Russian_Soviet Aircraft Carrier - Hugh Harkins

Russian/Soviet Aircraft Carrier & Carrier Aviation Design & Evolution Volume 1 Seaplane Carriers, Project 71/72, Graf Zeppelin, Project 1123 ASW Cruiser & Project 1143-1143.4 Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser HUGH HARKINS Copyright © 2016 Hugh Harkins All rights reserved. ISBN: 153753484X ISBN-13: 978-1537534848

Russian/Soviet Aircraft Carrier & Carrier Aviation Design & Evolution Volume 1

Seaplane Carriers, Project 71/72, Graf Zeppelin, Project 1123 ASW Cruiser & Project 1143-1143.4 Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser © Hugh Harkins 2016 Createspace Independent Publishing Platform ISBN 10: 153753484X ISBN 13: 978-1537534848 This volume first published in 2016 The Author is identified as the copyright holder of this work under sections 77 and 78 of the Copyright Designs and Patents Act 1988

Cover design © Centurion Publishing & Createspace Page layout, concept and design © Centurion Publishing & Createspace All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, transmitted in any form, or by any means, electronic, mechanical or photocopied, recorded or otherwise, without the written permission of the publisher The publisher and author would like to thank all organisations and services for their assistance and contributions in the preparation of this volume: JPSC Nevskoe Design Bureau; Krylov State Research Centre; United Shipbuilding Corporation (USC); Admiralty Shipyards; Russian Helicopters; S.P. Korolev Rocket and Space Corporation Energia; NPO Almaz; JSC Scientific Production Association Alloy; NPO Mashinostroyenia; Strela PA; Concern-Agat; JSC Concern Radio-Electronic Technologies (KRET); Rostec Corporation; JSC Klimov; Yakovlev OKB; NPO Saturn; Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation (MODRF); USN; US DoD; UK MoD; Naval History & Heritage Centre; United States National Archives; Google Earth

CONTENTS 1

INTRODUCTION 1914-1950’S – SEAPLANE CARRIERS, PROJECT 71/72 AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND THE GRAF ZEPPELIN

i 1

2

PROJECT 1123, MOSKVA & LENINGRAD – ASW HELICOPTER CARRYING CRUISERS FOR A CHANGING GEO-MILITARY CLIMATE

21

3

PROJECT 1143-1143.4 – KIEV, MINSK, NOVOROSSIYSK AND BAKU (ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET OF THE SOVIET UNION, GORSHKOV)

41

4

OTHER SIGNIFICANT SOVIET/RUSSIAN AVIATION CAPABLE SHIPS – PROJECT 1174, PROJECT 11780 AND PROJECT 1144

93

5

SHIPBORNE AVIATION – HELICOPTERS AND FIXED WING V/STOL AIRCRAFT

101

6

APPENDICES

129

7

GLOSSARY

130



INTRODUCTION In 2016, there were five Russian/Soviet designed and built aircraft carriers in existence, three of which were in operational service; the Project 1143.5 Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Kuznetsov in Russian Federation naval service, the INS Vikramaditya (formerly the Project 1143.4 Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser Baku/Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov) in Indian naval service and the incomplete former Soviet Project 1143.6 Varyag in service with the Peoples Liberation Army Navy of China as the Liaoning. The other two carriers, the Project 1143 Kiev and Minsk Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers had been decommissioned and formed museum exhibits in China. This two volume series sets out to detail the stable of Russian/Soviet designed and built significant aircraft carrying vessels and their integral shipborne aviation assets. While Volume 2 will focus on the stable of conventional take-off carriers in service and projected future vessels, this first volume, Volume 1, focusses predominantly on the operational design genesis of the major aircraft carrying vessels of the Soviet era, the Project 1123 Moskva Class Anti-Submarine Warfare helicopter carrying Cruisers and the Project 1143-1143.4 Kiev and Improved Kiev Class Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers. Space is allocated to early aviation carrying projects commencing with the Seaplane Carriers of World War 1 to aircraft carrier concepts of the 1930’s and 1940’s and the German Graf Zeppelin aircraft carrier that fell into Soviet hands at the end of World War II in Europe. An overview of other helicopter carrying vessels of the Soviet and Russian Federation eras is provided, including the Project 1174 Ivan Rogov Class Amphibious Assault Ships and the unbuilt Project 11780 helicopter carrying Assault Ship design of the early 1980’s. The development of the Moskva Class, and subsequently the Kiev Class, was, it could be argued, intrinsically linked to the development of ballistic and cruise missile submarines. These ships were in effect the first and second generation of Soviet aircraft carrying vessels that, with the introduction of the fourth of the Kiev Class, extended into the third generation. The various elements of the ships, such as major defensive and offensive weapon systems are covered in detail as is the operational doctrine that led to such ships coming into being. A separate chapter deals with the various aviation assets that would make up the air groups of the Moskva and Kiev Class – helicopter and vertical/short take-off and landing fixed wing. All technical information regarding the warships, systems and weapons has been provided by the respective design houses, developers and builder/manufacturers, as has much of photograph and graphic material used throughout the volume, which is also supported by photograph and graphic material from third party sources such as the Defence and intelligence service Departments of various NATO nations.





1 1914-1950’S – SEAPLANE CARRIERS, PROJECT 71/72 AIRCRAFT CARRIERS AND THE GRAF ZEPPELIN In the second decade of the 21 century, design studies were underway with the aim of building a nuclear powered aircraft carrier for the Russian Federation Navy to replace that services sole conventional powered Aircraft Carrying Heavy Cruiser, Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Kuznetsov, which was, by that time, in her third decade of service, the four aircraft carrying cruisers of the Kiev Class and the two Moskva Class helicopter carriers having long since been retired. The design and building road to produce a Soviet and later Russian aircraft carrier force had been long and arduous, the Soviet Union facing trials and tribulations faced by no other aircraft carrier building nation. Among these were the wartime sieges, massive depletion of workforces due to the horrific death tolls on the eastern front and enemy occupation of land mass or cutting off of build and design centres. On top of this was the fact that wartime priorities for production resources inevitably went to the land and air forces locked in the largest clash of armies the world had ever seen as the Soviet Union struggled, first for survival and then to expel the Axis invaders from its soil before continuing on to take Berlin, the German capital, in 1945. There are several points in history that could be defined as the commencement of air operations from ships at sea. However, it is an incontestable fact that the type of ship known as the aircraft carrier was born out of the labour pains of World War 1. There were, however, several landmark events leading up to the aircraft carrier as defined in the 20th and 21st centuries. For example, in 1806 the Thames Class Frigate HMS Pallas (launched in 1804), deployed kites used to scatter anti-Napoleon leaflets over France during the Napoleonic Wars, this considered to be the first air operation launched from a ship at sea. The first offensive air operation from a ship is considered to have taken place in 1849 when the Austrian ship st

Vulcano launched Montgolfiere hot air balloons on a failed attempt to drop small size bombs on the city of Venice. The pioneers of these audacious early ship launched air operations could hardly have dreamt that by the early 20th century powered flight would become a reality, and that such machines would be operating from ships at sea.

The Kiev Class epitomised Soviet aircraft carrier desig n at the heig ht of the Cold War. This raised frontal aspect view of the Baku, an Improved Kiev Class vessel, shows to advantag e much of the weapons/sensor suite, most obvious of the former being the larg e slab antennas for the Mars Passat air/surface search radar complex and most obvious from the latter being the launch containers for P-500 anti-ship cruise missiles forward of the superstructure. USN

A far cry from the capability offered by Cold War era and modern day aircraft carriers, during World War 1 the Imperial Russian Navy operated a number of Seaplane Carriers including the Orlitza (pictured) which served with the Imperial Russian Baltic Fleet. NHHC

In the years proceeding World War 1, a new classification of warship emerged in the shape of the Seaplane Carrier. The first true seaplane carrier is considered to have been the French vessel Foudre, which was converted from a torpedo boat tender to carry seaplanes, from 1911, housed in a covered hanger on the main deck. In Britain, the Royal Navy converted the Protected Cruiser HMS Hermes to a Seaplane Tender for trials in 1913. Having been paid off at the end of 1913, Hermes was recommissioned as a Seaplane Tender in August 1914, the month World War 1 started, ,but was sunk by a German Submarine a short time later. There were a not insignificant number of merchant vessels and warships converted to serve as seaplane tenders/carriers in several navies during the war years of 1914-1918, including several such vessels that would serve with the Imperial Russian Navy in the Black Sea and Baltic Sea theatres. The first such vessel was the Seaplane Carrier Almaz, converted from the Cruiser of the same name (completed in 1903) in 1914. The Almaz, in her incarnation as a Seaplane Carrier, was destined to serve in the Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet, mainly out of the port of Novorossiysk on the Russian Black Sea coast. She carried an embarked force of Grigorovich M-5 Type seaplanes that were tasked with general reconnaissance and fire support spotting duties. In the turmoil, commencing in February 1917, leading to the October 1917 Revolution that would ultimately through various twists and turns lead to the state recognized as the Soviet Union (USSR - Union of Soviet Socialist Republics), the Almaz changed hands several times, at various times being in the charge of Ukraine, Germany and Britain before being turned over to the White Russian Fleet opposed to the Red Russian (future Soviet) forces. Following the acceptance of defeat and the internment of the White Russian Fleet in Algiers in French North Africa in 1920, the vessel was turned over to France in 1928 and ultimately scrapped in 1934.



Top: The Cruiser Almaz, which joined the Imperial Russian Black Sea Fleet in 1911, is shown to the rear/rig ht of the Battleship Tri Sviatitelia at Sevastopol in 1914, before she was converted to a Seaplane Carrier. Above: A Grig orovich M-5 Type flying boat is hoisted aboard the Almaz. NHHC





Previous pag e top: The Seaplane Carrier Imperator Alexander I. Previous pag e bottom: The Seaplane Carrier Imperator Nikola I. This pag e top: The Seaplane Carrier Orlitza. Above: The Seaplane Carrier Ruminia. NHHC





Top: An M-5 Type seaplane on the water adjacent to the Seaplane Carrier Almaz circa 1915-1916. Above: An M-5 Type seaplane, code 37, taxis on the water under the power of its sing le pusher type propeller. NHCC





Previous pag e top: A forward looking view of M-5 Type seaplanes, what appears to be code 41 visible, aboard the Almaz in the Black Sea on 13 March 1916. Previous pag e bottom: M-5 Type seaplane, code 41, is hoisted aboard the Almaz during operations in the Black Sea on 13 March 1916. Above: A Russian seaplane crashed in the water along side the seaplane carrier Imperator Alexander I at Sevastopol circa 1915. NHHC

No less than four more fully fledged Seaplane Carriers (other vessels are noted to have undergone some modifications work) followed the Almaz, including the Orlitza, which was converted from the merchant ship Imperatritza Aleksandra I in 1915, this vessel, post conversion, operating an embarked force of seaplanes for reconnaissance and spotting duties with the Imperial Russian Baltic Fleet. Records are vague, but it appears that this vessel was returned to civil service as a merchant ship in 1923. A Russian passenger liner (which entered civil service in 1913) was, under the name of Imperator Nikolai I, converted to a Seaplane Carrier from sometime in 1915, serving with the Russian Black Sea Fleet. The ship was renamed Aviator in May 1917. Having survived World War 1 and the revolutionary campaigns in post war Russia, the vessel, having been captured by German forces at Sevastopol in spring 1918 and handed over to Britain in November that year, was sold to the French Maritime Service in 1921 for Messageries Maritimes service as the Pierre Loti. The Russian Merchant Liner Imperator Alexander I, (Aleksander I) which entered civil service in 1913, was commissioned into the Imperial Russian Navy in 1915 as a Seaplane Carrier. This vessel was renamed Respublikatec on 11 May 1917. In 1921 she was sold to the French Maritime Shipping company Messageries Maritimes, being operated as the merchant ship Lamartine before being renamed Khai Dinn in 1940.

Imperial Russian Navy warships at anchor at Novorossiysk on the Black Sea Coast in 1916. In the foreg round is the Protected Cruiser Prut (this was the ex-Turkish vessel Medjidieth which was salvag ed by the Russian 1915-1916 after she was mined) with the seaplane carriers Imperator Nicolai I and Imperator Alexander I in the backg round.

The Romanian (Rumanian) State Maritime Service Liner Ruminia (completion date being around 1904) was taken over by Russia in 1916 and converted to a Seaplane Carrier, retaining the ships civil name. This vessel operated with an embarked force of between 4 and 6 Grigorovich M-9 Type flying boats tasked with the reconnaissance and spotting roles. The Ruminia was returned to Romania in late 1918, having been captured by German forces in spring 1918 and handed over to Britain in November that year. During World War 1, which was, perhaps naively, described as the war to end all wars that failed to live up to its epithet, the British Royal Navy, then the World’s dominant maritime power, operated not only seaplane carriers, but also introduced a number of aircraft carriers, in that aircraft would take-off from the flying-off deck. While the Imperial Russian Navy had operated the above seaplane carriers during the war, no aircraft carriers were introduced to service, neither was there any serious plans for the introduction of such vessels. By contrast, Britain was making great strides in the evolution of aircraft carrier design, having introduced, HMS Ark Royal, considered to be the World’s first, albeit rudimentary, aircraft carrier in that the seaplane engines would be started on non-flying-off deck. This vessel, in reality a seaplane carrier converted from a merchant vessel in 1914, went on to serve in the Dardanelles campaign in 1915, and in other theatres through the 1918 Armistice.



Top: The hybrid aircraft carrier/lig ht Battle Cruiser HMS Furious was perhaps the strang est of Lord Fishers oddities that included the Lig ht Battle Cruisers Courageous and Glorious. Above: Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning Sopwith Pup g oes over the side of HMS Furious during the fatal second landing attempt on 7 Aug ust 1917. Two previous landing s on the ship whilst underway on 2 Aug ust 1917 and ag ain on the first attempt on 7 Aug ust, were successful. MOI

Seven Sopwith fig hters on the forward deck of HMS Furious as the ship was en route to the launching point for the raid on the Tondern airship sheds in July 1918. MOI

The multitude of aircraft carrier designs in Britain included vessels with flying-off decks such as the converted Light Battle Cruiser HMS Furious, which was completed, not as the intended Light Battle Cruiser, but as a Large Cruiser equipped with a flying-off deck forward. At a later date a flying-on deck was added on the Furious aft section, for which the hitherto main armament of a single 18 in gun turret (only one gun housed in the turret) was removed, much of the ships superstructure protruding between the two deck sections. The first aircraft to be landed on a moving ship at sea took place at Scapa Flow on 2 August 1917, when Squadron Commander E.H. Dunning RNAS touched down on the flying-on deck on HMS Furious. Unfortunately, Dunning was killed on 7 August during a further landing attempt, the second that day (the first attempt was successful) when the Sopwith Pup veered to the right and went over the side after the engine apparently stalled as Dunning attempted to go-around having come in too high on approach. It was the Furious that was credited with launching what is considered the first true aircraft carrier strike in that aircraft launched from the deck of the carrier and recovered onto the deck once the mission was complete. The target for this audacious strike, which was launched on 19 July 1918, was the Zeppelin sheds at Tondern Schleswig. Ironically the Furious was part of a force that had been on the receiving end of an air attack by German seaplanes the previous month whilst cruising to the westward of Denmark on 19 June 1918. The changing flavor of events at sea was brought home by the fact that this operation involved two separate attacks being launched against the British ships, one of the German seaplanes being claimed shot down, whilst the British were also operating aircraft that day in the shape of seaplanes launched from HMS Galatea; one of these landing in Denmark after experiencing engine trouble and becoming lost in the fog. While the Furious was fitted with flying-off and flying-on decks (she, along with her half-

sisters, HMS Courageous and HMS Glorious, would be converted to full-fledged aircraft carriers in the 1920’s), the first full length flight-deck aircraft carrier, HMS Argus, was commissioned into the Royal Navy in 1918.

HMS Argus was the first aircraft carrier to feature a full leng th flig ht deck for the take-off and landing of aircraft.

