The warships and vessels built and used by Russia.
April 1992
A horizon filled with iron behemoths belching smoke is the stuff
of scratchy newsreels. But big gun duels between pre-dreadnoughts
in 1904 were a new, stunning phenomenon made possible by advances
in naval architecture and engineering.
Author Robert Forczyk does many things in "Russian Battleship vs.
Japanese Battleship," his book about the Russo-Japanese War, and
does them quite well, from explaining the development of
pre-dreadnoughts to detailing the efficiencies of big guns and
armor plating to unrolling operational plans by taking us inside
the conning towers of Vice Admiral Vitgeft and Vice Admiral
Rozhestvensky, who commanded the Russian fleets and Japanese
Admiral Togo who defeated them.
Like much of the history of this war, these sea battles have
dropped out of mind -- upstaged by the dramatic surface actions of
the First World War.
For Americans, the Russo-Japanese War is definitely shrouded in
mystery. This book will change that a bit because of what Mr.
Forczyk's exhaustive research and authoritative writing brings to
that Far Eastern conflict.
What makes the book so exceptional is Mr. Forczyk's scholarship,
his ability to make perfect sense of the fog of a forgotten war.
This is an informed book, and I'm already looking forward to his
next.
Readers need not fear, however, that "Russian Battleship vs.
Japanese battleship" is all about counting the number of boilers
per ship and belt line armor thickness. The book also spotlights
Russian and Japanese naval operations; he has split it into the
seven thematic chapters so familiar to the Duel series.
Mr. Forczyk's work focuses on the minutiae of the largest clashes
between the Imperial Japanese Navy and the Czar Nicholas's Navy in
1904-05 as well as the truly critical events that set the war in
motion. The book soars in those parts in which the author describes
how the Russians sallied forth on the Yellow Sea, and how the
Japanese failed time and again to deliver a knockout blow.
Mr. Forczyk, author of Warsaw
1944: Poland's bid for freedom (Campaign), has read very
thoroughly, and tries to give an all-around account of the
battleships, the officers, and the brave sailors of the two fleets.
He is especially good on the analysis of tactics and weapon
systems.
The author offers an insightful and intellectually detailed account
of the smoky battles by bolstering his historical narrative with
exhaustive analysis. He describes the strategic goals of the
Japanese and Russian navies while narrating the action of sailors
trying to cope with confused signals, failed weapons, knocked out
bridges, flooded boilers and magazines.
With severe early losses, Admiral Togo saw the campaign develop as
one of long-range attrition -- not willing to risk his few
remaining battleships until the critical moment; he would attack
repeatedly and sap Russia's will to fight. As the campaign for Port
Arthur stalemated, Russian naval losses grew. Ordered by the Czar
to breakout to Vladivostok, Vice Admiral Vitgeft displayed an
ever-increasing fatalism. He stoically dispatched his picked-over
fleet with: "Gentlemen, we shall meet in the next world."
Winter brought gloomy skies and rough seas that floundered torpedo
boats, rendered long-range guns silent, and made naval maneuvers
difficult. Bombarding Japanese Army 11-in. howitzers proved far
more effective at sinking Russian battleships in Port Arthur, Mr.
Forczyk notes, than Togo's hit-or-miss torpedo boat night
raids.
The author expertly juggles narratives, including the story of Vice
Admiral Rozhestvensky's famous, ill-fated 1905 circum-voyage from
St. Petersburg, and Togo's own venture to intercept them. it's hard
to imagine that Mr. Forczyk left any worthwhile stone uncovered.
The author combines narrative and research materials for clarity of
scene and immediacy. He follows Togo's decisive operation to a
concisely written, masterly paced conclusion.
Mr. Forczyk recounts Admiral Togo's operations with unsparing
diagnosis, killing all romantic ideas of what transpired in the Sea
of Japan. When he sailed out of the East China Sea, Vice Admiral
Rozhestvensky's squadron, unfit for fleet combat suffered a comedy
of mistakes, among other things, the inability to effectively
direct his straggling fleet. It must seem ridiculous to the reader
that hospital ships in the Russian squadron remained fully-lighted
at night. Rozhestvensky's attempt to protect his wounded from night
attack advertised his location to Togo's scouting ships.
The author knows how to narrate a complicated story, but also to
dissect opposing leaders clearly and succinctly. His book is filled
with fascinating characters such as the Russian Admirals: Marakov,
Vigeft, Prince Ukhtomski, and Rozhestvensky -- a world class
incompetent -- the Hamilcar of his day.
