Are Yak 38's fuel range really this bad?

[Lax]

I've been having some fun using Carriers with VTOLS but the fuel range makes it pretty difficult at times. I've been playing around with the Yak-38s and their distance is bad.

I do like the fact that they can be armed with load outs that can hit both air and surface, the AS-7 Kerrys are pretty decent if you are close enough to fire them. That being said the trade-off is the Yak 38's range is very bad.

I've tested this a few times and if you launch a 38 and give it a heading right away at full fuel, its range is less than 60 miles. You can adjust this a little by climbing to altitude but it is marginal.

To put this into perspective, the carrier's helicopters have further range than their aircraft. The yak 38s can't stay airborne than more than 20 minuets game time. And that's pushing it.

This makes going after ships pretty scary since the Harpoons will already be in range of your carrier by the time your at max range for a airstrike.

It's a challenge but its fun. I'm guessing they were designed to go after coastal targets that are already super close to the carrier. Its either that or just air cover around the Kiev-Class.

Love the game btw!

[whatdoesthisbuttondo?]

supersound99ss lähetti viestin:

whatdoesthisbuttondo? lähetti viestin:

Not sure if you are aware of this, but the USSR had plenty options to base actual aircraft carriers from which would make infinitely more sense than the Black Sea.

Base, sure....build no. It's isn't just the Politburo's love of dacha's on the Black Sea why all their "carriers" were built there.

Building isn't the issue either, the USSR had coast line on the Black Sea and as such had freedom of movement for military vessels based in their Black Sea ports anyway as per the Montreux Convention, as well as moving them out of the Black Sea from shipyards if based elsewhere.

Fact is, Turkey never challenged the Soviet position on the carrier issue (which isn't well-defined in the Convention) regarding these vessels, as they would have more than likely lost some of their control over the straits as a result and as such were never interested in debating this further, and the USSR itself was quite happy to keep the status quo as well as it hampered the US but not them.

If you are in doubt about how little they actually cared, consider that their first true aircraft carrier (of course a "heavy aircraft cruiser") was laid down in Ukraine.

They were building what they wanted, the ship designs had nothing to do with the Montreux Convention, merely what they called them, and there was quite a bit of ulterior motive in that decision.

The Moskva and Kiev were explicitly designed as fleet screening vessels, and that carried to the capabilities of the Kusnetzov as well. This is a stark contrast to the US carriers, or even fleet carriers in WW2, which were offensive weapons in terms of their air wings.