In the interwar period of 1919 to 1939, several nations built up aircraft carrier forces, within the limitations of naval treaties, along with the naval aircraft to operate from them. The United States and Japan both built up aircraft carrier fleets as they faced each other across the Pacific with watchful eyes. In Europe, Great Britain continued to update its aircraft carrier fleet and France took tentative steps in operating a fledgling aircraft carrier force. Other nations, notably Italy and Germany, planned to introduce such vessels to their naval fleets in the 1940’s; these plans being thwarted by the outbreak of World War II in September 1939 as priorities went to other areas of military production deemed more pressing for their immediate war aims. Post revolution and civil war, the newly emerged Union of Soviet Socialist Republics, after facing the challenges of foreign intervention attempts to remove and replace the Soviet order with the so called ‘White Russia’, had placed a ban on shipbuilding. This was lifted with the announcement, in 1926, of a five year building program for naval vessels which followed the announcement the previous year of a five year build program for commercial shipping. In the 1930’s, although thoughts were turning to the possibility of operating aircraft carriers within the Soviet Navy at a future date, priorities in building capacity were allocated to projects considered to be more pressing, such as the need for new Destroyer/Escorts, Cruisers, Battleships and Submarines, with design priorities allocated to such classes of warship as the Project 23 Battleship, Project 69 Heavy Cruiser, Project 26 & Project 68 Destroyers and a diversity of Submarine classes.



Top: Artist depiction of the 1930’s Project 23 Battleship. Above: Artist depiction of the 1930’s Project 69 Heavy Cruiser (termed a Battlecruiser by western powers). These Projects, required to replace outmoded warships, assumed a g reater importance than aircraft carrier desig ning in 1930’s Soviet planning . Krylov Research Centre

Side-on view of the Project 71 aircraft carrier desig n put forward by TsNII-45 during the war years of 1941-45. Krylov Research Centre

The Soviet Union possessed no aircraft carriers in her fleets during World War II, this in no way mitigating that nations observations of the importance of such vessels in many theatres of war, in particular the Pacific war where both the Americans and Japanese, and to a lesser extent Britain, relied heavily on aircraft carrier battle groups to cover the large operating areas of the vast regions of the Pacific and surrounding areas. Aircraft carriers had been crucial in the European and Mediterranean theatres, particularly in the Battle of the Atlantic, providing air cover for allied convoys against submarine and long-range air attack, and in the Mediterranean, adding air cover for amphibious operations to the aforementioned tasks. The Soviet Union, locked in her titanic life or death struggle with the greater part of the German army on the Eastern Front, was in less need of aircraft carriers, such vessels being not just low on, but more or less absent from the priority list. However, with World War II at an end in late summer 1945, tensions between the two power blocks of East and West soon came to the fore, the USSR all too aware of that it was in a position of extreme inferiority at sea despite being in an overwhelming position of superiority on land.

During the war years, the western allies, the United States in particular, had built vast carrier fleets. The Soviet Union’s first serious workings on producing an aircraft carrier fleet had emerged between 1939 and 1940 when TsNII-45, which emerged from the takeover of large areas of the Research Institute of Shipbuilding & Ship Standards (NII-4) by NII-45, commenced design work on Project 71, the Soviet Union’s first national aircraft carrier program, TsNII-45 being the only such establishment of the People’s Commissariat of Shipbuilding that actually conducted work on the program. As well as design of the ship proper, TsNII-45 was also involved in design work on such systems as the deck catapults for aircraft operations. During the early war years of 1941-1943, any plans for aircraft carrier design work in the Soviet Union were not merely put on hold, but abandoned as the Soviets embarked upon the struggle for survival against Germany and its allies. TsNII-45, despite the horrors of the siege of Leningrad, combined with other hardships of war such as losing personnel to front line duties and other causes including direct German attack and starvation, continued to work in support of the USSR Navy and the war effort in general. During those terrible war years’ large numbers of personnel were called to active duty in the armed forces leaving only 500 or so, more than 400 of which were evacuated from Leningrad to Kazan, leaving only 80 personnel at the bureau in Leningrad. More than 60 of the total work force was killed during the siege of that city, which was lifted in January 1944, TsNII-45 being named after A.N. Krylov (supervisor of the model basin from 1900-1907) that year. CDB-17, formerly Neva PKB, the name under which it was formed on 18 January 1931, before being changed to TSPKB-1 in 1932, and then to CDB-17 in 1937, meanwhile, had, in 1943, been authorized to push ahead with design work on the Project 72 aircraft carrier program, apparently under V.V Ashik, formerly a chief designer on battleship projects. Progress was, however, slow as priorities were allocated to the more pressing need to defeat Germany on land; aircraft carriers it was clear would be next war weapons as far as Soviet requirements were concerned.

The Royal Navy fleet aircraft carrier HMS Indomitable. Larg e aircraft carriers such as this were instrumental in Britain and the United states achieving their war aims, particularly in the latter stag es of the war when, the United States in particular, employed vast aircraft carrier task forces as it advanced across the Pacific towards the Japanese Home Islands. CC

When the war in Europe ended in 1945, in the days after the Russian occupation of the German capital, Berlin, the Soviet Union, which was predominantly a land power endowed with the largest most powerful land army in history, also possessed a powerful navy (then tailored to regional war aims to support the land forces), but this paled in size and power in comparison to those of her former allies, Great Britain and the United States. As the Soviet Union transferred massive land and air forces to the Soviet Far East in preparation for ‘Operation Storm’, the Soviet invasion of Japanese occupied lands in the Far East, agreed on by the Soviet Union, Great Britain and the United States at the Yalta conference in February 1945, the US and Britain were conducting naval operations off the coast of Japan in the wake of the battle for the Japanese Island of Okinawa. The Okinawa operation had involved the employment of large scale aircraft carrier forces, predominantly, about 75%, American, the Soviets all too aware that while they could be in a strong position in areas of Soviet interest on the Eurasian mainland, they would be at a major disadvantage in any future power struggle in the Pacific Ocean areas that were of considerable distance from the support offered by land based air power. In 1945, the Soviet Union embarked upon a ten year naval modernisation program which called for design and building of new ships of most types, including battleships and heavy cruisers although there was no specific mention of aircraft carriers. Such projects remained suspended as design and building work focused on the pressing need to build Project 30Bis Destroyers and CDB-17 being heavily involved in design work on the Project 68K Light Cruisers of the Chapaev Class and 68Bis Light Cruisers of the Sverdlov Class; 5 and 14 of these large warships being built respectively.

There is no official documentary evidence that supports claims that the USSR had detailed plans to convert such large incomplete warships as the Kronstadt Battlecruiser (termed a Heavy Cruiser by its designers) to any aircraft carrier design post-1945; aircraft carriers being way down the list of priorities for reconstruction of the post-war Soviet Navy which was woefully short on modern small surface combatants, necessity programs such as the aforementioned Project 30bis Destroyers overriding luxury programs such as a future aircraft carrier program. The Soviet Union was by this time, however, already in possession of one aircraft carrier, the incomplete former German Navy Graf Zeppelin of which the Soviet Union had taken custody at the end of the war in summer 1945. The Graf Zeppelin had been launched at Kiel, Northern Germany, on 8 December 1938, but the outbreak of war less than a year later would see her consigned to sit the war out incomplete in port, being subjected to Allied air raids. There is certainly much conflicting information, even within official documentation, in regards to specific data about the Graf Zeppelin, this being unavoidable for a vessel that was never completed. However, it is clear that length was in the order 262 m overall and beam was in the order of 32 m. The vessel was expected to achieve in excess of 30 knots speed under the power of around 110,000 hp. While there were never any plans to repair and complete the Graf Zeppelin for service with her new Soviet owners, this vessel was certainly inspected by teams of Soviet naval engineers and designers, although to what extent remains something of an unknown as detailed inspection was not scheduled to take place until the vessel was in a Soviet port, this never taking place as the aircraft carrier had remained in port at Swinemünde on the German Baltic Coast until August 1947. She was assumed to have sank under tow to a Soviet port, although accounts conflict, one being that she was deliberately scuttled and others that she was sunk by ordnance by the Soviets; the sunken wreck was discovered in 2006.



Top: The Graf Zeppelin launch on 8 December 1938 was conducted in an atmosphere of fervour as the NAZI state looked to build a powerful navy able to challeng e British control of the western hemisphere sea lanes. Above: An inaccurate, but relevant US ONI depiction of the Graf Zeppelin dated September 1942. US Gov



Previous pag e: The Graf Zeppelin in Soviet hands at Stettin, Germany in September 1945 (top) and at Swinemünde in spring 1947 (bottom). Above: The need to build warships such as the Project 68Bis Sverdlov Class Lig ht Cruisers thwarted any immediate post-war Soviet aircraft carrier desig n/build prog ram. NHHC

While Soviet priorities had, through necessity, again been diverted from aircraft carrier building in the decade or so following the end of World War II, both the United States and Great Britain retained large aircraft carrier fleets, the 10+ vessels available to Great Britain in 1953 being dwarfed by the colossal number of carriers available to the United States which had emerged from World War II not only as the World’s largest economic power but as the largest naval power on Earth. The Soviet Union retained plans to build an aircraft carrier fleet, to which end, Krylov Research Centre, in 1955, conducted conceptual studies on a future aircraft carrier. However, priorities for other shipbuilding again saw aircraft carrier design work put on hold. The urgent requirement for the Soviet Navy now appeared to be the design and build of a nuclear

powered, nuclear missile armed, submarine fleet, particularly as the Cold War was entering a period that would not only embody the space race, but also lead to increasing tensions and nuclear stand-off, ballistic missile technology being developed by both power blocks off the back of that same space race and vice versa, the power and size requirement to put a payload into low Earth orbit also enabling the rise of increased power ICBM (Inter-Continental Ballistic Missile) and its naval analogue, the SLBM (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile). The protection of Soviet ballistic and cruise missile submarines from attack by NATO attack submarines was now viewed as the primary role of any future Soviet aircraft carrier program, a secondary role being to hunt for enemy missile submarines tasked with striking the Soviet Homeland.

2 PROJECT 1123, MOSKVA & LENINGRAD – ASW HELICOPTER CARRYING CRUISERS FOR A CHANGING GEO-MILITARY CLIMATE The Soviet Navy commissioned the first of what was loosely termed its first large scale aircraft carrying vessels, Project 1123 Long-Range ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) Ships (from 1977 these vessels were termed ASW Cruisers, but often referred to as ASW Helicopter Carrying Cruisers), in 1967, the same year that the first of the Project 667A second generation SSBN (Nuclear Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine) was commissioned; ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) operations in support of the SSBN fleet by that time firmly cemented in naval operational doctrine as the main role for the Project 1123 and further future projected large scale aircraft carrying vessels. When Admiral S.G. Gorshkov took command of the Soviet Navy in 1955, the core element of that service, as it is with the Russian Federation Navy in the 21st century, was the submarine fleets, these being tasked with, among other roles, projecting a Soviet presence in oceans and seas distant from Soviet territory, this of course being restricted by the endurance of the vessels in the non-nuclear power era. With the introduction of nuclear powered submarines from the late 1950’s, endurance was theoretically restricted only by on-board stores and weapons. Under Gorshkov, the Soviet Navy of the future, it was planned, would conduct a higher

tempo of operations in distant waters, not only by the submarine fleets, but by major surface units, often operating in powerful task groups. The main areas of increased operational presence outside Soviet home waters by Soviet surface ships and submarines advocated by Gorshkov was the Mediterranean Sea, the Southern Norwegian Sea and the Northwest Pacific Ocean; all areas at the time well outside the cover of Soviet land based fighter protection, although such naval units operating in these areas would be afforded a measure of ASW and anti-ship strike protection for operations by the other major element of the Soviet Navy available for operations at great distances from Soviet territory, the land based maritime patrol/ASW/anti-ship strike aircraft fleet.

The Project 1123 ASW Cruiser Moskva in the late 1960’s with a Ka-25 ‘Hormone’ ASW helicopter in an overflig ht climb above the bow. Krylov Research Centre

To support Gorshkov’s doctrine of establishing routine distant operations by surface units as well as submarines, an aircraft carrier fleet was desired to provide the surface task forces with fighter/interceptor aircraft air cover, this being the primary requirement for such projected ships. Gorshkov’s desire to build an aircraft carrier fleet certainly had its share of exponents and an equal number of opponents; the latter not only within the political, air and land force command structure, but within elements of the naval command as well. The road that led to the Soviet significant aviation carrying warships that emerged in the late Cold War period of the 1970’s and 1980’s, had begun in 1959, when CDB-17 embarked upon a program to build aircraft carrying vessels, this being amongst the bureaus main design areas from that date. In the last few years of the 1950’s, as the first hypothetical paving stones were laid on road that led to the Project 1123, Soviet military planners were busy thrashing out future roles for a number of new sub-surface and surface warship designs that were being developed as the USSR struggled in its quest to counter, to an extent, NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) overwhelming nuclear strike and naval superiority, this

latter subject being of particular contention, not least due to the fact that research and development trends were pointing to an ever increasing reliance on sea based platforms as part of the nuclear ‘deterrent’ of both power blocks.



The emerg ence of the ballistic missile submarine had a major impact on the future development of Soviet aircraft carrying cruisers. An R-11FM, the first submarine launched ballistic missile, in launch position on a submarine (top) and the first launch of a ballistic missile, R-11FM, from a submarine in 1955 (above). Energia

In the decade or so before the Soviet Union commissioned its first purpose desig ned aircraft carrying ships, a number of vessels, particularly auxiliaries, had already commenced the carriag e of helicopters, mainly for utility purposes, such as this Soviet naval tanker, Korland, with what appears to be a Ka-18 utility helicopter on the aft deck, while operating in the Atlantic in September 1960. USN

As noted briefly in the previous chapter, the changing geo-military landscape brought about by the increasing capabilities of ballistic missiles would bring about many changes to the projected primary role of any future Soviet aircraft carrying vessels. The introduction of the SSB (conventional powered ballistic missile submarine) from 1959 and the SSBN from 1960 saw a change in priorities for the Soviet Navy in that the primary role of aircraft carrying vessels would no longer be that of providing air defence for Soviet surface combatants, but would now be ASW to protect the new weapon system that was emerging in the shape of the SSB/SSBN in Soviet naval service, and the hunting of future NATO ballistic missile submarines threatening the Soviet homeland. In addition the aircraft carrying ASW vessels would be tasked with providing ASW protection for the new weapons systems that were the SSG (cruise missile armed conventional powered submarines) and the later SSGN (cruise missile armed nuclear powered submarines), such warships, armed with powerful long-range anti-ship cruise missiles, being designed to counter NATO, specifically USN, aircraft carrier battle groups, going a long way to redressing the balance of power at sea in the latter 1960’s and 1970’s. In this regard, design studies now focused more on helicopter carrying cruisers – the helicopter being considered an ideal platform for anti-submarine warfare, hunting NATO ballistic missile submarines or NATO attack submarines that posed a threat to the Soviet ballistic missile submarines.



Western intellig ence silhouette of the Project 1123 Moskva Class ASW Cruiser. USN

The landmark event that had a profound effect on the future direction of sea-going aviation within USSR military doctrine was the launch of an R-11FM SLBM (Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile) from the modified Project 611 (NATO reporting name ‘Zulu’) submarine B67 on 16 September 1955, an event that signaled the beginning of the era of ballistic missile submarines that continues to this day. This initial launch from a submarine was followed by operational testing with the Northern Fleet during August-October 1956, the weapon entering service with the Soviet Navy in a surface launched capacity on 20 February 1959, three such missile being carried by the Project 629/629B (NATO reporting names ‘Golf & ‘Golf II’) Class SSB, sixteen such vessels being completed between 1959 and 1962, joining the seven modified Project 611 submarines that preceded them. As it had become apparent that the protection of SSB and SSBN’s would be the main preoccupation of any new aircraft carriers then being projected for service in the coming decade or so, any plans for building an attack carrier force had now been abandoned in line with the changing strategic situation.