The author's profiles of Admiral Togo Heihachiro, Vice Admiral
Kamimura, and Vice Admiral Dewa, the key players in the Imperial
Japanese Navy are more sketchy. He has distilled the essence of
their authority and command in a way that helps readers understand
the basis of their decision making while avoiding the mistake made
by many historians of judging the past by modern standards.
But what "Russian Battleship vs. Japanese Battleship" demonstrates
most of all is something baseball analyst Bill James would likely
appreciate: how you can see something that has become familiar much
more clearly if you look at it from the statistical angle. Mr.
Forczyk has a few surprising conclusions for the reader in his
revealing analysis.
Many of the disasters that Mr. Forczyk chronicles are well known:
the 1905 grand finale near Tsushima Island, for example, or Vice
Admiral Marakov and Vice Admiral Vitgeft's clashes off Port Arthur.
But supposedly even effective admirals had their horror stories.
Togo, for example, made one of the most dreadful mistakes in the
war by sending the battleships Hatsuse and Yashima in close to
bombard Port Arthur. There, 496 sailors were killed when mines sank
both battleships; the Imperial Japanese Navy's biggest loss for one
day in the Russo-Japanese War, and a humiliating tragedy that
Togo's admirers often choose to forget.
There are finely written accounts of the key warships. Few of the
Russian battleships were impressive: Peresvyet lacked firepower --
Sissoi Veliki was overweight -- cylindrical boilers handicapped
Poltava -- the Borodino was so heavy, its armor belt was
underwater.
The expertly crewed Japanese warships had fewer deficiencies but
they were serious: Hatsuse and Yashima were both quickly sunk by
mines; "Both Mikasa and Shikishima suffered premature explosions in
one of their 12-in. guns, indicated problems with propellant and
fuses -- reducing Togo's long-range firepower by nearly 25
percent."
Mr. Forczyk covers these momentous changes with great skill, deftly
mixing narrative and analysis, and explaining much that is
difficult or unapproachable in this fascinating period. Casual
readers take note: Although it's a short book, it is a serious book
-- not popular history. But it is also intensely rewarding. The
author has a broad vision. He rarely loses the naval enthusiast's
attention.
This thoroughly researched book belongs on the A-list of
Russo-Japanese War histories; its a worthy addition for all who
admire Mr. Forczyk's prose and his ability to see into, and
explain, warfare.
"Russian Battleship vs. Japanese Battleship: Yellow
Sea 1904-05" contains four representative naval officer
biographies, two 3D battle maps, two excellent battle action
paintings, and two nice battleship profiles.
Michael L. Shakespeare
With this study, Pavlov offers data that Westerners have long sought to obtain: an accurate, detailed accounting of the ships of the Soviet and Russian navies.
WARSHIPS OF THE IMPERIAL RUSSIAN NAVY: VOLUME I BATTLESHIPS
This is the best title in English on the subject. Privately printed in 1968, the title may be hard to find. The tile covers every battleship of Imperial Russia from the 1855 135 gun steam ships of the line to the Petropavlovsk and Imperatritsa Maria dreadnoughts of World War I. Each class is covered in photos and 1:800 drawings in the 102 pages of the volume. Coverage of Retvizan consists of four pages with plan & profile drawings and five photographs. Highly recommended.
Eduard Sozaev is a Russian naval historian with a number of books to his credit. John Tredrea, translator, editor, and long-term collaborator, is an American ship enthusiast with a lifelong interest in the Russian navy.
It is unfortunate that some purchasers might have bought the
book expecting a technical treatise on the development of naval
architecture in Russia or on Russian wooden shipbuilding
techniques. The title, "... Warships in the Age of Sail: Design,
Construction, Careers, and Fates <dates>" follows exactly the
form of three works by Rif Winfield on the warships of the British
navy in the age of sail ("British Warships ... 1603-1714," "British
Warships ... 1714-1792," and "British Warships ... 1793-1847"), put
out by the same publisher, Seaforth Publishing. The content and
format of "Russian Warships" is largely the same as that of
"British Warships," except that there is a rather longer essay on
the history and organization of the Russian navy because the
publisher thought that English-language readers would be less
familiar with these topics, and less able to find out more about
them, than they would about similar aspects of the British navy. I
regret that unlike the "British Warships" series, _Russian
Warships_ does not include the names of commanding officers. For
those, it is still necessary to refer to the Russian-language A.A.
