China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

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Austin
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Austin »

China can not provide long-distance patrols SSBN
June 4 Singaporean newspaper The Straits Times published an article where a given question - can the Chinese SSBNs to make long-distance patrols in the ocean.

In 1980, China built the first nuclear submarine with ballistic missiles. But the speed of the submarine was too small, the noise turned out to be prohibitive. To solve this problem, China has begun construction of a new generation of SSBN class "Jin" ballistic missile JL-2. It is believed that at least two boats have already been built for the PLA Navy. Nevertheless, with these subs Beijing faces serious difficulties. China can not organize a long-distance patrols and SSBN crews train away from their shores.

Two years ago the Pentagon released a report which said that the Chinese SSBNs have hidden communication system with shore-based command center, in connection with which the PLA can not print on a long patrol boats. To get in touch with the command post, the Chinese SSBN is expected to reach the ocean surface or raise a special buoy. Such tactics can lead to rapid detection of submarines and lead to the destruction of enemy ASW forces.

There is another problem - the political one. China's emphasis on the development of land of strategic forces. Head of Department for Nuclear Research, Federation of American Scientists, Hans Kristensen says: "If China wants to create a truly effective system of strategic submarine, he must make major adjustments in the nuclear policy and practice."

In addition, the new Chinese SSBN class "Jin" are equipped with JL-2 missiles, which have a range of 7400 km. If you use these missiles to the relatively sheltered coastal areas of China can not defeat the purposes of which are deep in the continental United States. To hit the target, SSBNs have to go out into the Pacific Ocean, which is not easy in view of poor communication and a high degree of vulnerability to enemy ASW.

Given the above considerations, sources say that China is far from a truly effective strategic submarine system. Christensen believes that the Chinese SSBN is more "vanity project". China may get a retaliatory nuclear strike by increasing the number of mobile land-based strategic missiles that can "hide in the vast territory of the country."
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

indeed - they must be pouring money into the DF-41 project, while building up DF-31 and using the Jin's as a sock puppet to keep the west pacific entertained and developing key techs for the future.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by DavidD »

There isn't much point in being able to hit central U.S. targets if China doesn't even have enough missiles to cover the west coast. They have maybe, what, a max of 50 missiles that can strike the U.S.? Is the deterrence really substantially higher if you can strike the eastern U.S. coast rather than just the west coast?
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by nits »

DavidD wrote:Nice pic of the Varyag, can't believe that old hunk of metal has transformed into something like this:

http://img444.imageshack.us/img444/2796 ... rt7cru.jpg

As for the engines, China won't truly catch up any time soon. Engine-making represents the very top cutting edge technology in manufacturing, and technology-wise, China isn't close to the top in any major field really. Maybe 10 years from now they'll have something resembling parity, but I don't expect true parity until perhaps decades from now. The WS-10 is a good start, but it's still struggling to compare with 30-40 year old designs.
How different it is from our Vik in terms of length; aircraft capacity other known technical capacity etc
Last edited by nits on 09 Jun 2012 20:48, edited 1 time in total.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

varyag would be around 10,000t heavier, 20m longer and around 15m wider at her widest point which is the island & waist deck region.
varyag airwing is likely to be around 10 fighters/helis more esp now that Granit silos are not doubt removed...varyag had a more carrier role built in from day1 unlike the kiev class whose hull is really too narrow for a proper carrier.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by wong »

DavidD wrote:There isn't much point in being able to hit central U.S. targets if China doesn't even have enough missiles to cover the west coast. They have maybe, what, a max of 50 missiles that can strike the U.S.? Is the deterrence really substantially higher if you can strike the eastern U.S. coast rather than just the west coast?
China could hit the US east coast for at least the last 30 years.