Pag e 25-26: The lead Project 1123 vessel, Moskva, in the Mediterranean Sea in 1968 with a USN P2H Neptune maritime patrol aircraft of VP-7 flying a reverse course on the port side of the ASW Cruiser (above). USN

The Moskva Class could accommodate an air wing of 14 Ka-25 helicopters in her hang er compartments, along with associated maintenance and operational equipment. US DoD

While ASW helicopter carriers could provide a measure of protection for a small number of missile boats, assuming the helicopter carriers were themselves protected from air and surface attack, the missile submarines would be at their most vulnerable when surfaced for missile launch. To address this issue, studies into conducting sub-surface launches commenced in 1955, the first underwater launch of an R-11FM, powered by a solid-propellant engine that replaced the liquid propellant engine, taking place in the Black Sea on 26 December 1956, firing depth being 30 m. In the 1960’s and early 1970’s, the Soviet Union built up a large fleet of missile boats, the 16 previously mentioned Project 629/629B and 7 modified Project 611 SSB being joined by eight Project 658 (NATO reporting name ‘Hotel’) SSBN, the first of which, K-19, was commissioned in 1960, and the last being commissioned in 1962, and the second generation of strategic missile carrying submarines that emerged as the Project 667A, which was built as a Soviet response to the US building of a fleet of George Washington Class SSBN’s armed with Polaris SLBM’s. As noted above, the first of twenty four Project 667A submarines, K137, was commissioned in 1967, the same year that the first of the Project 1123 Moskva Class ASW helicopter carrying Cruisers was commissioned. The R-11FM SLBM arming Project 629/629B SSN’s had a range of only 150 km, requiring these vessels to patrol very close to the potential enemy coastlines, primarily the East and west coasts of the United States. The introduction of the 600 km range missile arming the Project 658 SSBN improved the situation somewhat, but patrol areas were still far too close to the United States coast for any realistic support to be afforded by ASW helicopter carriers. It was with the introduction of the Project 667A armed with sixteen R-27 4K-10 SLBM, with a range of 2500 km, that realistic support in the general SSBN patrol areas could become a viable operational role, such patrol areas, closer to waters more readily under Soviet guard, being made possible with the introduction of the 3000 km range R-27U, sixteen of which were carried by the Project 667AU, and by the time of the service entry of these

weapons a more practical role for the ASW helicopter carrying Cruisers would be the hunting of NATO submarines, particularly SSBN operating closer to the Soviet homeland, rather than providing protection for the new generation of SSBN’s, which would still have to operate within a few thousand kilometers of the United States coast in order for their SLBM’s to reach their targets, particularly inland, this placing the ASW helicopter carrying Cruisers protecting the missile boats at particularly high risk as they would be operating in waters where NATO enjoyed an overwhelming superiority in surface and air warfare assets.

A Soviet Project 667A (NATO reporting name ‘Yankee’) Class SSBN. While this class of ballistic missile submarine could carry a powerful strike armament of 16 R-27 ballistic missiles, the rang e of these weapons dictated that the submarines would operate too far forward for the Moskva Class ASW Helicopter Carrying Cruisers to be able to realistically support them in their patrol areas during hostilities, the risk to those vessels being too g reat. USN

While the introduction of the Project 667A was instrumental in the Soviet Union more or less achieving parity with NATO in SSBN strike capability, the last of the 24 boats being commissioned in 1972, it was the introduction of the Project 667B, armed with twelve R-29 (Complex D-9) SLBM’s, these two-stage missiles able to deliver a single warhead to targets at true intercontinental flight range. The R-29R (Complex D-9R), sixteen of which were carried by the Project 667BDR from 1974, introducing a multiple warhead capability whilst retaining the option for single warhead delivery to targets at true intercontinental flight range that allowed the newest Soviet SSBN’s to operate closer to the Soviet Homeland in waters less hostile to Soviet operations where the Project 1123 ASW helicopter carrying Cruisers could operate more safely to better protect the missile submarines. The introduction of the R-39 (Complex D-19) on Project 941 SSBN, 20 such missiles with 10 MIRV (Multiple Independent Reentry Vehicles) could be carried, in 1983, this weapon having extended intercontinental flight range allowing the Project 1123 vessels, if deployed to Northern or Pacific Fleet regions, where the Project 941 SSBN’s were deployed, to operate in much more protected waters under the cover of land based fighter aircraft. Of course, operating with the Black Sea

Fleet, the Project 1123 ships were adequately covered by land based fighter cover during their ASW operations.

The Moskva Class could provide a measure of ASW support for naval units operating closer to Soviet territory, particularly when those ships or submarines were operating close enoug h for land based Fig hter Aviation Reg iments to provide air cover. One such operational role would have been that of supporting Soviet SSGN (Nuclear Powered Cruise Missile Submarine) such as the Project 659 and Project 675 (above), armed with the P-6 cruise missile complex, on barrier operations to prevent NATO aircraft carrier battle g roups to be able to position themselves to threaten Soviet territory or SSBN’s operating in Soviet protected waters.





Previous pag e and above: The second Project 1123 ship, Leningrad. US DoD

Design of a large helicopter carrying heavy cruiser intended for long-range antisubmarine operations commenced at CDB-17 in 1959 under the design supervision of A.V. Marinich. The two resultant Project 1123 Long-Range Anti-Submarine Warfare Ships (from 1977 ASW Cruisers – ASW helicopter carrying Cruisers) were built at the Chernomorsky shipyard in Nikolaev. As far as can be ascertained from conflicting records, Moskva, the lead

ship of the Project 1123 Class, was laid down on 14 December 1962, launched on 14 January 1965 and commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 25 December 1967, the same year that CDB17 was renamed Neva Design Bureau. The second of the two ships of the class, Leningrad, was laid down on 15 January 1965, launched on 31 July 1966 and commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 2 June 1969, Neva Design Bureau having commenced detailed design work on the Project 1143 Kiev Class ASW Cruisers with Airborne Armament and the Project 1160 nuclear powered aircraft carrier the previous year. The Project 1123 vessels were equipped with an extensive sensor/navigation/communications and defensive suite: At the heart of the sensor suite was the various air and surface search radar systems and the sonar systems which included the MR600 Voskhods radar complex designed for air and surface search; the MR-310 Angara-A radar complex designed for air and surface search, the main navigation radar complex, often referred to as ‘Don’, an ARP-50 radio direction finder complex; an MG-342 Orion sonar complex; an MG-325 Vega sonar complex; Kreminy-2M IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) interrogator system; an MG-26 Khosta underwater communication system; the MVU-201 Koren-1123 combat information control system; a Gurzuf ESM (Electronic Sensor Measures) complex; Gurzuf-1 ESM complex and the MRP-11-16 Zaliv ESM radar system. There was also the various fire control/radar systems for the various weapons systems and additions to the extensive communications suite. The Project 1123 warships would not merely be platforms for operating ASW helicopters, the ships themselves would be equipped with a formidable weapons capability to engage subsurface and air targets, with a limited tertiary surface engagement capability courtesy of the 2 x mounts for 52 mm guns. The primary surface to air defence system was 2 x twin arm launchers for M-11 Shtorm surface to air guided missiles (NATO designation SA-N-3 with the reporting name ‘Goblet’) with an effective range of around 35 km. The associated M-11 fire control radar guidance system was allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Head Lights’. The AK-725 52 mm twin gun mountings, which equipped the Moskva Class and the Ivan Rogov Class Amphibious Assault Ships, apparently featured water cooled ZIF-74 barrels; the guns, which were controlled by an ESP-72 fire control system, which was itself under the control of a MP-103 Bars radar system, being belt fed. The guns, which apparently had an elevation rate of -10 to +85° with a rate of 30° per second, could be operated manually in optical mode in the event of fire control system failure. In line with the primary ASW role, the Project 1123 were armed with the Vihr antisubmarine rocket system (also known as the 82R or RPK-1 Metel with the NATO reporting designation SUW-N-1). On the bow section were two 12 round RBU-6000 anti-submarine rocket launchers. Initially the Project 1123 Class was armed with 2 x Quintet 533 mm torpedo tube launchers, but these appear to have been removed at a later date, some sources stating this to be as early as 1975. The primary ASW weapon was of course the embarked air wing of Kamov Ka-25 (NATO reporting name ‘Hormone’) ASW helicopters, 12 being the normal embarked force along with two helicopters for search and rescue and utility work. During the course of their service lives the two Project 1123 Class ships, which underwent several modification, such as additions to the sensor suite and the aforementioned removal of the torpedo tubes, constituted elements of the Black Sea Fleet operating in support of the Black Sea Fleet submarines, particularly the ballistic missile submarines; the main sub-

surface threat to these vessels being NATO conventional attack submarines, although, certainly in times of tension, NATO nuclear powered attack submarines may have been forward deployed in the Black Sea. Although spending much of their time with the Black Sea Fleet, the ships on occasions constituted major elements of several task groups deployed to other stations such as the deployment to the Indian Ocean by the Leningrad in summer 1974 and that vessels visit to Cuba in 1984. The Leningrad was apparently decommissioned in June 1991 and the Moskva was certainly decommissioned by the mid-1990’s, breaking up of the vessels apparently commencing in 1995 and 1997 respectively.





Top: RBU-6000/90R anti-submarine missile. Above: The Moskva in the Mediterranean Sea. CC

The Moskva Class flig ht deck arrang ement and hang er capacity was sufficient for the accommodation of an air wing of 14 Ka-25 helicopters, which could have been increased in an emerg ency. The Moskva also operated Yak36M (Yak-38) V/STOL subsonic jet powered fig hters during that aircraft desig ns shipboard trials in November 1972.

NPO Almaz Shtorm (Storm) missile Complex - Referred to by Soviet Navy Commander, S.G. Gorshkov, as the backbone of the domestic fleet air defence, Shtorm was developed in response to a decree of the government of the USSR issued in 1961 for the design of a medium-range UZRK (Universal Anti-Aircraft Missile System) under a consortium headed by MNIIRE ‘Altair ’. Many areas of the control elements of the system were effectively enhancements of the ‘Wave’ SAM system developed earlier, although these were modified to the stage that they were apparently new generation systems, the overall system capability requirements of the Storm over the ‘Wave’ system being significantly greater in many areas, in particular, as stated by PJSC NPO Almaz, “range, reliability and noise immunity.”

The system featured two radar channels for the detection and tracking of targets, both of which could, as stated in PJSC NPO Almaz documentation, “measure all three coordinates of the tracked target. Each of these two channels carries out measurement of angular coordinates of targets in two ways for mutually perpendicular planes – monopulse and linear scanning.” As with the ‘Wave’ system one of the major design goals to be overcome was difficulty in combating passive jamming systems, the system, as with other systems of its generation, being susceptible to some natural phenomenon such as certain meteorological conditions. Many of these problems were overcome or reduced by switching to longer wavelengths with the effect of facilitating a move from, as stated in PJSC NPO documentation, “continuous target channels to mirror lattice that even in replacement elliptical antennas sni¬zit Round allowed them sail.” The Storm system had underwent a rigorous testing phase, the control system layout undergoing testing at the ‘Feodoisya’ range which was followed by testing of the prototype system on a trials vessel, the towing ship OC-24. The first series production units, installed on the Moskva, underwent operational testing on-board the ship in the Black Sea in 1967.

The second Project 1123 ASW helicopter carrying Cruiser, Leningrad.





Pag e 36-37: Moskva in the Mediterranean Sea on 15 May 1969. USNA

Project 1123 Specification – data furnished by Nevskoe Design Bureau Full displacement: 15280 tons Standard displacement: just under 12000 tons Length overall: 189 m Beam overall: 34 m Mean draught at full displacement: 7.7 m Main propulsion: 4 x main boilers, 2 MTGA’s, 2 shafts Propulsion capacity: 2 x 33100 kW (2 x 45000 hp.) Speed: 30 knots Range at economic speed of 18 knots: 6,000 miles Air group: 14 x Kamov Ka-25 helicopters Armament: 2 x 2 launchers for M-11 Shtorm multi-purpose missile system; 2 x 2 52 mm gun mounts; 1 x 2 launchers for Vihr anti-submarine rocket system; 2 x 12 ASW rocket launchers of RBU (P*Y)-6000 type and 2 x 5 533 mm torpedo tubes (later removed) Ships complement: 840 + air group personnel



The major elements of the shipborne armament, the M-11 surface to air missile, Vihr and RBU-6000 antisubmarine missile/rocket complex, was concentrated in the forward section of the ship with the after section of the ship dominated by the helicopter operating area. Leningrad (top) and Moskva (above). Nevskoe Design Bureau



The Project 1123 ASW Cruisers were equipped with a plethora of protrusions and mast antennas for the extensive radar, navig ation, communications and other electronics suits. Most prominent of these was the antennas for the MR-600 Voskhods air/surface search radar complex and the MR-310 Ang ara-A air/surface search radar complex. Nevskoe Design Bureau





Top: Moskva in the vicinity of the Eng lish Channel in January 1970. Above: Moskva in company with a Soviet Oiler is shadowed by the Royal Navy Frig ate HMS Undaunted in the late 1960’s or early 1970’s. CC

3 PROJECT 1143-1143.4 – KIEV, MINSK, NOVOROSSIYSK AND BAKU (ADMIRAL OF THE FLEET OF THE SOVIET UNION, GORSHKOV) While the Project 1123 Moskva Class was building, design studies were underway for a future nuclear powered ‘aircraft carrier ’ for service with the Soviet Navy from the mid-1970’s. Neva Design Bureau had commenced detailed design work on the Project 1143 Kiev Class Anti-Submarine Warfare Cruisers with Airborne Armament (Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser from 1977) under the design supervision of A.V. Marinich (from 1970 Krylov Design Bureau was also involved in design work in relation to the Project 1143) and the Project 1160 nuclear powered aircraft carrier under the design leadership of chief designer Maureen A.B.,

in 1968; the former intended for V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing) fixed wing aircraft and helicopter operations and the latter intended for CTOL (Conventional Take-Off and Landing) fixed wing aircraft operations, for which it would be equipped with take-off catapults and arrestor systems for assisting landing. It had, however, become clear in the late 1960’s that the resultant Project 1160 design was too large a stride for the fledgling aircraft carrier development program, the focus falling on the more technologically and financially attainable Project 1143 for which progress moved along rapidly; the design being approved by the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry of the USSR and the Soviet Navy on 30 April 1970. The primary role of this class of warship, as was the case with the Project 1123, was to be ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) equipped with ASW helicopters, although the new class would incorporate a considerable surface to surface and surface to air capability along with an air interception capability courtesy of a planned complement of fixed wing V/STOL fighter aircraft that would also possess a secondary surface attack capability – the fixed wing V/STOL aircraft capability and a formidable surface to surface anti-ship strike capability courtesy of a battery of P-500 Bazalt anti-ship cruise missiles being the two major additions to the ships functions compared to the Project 1123 Moskva Class.

The Project 1143 Kiev Class ASW Cruisers with Airborne Armament (Kiev photog raphed in 1985 above) was the first Soviet desig ned and built warship class intended for the operation of fixed wing aircraft from an integ ral flig ht deck and parking area with two aircraft lifts, one adjacent to the island (roug hly centre of the island leng th) and

the other just aft of the after twin 76.2 mm g un mount, the lift here being extended into the ships interior. USN

The Project 1143 ASW Cruisers with Airborne Armament differed from traditional conventional attack aircraft carriers in that they were designed as a complete weapons system capable of performing the functions of ASW, air defence, and anti-ship strike in their own right, completely independent of their embarked air wing, for which they were armed with a formidable suite of ASW, air defence and surface to surface missile and gun armament systems.



