Aircraft Carriers

The Kiev design is a Hybrid cruiser/carrier, it's actually easier to think of it as a large missile cruiser with a flight deck and hangar shoehorned onto the side! Although the Soviets developed many conventional CV designs from the 1920s onwards internal politics often got in the way (Gollaveinien is the best source around here I believe) and rather than try to challenge the Wests naval supremecy directly the Soviets chose to develop anti ship missiles instead of carrier aircraft as their primary strike weapon. The Kievs followed the two Moskva class helicopter carriers (which also had a heavy missile battery forward) and their primary purpose was not power projection as in western vessels but 'barrier ASW', that is guarding the arctic launching areas for Soviet SSBNs from Nato SSNs. The Yak 38 'Forger' was hastily developed to give the ships a measure of shhipboard dtrike capability, but it's performance was dire (limited range in VTOL mode, reported to be as low as 60 miles! No radar, so completely reliant on ship based radar for intercept information and very limited load carrying ability) but it did give the Russians experience in shipboard aircraft operation. The large missile battery of the Kievs were a substitute for the strike aircraft found on western CVs, but lacked the range or flexibility of said aircraft.
I think in a one on one encounter a Kiev would stand little or no chance against a USN carrier (in terms of survivng the encounter, not winning!) and would struggle against an Invincible class equipped with a mixed airgroup of Sea Harrier F/A 2s which could overwhelm the Forgers and GR 7s to attack the ship itself.

Id like to add that the Soviets never planned to use the Yaks to engage USN fighter and attack aircraft. The Yaks were merely to seek out and destory P-3s and other NATO ASW aircraft. They were extremely shortranged and carried a small warload. However it wouldnt take much for cannon shells to bring down a P3. The Kiev was a cruiser yes ment to use its SSMs to tackle enemy ships. The Forgers would have been useless in air to surface attack.

Well in reality, Yak-38 were nothing but technology demostrators if to be frank

Soviets were very exited of the yak-36 and its theoretical capabilities. They saw it as a change to get aircrafts onboard ships without the heavy requirements of conventional carrier planes. It was back then tought that V/STOL planes would eventually surpass conventional jets altogether so Soviets wanted to be in the first train of the new developments. Yak-38 followed the Yak-36 as a main production VSTOL plane.

But soviets soon realized themself that the plane was all but succesfull. But the political and symbolic need for aircrafts on sea was bigger than the usual soviet practise of getting the right plane. (All soviets warplanes had to go very long periods of evaluation and trials before accepted to service)
The plane was very unpopular among the pilots, and its accident rate was unacceptable huge. If it had been for the FA or PVO, it would have never saw service life of nearly 30 years that it did with the AF-VMF.

But it was the Yak-41 that was the ultimate reason for the soviet carrier aviation never took of in real speed. Even before the Yak-38 was accepted there were already plans and need for developt a far superior VSTOL plane, a fighter that could fight without handicapts against the latest western naval fighters. This supersonic VSTOL plane haunted the soviet carrier aviation ever since.
In the early years of 1970's, there were two attepts to create a full sized conventional carrier, pr. 1160 and 1153 under the code name Orel. Both didn't saw life beond the drawing board as the political oppostion against CATOBAR carriers were too large. The over exxagerated hype for the supersonic VSTOL plane had blinded many politicans, exspecially the Marshal Ustinov, defence minister back then. They tought that there was no need for big carriers as the Kievs could be easily be modified for the new VSTOL plane. Thus the there were total of 4 such ships build.
Even the Kuznetsov was inflicted by this false religion of VSTOL planes and the whole ship can be seen as a compromize of the two different schools. As Ustinov was clearly unwilling to fund the Orel program, a compromise was made which IMO (there really isen't clear sources availble) was the revision of the pr. 1153. After the shipdesign was finished the armwrestling of the airwing started. The CATOBAR-lobbyer wanted steam catabults to launch the new Su-27 and MiG-29 then under development and the VSTOL-lobby (which was stronger) wanted Yak-41 to form the airwing. The later won and the the ship was approved to production with out catabults and a 12 degree ski-jump for the Yak-41. The general layout of the ship reminded normal conventional carriers like the in the USN, but the ship was in its earliest days of building mented to be VSTOL carrier.
The adoption of fixed wing aircrafts came only afterwards. Sukhoi was able to demostrate that the Su-27 was able to take of from the carrier using the skijump (And MiG-29 as well). As the ship was designed to be normal CATOBAR carrier it needed only little modifications to field the new jet...

Golly is the resident expert on Soivet CVs...
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I have a few nice pics of CVs to post.

1) USS Bataan (LHD-5) with a full flight deck ready to launch.

2) USS Theodore Roosevelt(CVN-71)heading up the Elizebeth River from Norfolk VA to the shipyard for a minor re-fit. Note the equipment on deck.

3) USS Kitty Hawk(CV-63)entering Honk Kong.

Since HMAS Melbourne gets mentioned a bit around here (in reference to what the PLAN may or may not have learned from her and the odd rumours of her flight deck being reassembled ashore) I've drawn a plan and profile of her so we can see what we're talking about.

Excellent drawing Obi Wan.

Now can you modify that drawing and configure it as though the PLAN configured it for PLAN use? that would be intresting to see. Thanks!

excellent idea - that design could be a basic desing for constructing of chinese amphibious carriers, as I think, operating transport- and attack helos and some lightweight attack planes ....

bd popeye said:

Excellent drawing Obi Wan.

Now can you modify that drawing and configure it as though the PLAN configured it for PLAN use? that would be intresting to see. Thanks!

Click to expand...

Well this is how she looked when sold to China in 1985, stripped of equipment (but not her catapult or arrestor gear as the RAN had no further use for them) so if anyone else wants to have a go modifying the drawing be my guest. I'll have a crack at it too...

Well here's my first attempt, Melbourne as refitted for PLAN service as an LPH. Her Catapult and Arrestor gear have been removed for further study and experiments ashore (away from prying eyes) so that she can deploy without giving too much away about the Chinese CV program. In the meantime the PLAN can learn a lot about safe and efficient day to day carrier ops with Helos embarked for ASW, SAR, ASuW, Troop carrying etc. CIWS would be added at some point, on the old 40mm sponsons.

Excellent Jedi master excellent. my thought was always the PLAN would have an LPH before an fully operational CV. And of course you commentary is correct. They need to learn basic safe operation of a avation ship first.