Image
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Cain Marko »

Singha wrote:varyag would be around 10,000t heavier, 20m longer and around 15m wider at her widest point which is the island & waist deck region.
varyag airwing is likely to be around 10 fighters/helis more esp now that Granit silos are not doubt removed...varyag had a more carrier role built in from day1 unlike the kiev class whose hull is really too narrow for a proper carrier.
Yes, while Varyag is no doubt bigger what about the SU-33, which is it's primary fighter, doesn't it have a bigger footprint than the MiG-29K on the Vikad? My guess is that the airwing won't be all that different from the Vik, but I am just guesstimating here.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by nits »

Singha wrote:varyag would be around 10,000t heavier, 20m longer and around 15m wider at her widest point which is the island & waist deck region.
varyag airwing is likely to be around 10 fighters/helis more esp now that Granit silos are not doubt removed...varyag had a more carrier role built in from day1 unlike the kiev class whose hull is really too narrow for a proper carrier.
Curious to know Sir - the new carriers which india is building; is that bigger then varyag; how does it fare in compariosn to varyag... :twisted:
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Austin »

wong wrote:China could hit the US east coast for at least the last 30 years.
That is one of the reason i remember during Clinton Era , China and US signed a treaty of not pre-targeting their Strategic Missile at each other as confidence building measure.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

ADS1 is similar sized to Gorshkov in tonnage or slightly smaller. but being a purpose built design upscaled from cavour, it will generally be more efficient about things. wiki comparison says 20m shorter, but critically 10m broader deck.

ADS1 shape, size, tonnage is very similar to the charles de gaulle.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by asprinzl »

Oh lordy.........the Varyag picture is major photoshop. See the twin pole like thingies on the front? One of them has shadow while the other doesn't. Someone forgot to add shadow to it. :rotfl:
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Indranil »

That dark patch is not a shadow ... The picture is certainly enhanced for creating awe ... but credit must be given to the Chinese for resurrecting what looks like a very good carrier.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

kuznetsov class probably suffers from the same russian inexperience in prolonged deep ocean carrier ops. they had no exp in that prior to the moskva helicopter carriers and later the kiev class. Kuz class was supposed to be their first 'proper' carrier but again they just could not let their missile fetish go and packed the foredeck with granit missile silos. why in gods name could they not leave it to the oscars and akulas of the world? the chinese have likely removed these and the obese armament of SAMs and kashtans lining the verandahs like a japanese robotech movie. still we never know how good the internal hanger and systems are vs what we expect from a khan cvn. the su33 is also unproven as a naval fighter - sure it can takeoff and land but good it really is in sustained ops over the sea. payload penalty in fuel is surely there.

I would say its a better carrier design than Vik for sure being more of proper carrier, but a 'proper' 65000t carrier of the CVF type with steam cats , hornets/JSF and E2D still trounces it.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by zlin »

same scale
Image
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by siddharth »

It appears that they have shifted the entire island to the starboard side and added two lifts on either sides of the island.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

top pic is of AG not Kuznetsov.

Varyag I dont see any basic change. see this - overall deck has remained unchanged and the lifts were always there.
http://www.bharat-rakshak.com/NAVY/Gall ... ant-04.jpg
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by negi »

Whatever little size advantage Varyag has over Vik is offset by the fact that former will operate a much larger Su-33 or it's clone J-15.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by siddharth »

[quote="Singha"]top pic is of AG not Kuznetsov.

My bad :oops:
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

it would be most interesting to know if the Su33 can takeoff with its full 8-9t internal fuel and what kind of realistic payload.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Austin »

negi wrote:Whatever little size advantage Varyag has over Vik is offset by the fact that former will operate a much larger Su-33 or it's clone J-15.
A folded Su-33 inside a hanger occupies smaller foot print compared to folded Mig-29K according to Yefim Gordon in his book Su-27 Flanker.

