Charles de Gaulle vs. Admiral Kuznetsov

They are currently the most capable carriers outside the US navy.Which ship is more capable overall? The aircrafts they carry must be taken into consideration. The Su-33 should be able to carry more weapons than Rafale, but since the Russian carrier doesn't have catapults, the weapons the fighters carry are limited.

The French carrier is smaller, but it has catapults. Rafale is smaller than Su-33, but Super Etendard is about the same size as Su-25, so my guess is that the Russian carrier would only have a small advantage when it comes to the number of aircrafts it can carry.

One advantage Kuznetsov has is that it is very heavily armed, so it can operate more independently than de Gaulle. Altough Kuznetsov's primary role is escorting submarines and other vessels, its power projection capability is strong. If I'm not mistaken, it is the largest warship outside the US Navy.

Of course this is for comparison sake only. The posiblities of two CV battling each other are rather remote.

Now..I'll take the FN R91 any day. Why?
1) The FN R 91 is excersised at sea on a regular basis. Those FN sailors are trained. The ADM "K" on the other hand goes sea with a minimum air wing about two to three times a year.

2) The FN R91 has the advantage of a complete air wing;
"The ship operates a fleet of 40 aircraft.>> Rafale M combat aircraft, the Super Etendard and three E-2C Hawkeye airborne early warning aircraft. The ship also supports the AS 565 Panther and Dauphin helicopters."

3) Those three E-2C Hawkeyes give that FN R91 an advantage over ADM "K" in early warning and extending the strike capablity of the air wing.

4) Operating with catapults the FN R91 can launch aircaft fully laden with air launched munitions. Thoser aircraft on the ADM "K" are limited on their strike capablities(range, munitions load) because of the lack of catapults.

5) Now that the "bugs" have been worked out of the FN R91 it can remain at sea indefintley because of it's nuclear power plant.

Overall the FN R91 is superior in all catagories.

Well you cannot compare these ships unless you understand the roles and doctrines they are mented alongside with the assosiated history. Both are more and less compromises made on behalf of the actual physical capabilities of both countries in the emphasis of the actual ship performance.

Both ships are rather different in concept and shares completely different philosofy against each other. In general the soviet naval practice and doctrines varies so much from western ideas that a optimistic and reasonable comparisons are rather pointless. In this case its pretty much so.

De Gaulle was french seccond generation jetcarrier and it follows pretty much the standart western carrier thinking. French have enjoyed the long operational expereinces and service of the two Clemencau class carriers and thus were able to design the new carrier to awnser the needs learned during decades of carrier aviation. But French also had quite few limitations when it comes to aircraft carrier operations. Their older carriers were so small and lightly build that they weren't able to operate modern jets onboard the ships during their late service. This limited French expreince with modern multi-mission airpower operations alá USN.
Seccondly was the small size of France! Aircraft carriers are expensive, usually beond any reason when it comes to the cost, so that only the most powerfull nations with aggressive foreing politics can ever justify their need. Many western nations which had operated carriers in post-wwII years were forced to give up these mastodonts for that very reason. French tried to drag along and thus it maintained limited carrier aviation force troughout the coldwar years. When it came to replace the old carriers it was extremely hard to find the funding for the ever-growing expenses of modern carrier aviation. In place of two, only one was build of the new class and the whole program was delayed over decade for funding difficoulties.
Thirdly was the shipbuilding capability of France. The Brest naval shipyard was only able to build Clemencau size carriers so this dictaded the size of the new ship also. If you take closer look, you will find out that De Gaulle has the same waterline lenght and beam of the previous class. Only way to increase the aircraft handling ability was to adopt heavy overhang which gives the ship its distigtive appearance. The propulsion choise of nuclear stemaplants was selected but it prooven out to be illdecision. The ship is too small so that a third reactor would have been able to be fitted. This is evidence in the poor performance of the ship (24 kn top speed).