An American Intellig ence assessment, dated November 1974, was illustrated with these poor very quality artist depictions of the Kiev Class carrier (top) and the Yakovlev Yak-36M (Yak-38) V/STOL fig hter (allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Forg er’) that would, it was thoug ht at that time, make up the bulk of her air wing . While the depictions, presumably constructed from satellite photog raphs of the Kiev under construction and the aircraft on the g round, showed a reasonable resemblance to the warship and the aircraft, the omission of any anti-ship cruise missiles on the ships forward section showed a lack of understanding as to the true role for the Kiev Class, still considered in some intellig ence circles to be small attack aircraft carriers rather than anti-submarine warfare aircraft carrying cruisers. US Gov





An overview of deck area and overall dimensions comparison of the American Kitty Hawk Class attack aircraft carrier, Hancock Class ASW aircraft carrier and the Soviet Kiev and Moskva Class, both of which had a primary ASW role. US Gov



A series of outboard plans of the Kiev (top) and port outboard plan of the hull sections and hang er deck (above) as depicted by Morrison Repla-Tech Company in December 1976, these plans apparently having been drawn up using photog raphs of the Kiev taken by NATO maritime units and presumably satellite imag es. USNA



From the late 1970’s, throug h the 1980’s and into the early 1990’s, the Soviet SSBN fleet increased in capability and in flig ht rang e of their missile armament allowing submarines like the Project 667BDRM - NATO reporting name Delta IV (top) - to operate in protected waters close to the Soviet homeland. The anti-SSBN mission had been adopted, almost wholesale, by the g eneral purpose submarine force like the Project 671 - NATO reporting name Victor III (above). US DoD

The fixed wing component of the Kiev Class air g roup was centred on a deployed squadron of Yak-38 V/STOL subsonic fig hter aircraft, four such aircraft seen on the Kiev (above), probably during her 1976 cruise in the Mediterranean Sea. USN

The air group would consist of a deployed squadron of Yak-38 (initially designated Yak36M) light V/STOL fighter/attack aircraft and two squadrons of Ka-25 (later Ka-27) ASW helicopters, with a few helicopters for other roles such as search and rescue and, later, airborne radar picket. By the time the first of the Kiev Class ships was in service the primary ASW role was aimed at targeting NATO SSN (nuclear powered attack submarines) that were themselves targeting Soviet SSBN (nuclear powered ballistic missile submarine), the latest classes of which, armed with intercontinental range ballistic missiles, now operated much closer to the Soviet homeland where they could be better protected. The targeting of NATO SSBN’s, their patrol areas, in the case of the United States, often closer to the US eastern and western seaboards, would primarily be conducted by Soviet SSN’s; for example in the early 1980’s Soviet Project 671 ‘Victor I’ and ‘Victor II’, and certainly from 1983, ‘Victor III’ SSN’s were operating off the US East and West coasts near to US SSBN bases and in US SSBN patrol areas.





Pag e 48-49: A series of NATO photog raphs of the lead Project 1143 ASW Cruiser with Airborne Armament, Kiev, with eig ht Ka-25 ‘Hormone’ ASW helicopters, all of which are not visible in all photog raphs of the series, during her first deployment in the Mediterranean Sea in July 1976. USN





Previous pag e top: Kiev, most likely in the Mediterranean Sea in July or Aug ust 1976, with 12 Ka-25 ‘Hormone’ ASW helicopters on deck. Previous pag e bottom and this pag e top: The Royal Navy Leander Class Frig ate HMS Naiad (modified with Ikara ASW missile launcher in place of the forward g un turret) shadows the Kiev, circa 197677. CC Above: Kiev with no less than seven Ka-25 ASW helicopters and a pair of Yak-38 ‘Forg er’ V/STOL fig hter aircraft on deck.

Defence of the Soviet SSBN/SSB force was practiced by an echeloned defense in depth principle utilising major surface combatants, mine warfare vessels and ASW/strike aircraft. In addition, it was expected that Soviet SSBN’s would be supported by Soviet SSN’s during transit to their operating areas, some SSN’s remaining in the general operating areas to protect the SSBN’s against NATO SSN’s. By the early 1980’s, the operating areas for the second and third generation Soviet SSBN’s was expected to cover large areas of the Kara, Barents, Northern Norwegian and Greenland Sea’s, in regards to the western hemisphere. In the eastern hemisphere the main SSBN operating areas were expected to be the Sea of Japan, Sea of Okhotsk and the general sea area

of the Kamchatka Peninsula.

From its introduction to Soviet Naval Aviation in the mid-1970’s, the Tu-22M took on a primary role of sea denial armed with Kh-22 long -rang e anti-ship missiles desig ned for attacks on hig h value assets such as NATO attack aircraft carriers. US DoD

The Soviet strategy of SSBN defence appeared to include general sea access denial out to distances of some 2000 km from the SSBN operating areas, for which conventional and nuclear powered general purpose submarines, surface combatants and land based long range ASW, patrol and strike aircraft would be employed. The most important forces for sea denial would have been the cruise missile armed elements of the general purpose submarine fleets and the land based naval aviation anti-ship strike units, in particular those equipped with the Tupolev Tu-22M (NATO reporting name ‘Backfire’) intermediate range supersonic variablegeometry bomber (introduced from 1974) armed with Kh-22 (AS-4) long-range supersonic anti-ship missiles to deny NATO, in particular US, aircraft carrier battle groups form operating in areas that would allow them to threaten Soviet territory or the innermost SSBN operating areas; these operating areas for attack carrier battle groups, the Soviets expected to include the Norwegian Sea, North Sea, eastern Mediterranean Sea and the northwest Pacific Ocean. As noted above, the main airborne anti-carrier strike element within Soviet Naval Aviation was the Tu-22M, four Regiments being available by the end of 1982 – two in the Baltic Fleet, one in the Black Sea Fleet and one in the Pacific Fleet; the Baltic Fleet Regiments often deploying to Northern Fleet air bases during training exercises where they could provide cover for the Northern Fleet surface combatants, including the Kiev Class, by then reclassified as Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers, employed on ASW operations in line with the primary role of protecting Soviet SSBN’s. In short, a vast portion of the Northern, Pacific and Black Sea Fleet surface combatants, including the Kiev and Moskva Class, general purpose submarine and airborne assets would be employed on SSBN protection operations, although for many deployed units this primary mission would overlap with other missions such as engaging NATO units not necessarily tasked with countering, or indeed being considered a threat to the deployed Soviet SSBN forces.





Previous pag e: A three quarters bow-on view of the Kiev; the photog raph thoug ht to have been taken from a British warship during the Kiev’s Mediterranean cruise in Aug ust 1976. This pag e: Stern (top) and starboard side views of Kiev in the Mediterranean Sea on 10 Aug ust 1976.



Top: The Second ship of the Kiev Class was the Minsk, technically the Project 1143.2, but categ orised simply as Project 1143, the same as her sister Kiev. Minsk is shown here circa 1978 with P-500 anti-ship cruise missiles in the elevated (ready to launch position with the inboard aftermost twin missile container lid open. Nevskoe Design Bureau Above: This DIA artist rendering of Minsk shows the vessel in a floating dry dock. DIA



Top: Minsk is shadowed by the USN Spurance Class Destroyer USS Elliot (DD-967) circa 1978. Above: The Spurance Class Destroyer DD-963 shadows the Minsk whilst cruising off the coast of Tunisia as part of a task g roup of Soviet ships. The photog raph is stated as having been received in June 1979, but was most probably taken in the second half of 1978, Minsk having only just commissioned on 27 September that year, but probably before she joined the Soviet Pacific Fleet in November 1978. USN

The forward (bow) section of a Kiev Class HACC, most likely Kiev herself. The rectang ular hatch like structure almost at the extreme bow is the cover for the retractable mid-course g uidance radar complex (NATO reporting name ‘Trap Door’) for the P-500 ASCM complex. To the left of the ‘Trap Door’ is the foremost 12 round RBU6000 ASW rocket/missile launcher. CC

Much analysis of the Kiev Class all too often referred to the design along the lines of a ‘poor man’s’ attack carrier; this of course ignoring the role the class was designed for, built for and operated in. The attack carrier, for example the Nimitz Class nuclear powered attack carrier, was basically a very large vessel for accommodating an air wing of mainly fighter/attack aircraft, which would constitute the vessels strike and defensive power with the exception of a basic suite of defensive systems, missiles, guns etc. The majority of the attack carrier non-aviation related defense was entrusted to other naval units such as Frigates, Destroyers and Cruisers. Grouping the Kiev Class in the attack carrier classification of ship would be a fallacy, these vessels being designed to conduct the full spectrum of ASW, anti-

ship strike and surface to air defence operations normally associated with a number of warship types, as well as operating an air group oriented mainly for the ASW role with an embarked fighter squadron, the main role of which was the interception of long-range maritime patrol aircraft; other air assets consisting of a handful of helicopters tasked with search and rescue and, later, airborne radar picket duties.



Previous pag e: Port side view of the after island structure of a Kiev Class vessel, most likely Kiev herself, detailing the aft M-11 twin SAM launcher and the aft twin 76.2 mm g un turret. CC This pag e top: Port side-on view of the Minsk showing the aftermost battery of four P-500 Bazalt ASCM, the forward M-11 SAM launcher and the four forward 30 mm CIWS. Above: A three quarters port on view of the Minsk showing all eig ht P-500 missile launch containers, the RBU-6000 ASW rocket/missile launchers and the forward M-11 SAM launcher and twin 76.2 mm g un turret.

The hybrid cruiser/aircraft carrier layout of the Kiev Class is clearly evident in this elevated forward view of one such vessel, either Kiev or Minsk, showing the larg e island superstructure which was required to facilitate the heavily armed cruiser and aircraft carrier functions of the vessel, with much of the surface to air, surface to surface and ASW armament concentrated forward of the island with the ang led flig ht deck on the ships port side with aviation parking areas concentrated on the after starboard side and adjacent to the island.

Initially termed ASW Cruisers with Airborne Armament, the Kiev Class was conceived and build in line with the functions of a large Cruiser and added a number of functions of an aircraft carrier, the term Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser, applied in 1977, being fitting of the design, which, at the time the Kiev joined the Soviet Northern Fleet in December 1975, was amongst, if not they most powerful surface combatants in service with any power, featuring an ASW and air defence capability completely independent of its air group as well as a powerful battery of long-range anti-ship missiles; the ship able to engage any air, surface or sub-surface target then in operational service with any power. The extensive sensor, communications, navigation and countermeasures suites included an MR-700 Fregat (later apparently undated to Fregat-M) 3D air/surface search radar (NATO reporting name ‘Top Steer ’); an MR-600 Voskhod air and surface search radar, an MGK-335 sonar complex, apparently referred to as Platina, an MG-342 sonar complex, apparently referred to as Orion (the Novorossiysk was equipped with the more advanced MGK-355 sonar complex which was apparently referred to as Polinom), an MGS-407K sonar complex, an MI110R Alleya-2 combat data management system (the Novorossiysk was equipped with the Alleya-2K), Korvet 1143, Salgir-1143 navigation complex in Kiev and Minsk (Salgir-V in the Novorossiysk), an R-790 satellite communications complex; Tayfun-1 communications

system; PK-2 decoy RL complex consisting of two ZIF-121 launchers for the deployment of a variety of decoy rounds - AZ-TST-41, AZ-TSP-47, AZ-TST-47, AS-TSTV-47, AZ-TSO-47 (apparently introduced circa 1985), AS-TST-47 (apparently introduced circa 1991); an M6262 Ograda ESM (Electronic Sensor Measures) complex, an MR-212 Vaygach(-1143) navigation radar, a Volga navigation radar and Kremiy-2M IFF (Identification Friend or Foe) interrogator complex.

A quintet launcher for 533 mm ASW torpedoes on a Soviet warship of the Kiev Class g eneration. CC

The non-aviation anti-sub-surface weapons suite included 2 x RBU-6000 twelve barreled anti-submarine rocket launchers located on the forward part of the ship ahead of the forward M-11 twin arm SAM (Surface to Air Missile) launcher, a Vihr anti-submarine rocket system (also known as the 82R or RPK-1 Metel with the NATO reporting name SUW-N-1), actually an element of the overall ‘Storm’ system as detailed below, and two quintet launchers for 533 mm torpedoes.

Top: A salvo launch of 90R missiles from a Kiev Class HACC. Above: The Upg raded Shell Sonar Interference MG94ME. JSC Alloy

RBU-6000 basic specification Caliber: 213 mm (JSC Scientific Production Association Alloy states 212 mm) Number of trunks (launch tubes): 12 Weight of the complex: 3500 kg 90R missiles weight: 112.5 kg RSL-60 bomb weight: 113.6 kg Firing range missile 90R Maximum: 4300 m Minimum: 600 m Firing range bombs RSL-60 Maximum: 5230 m (JSC Scientific Production Association Alloy states 4300 m Minimum: 210 m (JSC Scientific Production Association Alloy states 600 m for 90R missile Maximum elevation provided by electric power drive Maximum descent angle: -90° Angle of vertical guidance for firing at maximum firing range: 46° Angle of vertical guidance at minimum firing range: 8.5° Guidance speed In all rows: 27°/s On the horizon: 27°/s The system data outlined above was generally the same as that for the system installed in the Project 1123. The Project 1143 Class later added the Upgraded Shell Sonar Interference MG94ME that was designed to interfere with torpedoes by means of a broadband barrage; sighting frequency with a range of emitted frequencies that correspond to the various frequencies of target torpedoes. For air defence the Kiev Class was armed with a layered missile/gun defence system which included two twin arm M-11 Shtorm medium range (out to about 35 km) surface to air guided missiles – one forward and one on the aft island superstructure – and their associated guidance system (NATO reporting name ‘Head Lights’), a total of 72 missiles being accommodated for the M-11 systems. First introduced on the Moskva Class, the Storm system was further developed, through the period 1965 to 1971, under the UZRK Thunder program, which effectively transformed the system from an air defence system to a multifunctional system initially termed ‘Blizzard’, but eventually retaining the ‘Storm’ label, which added the ‘Snowstorm’ anti-submarine guided missile complex to the system, this being accommodated on a twin-arm launcher externally similar to that of the M-11 SAM twin-arm launch system. For short-range air defence the Kiev Class was equipped with a retractable, rotating launcher for a OSA-M (NATO designation and reporting name SA-N-4 ‘Gecko’) system with a capacity for 40 9K33M missiles. For surface to surface strike engagements the primary weapon was the NPO Mashinostroyenia P-500 Bazalt (Basalt) ASCM (Anti-Ship Cruise Missile) complex (allocated the NATO designation SS-N-12 with the reporting name ‘Sandbox’) with a battery of eight ready to fire missiles in the Kiev, Minsk and Novorossiysk, this being increased to twelve such

ready to fire weapons in the Baku. The Bazalt missile complex, with P-500 ASCM was developed to supersede the P-6 ASCM system. Both missiles systems had more or less the same dimensions and characteristics with similar weights and similar aerodynamic and structural layout, but the P-500 featured increased flight velocity, range and a more powerful warhead, the latter designed by GSKB47.

The NPO Mashinostroyenia Bazalt anti-ship cruise missile complex with its battery of P-500 missiles bestowed upon the Kiev Class a formidable surface to surface strike capability. NPO Mashinostroyenia

Starboard side on-view of a relatively crude, but reasonably accurate, NATO intellig ence depiction of the P-500 missile (NATO SS-N-12). US Gov

As was the case with the P-6 missile complex, the P-500 could cruise to the target area at considerable height for an ASCM, but adopted an enhanced period of low level flight in the terminal phase of the engagement, the altitude of which was decreased over its predecessor, guidance being overseen by the on-board ‘Argon’ target/flight management system, which incorporated an integral FDC (Digital Computer), developed by the Granit Research Institute. The design origins of the P-500 can be traced back to Resolution No.250-89 dated 28 February 1963 authorizing development of the weapon system by Experimental Design Office-52, a draft design of the missile being ready by December that year. Phase I flight testing commenced at Nenoksa in October 1969 when a ground based missile was launched in a test under the designation SM-49. In 1975, the state joint tests for the korotkoresursnogo

engine of the Bazalt complex for submarine launch was completed paving the way for the engine to enter serial production at PJSC UMPO, the last units being produced in 1985. The Bazalt missile complex was deployed on sub-surface and surface combatants – Project 675MK nuclear powered submarines, in which they replaced P-6 ASCM from 1975 (it is thought that the first units may have been deployed on a Project 675MK submarine in the early 1970’s under the test/development program, although there is a degree of ambiguity), Project 1143-1143.4 ASW Cruisers with Airborne Armament (Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers) from 1976 (the missile became operational on Kiev in 1977) and the Project 1164 Guided Missile Cruisers. The Kiev Class had eight missiles in the launch containers and a further eight missiles stored in an armoury below deck. Although the improved Kiev Class vessel Baku had twelve missiles in the launch containers, it is unclear if any reloads were included in the armoury, Strela PA documentation suggesting no reloads. The missile Cruisers of the Project 1164 Slava Class were equipped with sixteen P-500 missiles in launch containers with no reloads, the first of this class, Slava, launching a P-500 during tests on 29 November 1982, the ship commissioning that December. The targeting system for the Bazalt complex, development of which was initiated in 1962, was conducted through an extensive system that included maritime based, space based and airborne reconnaissance and targeting systems., the ‘Legend’ development and ‘implementation being completed in 1975 and development of spacecraft electronic reconnaissance being completed in 1978, and the space based radar reconnaissance element, development of which was completed in 1975, enabled the system to detect the radiation signature of shipborne radio/radar systems and emissions from nuclear powered vessels from space.

