Large strike aircraft for future carriers.

Would it be possible to navallise the TU-22M3 and build a carrier capable of deploying it.

Or perhaps creating a VTOL equivalent to the TU-22M3 that could be operated from a carrier, not ideal but possibly worthwhile if the former option proves too impractical.


Carriers would need to be able to operate AWACS aircraft so medium bombers should be possible.

The-thing-next-door wrote:Would it be possible to navallise the TU-22M3 and build a carrier capable of deploying it.

Or perhaps creating a VTOL equivalent to the TU-22M3 that could be operated from a carrier, not ideal but possibly worthwhile if the former option proves too impractical.


Carriers would need to be able to operate AWACS aircraft so medium bombers should be possible.

Could it be done? sure that would mean making the deck absurdly long to the point the entire ship would be worthless.

a carrier like that would make 100k ton carriers like small, why the hell would anyone want to build such a horrible thing.

I don't imagine a VTOL TU-22 would work well if at all, would be far to heavy.

Would it be possible to navallise the TU-22M3 and build a carrier capable of deploying it.

The Tu-22M3 is navalised, but no... a carrier big enough to safely launch and recover could not be built without essentially building an entire island...

The F-111 was originally going to be carrier based but it was just too heavy too, and the Tu-22M3 is effectively four times bigger...

Or perhaps creating a VTOL equivalent to the TU-22M3 that could be operated from a carrier, not ideal but possibly worthwhile if the former option proves too impractical.

Can I ask why you would want a carrier based Tu-22M3?

If you want to strike targets around the world ship based cruise missiles is much simpler and cheaper... navies don't really need strike aircraft as much as they need fighter cover and radar warning. They have their own ground based IADS with surface and near surface mounted radar and SAMs and guns all working together to coordinate the defence of a group of ships, but air based radar can see directly further and down to sea level including behind any small islands and things in the region. It also means that any contacts can be rapidly approached and identified during peace time and war time meaning the guy in charge can make better decisions... 50 unidentified targets approaching from one direction at subsonic speed at 5m altitude is most likely an attack... send out a group of fighters to investigate... once identified as a threat and hostile they can start shooting down those targets from close range using cheap relatively simple AAMs... and they can also track the surviving missiles as they continue to approach the ships who can use target information from the group of aircraft following the missiles to engage the remaining incoming missiles... if necessary further fighters can be launched suitable armed with the appropriate air to air missiles to engage the remaining incoming missiles... anything left over can be engaged with relatively cheap short to medium range missiles... heavy expensive longer ranged missiles can be conserved for targets that require that range or warhead size.

There was a plan for a supersonic Backfire sized amphibious bomber at one point, but I believe they thought it would just cost too much...

Carriers would need to be able to operate AWACS aircraft so medium bombers should be possible.

Not really... there is quite a difference between a naval AWACS and a Backfire type bomber.

In fact a Yak-44 was supposed to have a max takeoff weight of about 40 tons... the Max takeoff weight of the Backfire is about 126 tons....

The-thing-next-door wrote:Would it be possible to navallise the TU-22M3 and build a carrier capable of deploying it.

Or perhaps creating a VTOL equivalent to the TU-22M3 that could be operated from a carrier, not ideal but possibly worthwhile if the former option proves too impractical.


Carriers would need to be able to operate AWACS aircraft so medium bombers should be possible.

It is out of the question.

Other aspects include volume... with a ship based reserve of thousands of tons of avgas... does not spread very far when each aircraft carries 80 tons of fuel with it.

Also space... how big are the lifts going to be to take a Backfire down into a hangar?

How many aircraft are you going to get into your hangar... and lets be clear you will need a lot of fighters to protect such a large vessel.

Very simply put... in less than 5 years time they will have land attack missiles with a range of perhaps 10,000km simply using existing subsonic cruise missile technology that fills out the 10m deep 750mm wide UKSK launch tubes (existing 3,000km range missiles are 533mm calibre and 6m long to fit in standard torpedo tubes... the Kh-555 is a similar size and similar range air launched weapon that was replaced by the 750mm wide 7.4m long Kh-101 which has a flight range of 5,000km... so extending its body length by a further 2.6 metres with internal fuel and perhaps extra warheads it should be fairly straight forward to significantly increase its range.)

More importantly with new scramjet propulsion a 3,000km range missile that operates at 50km altitude at mach 10-12 is not that far off and any ship launched Tu-22M3 will not have a flight radius of more than 2,000km at supersonic speeds.

Russia does not need a carrier based strike aircraft, what it needs is ship based fighter aircraft and AWACS that can move around with their naval forces and offer air cover and protection from enemy influence... even if the fighters just provide information on enemy force size and structure that is useful enough to allow them to make good decisions and choices...