The finnished ship had serious stability proplems during its first operational years. (a rumour is that the ship vibrates so badly that its airoperations had to be halted when all the ships washingmachines were on at the same time) Also the orginal flightdeck prooved out to be too short ofr the E-2C Hawkeye so it had to be lenghted.


So how about the soviet/russian ship? I've told its history so many times that I wont bother to repeat myself any more in this thread. In short the ship was a compromision between fullsize carrier program called Orel (pr. 1153 and 1160) and fifth Kiev class cruiser-carrier hybrid. Althoug designed orginally to conventional CATOBAR carrier, during its early development phase it was decided to use the ship solely in VSTOL mode with airgroup consisting from the new Yak-41 VSTOL planes. The skijump was orginally fitted for this plane to be able to tako-off with greater load like the UK Sea Harriers. It was only afterwards discovered that the new Su-27 and MiG-29 could take-off from the ship using the ski-jump as well so the ship eventually recieved conventional jets afterall.

Soviets did try to obtain aircraft carriers almoust from the begining. But the lack of idustrial capability and shipdesign skills prevented it and even often ill-decisions and falsely confused politicans where even more hazardious to the soviet carrier plans. Wheter it was Stalins obcession to big cruisers and battleships or Krhutsevs "visions" of completely submerged fleet or just the stifness and unrealistic belive to VSTOL planes of Marhsal Ustinov (defence minister during the 70's). These quirks of individual decision makers eventually caused the poor state of soviet carrier aviation. It was poor-mans enlarged helicopter operations which in the event of the new VSTOL hype converted to serve as carriers without any real aircombat value. The efforts of greating true carrier aviation was hammered with the continious hype towards the Yakolevs promise of "even more capable VSTOL plane" and thus the real carrier aviation never managed to gave birth in USSR.
Kuznetsov was a step forward but too small step and it was noway near the finnishline.

So which one of the carriers is better then? De Gaulle enjoys more healthier orginal design plan and is more size-effective. Kuznetsov can carry pretty much the same size airgroup if fitted similar size planes than Rafale (MiG-29K). It's larger size could theoretically give better aircraft handeling charesteristics, but i'm not the person to comment on that...perhaps poppy would give his insight over the matter. The STOBAR is however huge default to the russian ship which IMO basicly narrows the combat effiency of the planes to VSTOL plane cathegory. MiGs and Sukhois cannot use their superior range when compared to VSTOL planes nor the heavier playload capability. Aslo the STOBAR ability pretty much rules out the use of AEW planes or any other non-high performance jets.

But in overall is a single carrier usefull to any meaningfull operations? IMO it isen't. The whole aviation assets (and the usefullnes of your navy in powerprotection) of your bluewater navy is in one ship and that basicly means that the enemy will concentrate to sink just that ship and why wouldn't they? Falklands showed that Argentinians weren't able to use their small carrier due this fact. To risk it to the RNs subs was just too big and the ship stayed iddle in the port...

It's larger size could theoretically give better aircraft handeling charesteristics, but i'm not the person to comment on that...perhaps poppy would give his insight over the matter

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Aircraft handling probally is easier on the FN R91 despite it's smaller size. Why? No ski ramp. No missile silos in the bow. A lot of area on the bow of the ADM"K" is not usable for parking(spotting) aircraft because of these factors. If you look at pictures of the FN R91 you will quite often see aircraft parked(spotted) on the bow.

I do not know the exact size of the hangar on either ship but I bet the FN R91 hangar is comparable in size to the ADM"K". In fact the hangar on the FN R91 looks comparable to an USN CV.

Both ships have deck edge lifts. Deck edge lifts are an advantage because they do not take up valuable hangar space.

The smaller size of the FN R91 should not hinder the ships seaworthyness. I was on the USS Hancock and Essex class and that ship was every bit as stable,in a normal sea state, as an much larger CV. In heavy seas ,well it was a diffrent story.

Global Security offers excellent pages for both ships.

