I was going to through wiki regarding european naval forces, just got a doubt. why do many of operate corvettes?, they have limited endurance and won’t be useful deployments far away from Europe?, within europe everything is largely peaceful in post cold war period. So why would they need corvette sized warships?

Germany Navy operates 380 ton missile boat? why?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gepard_class_fast_attack_craft
missile boat generally for somebody operating tiny naval force and for defensive purposes against a major naval forces.

Is Russia the only reason for such small ships?

Because most European countries do not have the global commitments requiring a full blue water capability. They primarily have a defensive roll fairly close to shore.

As your question stated it is fairly peaceful in Europe negating the need for many larger vessels.

The German navy fast attack craft are ideal for operations within the Baltic sea, during the cold war the role of these attack craft along with Similar vessels of other navies in the area was to bottle the Soviet forces into the baltic and halt any amphibious invasion of the Danish isles.

are my eyes deceiving me is Tippu Sultan a T 21

Your eyes are not deceiving you it is a Type 21 frigate, ex HMS Avenger of the fourth frigate squadron.

Nah because the Mig 29 Ks/KUBs are more capable and smaller than the current fleet of SU 33s which would require extensive upgrades to be viable in the near future. The Mig 29Ks are already upgraded and add the Zhuk AE you will get a very formidable platform :). May be the Kuznet can carry more Mig 29Ks than it can Su 33s.

Totally agree here, the fact is the MIG29K would of been the better choice for the Kuznetsov in the first place. They are a better fit for the hanger and offer a better multiroll package then the SU33, unfortunately Sukhoi had more clout and better friends in Moscow when it came to choosing her airgroup.

The SU33 would of better suited the stillborn Ulanyosk carrier whilst the YAK141 was intended as the primary platform for the Kuznetsov. When the YAK141 project failed they had no choice to go for a STOBAR configuration and Sukhoi got their way over the choice of the SU33, considering the SU33 can only just fit the hanger (with the tires let down) and can only carry a marginal load it was never ideal.

Fast forward to now with a fleet of SU33 which are frankly getting on a bit with out of date avionics and a Russian government wishing to support MIG (or whatever they are called now) plus a production line geared up to make new MIG29K now its really a no brainer.

Would the desroyer not cause so much wake and noise that the (submarine) intelligence gathering capabilities of the spy-ship are severely impacted? So this would be more a case of showing the flag than actually gaining any hard intel? Or are the spyships sensor capable of cutting through that? Honest question, not stirring as I honestly don’t know!

It wouldn’t make any real difference to the performance of the towed sonar array of the Impeccable, she could hear a Prawn f*rt a thousand miles away.

Then what are you complaining about, hypocrite?

Sick fantasies? That’s funny since you’re the one complaining about people who don’t masturbate to your opinions in here. If you don’t like other views, then I suggest you take your own advice that you give to people that dare not to agree blindly with you.

Keep it clean please Hell King!:mad:

Well hermes used to have cats and traps anyway, so it must be a simple job to ‘plug and play’!:D;):eek::diablo:

With her arrester gear installed she could probably operate the Mig29k STOBAR but it would be a BIG JOB!

Did UK gov remove her arrester gear engines when she went Harrier Carrier or are they going rusty below deck?

For training purposes possibly, though I think it more likley we would sign a contract with the US to put our pilots through their training program rather than duplicate their capabilities. The Americans used to train enough aircrew for 15 flat tops, now it’s only 11. Add the needs of two British carrier air groups and there would still be some slack in the system. Provided we paid the cost of training our crews over there I don’t think there would be a problem. The RN already operates some Hawks, so adding another sqns worth might not be a great hurdle. If we do go down the CTOL path for CVF, the the T-45 is the logical choice, however we end up using it.

As I said previously it would probably be cheaper to tap into American facilities, as you said they have the slack to support their own pilots as well as French, Brazillian, Indian (and Argentine?) as well.

IF (note that is a BIG if) the RN get its big carriers….and by some miracle of common sense got to cats and arrestor gear, woulf the RN purchase a few T-45s?

Not really worth it logistically or financially, we would do what the French and Brazillians do and send our pilots to America.