HMAS Melbourne (das boot) had five arrestor wires in the A4G Skyhawk era (six in the Sea Venom / Gannet times) whilst three was the minimum strung for deck ops (LSOs would know if wot numbers from 1 to 5 were important in that three). With five set then No.4 was the target wire. I'll hunt out a photo of 2 wire ops on a 4 wire CVN??? (no name).
KUZNETZOV Video still frame here shows 3 arrestor wires only [maybe FOUR? No.1 just out of frame? - NOPE Indian Carrier has only three] at that time:
http://www.flightglobal.com/blogs/th...-miss-wit.html (no workee now) :-(
