It is still not ceratin that the Varyag is going to enter PLAN service in any state, alot of people have got very carried away becouse of th ships new paint job but if you look carefully there is no indication of any sort of military equipment, aircraft handling equipment, and evidence for chinese carrier aircraft is scant. It is not even confirmed whether or not the ship has engines.
Im not saying that the Varyag wont enter PLAN service just that if she does its a very long way of.

Just looking at the gorgeous stealthiness of the JASSM brings back one of my pet annoyances-why oh why do they not just fit the raptor with the EOT’s and DASS (from the F-35), to the Raptor-just imagine a Raptor carrying 4 JASSM’s!!!

There needs to be a massive sweetner for which ever country the US gets to build them (the chinese have managed very successfully thus far to put other countries of selling them) or the US is going to have to cover alot of R&D and design costs (when was the last time the US built a dielsel-electric sub?)
Not to mention the fact that Taiwan is a captive market-who else has been selling them arms recently? even the french have stopped.

Combat aircraft have a shorter range and can carry less weapons-loss of capability.
Carriers cant carrier Hawkeye-loss of capability.

From everything i have read and heard about this weapon it sounds very capable, but with everything with the UK defence procurement it is running late.

Becouse the vast majoruty of UCAV’s are desighned to be able to conduct long endurance operations anyway.

The idea that STOLV increases sortie rates for carriers is again an area which is more myth than reality, STOLV aircraft wiil alomst always take-off conventionaly taking the same time and space as a CTOL aircraft. Landings require a large area of the deck to be cleared if they are to be vertical and the aircraft still needs to be moved, ultimately the limiting factor on sorty rate is likely to be refuel and rearming times.