Initially NATO intellig ence analysts overestimated the attack profile altitude of the P-500 (SS-N-12) as noted in this g raphic that depicts the missile with a non-terminal eng ag ement altitude of around 6000 m and a terminal eng ag ement altitude of around 16000 m as opposed to the actual values of 5000 m for the non-terminal phase and 50 m for the terminal phase. Such misinterpretation of the weapon systems capabilities would certainly have complicated NATO efforts to combat the missile. US Gov

P-500 Bazalt Technical Specification – data furnished by Strela PA Mass: ~6000 kg Length: 11.7 m Launch: surface vessel and sub-surface vessel with flight over water Propulsion: korotkoresursnogo turbojet engine Firing distance: 550 km Warhead weight: ~500 kg Flight velocity: ~3000 km/h Flight level [altitude]: 50000-50 m



For surface to surface eng ag ements the Kiev Class was armed with a powerful battery of eig ht P-500 ASCM in four sets of twin launchers (in the stowed position top and the two aftermost launchers elevated above) located on the forward part of the ship; the two forward most twin launchers flanking the forward twin 76.2 mm g un turret

and the two aftermost twin launchers flanking the forward M-11 launcher. The Improved Kiev Class vessel Baku was armed with twelve launchers. CC

Kiev (circa 1981/82) during a 1985 cruise with eig ht Yak-38 V/STOL fig hters and a Ka-25 helicopter on deck. The Kiev Class was desig ned with two aircraft lifts, one adjacent to the island (roug hly centre of the island leng th) and the other just aft of the after twin 76.2 mm g un mount, the lifts being extended into the ships interior. USN

The 2 x 76.2 mm gun mounts, one located forward between the forward most battery of four P-500 containers and the other located on the aft island superstructure, could provide a measure of air defence, particularly against slow flying targets, whilst the 8 x AK-630 30 mm six barrel cannon CIWS (Close In Weapon System) mounts were intended for use against targets that had penetrated the outer layers of air defence, in particular anti-ship cruise missiles, these being mounted four on the stern, two either side, and four on the forward island superstructure. The ships gun armament also had a secondary surface to surface capability.

AK-630M automatic 30 mm close in weapon system. Concern-Agat

Developed as a CIWS replacement for the AK-230 twin 30 mm cannon mount, the AK630/M would be capable of engaging high speed targets such as anti-ship cruise missiles that had penetrated the outer air defence layers of a warship or group of warships. The AK-630/M could also be employed against other target sets ranging from slow moving helicopters to subsonic and supersonic aircraft. The weapon can also be employed against surface targets such as fast attack craft and other waterborne objects such as drifting mines and against shore targets. The AO-18 automatic gun system features a continuously cooled six-barrel 30 mm gun that is fed ammunition through an automatic belt feed system from the magazine which has a capacity of 2,000 rounds, the breach-block mechanism ramming the round home and ejecting the casing after expenditure. The gun, mounted in a revolving turret, is a high velocity cluster system able to lay down a barrage of 30 mm cannon into the path of an oncoming projectile through remote control gun laying courtesy of the fire control system and the sighting station. AK-630M Automatic Gun Mount – 30 mm CIWS – data furnished by Concern-Agat Calibre: 30 mm Maximum engagement range: 5000 m Rate of fire: up to 5000 rounds per minute Muzzle velocity: 875 m per second Laying angles Elevation: -12° to +88° Traverse: -180° to +180° Ammunition loads: 2000 rounds in magazine Gun mount weight (without ammunition): ~1000 kg



Top: The primary ASW weapon was the two deployed squadrons of Ka-25 ‘Hormone’ ASW helicopters, an early production example of which is seen here in formation with a USN SH3 Sea King . Above: A Kiev Class Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser circa 1981-82 with three Ka-25 helicopters and a pair of Yak-38 fig hters on deck. USN

















Pag e 70 top: A quartet of Yak-38 ‘Forg er’ V/STOL fig hter aircraft in line abreast on the forward flig ht deck area of the Minsk circa 1982-83. Pag e 70 bottom: A pair of Yak-38’s, with wing s in the folded position, on the deck of a Kiev Class carrier in Aug ust 1986. Pag e 71: Yak-38 ‘Forg er’ V/STOL fig hters on the deck of a Kiev Class carrier in Aug ust 1986. Pag e 72 top: A Yak-38U ‘Forg er B’ two-seat operational conversion trainer variant of the Yak-38 on the after flig ht deck of a Kiev Class carrier in Aug ust 1986. Normally only a sing le Yak-38U was embarked, along with twelve of the sing le-seat Yak-38/M ‘Forg er A’. Pag e 72 bottom: This particular photog raph of flig ht deck operations on-board the Minsk comes with two dates, the first being 1980 and the second being 1986. Pag e 73 top: A Yak-38 being readied for flig ht on the deck of Kiev Class carrier. Pag e 73 bottom: An early production Yak38, in V/STOL mode with lift-eng ine access doors open during the automatic landing process, about to cross the stern of the Kiev, cruising in the Mediterranean Sea in Aug ust 1976. USN Above: A publicity photog raph showing flig ht crew boarding Yak-38 fig hters on the flig ht deck of the Kiev in 1980. NPO Saturn







Previous pag e top: The Minsk in company with the auxiliary/fleet replenishment ship Boris Butoma and a Kara Class g uided missile cruiser in May 1979. Previous pag e bottom: A Kiev Class carrier is replenished at sea by the Keila Class auxiliary/replenishment ship Berezina circa 1981-82. This pag e top: Kiev and Minsk forming part of the same task g roup in company with a fleet auxiliary replenishment ship, date unknown. Above: Minsk circa 1983. USN

The first of the Project 1143 vessels, Kiev, was laid down at the Chernomorsky shipyard on the Black Sea in Soviet Ukraine on 21 July 1970 and launched on 26 December 1972. The second ship of the class, Minsk, was laid down at Chernomorsky on 28 December 1972, a mere two days after her sister, Kiev, had been launched, Minsk being launched on 30 September 1975. Kiev was commissioned into the Soviet Northern Fleet on 28 December 1975, serving until retired at the end of 1991. Minsk apparently commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 27 September 1978 and joined the Soviet Pacific Fleet in November that year.

Project 1143 Specification – Kiev and Minsk – data furnished by JPSC Nevskoe Design Bureau (formerly Neva Design Bureau) Full displacement: 41400 tons Length overall: 273 m Beam overall: 47.2 m Mean draught at full displacement: 10 m Main propulsion plant: 8 main boilers, 4 MTGA’s, 4 shafts Propulsion capacity: 2 x 331000 kW (2 x 45000 hp.) Speed (full): 31 knots Range at economic speed of 18 knots: 7,160 miles Air group: 32 aircraft including 19 helicopters, most of which were employed on ASW duties armed with a variety of air launched weapons. The air wing also included a deployed squadron of 12 x Yak-38/M single-seat V/STOL fighters and usually a single Yak-38U twoseat conversion trainer; these aircraft able to be armed with R-60 short range infrared guided air to air missiles, unguided bombs and rockets for the secondary air to surface role and an internal 30 mm cannon which could be employed against air and surface targets Armament: 2 x twin arm launchers for M-11 (NATO reporting name SA-N-3) medium range surface to air missiles and launchers for Osa-M (NATO reporting name SA-N-4) short range surface to air missiles, 72 and 40 missiles respectively, 2 x RBU-6000 ASW rocket launchers, a Vihr anti-submarine rocket system (also known as the 82R or RPK-1 Metel with the NATO reporting name SUW-N-1), two quintet launchers for 533 mm torpedoes, Bazalt anti-ship missile complex with eight ready to fire P-500 ASCM on the forward deck and eight reloads accommodated in an armoury, two x 76.2 mm gun mounts and eight AK-630/M 30 mm six barrel cannon close in weapon system mounts

Previous pag e and above: The third ship of the Kiev Class was the Project 1143.3 Novorossiysk, which, while introducing a number of chang es, retained the overall same outer appearance of her sisters, Kiev and Minsk. Nevskoe Design Bureau

The third of the Kiev Class was a modified design known as the Project 1143.3, initially developed under chief designer A.V. Marinich (later V.F. Anikiev). This ship, named Novorossiysk, was built at the Chernomorsky shipyard where she was apparently laid down on 30 September 1975, this being the same date that the Minsk was launched. The Novorossiysk, which was launched on 26 December 1978 and commissioned into the Soviet Navy on 14 August 1982, differed in a number of details from her predecessors, Kiev and Minsk, not least of which was her capacity to operate a larger air group of 36 aircraft, enhanced electronic equipment suite and a slightly reconfigured anti-ship missile armament.





Previous pag e and above: The Project 1143.3 Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser Novorossiysk.. Nevskoe Design Bureau/USN

Project 1143.3 Novorossiysk Specification – data furnished by Nevskoe Design Bureau Full displacement: 43220 tons Length overall: 273.1 m Beam overall: 51.3 m Mean draught at full displacement: 9.3 m Main propulsion plant: 8 main boilers, 4 MTGA’s, 4 shafts Propulsion capacity: 2 x 33100 kW (2 x 45000 hp.) Speed: 31 knots Range at economic speed of 18 knots: 7160 miles Air group: 36 aircraft including 19 helicopters, most of which were employed on ASW duties armed with a variety of air launched weapons. This left capacity for seventeen aircraft, although only a deployed squadron of 12 x Yak-38/M single-seat V/STOL fighters and a single Yak-38U two-seat conversion trainer were normally embarked. The capacity for an additional four aircraft over that of the Kiev and Minsk could be allocated to utility helicopters and, from the late 1980’s, Ka-31 airborne radar picket – AEW (Airborne Early Warning) helicopters. Armament: 2 x twin arm launchers for M-11 (NATO reporting name SA-N-3) medium range surface to air missiles and launchers for Osa-M (NATO reporting name SA-N-4) short range surface to air missiles, 72 and 40 missiles respectively, 2 x RBU-6000 ASW rocket launchers, a Vihr anti-submarine rocket system (also known as the 82R or RPK-1 Metel SUW-N-1), two quintet launchers for 533 mm torpedoes, Bazalt anti-ship missile complex with eight ready to fire P-500 ASCM on the forward deck and eight reloads, two x 76.2 mm gun mounts and eight AK-630/M 30 mm six barrel cannon close in weapon system mounts



Baku on the date she was commissioned (above) with the Kiev (top) for comparison. Nevskoe Design Bureau

The Project 1143.4 Improved Kiev Class, Baku. Nevskoe Design Bureau

A further improvement of the Project 1143, the Project 1143.4, named Baku (later renamed Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov), was the fourth and last of the Kiev Class, developed under chief designer V.F. Anikiev, and, like her three predecessors, was built at Chernomorsky shipyard where she was laid down on 17 February 1978, launched on 1 April, 1982 and commissioned on 11 December 1987. Although ostensibly referred to as the fourth unit of the Kiev Class, the Baku, which was designed during the period 1979-1980, unlike the Novorossiysk, which had herself introduced a number of improvements over the Kiev and Minsk, was to all intents and purposes a new generation of HACC, featuring an extensive sensor/weapons suite, including enhanced radio-electronic weapons capability and a new design of automated electrical systems documentation was introduced, much of which was a generation ahead of those of her half-sisters – Kiev, Minsk and Novorossiysk. There were a number of changes to the sensor/electronics suite of the Baku, the most radical being the incorporation of a Mars Passat air/surface search radar complex, an MR700M enhanced derivative of the MR-700 Fregat air surface search radar, the MR-600 of her predecessors being omitted. A new combat data management system, apparently referred to as the MVU-410 Lesorub-434, replaced the MI-110R system of the other Kiev Class units. There were changes to the sonar suite, although the MGK-355 complex introduced on the Project 1143.3 was apparently retained in the Project 1143.4. There were a number of other changes to the communications systems and additions the fire controls systems for the new generation weapon complex’s equipping the vessel.



Seag oing operations of the Baku. A most prominent feature of the forward part of the ship is the twelve launch containers for the P-500 ASCM Complex. Nevskoe Design Bureau



The Mars Passat air/surface search radar complex and the enhanced MR-700M installed on the Baku were, particularly in reg ards to the former, a g eneration ahead of the systems employed on the Kiev, Minsk and Novorossiysk, the larg e slab type antennas being a most prominent feature of the island superstructure. USN



Top: The two after batteries of vertical launch tubes for the Tor SAM complex, one to the left of the two Yak-38M V/STOL fig hters and the six in a line between the two Ka-27 ‘Helix’ ASW helicopters. Above: The two RBU-12000 ASW rocket launchers on the bow of the Baku. USN





Top: Port side view of the island superstructure and rearmost 100 mm g un mount on the Baku. USN Above: Poor lig ht quality g eneral arrang ement drawing of the Project 1143.4 Improved Kiev Class, Baku. Nevskoe Design Bureau



Top: A Yak-38/M rises away from the Baku following a vertical take-off. Krylov Research Centre Above: Two Ka-27 ASW helicopters on Baku along with two Yak-38M V/STOL fig hters. USN



Top: Baku, dated 5 May 1989. Above: Baku in 1989. USN

The Baku featured an enhanced anti-ship missile capability – the number of launchers for the P-500 ASCM of the Bazalt missile complex being increased from eight to twelve, a factor of 1.5. The M-11 surface to air missile systems were omitted, a vertical launch system for 192 Tor M-1 derivative surface to air missiles being introduced in their stead. This system consisted of four groups each of a six launch tube cell for 9K330 (also referred to as 9M330/1) missiles – two six tube cells located ahead of the forward P-500 battery, another six tube cell located on the starboard deck aft of the island and a fourth six tube cell on the port side on the after part of the ship. Other changes to the weapon suite included the substitution of two single 100 mm gun mounts in place of the two twin 76.2 mm mounts and apparently the substitution of two RBU-12000 ASW rocket launchers for the two RBU-6000 units installed in the Kiev, Minsk and Novorossiysk. The Project 1143.4 featured a number of other improvements including, as stated in JPSC Nevskoe Design Bureau documentation, increased survivability courtesy of “above water structural protection”. The enhancements came at the price of a slightly reduced air wing of 35 aircraft in comparison to the 36 of the Novorossiysk, although this was still superior to the 32 aircraft air group of the Kiev and Minsk. Project 1143.4 Baku (Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov from 1990) Specification – data furnished by JPSC Nevskoe Design Bureau Full displacement: 44500 tons Length overall: 273 m Beam overall: 52.9 m Mean draught at full displacement: 9.4 m Main propulsion plant: 8 main boilers, 4 MTGA’s, 4 shafts Propulsion capacity: 5 x 50000 hp. Speed: 31 knots Range at economic speed of 18 knots: 13,500 miles Armament: Tor SAM complex of 4 x six vertical launch tube cells for 9K330 (9M330/1) missiles, 2 x RBU-12000 ASW rocket launchers, 12 launchers for P-500 ASCM, two 100 mm general purpose guns and eight AK-630M 30 mm CIWS Air group: 35 aircraft consisting of 12 Yak-38M, a single Yak-38U and 22 helicopters – Ka27 ‘Helix’ ASW and Ka-31 AEW

While the Kiev Class had a primary SSBN defense role, being major surface combatants, it was inevitable that the Class would form element of various task groups and detached squadrons operating in various distant stations such as the Mediterranean Sea and the Indian Ocean. For instance, a task group centered on a Kiev Class vessel was deployed to the Indian Ocean in 1982, this group also participating in a worldwide Soviet naval exercise that year. In 1983, the Novorossiysk operated with a task group in the Indian Ocean, despite the decline that year, that had continued each year since 1981, of the Soviet presence (in ship days) in that region. In general, despite 1983 being regarded as the peak year of Soviet operations outside home waters (recorded as around 60,000 ship days, a 6% increase on the previous year), there was a decline in such operations by surface combatants, the increase being attributed to increased operations by the general purpose submarine force and amphibious warfare ships. From late 1985, at the commencement of the Admiral Chernarvin era (Chernarvin replaced Gorshkov as commander of the Soviet Navy in 1985), large scale Soviet naval operations began to contract to areas closer to the Soviet homeland in line with the defensive doctrine that was advocated when Gorbachev took office as the Soviet Premier that year, remaining until ousted as a result of a Coup in 1991, the year the Soviet Empire would break-up. As far as can be ascertained through available documentation all four Kiev Class vessels had been decommissioned by Russia by 1995, although there is a degree of ambiguity. It is clear that Kiev and Minsk were sold to commercial enterprises, ultimately being displayed as Museum exhibits in China, being preserved in this manner in early 2016 at Tianjin and Shenzhen respectively. Novorossiysk was sold for scrap and commenced break-up in 1997 and the Baku (Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov) was sold to India in 2004, the sale including the modernisation and conversion of the vessel to a conventional take-off and landing) aircraft carrier for operations with MiG-29K/KUB strike fighters and Ka-28/31 helicopters. The ship re-commissioned in her new incarnation as the INS Vikramaditya in 2013.