Chernyshev, _Rossiiskii Parusnyi Flot," which is difficult to find
and difficult to use if you do not have at least a smattering of
Russian. It was the latter difficulty that prompted the publication
of _Russian Warships_. _Russian Warships_ also corrects errors that
author Eduard Sozaev found in Chernyshev.
_Russian Warships in the Age of Sail_ covers "design" by naming the
*designer* of each warship and grouping warships of a common
design. Each "class" also includes commentary about its
relationships to other designs; piecing together these short essays
on several classes of a common type (e.g., 66-gun ship of the line)
produces a more extended essay on Russian development of the type.
"Construction" information includes, for each ship, dates of keel
laying and launch, place of construction, and the
"constructor"--the person overseeing the building of the ship. The
last is not generally included in the "British Warships" series,
although private yards are named as places of construction.
How to treat place names that have changed over the centuries is
always a challenge. It is now vicious racism to refer to Mumbai as
anything else, although Bharat is still not de rigeur for its
country. The erasure of Mumbai's former name from modern maps and
histories makes older histories, including first-person accounts,
difficult to understand. So it is with "Tallin." Naval histories
like R.C. Anderson's still definitive _Naval Wars in the Baltic_
and the more recent _A History of War at Sea_, by Helmut Pemsel,
describe a "Battle of Revel" or "Reval" (Pemsel puts "Tallin" in
parentheses). The presence of a Russian on the authoriship team
influenced the use of "Gogland"--merely "Hogland" in Russian, which
has neither the sound of Swedish (and English) "h" nor a letter for
it (see the entry on HIRMS Gamburg on p. 191 of _Russian
Warships_). Just as with transliterations, for which there are many
slightly differing systems, it is not always possible to find a
name that is recognizable and acceptable to all readers for a place
that has undergone many changes in sovereignty and language.
A multi-volume publication reproducing all the plans still extant
in the Russian naval archives would have been a wonderful reference
work that would consume a year's, or several years', acquisitions
budget at many libraries, and would have been out of reach
financially of all but the very wealthiest purchasers. As with the
"British Warships" series, Mr. Sozaev selected *representative*
illustrations, within a budget that had to reflect both the cost of
reproduction and the compensation demanded by the owners of the
illustrations.
Albert Parker
Askold was a protected cruiser built for the Imperial Russian Navy. She was named after the legendary Varangian Askold. Her thin, narrow hull and maximum speed of 23.8 knots (44.1 km/h) were considered impressive for the time. Askold had five thin funnels which gave it a unique silhouette for any vessel in the Imperial Russian Navy. This led British sailors to nickname her Packet of Woodbines after the thin cigarettes popular at the time. However, the five funnels also had a symbolic importance, as it was popularly considered that the number of funnels was indicative of performance, and some navies were known to add extra fake funnels to impress dignitaries in less advanced countries.
Britain’s large cruiser program, and the Two Power Standard in general, were aimed primarily at the threat to trade posed by the French Navy, but it was also increasingly directed at Russia. Between 1889 and 1893, Russian naval expenditures increased 64 percent. On the whole, Russia devoted its resources to the construction of battleships. The Russians persisted in the construction of armored cruisers rather than protected ones, but these ships numbered only three in this period. Two, Rurik and Rossiya, were large and commissioned in 1895 and 1897 respectively. The Rossiya was the larger, displacing 13,675 tons with a hull that measured 480 feet, 6 inches by 68 feet, and mounted four 8-inch guns and 16 6- inch weapons on the broadside below the upper deck. This ship and Rurik were the impetus for the British construction of the Powerful class for fear of the potential damage that the Russian ships might cause to British commerce in time of war. In truth, the British had little to fear from these ships. Neither were very good designs, being poor steamers, and the disposition of the guns was so badly arranged that French officials believed it “had been stuck on as an afterthought.” These rather poor ships were only augmented by one protected cruiser Askold (1900). Russian naval officials simply believed in the superiority of the battleship over all else.
Russia’s fleet in 1904 was still powerful, but this fact was, as always, the product of its strength in battleships rather than cruisers. Only two armored cruisers were launched between 1899 and 1904, and both were rather unremarkable designs. One was simply an improved version of Rossiya. Unlike in most navies of this period, the majority of Russian construction was in protected cruisers, totaling 11 in all. A principle reason was the savings in cost over armored cruisers, as the Russians did not have the money to spare for a large armored cruiser program after all the battleships. These ships and their older counterparts were completely inadequate for a fleet the size of Russia’s. There were few ships in the fleet that could perform the duty of reconnaissance for the battle fleet in time of war. This problem would lead to disaster when tensions with Japan over Asia exploded into war.
