I mean not in tonnage, but in those future CATOBAR designs that already went public. Even at 80 tons they still be considered in the "super carrier" category.
Interesting video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H1xqEOkUiVg
Their offer to India is to defray the cost of construction for their own use. The Sevmash is owned by the state & such an offer has not so hidden agenda.
you seem to be associating tonnage with supercarrier references - hence why I pointedly referred to the capability difference between the first supercarrier of 1959 (Forrestal) and the performance gaps
there are basically 6 different types of carriers that became mainstram builds. Midway was regarded as a supercarrier in WW2 terms as she was double the tonnage and almost triple the aircraft warload of most competitors.
Forrestal was the first of the modern and post war supercarriers - she was a 1/3rd larger than Midway and had a similar increase in warfighting punch.
You make repeated references to following the US in aircraft carrier design - but the russian design and utility reasons for their carriers is nothing like the US philosophy - it never has been. Their aviation assets had and have fundamentally different design and fleet roles. The CONOPs is completely different. As opposed to the Indians and Chinese who use parallel designs and where the CONOPS is more geared to traditional "western" carrier tasking.
the only similarity is that they are large, have a large flat deck and can carry conventional engined aircraft - bearing in mind again that russia is geared for stobar applications - where is there any demonstration of a protracted commitment to developing and fielding catobar - they're at least 10 years out from doing that even if they had a legacy development to start from
you just can't extrapolate an export design to a future local build - the other metrics have to be in place before you can start foreseeing the future.
the supercarrier tag is not just about tonnage - its about the disproportionate effect that the platform can bring to the fight - and in real clinical absolute projection terms, the current russian, indian and chinese "copy" carriers are less capable than the USS Forrestal - a 55+ year old design. Sure they have some fancier electronics - but at the aviation asset throw level, they are sub par
There's a critical consideration here that you seem to be unaware of or are ignoring.
The capital ship doesn't define the capability - its the task force. You just can't look at the platform in isolation as you then run the risk of heading into the platform centric debate which often and usually misses the impact that the overall system beings to the fight.
a single large warship on its own is symbolism - its benefit and utility is defined by force element support, the CONOPs and a coherent doctrine for its utility.
in the current russian naval dev climate, that is very very unclear