Kiev (top) at Tianjin, China and Minsk (above) at Minsk World in Shenzhen China. Google Earth



The Project 1143.4 Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov (formerly Baku) was obtained by India and converted, in Russia, to a CTOL aircraft carrier (top), drawing on some of the desig n work embodied in the Project 1143.5 Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Kuznetsov operating with the Russian Federation Navy (above). Nevskoe Design Bureau

4 OTHER SIGNIFICANT SOVIET/RUSSIAN AVIATION CAPABLE SHIPS – PROJECT 1174, PROJECT 11780 AND PROJECT 1144 As well as the purpose built aircraft carrying vessels of the Project 1123 and Project 11431143.4, the Soviet Navy, like her western counterparts, routinely based helicopters on a number of ship classes ranging from cruisers/destroyers/frigates to landing/assault ships and auxiliaries. Most prominent among these in the latter Cold War years were the Project 1174 Ivan Rogov Class Large Landing Ship, which had two separate flight decks for helicopter operations. The project 1174 was a three ship class of Large Landing Ships designed to increase the

capability of the USSR to conduct amphibious assault operations, for which they were designed with the capacity to accommodate, operate and maintain a modest air wing of four Kamov Ka-29 transport helicopters (Ka-27 derivative). The three ships of the class, Ivan Rogov, Alexander Nikolaev and Mitrofan Moshalenko, were constructed between 1978 to 1989 at the Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad on the Baltic coast and primarily operated with the Soviet and later Russian Federation Baltic and Black Sea Fleets. Project 1174 Ivan Rogov Class Amphibious Assault Ship – data furnished by JPSC Nevskoe Design Bureau Propulsion: 2 x gas turbines each rated at 13240 kW (18000 hp.) driving two shafts Full Displacement: 13880 tons Length overall: 157 m Beam: 23.8 m Mean draught at full displacement: 6.7 m Speed (maximum): 21 knots Range at economic speed of 14.5 knots: 4,000 miles Armament: 1 x OSA-M surface to air missile launcher; 1 x 20 tube BM-21 122 mm rocket launcher; 1 x AK-726 76 mm gun mounting; 4 x 30 mm AK-630 CIWS Air wing: 4 x Kamov Ka-29 transport helicopters





Previous pag e top and centre: Project 1174 Ivan Rog ov Class Larg e Amphibious Landing Ships in Soviet Naval service. USNA/CC Previous pag e bottom: A starboard side-on silhouette of the Project 1174 Ivan Rog ov Class Larg e Amphibious Landing Ship. USN Above: The Ivan Rog ov Class featured two separate helicopter operating platforms, one fore and one aft. CC



Top: Model of the Project 11780 Universal Landing Ship desig n dated around 1980. Nevskoe Design Bureau The Soviet Navy conducted a series of trials operating Yak-38 V/STOL fig hter aircraft from non-aircraft carrier platforms, including a converted container ship (above) with a Yak-38 in the take-off/landing /hover mode and a further Yak-38 on the forward deck.

By 1980, design of a large universal landing ship, the Project 11780, which would have been capable of accommodating 24 helicopters, was well advanced at Nevskoe (Neva) Design Bureau. This project was cancelled as there was insufficient capacity in Soviet shipyards for the build of ships of that size, available capacity being allocated to more urgently required designs. The design of the Project 1144 Kirov Class Nuclear Powered Guided Missile Cruiser incorporated the ability to accommodate, operate and maintain up to four (two being standard) Ka-25/27 helicopters, primarily for the ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) role. Increasingly from the mid to late 1960’s, many warship and auxiliary types, the former including the Project 57-Bis Missile Destroyer, Project 58 Missile Cruiser, Project 61ME Destroyer and Project 1134 Large Anti-Submarine Ship, were provided with the capacity to operate a single Ka-25 ASW helicopter, the latter two designs, as was the case with the later Kirov, accommodating the aircraft in a hanger.



Previous pag e: Like her NATO counterparts, from the mid-1960’s, and particularly g oing into the 1970’s, the Soviet Union beg an desig ning a helicopter operating capability into her larg er surface combatants such as the Project 1164 Slava Class Cruiser (top) and the Sovremenny Class Destroyer (bottom). USN Above: The Project 1144 Nuclear (Atomic) Powered Missile Cruiser was desig ned with the facilities to operate and maintain ASW helicopters, two standard and four overload, these typically being Kamov Ka-25 and later Ka-27. USN

The Soviets practiced Yakovlev Yak-38 V/STOL fighter aircraft take-off and landings from a container ship, the main purpose for this most likely being to enable such vessels to transport replacement aircraft to within several hundred kilometers of a Kiev Class HACC (Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser) operational area, allowing the HACC to remain on station rather than return to port due to lack of operational aircraft. Theoretically vessels like the Ivan Rogov Class could have been utilized in this role also, particularly in support of any Kiev Class HACC operating with the Baltic or Black Sea Fleet’s, although the short distances may have negated their need. Many modern day Russian warship and auxiliary designs, including all Frigate size and above warships, along with many smaller size patrol vessels, are configured for the operation and accommodation of at least one helicopter, typically a Ka-27/28 or Ka-31, some small size patrol vessels also having provision for the operation of small size VTOL (Vertical Take-Off and Landing UAV (Uninhabited Air Vehicles).





The stable of modern Russian Federation Naval ships featuring helicopter operating facilities rang e from larg e vessels like the Project 21301 Salvag e Vessel (previous pag e top), Project 21818 Medium Amphibious Landing Ship (previous pag e centre), Project 11661/11541 Gepard 3.9 Frig ate (previous pag e bottom) and the Project 20382 Frig ate (this pag e top). In the case of the Frig ate size vessels, a Kamov Ka-27/28 or Ka-31 helicopter could be carried while the Project 21818 Medium Landing Ship can operate helicopters up to 12 ton. Admiralty Shipyards/USC/Almaz Above: Concept model of a Russian desig ned helicopter carrier to replace the Mistral Class helicopter carriers ordered from France, but cancelled following the imposition of European Union sanctions on Russia in 2014. The carrier concept is shown with Ka-29/32 assault transport and Ka-52K naval attack helicopters. KRET.



5 SHIPBORNE AVIATION – HELICOPTERS AND FIXED WING V/STOL AIRCRAFT It would be no fallacy to refer to the Kamov Design Bureau (now part of Russian Helicopters) Ka-25 helicopter (allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Hormone’) as the first purpose designed naval aircraft developed by the Soviet Union. The Ka-25 ASW (Anti-Submarine Warfare) and general purpose helicopters that would make up the air wing of the Project 1123 Moskva Class ASW Cruisers, as well as some other surface combatants was derived from earlier Kamov designs, in particular the Ka-15 and Ka-18 light utility helicopters which were developed from the Ka-10 that conducted its maiden flight in 1949, this latter design proving the co-axial rotor system that would be refined and incorporated on future Kamov designs, including the Ka-15/Ka-18, which first flew in 1952 and 1957 respectively, a number of such aircraft serving on naval vessels and auxiliaries. Incorporation of the co-axial rotor concept allowed the overall length of the helicopter to be reduced as it removed the necessity for a stabilizing tail rotor. In 1956, the year following the first launch of a ballistic missile from a Soviet submarine, Kamov commenced design work on a future ASW helicopter platform required to operate from general purpose and future purpose built ASW helicopter carrying warships in line with the expected future primary mission of the Soviet Navy – to provide support for Soviet ballistic missile submarine operations. Although ASW would be the primary mission of the new helicopter, secondary and tertiary roles would be reconnaissance and target identification, although many other roles would be allocated later. The Ka-25 prototype conducted its maiden flight on 26 April 1961 under the in-house designation ‘Product D’. As there was no real alternative to the co-axial Ka-25 (Product D) in existence in the early 1960’s an early serial production decision was taken when the aircraft was still in the preliminary test phases, any problems would simply have to be overcome. The Ka-25 was put into serial production at Ulan Ude Aviation Plant, which had over recent years produced Ka-15 and Ka-18 co-axial rotor helicopters, some of which had been modified for shipboard operations.



Top: The first of a long line of Kamov co-axial rotorcraft to be desig ned in Russia emerg ed as the Ka-10, often referred to as the ‘Flying Motorcycle’, which conducted its maiden flig ht in 1949. Above: The Ka-10 led to the Ka15 co-axial lig ht utility helicopter, the prototype of which flew in 1953, a number serving in a naval capacity in the early 1960’s, particularly aboard Soviet auxiliary vessels. Russian Helicopters





Pag e 103: Kamov Ka-25 ‘Hormone’ operations dating back to the 1970’s. CC/USN This pag e top: The Kara Class Cruiser (Kerch depicted) could accommodate one Kamov Ka-25 helicopter on its stern landing /storag e platform. Above: A Ka-25 operating from a Soviet Kresta Class Destroyer flies near to the Royal Navy aircraft carrier Ark Royal in 1970. CC

The Ka-25 featured, as noted in Rostec Corporation documentation, “sophisticated mechanics of column rotor blades, adhesive compounds” and extensive anti-corrosion measures, fiberglass being incorporated into the construction. The avionics/sensor suite of the Ka-25 was designed to permit 24 hours a day operations even in relatively adverse weather conditions. The Ka-25 was powered by 2 x GTD-3/F turboshafts, each with a nominal rating of 660+ kW (somewhat over 800 hp.) each. The Omsk Design Bureau (evolved from Design Bureau 19) GTD-3 flight test took place during the first flight of the Ka-25. Following the flight test it was deemed necessary to introduce measures to increase output to 900 hp., the modifications leading to the GTD-3F powerplant, which consisted of a pair of GTD-3M engines and the RV3M power reduction gearbox of the rotors, from 1964, which would power the serial production Ka-25, power output being increased to 1100 hp. in 1973. Basic length was ~9.75 m, rotor span ~15.74 m, reducing to ~11 m when folded, height ~5.37 m and normal take-off weight was in the order of 7200 kg. Ceiling was in the order of 3500 m and maximum flight speed was in the region of 220 km/h (operational aircraft were probably somewhat slower), reducing to around 180 km/h in the cruise, with a range at economical cruise of around 450 km. The main weapon in the ASW role was the ASW torpedo and or depth bombs, but the helicopter could be configured to carry other weapons such as rocket pods.

The first serial production Ka-25PL conducted its 30 minute maiden flight on 25 April 1965, this being the first of a production run that totaled 460 units between 1965-1973 (Rostec Corporation states 1965-1975), these being operated by the Soviet Union, Bulgaria, Vietnam, Yugoslavia, India, Syria, and, following the break-up of the Soviet Union, Russia and Ukraine, both of which inherited former Soviet aircraft. No less than 250 Ka-25’s, spanning sixteen different modifications, including the Ka-25PL, Ka-25T, Ka-25PS and Ka-25BT, were delivered to naval aviation units of the Soviet Navy. As well as forming the air group of the Moskva Class Anti-Submarine Warfare Helicopter Carrying Cruisers, the Ka-25 formed the rotary wing element of the air groups of the Project 1143-1143.3 HACC (Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers) of the Kiev Class, these being replaced by the Ka-25 successor, the Ka-27 (allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Helix’), in the fourth of the Kiev Class, the Project 1143.4 Baku, the air groups of the earlier vessels of the Class, Kiev, Minsk and Novorossiysk, re-equipping with the Ka-27. With the introduction of the more advanced Ka-27 in 1981, a slow retirement of Ka-25’s commenced until only the Ka-25T utility variant remained in Russian Federation (which had inherited the bulk of Ka-25’s when the Soviet Union was dissolved in December 1991) naval service by the mid-1990’s. Now completely retired from service, Ka-25’s can be found in the Central Museum of the Armed Forces in Moscow, at the Monino Air Museum and at a museum in Hanoi, Vietnam.

This pag e: General arrang ement drawing showing the basic characteristics of the Ka-25 helicopter. US Gov



In the early 1980’s, the Ka-25 beg an to be superseded by the Kamov Ka-27 in the ASW and search and rescue roles, such aircraft g oing on to serve on a variety of Soviet/Russian warship types rang ing from larg e aircraft carrying vessels to smaller Frig ate size vessels. Russian Helicopters

The Kamov Ka-27 would, like the Ka-25, feature a co-axial rotor system, the benefits of which, as well as smaller dimensions due to the removal of the requirement for a tail rotor, included the facilitation of ‘easier ’ deck landings, particularly when encountering crosswinds. In 2016, the Ka-27 was the standard Russian ASW helicopter, operating from the Project 1143.5 ACHC (Aircraft Carrying Heavy Cruiser) and other Russian Federation Navy surface combatant, the Project 1143-1143.4 HACC’s, some of which operated Ka-27’s, having been retired in the 1990’s. The design also equipped the naval air arms of a number of export nations, notably India, China and the former Soviet Republic of Ukraine, under the designation Ka-28 (the Ukrainian aircraft apparently retain the Ka-27 designation).

The extended Ka-27 family of helicopters, Ka-27/28/29/31/32, covers a number of variants optimised for ASW, transport/attack, radar picket and general purpose duties, the main production centre being the Kumertau Aviation Production Enterprise (KumAPE), remaining so in the second decade of the 21st century. The Ka-27 ASW variant, the basic transport configured prototype of which conducted its maiden flight in 1970, is designed to detect modern surface and low acoustic signature subsurface targets, the data then being relayed to other assets for attack, or alternatively the target being directly attacked by the helicopter itself employing ASW weapons, in particular homing torpedoes. A search and rescue variant of the Ka-27 was developed under the designation Ka-27PS, a small number of this variant being allocated to the air group of Russia’s sole Project 1143.5 ACHC as well as serving on some other platforms.