The Soviets used G-5, D-3 MTBs along with MO-4 gunboats against the Finns. Aside from the SM-3 and one D-3, all the MTBs in the Black Sea were G-5s.
Two big motor boats were approaching Nazi-occupied Yalta amidst morning fog. Their appearance did not warn anybody either on watches, or on coastal artillery batteries on Cap Aytodor and Cap Massandra, or aboard the patrol boat cruising in the port approaches. As the German boat transmitted the light identification signal, her commander saw that on one of the intruders the lights also started blinking, but instantly ceased. Must have faulty lamp, thought sluggishly the commander and with increasing speed turned his ship to Aytodor. Meanwhile intruders at slow speed began entering Yalta harbour, while Nazi soldiers gathered on the breakwater gazed at them... Suddenly the roar of powerful engines tore the silence. Astonished Germans saw the boats sharply increasing their speed. One of them made a narrow circulation and fired torpedoes at the drifters and the submarine moored near-by. Meanwhile from the other boat rockets flung at materials stashed on the piers, and within seconds exploding torpedoes demolished fascist boats moored along the piers. Machine guns on the breakwater, and the artillery of German ships rattled after the boats going away into the open sea. Also the coastal batteries deployed in the port and on the caps opened fire. An enemy shell hit one of the boats; it damaged the engine and wounded several crewmen... And nevertheless the daredevil assault brought a real success. Professional skills and utter exploitation of the surprise factor decided about that success. On 20 June 1942 the Nazis felt in Yalta at home: the nearest base of the Soviet torpedo boats was in Novorossiysk - at a distance exceeding the range of the Soviet G-5 boats, which were also familiar to the Germans. But the enemy did not know that the Black Sea Fleet possessed two large torpedo boats developed by Soviet constructors at the eve of the war.
The necessity to have such ships was defined yet during the manoeuvres of the Pacific Fleet in 1935. Then the fleet commander M.V.Viktorov, when he commented on the operations of Tupolev's small boats Sh-4 and G-5, had said: For open theatres, like the Pacific Ocean, we need boats of bigger displacement and range, capable to sail in at least force 5 waves. Indeed, the low seaworthiness of the small boats, especially the Sh-4's, was no secret to anybody. Even moderated waves would flood them, and easily penetrate the very low, open atop, cockpit. Torpedo launch was guaranteed when the waves were no bigger than the force 1, and their sea running could be impaired already at the force 3 waves. Due to the low seaworthiness Sh-4's and G-5's rarely achieved their construction range, which depended no as much of the fuel as of the weather. All those and other deficiencies came out of the "aviation" heritage of the boats. Constructors based their project on the profile of a hydroplane float. Instead of the upper deck Sh-4 and G-5 had a steep curve surface. It provided a high mechanical resistance of the hull, but simultaneously created a lot of maintenance problems. It was difficult to hold atop even when the boat was motionless. Whereas the boat was at full speed, absolutely everything unattached would be swept away. This proved a very serious minus as far as combat operations are concerned: landing parties had to be accommodated in the torpedo gutters - there was no other space for them. Also due to the lack of flat deck Sh-4's and G-5's, despite of relatively good floating qualities, practically could not carry bigger cargo. Another "aviation" deficiency of the Tupolev's boats was closed profiles: they proved too expensive and too inconvenient in shipbuilding production. Also the hull material was flawed. Corrosion literally "devoured" duralumin, and the ships had to be slipped virtually after every single sea going.
All that forced the navy to speed up definition of the requirements given to the shipbuilding industry, concerning development of bigger and more seaworthy torpedo boats for the Northern and Pacific fleets. In autumn 1935 a group of constructors started projects of torpedo boats with steel hulls SM-3 and SM-4 (stalnoy morekhodnyi - steel seaworthy), and with three and four engines. Another group started simultaneous works according to the same specifications on the boats D-2 and D-3 with wooden hulls. In the summer 1939 the "woodcarvers" showed experimental prototypes of their ships to Admiral Ivan Isakov, after which a commission was created to conduct tests in the Baltic. The chairman of the commission, Rear-Admiral B.V.Nikitin noted, that
it soon came clear, that the D-2 project does not fully satisfy navy's requirements: it proved too crank, unstable on straight courses - yawing. Its displacement barely exceeded the well-known G-5. Whereas the tests of D-3 showed, that this boat had good agility and quite satisfactory seaworthiness. Having displacement of 40t and summary power of three engines GAM 3600hp it could achieve speed of 48 knots. The best foreign ships of comparable type did not achieve such speed until 15 years later. Moreover, D-3 had a big range (355 miles against G-5's 220 miles) and therefore could be considered a long-range torpedo boat.