FN R91


ADM"K"

Not a fair fight. The Admiral K is not a carrier in a traditional sense but an "aircraft carrying cruiser". Its main offensive armament are the 16 Shipwreck missiles on her deck. The SU-33 is for air defence. No way it can get a firing solution with its missiles.

The Charles De Gaulle can find the Kuznie first and has a good chance of remaining undected. The Kuzies KA-29 helix AEW are short range in both radar detection and endurance. Once E-2's localized the Russian carrier, 1 squadron of Rafale will go an execute an offensive cap to shoot down defending flankers and the Helix, using an off axis ingress point. Another squadron of Super Etendard will follow them and launch exocet. Repeat until the Kuznie is a burning sinking hulk.

IDonT said:

Not a fair fight. The Admiral K is not a carrier in a traditional sense but an "aircraft carrying cruiser". Its main offensive armament are the 16 Shipwreck missiles on her deck. The SU-33 is for air defence. No way it can get a firing solution with its missiles.

The Charles De Gaulle can find the Kuznie first and has a good chance of remaining undected. The Kuzies KA-29 helix AEW are short range in both radar detection and endurance. Once E-2's localized the Russian carrier, 1 squadron of Rafale will go an execute an offensive cap to shoot down defending flankers and the Helix, using an off axis ingress point. Another squadron of Super Etendard will follow them and launch exocet. Repeat until the Kuznie is a burning sinking hulk.

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And the ADM"K" may never even find the FN R91 if IDonT sceniaro plays out..No AEW..That would be a bad thing. Short range of fighters because of a STOBAR(Ski ramp) configuration not allowing aircraft to launch fully loaded..

But we all know the ADM "K" was not built for this role it was built for;
"The 67,500-ton Kreml class aircraft carrier supports strategic missile carrying submarines, surface ships and maritime missile-carrying aircraft of the Russian fleet. The ship is capable of engaging surface, subsurface and airborne targets. Superficially similar to American carriers, the design is in fact "defensive" in support of SSBN bastions. The lack of catapults precludes launching aircraft with heavy strike loads, and the air superiority orientation of the air wing is apparent".

bd popeye said:

And the ADM"K" may never even find the FN R91 if IDonT sceniaro plays out..No AEW..That would be a bad thing. Short range of fighters because of a STOBAR(Ski ramp) configuration not allowing aircraft to launch fully loaded..

But we all know the ADM "K" was not built for this role it was biult for;
"The 67,500-ton Kreml class aircraft carrier supports strategic missile carrying submarines, surface ships and maritime missile-carrying aircraft of the Russian fleet. The ship is capable of engaging surface, subsurface and airborne targets. Superficially similar to American carriers, the design is in fact "defensive" in support of SSBN bastions. The lack of catapults precludes launching aircraft with heavy strike loads, and the air superiority orientation of the air wing is apparent".

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Well yes the idea behind the Admiral K is to provide air defence and ASuW hitting power to protect an SSBN bastion rather than take on another carrier offensively. The Admiral K is not really a flagship like FN R91 or a US carrier. It plays are part in a larger defence plan, mainly providing air cover to reduce the USN's advantage in "long arm" strike capability provided by its air wings.

Finn McCool said:

Well yes the idea behind the Admiral K is to provide air defence and ASuW hitting power to protect an SSBN bastion rather than take on another carrier offensively. The Admiral K is not really a flagship like FN R91 or a US carrier. It plays are part in a larger defence plan, mainly providing air cover to reduce the USN's advantage in "long arm" strike capability provided by its air wings.

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yeah well the French carrier can cary more Rafale fighter jets, I think around 40 of them, were the Russian carrier can only carry 18 Su-33's and the Rafale is a much better jet than the SU-33.

My gut feeling is that people are underestimating the Adm K's aircraft capability such as range etc. Although I personally consider the Rafale as the best naval fighter out there, Su-33s are not bad either, ski-jump or not.