrote:

Isos wrote:With VTOL you don't need airfield anymore. You can operate them anywhere and lunch them from basicly anywhere. It's worth considering this option even for air force. With the introduction of hypersonic and very low observable cruise missiles, airfield are more and more in danger. I know there is little to no chance they go for VTOL but who knows.

They did trials in the 50s with ZELL aircraft.
Fit an aircraft onto a truck,and launch it from anywhere.

Impractical and expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-length_launch

That's not rocket assisted take off, not VTOL like F-35 or Yak 141

I gotta say Garry you definitely seem exceptionally critical of VTOL aircraft and they do have dodgy track record but these are not 70s. Technology moved on.

VTOL didn't improve a lot. For F-35 US bought legally Yak-141 plans and technical data so it's still 70's 80's technology. Russian stop research since then. There isn't successor to Harrier.

Isos wrote:

Singular_Transform wrote:

Isos wrote:With VTOL you don't need airfield anymore. You can operate them anywhere and lunch them from basicly anywhere. It's worth considering this option even for air force. With the introduction of hypersonic and very low observable cruise missiles, airfield are more and more in danger. I know there is little to no chance they go for VTOL but who knows.

They did trials in the 50s with ZELL aircraft.
Fit an aircraft onto a truck,and launch it from anywhere.

Impractical and expensive.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zero-length_launch

That's not rocket assisted take off, not VTOL like F-35 or Yak 141

I gotta say Garry you definitely seem exceptionally critical of VTOL aircraft and they do have dodgy track record but these are not 70s. Technology moved on.

VTOL didn't improve a lot. For F-35 US bought legally Yak-141 plans and technical data so it's still 70's 80's technology. Russian stop research since then. There isn't successor to Harrier.

Rocket assisted vertical take off, with zero runway.
And yes, that is not landing.