The Kirov class ship is a far greater threat than the carrier is. I'd wager it's S300 class SAM systems have greater range than the SU33s, maybe even the new Mig29ks do, in terms of point defense missions for the aircraft. Even if they don't, it's probably close. Striking power wise, the Kirov class ship has more offensive firepower than I think every aircraft on that carrier would have since even the Mig29ks are limited in terms of payload due to the nature of the non catobar ski jump deal. Anyhow, if I was the blue team commander/SSN captain fighting that fleet, the Peter the not so Great Kirov battlecruiser would be my priority target, then the Kuznetsov.
It is kinda neat to see a Russia fleet at sea in force like the good old cold war days. Looks like a couple Udaloys are along as escort as well. At least the paint job is nice on the Kirov ship, ahah. I wonder how much longer it can sail before having a major mechanical casualty, it's really a tradition for that ship to have a major issue and need to be towed to port. I guess that's why Russia wants that Syrian port to stay in existence for them so badly, so they can tow that POS carrier there if need be while operating in the Med. Long, long way home to Severomorsk or Ployarny by comparison. Speaking of tug boats, the tug with the Russian fleet has its beacon on, so you can track the entire fleet on those sea going ATC like sights like flightradar but for ships. Hah, GG Russia on the intelligence coup there.
I do agree that the Mig29k is a pretty advanced gen 4/+ fighter, especially by Russian/Chinese standards. They really, really rushed to get the ones on board ready for this deployment. The SU33s are still a beautiful looking aircraft, it's hard not to like it just based on the great lines and huge size. Those Sukoi 27 class fighters are very, very large, and are really the first Russian/Soviet fighters not made for PVO that have/had decent range, at least when land based, heh. Pretty incredible how the Su35 moves around the sky with all that size and weight, seeing that little pilot in the little cockpit with that huge airframe attached to him/it is a sight to see in real life (Abby international air show back in the 90s).
Regarding refueling, I've posted often before regarding this achilles heel of the USN - having little tanker support other than relying on the USAF land based - which sort of negates the advantages of having a CVN force in the first place, relying on land based stuff - or buddy SuperHornet tankers, which strip the squadrons of planes that should be strikers/air defense instead of hauling fuel. It's a major item on the USN's radar, they have tossed around making the new UCAV a tanker (not sure about having a pilotless tanker, no matter how good it works..), or, the idea I like, building a dedicated tanker aircraft and basing them on the ships. They have room, the current CVNs have air wings that always are far under the max what the carrier can haul, so why not a small detachment of 4 or 6 tankers, sort of the size of the AWACS detachments. I've seen stuff about turning the V22 into a tanker, and the tanker variant of that would be OK for the Marines and their F35B, barely, but the SuperHornets slowest controlable/stable speed for refueling is near the max that the V22 tanker idea could fly, so I still think a dedicated twin jet or fast turbo prop tanker bird would be the way to go. The Superhornet has pretty poor range compared to the past attack aircraft the USN had (A6, F14 even), and the legacy Hornet is far, far worse. Need range, and since the USN is stuck with the SH, and not getting the F14 back, and the new F35C is no long range bird either...tankers are a must IMO, as relying on land based tankers, especially far out in the Pacific, South China sea, etc, will be a poor idea.
Even the old S3 Viking had a proposed tanker variant that would have held 6x what a single SuperHornet could using 3 of the largest drop tanks they carried, so I think building a dedicated tanker, even that size, but hopefully larger than the S3 should be able to carry 15k+ gallons of fuel for offloading to strikers and fighters. Even the new E2D Hawkeye AWACS has refueling capability, so having a tanker to help keep these very advanced now and extremely important aircraft airborne and on station longer, is a critical issue IMO.