But he was comparing the older Soviet Mig-29K with Su-33 not sure if its valid for newer IN model.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

on the kuznetsov, the su33s deployed were it seems only equipped and tasked for air defence, not strike duties. they did not carry any PGM, iron bombs or ASM. these are no doubt heavier than AAMs. plus strike sorties will need to cart a couple AAM for self defence.

youtube videos of Kuz air ops show clean wings, not even dummy AAMs on the su33 ... the ship looks kind of deserted and forlorn in contrast the buzz of activity on a CVN. no evidence of Su33 taking off 'loaded for bear'. the Kuz has never done a 7-9 month intensive deployment cycle the khan carriers do.

the real proof will be if PLANAF can up the tempo and operate Su33 at high tempo and fully armed from varyag on a longish mission like say to eastern indonesia and fiji....they could exercise with other nations and practice strike missions as well.

we shall see.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by keshavchandra »

In South China Sea, a surprise Chinese escort for Indian ships


“Welcome to the South China Sea, Foxtrot-47,” buzzed a People's Liberation Army Navy (PLAN) frigate to the INS Shivalik (F47). :)
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Khalsa »

Singha wrote:on the kuznetsov, the su33s deployed were it seems only equipped and tasked for air defence, not strike duties. they did not carry any PGM, iron bombs or ASM. these are no doubt heavier than AAMs. plus strike sorties will need to cart a couple AAM for self defence.

youtube videos of Kuz air ops show clean wings, not even dummy AAMs on the su33 ... the ship looks kind of deserted and forlorn in contrast the buzz of activity on a CVN. no evidence of Su33 taking off 'loaded for bear'. the Kuz has never done a 7-9 month intensive deployment cycle the khan carriers do.

the real proof will be if PLANAF can up the tempo and operate Su33 at high tempo and fully armed from varyag on a longish mission like say to eastern indonesia and fiji....they could exercise with other nations and practice strike missions as well.

we shall see.
Not without Catapults .... hell no. You are gonna struggle to launch a Su-33 loaded for bear.
The only way around is to launch half the aircraft with fuel and the rest with weapons and then do buddy refueling on the way.
Refuellers return and the strike packages continues. Either way... expensive use of Su-33 as mini tankers, even those Su-33 will not be topped up. An aircraft bigger than an F-15 needs a Catapult to be launched from a soccer field.

Initially I put down my cup of tea and went what the hell when we decided on Mig-29 for the Navy but once I did the maths and read about aircraft recovery it became crashingly clear that if you are going for Ski Jumps, you got to halve your loads.

Some Comparasion pics coming up.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

given their limitations, I would imagine both VK/Varyag are more useful to fleet air defence for a formation thats out of range of land based fighters, than a 1-800 A2G strike force of the kind the khan airwings have evolved into (for lack of credible air threats, while still retaining the apg79+aim9x+amraam on the side - keeping powder dry).
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by SaiK »

10k miles away, re-fuelers for su33 does not look operationally sound.

nuke powered A/C with on board capabilities to refuel is the way to go. yeah, those EMF catapults are required.

OTOH, if sea harriers ++ can be thought off, then there is something sweet. I would think a VTOL operational, would cause any force to shiver in their pants.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

the vStoL JSF is not causing anyone to lose sleep - yet.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by hnair »

cats for the next carrier :((
I think we should still look at innovative ways to fling a craft, particularly for non-nuke carriers with not so abundant steam supply. Like hypergolic liquid bi-propellants (or slow burning modular ones of the solid kind for ease of storage and resupply) expanding inside cylinders to push pistons etc. Maybe EMALS running off some turbofan powered APU generators etc.

nuke power is for 180-day deployment across oceans and the situation is middle of WWIII. It does not make sense for India right now.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by shiv »

negi wrote:Whatever little size advantage Varyag has over Vik is offset by the fact that former will operate a much larger Su-33 or it's clone J-15.
Also means more fuel per sortie. With 90% of all sorties being peacetime missions more fuel is burned up and a bigger logistics hurdle.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Surya »

A folded Su-33 inside a hanger occupies smaller foot print compared to folded Mig-29K according to Yefim Gordon in his book Su-27 Flanker.

I find that a bit hard to believe

even without the wings the rest the flanker is a beast compared to the 29.

only a side by aside and top views can show whether thats true
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

the length of the flanker is certainly more than Mig29K .... this impacts the turning radius on deck, the parking areas and the efficiency of hanger space. the lifts might also need to be a certain minimum size.

wiki lists the flanker as 4m longer and 4m wider without folding wings ofcourse.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Austin »

Well the Su-27 Flanker by Yefim Gordon mentions the details but i found a link on that and its written by Ken

link

Check the above link but synopsis pasted below
With its folding wings and tailplanes, plus the folding tailcone and nose pitot, the 'footprint' of the Su-33 on Kuznetsov's deck and hangars is actually LESS than the MiG-29K.

