Which timeframe are we talking about ?
Why do you think soviets opted for largeASW ships and a plethora of smaller coastal ASW ships ?
Well, you're the one who mentioned Backfires to start with. But it almost doesn't matter, the Badgers were plenty good enough against any except the top-tier NATO navies. Even against the USN, in 1970 (just as an example) fleet air-defence Phantoms would struggle to bring down enough Badgers to make the incoming missiles manageable by the other air defences. Those big Soviet anti-ship missiles had a good range, and came in very fast, and had big warheads. It only takes one or two slipping through to make the whole effort worthwhile, and you don't have long to get them all.
A squadron of Skyhawks is functionally useless from the perspective of going after Soviet naval and land targets. Too short-ranged, too limited in what it can carry and launch.
Can a Corsair fly off something the size of the Majestics? Doubtful at least.
The Skyhawks - or Sea Harriers, for that matter - aren't onboard to do strike missions. They're there to frighten away Soviet maritime recon aircraft, or force strikes to be escorted if they're transiting the area the light carriers are in.
That's a misconception borne from confusing the fact that the Soviets HIGHEST priority was to defend the bastion areas with that as being the Soviets ONLY priority. But these are not the same thing. Now, it DOES mean they would only do them if doing so did not compromise their ability to accomplish more important missions. For the VMF, interdicting NATO traffic would probably be fourth in the priority list, with third being "provide relevant support for the ground forces in the Baltics/Black Sea and around Scandinavia", second being "coastal defense against NATO naval incursions against the motherland generally", and first being "coastal defense against NATO naval incursions against the SSBN bastion areas specifically".
Just sticking to the bastion areas, they could serve as theatre strike assets against targets in Europe and Asia. Even beyond that, though the Americans were USUALLY able to find the Yankees in their patrol boxes near Bermuda and off the West Coast, they were not ALWAYS able to do so. A skilled Soviet skipper or run of bad luck occasionally could and did give the USN the slip, something which always caused no end of fretting for the USN but which probably in the end enhanced the deterrence value of the Soviet boomer fleet.
Remember F-5s initial roots and have a naval variant. This can fly off the light carriers, it was designed for them in the first place. And if you are Canadian or Dutch also offers economies of scale since you are already using the plane with the air force.
Considering the number of gatekeeper and bodyguard missions they had for attack submarines and the fact that the vast majority of cruise missile submarines were reserved for anti-carrier operations, very few submarines would have been available for offensive operations in the central North Atlantic. In the 1973 Mediterranean crisis, the Soviets were able to mass about a dozen submarines in the Mediterranean Sea, but only by stripping independent deployers from the Atlantic. These are the kinds of numbers NATO would be dealing with in wartime, and their primary mission wouldn't even be convoy interdiction, but rather offensive ASW against US SSNs and SSBNs near their home ports.
But how ? During Which time frame ? Soviet navy does not have the numbers even with Air Force assistance
You always say that, but the Soviets aren’t going to be going Mano e Mano with the entire USN at once.
Open any copy of IISS military balance 1975 onwards and compare the inventories of soviet navy vs NATO ( not counting the USN pacific fleet or even deployments in remote areas ) and you will get your answer
And in 1975 if the USN tries to attack the Soviet coast - the preventing of which is part of two of the four missions outlined - they’re going to eat absolutely horrendous casualties for little gain, as this is before most of the technologies that made USN battle groups such tough nuts to crack in the 1980s. Not to mention is the low ebb of USN strength, morale, and personnel.
If USN tries to attack the soviet coast then they are playing to the strength of the latter
Because, again, this is in context of the Soviets achieving four goals, two of which are defense of their coasts and defense of bastion areas.
The fact that the US spent the better part of 20 years getting both the Tomcat and AEGIS working in direct response to the Soviet antiship missile threat? The fact that the parlous state of the entire US military immediately post-Vietnam is very widely documented?
I'd quibble with priority four given how much resources priorities one and two required, but nonetheless all of these goals were achievable, albeit while having to borrow Backfire divisions from the Air Force. Yes, the Soviet Navy was smaller. But context is king in these sorts of comparisons and the Soviets always intended to play to their strengths rather than the USN's.
