A word from the wise.. that would be me.
You can shove as many aircraft aboard a CV as the ship can physically accommodate. But you'd better have berthing for the crew that will maintain those birds and work spaces for shops that repair things that break on those birds. And military aircraft need constant maintenance if they are to preform their duties when called on..
Also you can't pack a hangar full of aircraft with no room left for safety.. such as moving or maintaining aircraft, fire, emergencies etc..
When aircraft are in the hangar there needs to be an aisle open to safely travel from bow to stern and vice versa.
I understand and agree with you that you can not operate your air wing and squeeze them in hangar at the same time. But in the Russian case they don't operate them they just put them in hangar to protect them from extreme weather and etc. They will just be there for a short period of time and when the sun comes out again (and clean deck of ice or whatever if necessary) they can relocate their aircraft to deck and resume the operation. But since it's pretty harsh up north and in bad days any jets or helos on deck have a chance of lost, they have to design their wing that when needed all of them can seek hide in hangar with no one left behind unlike carrier wings from other countries which most of their harbor don't get freeze.
