Remarkably good writeup. Much better than the usual.
(Must not have been written by a US ABCNNBCBS Obola-phile...
War Is Boring generally has good articles. Another decent site is this one.
Carriers on the cheap......A target not likely to be met.
Buying a former Russian carrier is about the worst thing any Navy could do.
India has spent a decade—and billions of dollars—trying to get “Vikramaditya” (a former Kiev-class helicopter carrier) back in service. They have discovered that many of the components were actually produced outside Russia and that some of the vendors are no longer in business. Of course, Moscow will be happy to fabricate a new component, but that will take time and Delhi pays through the nose.
Actually, I have very little sympathy for the Indians in this matter; they’ve been buying military hardware from Russia for decades and they know the “low” price gets you the tank, plane, ship or sub; if you want maintenance, spare parts and “service after the sale,” that will cost you more—a lot more in most cases.
It will be interesting to see how far the Chinese go in reverse-engineering their Russian-designed carrier. It will be difficult to project power to distant points on the globe if your battle group has to include a sea-going tug to pull the carrier when its boilers fail en masse.