The Ka-27PS is used by the Russian Navy for, among other thing s, search and rescue operations from the Project 1143.5 ACHC and, prior to her decommission, the Project 1143.4, as well as a number of other platforms. Russian Helicopters



Top: A Russian Navy Ka-27 helicopter operating from the Destroyer Admiral Vinogradov flies in the vicinity of the USS Vella Gulf during operations in the Gulf of Aden in 2009. Above: A Russian Navy Ka-27PS (allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Helix D’) approaches to land on the Amphibious Assault Ship USS Belleau Wood (LHA 3) during exercise ‘Cooperation from the Sea’ in 1996. US DoD



Top: A Ukrainian navy Ka-27PS, home based at Saki in the Crimea, lands aboard the USN Frig ate USS Taylor (FFG 50) in the Black Sea on 20 July 2010. Above: A Ka-27PS operating from a Russian Federation Navy Neustrashimy Class Frig ate. US DoD

The Kamov Ka-29 prototype, a transport variant of the Ka-27, conducted its maiden flight in 1976. This variant was the standard helicopter operating from the Project 1174 Ivan Rogov Class amphibious Assault Ships, some 50+ being manufactured for the Soviet Navy, and would have operated from the Project 11780 Large Landing Ship/Helicopter Carriers had that design not been cancelled in the 1980’s. Later transport/assault variants carried the designations Ka-29TB and Ka-32, the latter, which flew under the power of 2 x Klimov TV3117 engines in 1989, being the designation for civilian service configured variants.



Top: Ka-29 Assault Transport helicopter operations from an Ivan Rog ov Amphibious Assault Ship. Above: Russian Navy plans for a future assault transport helicopter are rather hazy in 2016, but it is assumed that any acquisition would be based on the desig n of the civil Ka-32 variants such as the Ka-32A11BC. Nevskoe Design Bureau/Russian Helicopters



Ka-31 radar surveillance helicopters with the rotating radar antenna in the stowed position beneath the fuselag e (top) and deployed for operations (above). Russian Helicopters

The rubric of the Kamov Ka-31, which was developed from the Ka-29 transport/assault helicopter, is to provide radar surveillance cover for naval operations beyond the coverage of land based radar or land based airborne radar coverage from AWACS (Airborne Warning and Control System) type aircraft such as the Tu-126 ‘Moss’ that operated with Soviet Air Forces and the later Beriev A-50 ‘Mainstay’ (based on the Ilyushin Il-76 transport aircraft airframe) that, in updated form, remains in service with the Russian Federation Aerospace Forces in 2016, in order to provide timely information of threats. The RTK radar complex, which incorporated a powerful radar system and a large rotating antenna, bestowing 360° coverage, would be capable of detecting a multitude of target types,

including cruise missiles flying at various altitudes at what Rostec Corporation documentation describes as “across long distances”, including low-altitude targets, over the sea surface or land mass against sea and land/surface backgrounds. Detected targets are automatically categorised and identified, the parameters and coordinates of the target trajectory are also identified, and the data is then automatically processed and passed to various recipients. The number of simultaneously tracked targets remains classified in 2016, but Rostec Corporation documentation describes this as “a large number”. Surface targets can also be detected, the data for the various airborne and surface targets being relayed to ship, ground or airborne control stations and air defence systems, shipborne or airborne. The Ka-31, the prototype of which conducted its maiden flight in 1987, was intended initially for operations from the Soviet modified Kiev Class HACC Baku and later from the other Kiev Class units as well as the Project 1143.5 Tbilisi (Kuznetsov) Class ACHC, the type constituting an element of the air wing of the Russian Federation Navy’s ACHC Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Kuznetsov in 2016. As well as the Kiev Class and the Kuznetsov Class, the Ka-31 could also be operated, if required, from other surface combatants such as Guided Missile Cruisers, Guided Missile Destroyers and Frigates as well as from bases ashore. India, the major export customer, received a total of fourteen Ka-31 helicopters, which are serviced at a purpose built facility at Goa, India. These aircraft can be operated from various Indian Navy warships, but predominantly form elements of aircraft carrier air groups including that of the INS Vikramaditya, formerly the Project 1143.4 Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov (originally Baku), which had been converted in Russia to a CTOL (Conventional Take-off and Landing) aircraft carrier and delivered to India in 2013 for final fitting out with certain Indian systems. In 2016, this vessel, as well as operating Ka-31’s, also operates Ka-28 helicopters and RAC MiG MiG-29K/KUB 4th+ generation strike fighters as elements of her air wing. The Ka-27 is powered by a Klimov TV3-117VK (Kamov Marine), some Ka-27 aircraft, along with Ka-29 and civil Ka-32 helicopters, being powered by the TV3-117VK (high altitude Kamov), this engine, which is similar to the TV3-117B, entering serial production in 1985. Ka-28 export variants of the Ka-27 are powered by the TV3-117VKR (high altitude Kamov Power).



The extended Ka-27 family (a Russian Federation Navy Ka-27 top and an Indian Navy Ka-31 above) appears set to constitute the major shipborne rotary wing elements of the Russian Federation and several export nations well into the 2020’s and probably beyond. Russian Helicopters/Rostec Corporation

Ka-27, Ka-29, Ka-31 and civil Ka-32 helicopters were later powered by TV3-117VMA (high altitude Modernised Model ‘A’) engines, which had been developed for the Kamov Ka50 ‘Black Shark’ attack helicopter, but also powered non Kamov designs such as Mi-24 models and the Mi-28A/N attack helicopter, serial production commencing in 1986. The export variant, designated TV3-117VMAR, had power ratings in a similar range to those of the TV3-117VKR. Power for standard Ka-32 civil helicopters was supplied by the TV3117VMA Series 02, which was basically a derivative of the TV3-117VMA, type certification being granted in 1993. Power ratings for these engines varied, but ranged from around 2000 to 2400 hp. The VK-2500 engine, which was developed by 2001 and installed in later Ka-32

helicopters and specified for the Ka-27, developed up to 2700 hp. Ka-27 Specification – data furnished by Russian Helicopters Powerplant: 2 x TV3-117VMA or TV3-117KM or VK-2500 engines each rated at 2200 hp. Maximum take-off weight: 12000 kg Maximum weight of underslung load: 3775 kg Maximum flight speed: 250 km/h Maximum ceiling: 5000 m Flight range: 900 km Rate of climb: 9.5 m/s Armament Bombs: PLAB250-120, P-50T, UPLAB-50, S-3B, OMAB(1)-25-12D, 25-3N Torpedoes: AT-1M, VTT-1, UMGT-1, ME Orlan, APR-2 Yastreb-M, ATM-1 Missiles: APR-2E.2, APR-3E.3 Crew: Three when configured for search and attack mission and two when configured for attack mission Ka-31 Specification – data furnished by Russian Helicopters Powerplant: 2 x TV3-117VMA each rated at 2200 hp. Maximum take-off weight: 12500 kg Maximum speed: 220 km/h Operating height of flight within radar surveillance coverage: 1500-3500 m Maximum ceiling: 5000 m Flight range: 680 km Rate of climb: 9.5-12 m/s Radar equipment: RTK Crew: 2

A Soviet Navy Yak-38 V/STOL fig hter aircraft, with lift-jet access doors in the open position, during vertical take-off/landing flig ht mode. NPO Saturn

The V/STOL (Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing) fighters – Yak-38/M & Yak-141 (41) – The Yakovlev Yak-38 V/STOL naval aircraft was developed form the experimental Yak-36 V/STOL aircraft, going on to become the first operational fixed wing aircraft to operate from the deck of a Soviet Navy warship, constituting the fixed wing component of the air wings of Project 1143-1143.4 Kiev Class Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruisers. In the 1950’s, a number of V/STOL research programs were underway in NATO (North Atlantic Treaty Organisation) nations, notably in the United Kingdom, United States, France and West Germany; many of which had attained flight status in an experimental capacity. The Soviet Union was not lost on the potential of such technology and had also embarked upon extensive research and development in this promising field of aeronautics/propulsion in the 1950’s.



Top: Three view drawing of the Yakovlev Yak-36 experimental V/STOL aircraft of the 1960’s. Above: Yak-36 experimental V/STOL aircraft, apparently in July 1967. Yakovlev OKB

The Yak-36 (allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Freehand’) featured swiveling nozzles for its two turbojet engines, reaction jet controls and an automatic flight control system for flight in low-speed flight regimes. The design, which had a maximum speed of 1100 km/h, a ceiling of 12000 m and a range of 500 km, was never intended to constitute an operational service fighter aircraft, but rather to prove the V/STOL concept which would be applied to a new V/STOL fighter designed for shipboard operations – the Yak-38 (allocated the NATO reporting name ‘Forger ’) designed by Yakovlev OKB. The Yak-38 was designed to counter NATO maritime patrol aircraft, conduct reconnaissance and had a built in rudimentary strike role armed, initially, with unguided munitions. The air to air capabilities of the Yak-38/M are often taken out of context as to its actual role. It was not intended to engage with air defense fighter aircraft, but rather support the ASW and submarine support role of the Kiev class carrier group by intercepting multiengine maritime patrol and ASW aircraft. That said, the aircraft would have, if required, the ability to engage all types of aircraft in short-range combat with the short-range infrared guided R-60 (NATO reporting name/designation AA-8 ‘Aphid’) air to air missile or the 30

mm cannon.

Yak-38 three-view technical drawing . Yakovlev OKB

Powered by two swiveling nozzle turbojet engines, the Yak-36, the existence of which was officially revealed when the aircraft was unveiled to the public at the Domodeyenko air show in July 1967, proved to be an invaluable research tool in the Soviet V/STOL research and development effort. This design would feed directly into the more practical, in operational terms, Yak-36M (later re designated Yak-38), the prototype of which conducted its maiden flight on 15 January 1971. The propulsion system of the Yak-38 (Yak-36M) consisted of one Tumansky R-27V turbojet engine featuring a swiveling (thrust vectoring) nozzle and a pair of Rybinsk (Koliesov) RD-36-35 turbojet lift engines (in 1985 the RD-38, designed under P.A. Koliesov, was produced for the Yak-38M/MP). In the R-27R cruise + lift engine, the swivelling nozzles were vectored from the downward position to the aft position by hydraulic drives in concert with a drive shaft that vectored the angle of the main engine nozzle. This main engine thrust was augmented and balanced on take-off and landing by the thrust of the two lift engines located in the forward fuselage just aft of the cockpit section, these being inclined in forward attitude, apparently at an angle of some 13° to the vertical. Air would be fed to the engines through auxiliary doors that closed during cruise flight, while the exhaust was ejected through a bay located in the upper fuselage aft of the cockpit, the access panels for this closing during cruise flight and opening upwards when the aircraft was operating in V/STOL flight modes.



The Yak-38 featured wing folding for its short-span main wing s, facilitating stowag e in the confines of shipboard below deck hang er space. USN

In comparison to NATO naval fighters operating in the 1970’s and 1980’s, the Yak-38 was equipped with only a rudimentary avionics suite, including a simple ranging radar, which, along with the deadweight of its lift engines in cruise flight, that seriously degraded flight performance, would have put it a serious disadvantage in an air combat scenario against equivalent generation NATO naval fighter aircraft. However, as noted above, this was not the role for which the aircraft was designed, the main air combat role for the aircraft being the interception of NATO maritime reconnaissance aircraft for which it would be vectored to the target by the extensive air search and track radar facilities of the Kiev Class HACC. The Yak-36M (Yak-38) design, which had conducted its prototype maiden flight in 1971, commenced a series of deck trials aboard the Project 1123 Moskva ASW Cruiser on 18 November 1972, there being no available through deck carrier vessel available as the first of the Project 1143 Kiev Class, the closest to a through deck carrier then projected, was not launched until December that year. The relative success attained in the shipboard trials led to a pre-series batch of Yak-36M being ordered for use in an evaluation program with Soviet Naval Aviation, leading to sea trials aboard the first of the Project 1143 Class HACC (then referred to as Anti-Submarine Warfare Cruiser with Airborne Armament). The trials on Kiev effectively commenced when a pre-series aircraft landed on that ship on 15 December 1975. The successful conclusion of operational trials led to the go-ahead for series production under the designation Yak-38, the aircraft formally entering Soviet Naval Aviation service in August 1976. A two-seat operational conversion trainer variant of the Yak-36M (Yak-38) was developed,

this leading to the Yak-36U (Yak-38U), two of which joined an evaluation Squadron of twelve Yak-38 fighters deployed aboard the Kiev in summer 1976.

Yak-38 fig hters parked on the aft starboard section of a project 1143 HACC. USN



Photog raphs showing Yak-38 code 25 (top) and code 24 (bottom) in the automatic landing approach in vertical landing mode. USN/CC

Observations of early shipboard operations of the new Soviet V/STOL fighter led western analysts to infer that the design was incapable of rolling take-offs in the style of the BAe (British Aerospace, now BAE SYSTEMS) Harrier and later the Sea Harrier and the second generation Harrier II. It appeared that the standard Soviet method was to conduct a vertical take-off with the conversion to cruise flight commencing when the aircraft was at an initial altitude of about 5-6 m. This analysis was, however, proved to be false when closer scrutiny of flight operations in 1984 clearly showed Yak-38’s conducting rolling take-offs from the deck of a Kiev Class vessel. The landing operation were apparently being conducted under the automatic control of the ship-based ILS (Inertial Landing System), such parameters as acceleration across the ships flight deck being overseen by the on-board computer system. During the rolling take-off sequence the aircraft appeared to commence its roll with the main cruise + lift engine at full take-off power setting and the lift jet nozzles angled aft, these being run at full take-off power at the optimum second they are vectored, apparently to an angle of 55°. The aircraft then lifted off the deck in a sharp nose-upward attitude before transitioning to a horizontal attitude as it commenced the climb away from the carrier deck. The main engine nozzle was then transitioned into the cruise flight position, the two lift engines were shut down and the access panels transitioned to the closed position for normal cruise flight. The landing process for the Yak-38, like that of the take-off, was conducted under automatic control. The aircraft would take up position several kilometres astern of the carrier at a flight altitude of around 1000 m, whereby the ship-based ILS guidance beam locked on and took control of the aircraft on-board computer system. The aircraft now conducted a slow descending approach to the ship, speed dropping from around 400 km/h down to a speed only slightly faster than the ship itself, the angles of the main engine cruise + lift nozzle and the two lift engines being adjusted automatically. Altitude of the aircraft then dropped to around

30 m when some 400 m or so astern of the ship, this reducing to around 12 m as the aircraft crossed over the ships stern to a position above the carrier deck whereby the aircraft conducted a vertical descent, the engines shutting down automatically when the aircraft was on the deck. There were a number of subtle differences between the pre-series and series production aircraft such as the incorporation of strakes on either side of the lift jet engine intakes areas on the latter, as well as the automatic control system to enhance the efficiency of the short rolling take-off sequence. This would allow for greater benefits from wing induced lift during the take-off procedure. The main improvements in the Yak-38M over the Yak-38 was a redesigned undercarriage, more powerful lift + cruise and lift engines and the ability to operate with external fuel tanks to increase range. Typically the Kiev Class would operate with one embarked squadron of Yak-38’s and two embarked squadrons of helicopters, the Yak-38 shipboard squadron establishment being 13 aircraft which would typically consist of 12 Yak-38/M single-seat aircraft and one Yak-38U two-seat conversion trainer aircraft.

