Originally posted by Gunslinger
but how can ANY modern day A/C hope to take off from a short sloped deck carrier and have the Fuel/Ord. to compete with land based fighters. Yes they would be a threat even if they carry ONE missle a piece.
Think about it. They can't carry much fuel cause they need the weight for Ord. They can't stay up too long (fuel) unless they have tanker support (with out a cat. tanker support from a carrier is probably impossible) They burn alot of their fuel on take off using Full AB.
This just doesnt seem to feasable. Maybe it's not meant to stand off against a US carrier.
I'm pretty sure that the fully loaded weight of an Su-33 is about the same, maybe a little more than the E/F Hornets. I don't know a damn thing about the physics of getting that bird into the air, but whether they use VooDoo or Magic, or luck, the Russians were getting them up.
I don't know what plans they would have for tanking, I would guess they would have to rely on Su-33s with buddy stores, though I don't know if such a mod exists. The more glaring problem is the lack of dedicated AWAC planes. The Russians were working on a variant of the AN-72 that was pretty cool, but they gave up on it. Instead they have to rely on Choppers. Of course if it is operating in the most likely Geographic locations (Taiwan and say, the Spratlys) they will still be within range of land based support from long range Aircraft like the Tu-95s they are supposed to be looking at.
-Sik