During the trials against the MiG-29K, Sukhoi proved to the Soviet MAP that, thanks to the Su-33's more capable WCS, bigger weapons load and longer range, a carrier wing composed of Su-33's would be more effective than a 50% greater number of MiG-29K's.

In other words, you would need 30 MiG-29K's to do the same job as 20 Su-33's - and they would take up a proportionately greater deck and hangar space.

Su-33

Wing Span = 14.7m (48 ft 2 in)
Folded Span = 7.4m (24 ft 3 in)

MiG-29K

Wing Span = 11.4 m (37 ft 3 in)
Folded Span = 7.8m (25 ft 7 in)

Even with a folding tailcone and nose pitot, the Su-33 is slightly longer than a MiG-29K, but the critical deck-space dimension is the folded span.

This all refers to the original MiG-29K (9.31), not the 'new' MiG-29K/KUB.
The flanker in most DACT conducted beats the Mig-29 most of the occasion in BFM and in WVR combat it already has a advantage of huge radar , weapons payload and range.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Khalsa »

Thats my point shiv, you can either launch weapons or you can launch fuel --> if you are launching the Su-33 from KuZ.

Which means if you launched the a/c with weapons are defensive only unless you are topped by buddy.
Else you launched the a/c with little weapons and lots of fuel.

The Chinese military transformation of their military smells of their ego, one that is driven to acquire a stick of the same size and color as the bully. However in this case they got the bigger carrier and the bigger aircraft however it doesn't have the oomph. CATS !!

by the way the angle of launch on Kuz is 12 and VikAdit is 14.5
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

yeah..before CATS everything is maya. I am sure they are trying to work on cats using a mix of local and stolen tech from massa. unfortunately rus/ukr cannot help them on this.
it will need a mighty 'khan' cat to hurl a 30t flanker into the air for sure.

we have operated steam cats off the old vikrant for alize and sea hawk.

unfortunately the french are happy to import this low volume item rather than develop alternatives coz there is no world market for it.

I guess its time to test our 'friendship' with the khan and see if their establishment will release it and in parallel start a plan-B of working with Russia to develop cats either steam or EM both for us and for their future carrier plans. who would have thought that a technology that dates to 150 years ago would become so strategic in this day? :mrgreen: Rus has good strength in EM stuff and perhaps japan might also be willing to extend some aid to their starving new biraders.

we will either have to run a steam plant perhaps using furnace oil to generate steam, or else EM sounds more efficient because energy can be stored rather than always needing to be generated...perhaps a diesel-electric generator can provide the current and stored in submarine style banks of batteries or something
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by pragnya »

Austin wrote:Well the Su-27 Flanker by Yefim Gordon mentions the details but i found a link on that and its written by Ken

link

Check the above link but synopsis pasted below
With its folding wings and tailplanes, plus the folding tailcone and nose pitot, the 'footprint' of the Su-33 on Kuznetsov's deck and hangars is actually LESS than the MiG-29K.

During the trials against the MiG-29K, Sukhoi proved to the Soviet MAP that, thanks to the Su-33's more capable WCS, bigger weapons load and longer range, a carrier wing composed of Su-33's would be more effective than a 50% greater number of MiG-29K's.

In other words, you would need 30 MiG-29K's to do the same job as 20 Su-33's - and they would take up a proportionately greater deck and hangar space.

Su-33

Wing Span = 14.7m (48 ft 2 in)
Folded Span = 7.4m (24 ft 3 in)

MiG-29K

Wing Span = 11.4 m (37 ft 3 in)
Folded Span = 7.8m (25 ft 7 in)


Even with a folding tailcone and nose pitot, the Su-33 is slightly longer than a MiG-29K, but the critical deck-space dimension is the folded span.

