Wednesday, November 30, 2016

Potemkin Carrier Operations

Russia is operating their carrier planes from the Kuznetsov out of a land base in Syria:

Many of the fast jets that were embarked on the Russia aircraft carrier Admiral Kuznetsov have been flown to the main Russian air base in Syria, Airbus Defence and Space satellite imagery obtained by IHS Jane's shows.

The imagery shows eight Russian Federation Navy Su-33 and one MiG-29KR jets alongside various Russian Aerospace Forces (VKS) aircraft at Humaymim Air Base in Latakia province on 20 November.

This isn't to say that nothing is operating off of the carrier. But the Russians clearly aren't confident in the carrier to do a whole lot.

Well, the Russian carrier didn't get off to a good start for carrier flight operations.

And I did mention that the Russians might be better off sending their carrier planes to a land base.

UPDATE: Of course, this begs the question of why we can't deploy carrier air wings without a carrier when land bases are present.