Re: Tin Cans versus Dreadnoughts

>  If you do the whole flight on the deck, or just above it, the F-18's
won't have the
> legs to search for very long, and may not find the Kirov before the
Kirov
accomplishes
> whatever it was attempting to do.  So I suspect that the actual
hunting of
an
> unescorted Kirov by an unescorted carrier would not go entirely as
planned, and if the
> carrier must expend its entire complement of harpoons (the USN doesn't
have that many)
> to kill the Kirov, the carrier has been mission killed as an
anti-surface
unit as
> dropping bombs on Soviet ships bristling with 30mm gatlings is not a
pretty thought.
>
Actually, I alway prefered the Soviet Auto 130.  A very nice dual gun on
the
a latter Kirov's with unually high rate of fire and good range (for 5"
pee
shooter).  Buy the way, all of the Kirov's have 8 x 30mm gatling guns,
plus
2 x SAN-4 for shooting down missiles, so you will neet a lot to get by
it's
surge capacity.  And then there's defensive EW...

Currently, I doubt the US could afford the missiles and smart bombs to
hunt
a Kirov.  Not the cost, rather the missiles themselves.  Each of the
services are billions of dollars short of munitions, with smart bombs
and
guided missiles being in accute short supply...

ias