This all refers to the original MiG-29K (9.31), not the 'new' MiG-29K/KUB.
austn,

i doubt the wing span spec wrt Mig 29K as mentioned by 'Ken' in the link provided by you. ofc he refers to the older version of Mig 29k but the fact is - the wing span which was 'improved' (by folded radome option) in the newer Mig 29K - still brings it to 14.13 meters. folded span has been improved too by shifting the fold line closer to the wing root. so MIG 29K -

wing span - 14.13 metres.

folded span - 5.80 meters.

refer MiG-29K-2002 in this link

still substancially less than SU 33.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by member_20296 »

Singha ji

IMHO EM CAT will be better in future, not only it will launch ACs it can launch future missiles, shells etc... we must build nuclear powered Aircraft Carriers so we will have no shortage of electric power.

We can enable such boats with energy hungry ray weapons to incinerate incoming missiles like DF-21s, Babars & Chino/Pako SATs as well.

IMHO this is the time when Bharat has to come out of shadow of a follower and try these new techs to show world what it has never seen or imagined. This is what creates respects globally (not any amount of charity)
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Surya »

thanks Austin

but I stil find it hard to believe

kind of like the Us MICs is next gen product will do longer range, more payload, more sensors, easy to maintain, etc etc all on the lowest bid :)

we know how they all turn out :)

what about the logistic foot print of fuel etc ???
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Singha »

the issue is moot anyway. Su33 is retired and Rus is buying a fresh set of Mig29K to keep Kuznetsov operational.

its an issue only for the chinese now, who will have to make a meal of whatever they have. Rus would willing to export Mig29K to them also if desired.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by Austin »

Surya , Logistically speaking there is no doubt that operating cost per hour for the flanker would be higher ...but that is more than offset with far better capabilities.

After all if you have one carrier or two and then you want to defend the entire CBG which might be 30-50 odd ship you would want your best aircraft up in air .... stuff like reach , persistence and payload would matter.

Flanker specially the more modern one can stand up to any thing out there because of these qualities , you cant say that for Mig-29K , it can defend itself but would have a hard time dominating against the likes of Flanker or Rafale out there.

The advantage Mig-29K offers is its small size affords more number and considering you can theoretically put many aircraft in air and can vector it in many directions , you still end up with more numbers of aircraft in air and quantity has it own quality for similar displacement aircraft carrier. ( you take into consideration things like maintenance you would have less number of flanker operationally available )

Singha , the key reason why Russia is option for Mig-29K its the best available to them but because they want to keep Mig in business and do not want to make Sukhoi too strong(under UAC) for its own good which it already is , its a way of balancing between the two where ever possible ....not to mention the Indian order has given a production line where it can build more and cost less , There are other reasons like keeping the factory production line open and not keeping the skills ideal. In socialism the Russian MOD are no different than Indian counterpart .

The best option for IN is to move toward Rafale or JSF by end of this decade which ever is available and we get it with no strings attached ....Rafale looks more attractive atm considering its logistics advantage with IAF fleet.
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Re: China Military Watch - Jan 11, 2011

Post by shiv »

Austin wrote:Surya , Logistically speaking there is no doubt that operating cost per hour for the flanker would be higher ...but that is more than offset with far better capabilities.
Austin - this is highly debatable for the simple reason that a carrier battle group is a complex animal of which the model of fighter on the ship is only one component. It is erroneous to judge to capability of the entire group of ships at sea simply by comparing the aircraft on board. A lot depends on the defences of the fleet from hostile ships, submarines, aircraft, where it is deployed, how far from home the fleet might be and how long the fleet has been on patrol at the start of any hostilities and what role is expected of the group in any battle.

Clearly any manager of a battle group will have to take all these into consideration.

After all the Varyag sailing within 1000 km of the Indian coastline during hostilities will not even need another carrier group even with Harriers to oppose it. It will be taken out by stand off missiles or a sub or a combination of both. So unless the Chinese watch what they do very carefully, having the Flanker on board will not keep the ship away from Davy Jones' locker. One by one if a couple of escort ships are sunk the carrier will soon have to start heading for home or one day the Flankers that take of will only have a patch of oil spill to land on.
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