Skull and Bones
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Personally it depends on why you would like a carrier based fighter. I believe that the main reason that Russian went for the Mig-29K over the Su-33 is to do with the fact they only really wanted the carrier based fighters to provide air cover. They did not plan for using the fighters in an offensive role against ships/land targets. Notice that Russian destroyers carry large numbers of anti-ship missiles whereas US destroyers are more heavily into the anti-air warfare role. The US would rely on fighter/bomber launched anti-ship missiles to attack other ships.
End of the day, the Russians wanted as many fighters as possible to fit into their aircraft carriers and they were willing to sacrifice longer range and weapons load for this aim.
Lol, so wrong..
Long range aircrafts ain't good for carrier operations, as i said earlier that heavier aircraft requires much larger stopping power. Even US is happy with F-18SH and never went for F-15SE. And Mig-29Ks and Su-33s are multirole aircraft, main difference is range and payload. Su-33s are heavy and more maintenance hungry, didn't suit India's requirement.