A Yak-38M hooked up to the tow-dolly on a Kiev Class HACC in the mid-1980’s. USN

In excess of 200 Yak-38 fighter aircraft were delivered to the Soviet navy. With the retirement of the last of the Kiev Class in the mid-1990’s, the Yak-38 was retired from service, being superfluous to the requirements of the Russian Federation Navy which was operating a small number of Su-27K (Su-33) high performance 4th generation fighter aircraft as the main fixed wing platform for service aboard the ACHC Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Kuznetsov. Yak-38 Specification (data in brackets refers to the Yak-38M) – data furnished by Yakovlev Design Bureau Powerplant: one cruise + lift engine rated at 6100 kg (6700 kg) thrust and two lift engines each rated at 3050 kg (3250 kg) thrust

Length: 14.710 m Wingspan: 7.0202 m Take-off weight: 10300 kg (11300 kg) Maximum flight speed: 1050 km/h Ceiling: 11000 m Range: 1000 km (1300 km) Armament: One 30 mm cannon and typically two or four R-60 short-range IR (Infrared) guided air to air missiles for air to air combat and unguided bombs and rockets for air to surface operations. The Kh-25 air to surface guided missile was integrated with the Yak-38, but it is unclear if this weapon ever constituted part of the type’s operational armament on a regular basis





Top: Upper head-on view of a Yak-38 following the transition to cruise flig ht. Above: A Yak-38 in V/STOL flig ht mode. USN

Yak-141 (41) – The Yakovlev Yak-141 was developed as a high performance supersonic fighter aircraft as a replacement for the Yak-38/M, achieving a number of improvements over its forebear in many areas, including speed, range and operational ceiling. The program suffered from a number of problems, not least of which was ground erosion from the thrust of its lift engine. This, among other considerations, led to the program ultimately being cancelled in September 1991 while still in the flight test phase, this being reconfirmed by new Russian Federation in 1992 following the break-up of the Soviet Union the previous December. Had the Yak-141 program continued to production status then it would have been the world’s first operational supersonic V/STOL fighter aircraft, and may well have operated from the Kiev Class HACC and the Kuznetsov Class ACHC.

A Yak-38 in the Yakovlev museum. The Yak-38M was retired from shipboard service by the second half of the 1990’s, by which time its successor, the Yak-141, had fell by the wayside in the post-Soviet economic downturn and chang ing military requirements that followed the dissolution of the Soviet Union in December 1991. Yakovlev OKB

As far as can be ascertained through available documentation the Yak-141 (initially referred to as Yak-41M) was designed in response to a specification dated 1975 to find a highperformance successor to the Yak-38 in AV-MF (Soviet Naval Aviation) service. The specification called for supersonic speed and V/STOL capability, a challenging demand for the time given available and near term technology levels. A number of supersonic V/STOL programs had come and gone before the Yak-141, including the French Dassault Balzac demonstrator which was intended to lead to the Dassault Mirage IIIV, both being wholly unpractical as service aircraft due to the high number of lift engines required, these being little more than dead weight when the aircraft was not operating in the V/STOL mode. In the United Kingdom, the Hawker P.1154 was designed as a supersonic V/STOL fighter aircraft, but this program, which appeared far more promising than the Mirage IIIV, was cancelled while still on the drawing board. In the Soviet Union the Sukhoi T-58VD experimental V/STOL fighter made it to flight test status, this design utilising the same RD-36-35 lift jets as employed on the Yak-38.

Other areas of Soviet research to produce hig h-performance V/STOL combat aircraft resulted in the Sukhoi T58VD experimental V/STOL fig hter, which, althoug h far more practical than its western analog ue, the Mirag e IIIV, was still ill suited as a platform for an operational combat aircraft.

Two static test airframes and two flight test aircraft were built with the designation Yak141, although it is thought that any service variant would have carried the Yak-41 designation. It appears that the first indications western intelligence agencies had that the aircraft existed came from a satellite image that showed a development aircraft at Zhukovsky in the mid1980’s, this particular program being allocated the NATO experimental reporting name RamT, the standard NATO reporting name ‘Freestyle’ apparently being allocated in 1988. Western analysts got the first tantalizing glimpse of the capabilities of the Yak-141 when a presentation, consisting of a video of flight tests and a wind-tunnel model of the aircraft, was displayed at the Le Bourget Air Salon in Paris in June 1991. At this time Yakovlev issued a press release that described the aircraft as a multi-functional fighter aircraft able to conduct air combat missions against opposing fighter aircraft and ground attack/strike missions. While the Yak-38 was a single vertical tail design, the Yak-141 featured twin cantilever booms extending aft, these providing a foundation for the base of the twin vertical tails and the horizontal tail planes. The powerplant arrangement adopted for the Yak-141 was very similar to that adopted for the Yak-38. The main cruise + lift engine was a Tumansky/Koptchenko Soyuz R-79 V-300 unit rated at 15500 kg thrust in afterburner, this apparently reducing to around 12400 kg thrust when the aircraft was operating in the hover mode. The thrust of the main engine was directed through the swiveling nozzle that could vector to an angle of ~9°, thrust being directed toward the surface the aircraft was resting on when commencing vertical take-off operations. This thrust was offset and assisted, despite the contradiction, of two Rybinsk/Kuznetsov RD-41 (also referred to as RD-36) lift jets located in a tandem arrangement and positioned at an inclination of some 15° with a small arc of vectoring capability of some 24° aft and 2° forward, aft of the cockpit section. Each of these engines generated in the region of 40004100 kg thrust, the intakes being located on the fuselage floor and exhaust on the upper fuselage, doors closing over both areas when the aircraft transitioned to cruise flight. The recirculation of exhaust gases was reduced to a large extent by the introduction of twin strakes located on the fuselage underside. As the thrust from the RD-79 caused unacceptable levels of

surface damage, vertical take-off’s, although the aircraft was capable of routinely conducting them, were restricted to the test flight phase, it being accepted that in the absence of a solution to this that rolling short take-offs, with nozzle deflection of some 65°, would be the norm. These rolling take-offs could be assisted by the ‘springboard’ (‘ski jump’) that was designed into the Tbilisi (Kuznetsov) Class ACHC, going a long way to increase the Yak-141 rolling take-off performance. Very short rolling-take-offs, perhaps of some 6 m or so, were possible, but these operations were as equally damaging to concrete runways as vertical take-offs.

Three-view g eneral arrang ement technical drawing of the Yak-141 showing a leng th of 18.360 m and a wing span of 10.015 m. Yakovlev OKB

When in the hover mode, longitudinal stability and control was possible through the concept of differential thrust without resort to traditional puffer jets; such jets, located on the wingtips, however, being used to augment roll control. Directional (yaw) control was achieved by bleed air gasses forced through ejectors located in the twin-boom tail-cones. The Yak-141 had a length of 18.360 m, height 5 m and a wingspan of 10.105 m extended and 5.9 m in the folded position and a maximum take-off weight of 19500 kg. Basic performance characteristics included a design maximum speed of 1800 km/h when operating at altitudes in excess of 11000 m. Ceiling was 15000 m and range was 2100 km when a rolling short take-off was employed, dropping to some 1400 km when the aircraft was operated in a vertical take-off mode. All aspects of the various flight modes were overseen by a triplex full authority digital-fly-by-wire flight control system featuring a mechanical back-up facility. It remains hazy what the avionics suite would have consisted off, but this would certainly have been centred on a multifunctional radar system along the lines the Phazotron Zhuk variants, albeit with a reduced size antenna in relation to that of the variants designed for the MiG-29 that appeared in the early 1990’s. The radar complex would have been integrated with an optical location station consisting of an infrared search and track and a laser rangefinder allowing the aircraft to perform a full spectrum of operational roles including medium range air combat and precision strike in a passive, radar silent mode. The weapons suite would have included a baseline 30 mm cannon in the shape of the GSh301 unit equipping other fourth generation fighters of the Su-27 and MiG-29 families. Standard medium range air to air missiles would have included the RVV-AE active radar guided medium range air to air missile, R-27R1(ER1) and R-27T1(ET1) semi-active radar homing and infrared homing respectively medium range air to air missiles and the highly agile R-73E infrared homing short-range air to air missile for close combat engagements.



Yak-141 No.2 during shipboard trials aboard the Kiev Class HACC Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet

Union, Gorshkov (formerly Baku) with a Project 1144 Kirov Class Heavy Nuclear powered Missile Cruiser in the backg round. Yakovlev OKB

The first of the two flight prototypes, which carried the side code ‘48’, conducted its maiden flight on 9 March 1989, the pilot being Yakovlev chief test pilot Andrei Sinistin. The second flight development aircraft, side code ‘77’ (also receiving the code ‘75’), joined the test program at a later date with some 200 hours of flight testing having been conducted by the time of the Yakovlev presentation at the Paris Air Salon in June 1991, as stated by chief designer Alexander Dondoukov. Through 1991, the Yak-141 had been credited with no less than 12 aviation records that had previously been the propriety of the BAe Harrier and the second generation Harrier II designed by McDonnel Douglas and BAe (now Boeing and BAE SYSTEMS). The program was officially cancelled, as far as being a contender for a place on the carrier deck in Soviet Naval Aviation was concerned, in September 1991. This curtailed any plans for building a two-seat conversion trainer variant, but flight testing and other aspects of the program continued, including shipboard testing. The second development aircraft crashed when it hit the deck rather heavily, the pilot successfully ejecting, while landing on the Kiev Class HACC Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, Gorshkov (formerly Baku) at Severomorsk in November 1991, the aircraft itself suffering a degree of damage to the fuselage. The first prototype, ‘48’, was put into flyable storage, but was returned to flight-status, adorned with a new side code ‘141’, in time to be displayed at the Farnborough International Trade Show in September 1992, by which time the Soviet Union had been dissolved, the aircraft being marketed by the newly emerged Russian Federation. With no prospect of a domestic production order the marketing campaign focused on third party nations in both land and sea based operational scenarios. Two further development aircraft were built, but by the mid-1990’s it was becoming clear that the program, without the benefit of a domestic order, had little hope of success as the aircraft was competing with cheaper designs that were better suited to potential customers, the program fading into obscurity and then outright cancellation. Perhaps its main legacy would be the contribution of Yakovlev to the early design iterations of the Lockheed Martin JAST (Joint Advanced Strike Technology

Demonstrator) program that eventually yielded the X-35 flight demonstrators that lead to the F-35 fifth generation multirole fighter aircraft that entered operational service with United States and international air forces in the second decade of the 21st century. The F-35B, as was the case with the X-35B demonstrator, adopted a lift plus lift/cruise principle similar to that demonstrated by the Yak-141.

Yak-141 Specification – data furnished by Yakovlev OKB Powerplant: one cruise + lift engine rated at 15500 kg thrust and one lift engine rated at 4100 kg thrust Length: 18.360 m Wingspan: 10.105 m Take-off weight: 19500 kg Maximum flight speed: 1800 km/h Ceiling: 15000 m Range: 2100 km Armament: An operational Yak-141 would have been armed with a medium range and short range air to air missile and guided and unguided air to surface weapons capability

APPENDICES Appendix I Project 1123 Moskva Class ASW Cruiser Ship Laid Down Launched Commissioned Retired Moskva 14 Dec 1962 11 Jan 1965 25 Dec 1967 mid/late-1990’s Leningrad 15 Jan 1965 31 July 1966 2 June 1969 1991 Appendix II Project 1143-1143.4 Kiev Class Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser Ship Laid Down Launched Commissioned Retired

Kiev 21 July 1970 26 Dec 1972 28 Dec 1975 1993 Minsk 28 Dec 1972 30 Dec 1975 27 Sept 1978 1993 Novorossiysk 30 Sept 1975 26 Dec 1978 14 August 1982 1993 Baku 17 Feb 1978 1 April 1982 11 Dec 1987 mid-1990’s Appendix III Principal Soviet/Russian Federation V/STOL Shipborne Aircraft Type First Flight Retired Ka-25 1961 1990’s Ka-27 1970 N/A Ka-29 1976 N/A Ka-31 1987 N/A Yak-38 1971 Mid-1990’s Yak-141 1989 N/A

GLOSSARY ACHC Aircraft Carrying Heavy Cruiser AEW Airborne Early Warning ASCM Anti-Ship Cruise Missile AShM Anti-Ship Missile ASM Air to Surface Missile ASW Anti-Submarine Warfare AV-MF Soviet Naval Aviation AWACS Airborne Warning and Control System CC Crown Copyright CDB Central Design Bureau CIWS Close In Weapon System CTOL Conventional Take-Off and Landing

CVN Nuclear Propulsion Aircraft Carrier DIA Defence Intelligence Agency DoD Department of Defence ESM Electronic Sensor Measures EWS Electronic Warfare System HACC Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser hp Horse Power HMS His (Her) Majesties Ship ICBM Inter Continental Ballistic Missile II Roman numeral No.2 ILS Instrument Landing System INS Indian Naval Ship JAST Joint Advanced Strike Technology JPSC Joint Public Stock Company JSC Joint Stock Company Ka Kamov kg Kilogram km kilometer km/h kilometers per hour knots(s) nautical miles(s) kW Kilowatt m meter mm millimeter MODRF Ministry of Defence of the Russian Federation MOI Ministry of Information m/s meters per second N/A Not Applicable NATO North Atlantic Treaty Organisation NHHC Naval History & Heritage Centre RBU Reactive Bombometnaya Installation RNAS Royal Naval Air Service SAM Surface to Air Missile SLBM Submarine Launched Ballistic Missile SSB Conventional Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine SSBN Nuclear Powered Ballistic Missile Submarine SSG Conventional Powered Cruise Missile Submarine SSGN Nuclear Powered Cruise Missile Submarine SSN Nuclear Powered Attack Submarine TsNII-45 Emerged from the takeover of large areas of the Research Institute of Shipbuilding & Ship Standards (NII-4) by NII-45 Su Sukhoi Tu Tupolev UAV Uninhabited Air Vehicle UK United Kingdom

US United States US Gov United States Government USN United States Navy USNA United States National Archives USSR Union of Soviet Socialist Republics UZRK Universal Anti-Aircraft Missile System V/STOL Vertical/Short Take-Off and Landing VTOL Vertical Take-Off and Landing x Times – multiplication Yak Yakovlev ° Degree °/s Degrees per second ~ Approximately equal to (can also be used to mean asymptotically equal)

ABOUT THE AUTHOR Hugh, a historian and author with extensive studies in scientific, aeronautic, astronautic and nautical technical and historical subjects, has published in excess of sixty books; non-fiction and fiction, writing under his given name as well as utilising two different pseudonyms. He has also written for several international magazines, whilst his work has been used as reference for many other projects ranging from the aviation industry, international news corporations and film media to encyclopaedias, museum exhibits and the computer gaming industry. He currently resides in his native Scotland Other titles by the author include Russian Non-Nuclear Attack Submarines – Project 877/877E/877EKM/Project 636/636.3 & Project 677/Amur 1650/950/S1000 Light Battle Cruisers and the Second Battle of Heligoland Bight British Battlecruisers of World War 1 - Operational Log, July 1914-June 1915 Sukhoi T-50/PAK FA - Russia’s 5 th Generation ‘Stealth’ Fighter Sukhoi Su-35S ‘Flanker’ E - Russia’s 4++ Generation Super-Manoeuvrability Fighter Sukhoi Su-34 ‘Fullback’ Sukhoi Su-30MKK/MK2/M2 - Russo Kitashiy Striker from Amur MiG-35/D ‘Fulcrum’ F – Towards the Fifth Generation Air War over Syria, Tu-160, Tu-95MS & Tu-22M3 - Cruise Missile and Bombing Strikes on Syria, November 2015-February 2016 Sukhoi Su-27SM(3)/SKM November 2015-February 2016 Eurofighter Typhoon - Storm over Europe Tornado F.2/F.3 Air Defence Variant Air to Air Missile Directory North American F-108 Rapier - Mach 3 Interceptor

Convair YB-60 - Fort Worth Overcast Boeing X-36 Tailless Agility Flight Research Aircraft X-32 - The Boeing Joint Strike Fighter X-35 - Progenitor to the F-35 Lightning II X-45 Uninhabited Combat Air Vehicle Into The Cauldron - The Lancaster MK.I Daylight Raid on Augsburg Hurricane IIB Combat Log - 151 Wing RAF, North Russia 1941 RAF Meteor Jet Fighters in World War II, an Operational Log Typhoon IA/B Combat Log - Operation Jubilee, August 1942 Defiant MK.I Combat Log - Fighter Command, May-September 1940 Blenheim MK.IF Combat Log - Fighter Command Day Fighter Sweeps/Night Interceptions, September 1939 - June 1940 Tomahawk I/II Combat Log - European Theatre, 1941-42 Fortress MK.I Combat Log - Bomber Command High Altitude Bombing Operations, July-September 1941 XF-92 - Convairs Arrow