yes, but you also have some other Navies that don’t have aircraft carriers, yet have good navies with good AAW capabilities. Look at the French, British, Spanish, Italian, German, and other powerful navies where sometimes even a shorter ranged subsonic sea skimmer will not be enough. You ALWAYS want to stay a step ahead of your enemy. Acquiring something like Alfas or Yakhonts will ensure you are that one step ahead of them. I would rather obviously choose to have a Club on any of my subs than a Uran, no matter if I am facing the North Korean or the French navy. Yes, the Club might be more expensive and I wouldn’t be able to put it on my helicopters, small patrol boats or even coastal batteries, but if I can put it on any submarine or decent sized ship, I will want it when I can target my enemies some 100kms longer than with the Uran despite it being almost 1.5 tones heavier.These would be my frontline assets for tackling my enemy’s navy.

Jonesy, do you have access to ACIG?

AS it appears so it is, I wonder what are the other specs for it, like what’s it’s max altitude. The turbofan engine and the long wings should give it at least a decent altitude of 15000m.

I dunno, I somehow don’t see JH-7 as the best option, possibly local production of J-10 to also replace all kinds of Argentinian Aircraft could be a good option, it could be armed with all new Chinese weapons or a mix of Israeli/Chinese weapons(Python 5, Derby/SD-10, Israeli PGMs, C-80X, etc). This is a cheap aircraft and in turn would create jobs in Argentina too.

I agree, to an extent, but we are debating whether the Russians have the best antiship missiles in the world. The simple answer to that is no they dont. Most nations who operate modest navies on a budget cant afford to have half a dozen different types of missile just for antiship duties in addition to all the other types they have to support. Malaysia is case in point operating MM38, MM40 and Otomat and wishing to standardise on a single type for efficiency. This is the kind of real-world advantage that I rate so much higher in a weapon than supersonic this or amoured that.

Depends what kind of jobs, the NSM is a great all around missile like the Uran, Harpoon and Exocet, however thats all West has to offer, and thats light subsonic sea skimmers. However Russia has all around Klub/Alfa(air launched), the Yakhont, Sunburn/Moskit(air launched), then there are the other air launched AshMs like Kh-31A, Kh-22M and then there are the specific surface launched ones like Granit, Bazalt and etc. When you look at the Klub/Alfa and the Yakhont, they are just a step ahead of Uran, NSM, Harpoon and Exocet, especially Alfa.

so can deliver equal punch in a much smaller airframe. And so it goes.

There is no way a subsonic Harpoon or NSM with it’s small warhead can be as lethal as a same missile with much faster speed. In case of Moskit, not only it’s 2-3 times faster, but it’s also much bigger and it’s warhead is much larger. I would say a Moskit, if hits something like a Carrier, has probably at least a 5 times bigger chance of sinking a carrier than a Harpoon or NSM ever would.

If you actually don’t like the Moskit or the Yakhont, compare the Alfa to the NSM or the Harpoon.

its quite another to have a proven deployable capability with it!

NSM is not proven either, so don’t give me that crap, it’s not proven therefore not good.

I think Garry summed it up, the NSM is just the best all around AshM, it cannot be effectively used against a Carrier group, not only will it have a smaller chance of passing through CIWS, but it’s too slow and it’s warhead is too small to actually damage anything in a meaningful size, don’t talk about a carrier. Same can be said about Uran, Harpoon and Exocet.

The thing about the NSM is that it’s too short ranged. Now matter how stealthy, low observable and etc, it’s 160km range is just too short to attack a CARRIER group. At 160kms, your launch platforms like Helicopters, fixed wing aircraft, surface vessels and etc will probably be detected before then, even if you use these and launch them from lower altitude. You need something longer ranged at least 250kms to kind of stay out of Carrier defences. If you get too close, you’ll really have to tangle with E-2Cs and F-18E/Fs(which is a rather poor interceptor)

Yes, and thats the only plane that can actually carry it. The F-14+Phoenix was probably the deadliest AA combo in it’s generation, though I am not sure how it would’ve done against the Mig-31B or how good the R-33S was.