The test in the Black Sea confirmed the reliability and combat qualities of the D-3 boats, which were commissioned and handed over to the Black Sea Fleet. Simultaneously the People's Commissariat for the Navy placed an order for several dozens of such boats with shipbuilding industry. In the spring 1940, when the production of D-3 boats already started in several shipyards, it occurred that the aviation industry was unable to deliver the extremely deficit engines GAM 1250hp. The navy had to content itself with 1000hp engines, which reduced the speed below 40 knots.
At the time when the navy received the first D-3's the industry also finished building of the experimental prototype of SM-3. In February 1941 the state commission started testing the new boat. It was found already during the first sorties, that due to unsatisfactory hardness of the hull the planking around the foundations of the high-revolution engines vibrated excessively. It did not cause troubles until the boat underwent tests in the high seas. Then came the disaster, remembers Nikitin.
At 42-knot speed the hull, made of 4mm-thick steel cracked and the water poured inside. The crack was right in the middle of the engine compartment, from one board to the other, and menaced to break the boat in halves on force 4 waves. We had to reduce speed and take the homebound course. Fortunately, SM-3 managed to moor, and the flooding ceased. While the commission came to conclusion that the boat could not be commissioned for production, it simultaneously recommended strengthening of the hull with additional futtocks and stringers. Let the boat become heavier, decided commission members, let it be slower, but in return the Black Sea Fleet will receive a long range torpedo boat. Just several months later the ominous events of the Great Patriotic War confirmed specialists' foresight and the wisdom of their decision.
In the end of December 1941, before the Kerch-Theodosian amphibious operation, SM-3 under command of Lieutenant I.Belousov disembarked a reconnaissance squad on Cap Chauda. Several days later the same boat twice sailed to Kerch to divert the fire of the Nazi artillery from the landing of the Soviet troops. And on 18 June 1942, when the air reconnaissance of the Black Sea Fleet spotted several ships and transports in the port of Yalta, the Soviet sailors remembered about D-3 and SM-3 - the only long range torpedo boats in the Black Sea. As a matter of fact the distance from Novorossiysk, where the boats were based, to Yalta exceeded the boats' range, but the squadron leader Lieutenant K.Kochiyev calculated that additional petrol stashed on the decks in barrels would provide enough fuel to carry out the assault on Yalta and return home. It was also to the advantage of the Soviet sailors that the Germans, confirmed in the belief that Yalta was beyond the reach of the Soviet boats, in the morning fog would likely take them for own ships returning from patrol. After considering all the "pros" and "cons" the brigade command approved the operation. The group composed of D-3 under command of O.Chepik, and SM-3 under command of D.Karymov was led by K.Kochiyev. On 19 June evening, having loaded extra fuel, the boats left Novorossiysk, and after 7-hours journey they reached Yalta.
The fight, which happened after the daredevil assault of two tiny but heavily armed ships on Nazi-occupied Yalta, was already described. It reached its critical point: an artillery shell hit one of the retreating Soviet boats. It rendered the SM-3's engines inoperable; the tiny ship rocked helpless on the waves of the Black Sea. One could say her hour had come. But the Russian navy has an unwritten rule: "dieth but rescueth thy mate". The crew of D-3 immediately covered the damaged boat with dense smoke screen. While the wounded ship was towed after D-3, hidden from artillery fire, SM-3's engineers managed to re-start engines, and soon the boat could develop 20-knot speed. They successfully evaded the pursuit of the enemy patrol boats, and towards the end of 20 June they returned to the base, having sunk a submarine and a torpedo boat, and damaged several other enemy torpedo boats. And several weeks after Soviet boats again distinguished themselves by sinking two fascist landing crafts near Theodosia.
At the outbreak of the war the Soviet navy, apart of the experimental prototype in the Black Sea, possessed two more D-3boats. Those were the only torpedo boats, with which the Northern Fleet went to the war. In August five more units were transported from Leningrad by train, and this small squadron fought till March 1943, when the Northern Fleet acquired boats of Higgins and Vosper type, delivered by the Allies. Vice-Admiral A.Kuzmin, who during the war commanded the torpedo boats brigade in the North, wrote:
We liked our domestic torpedo boats, particularly D-3, better than the foreign ones. Having installed newer engines, they achieved the same speed as the "Higgins" ones, and while they had displacement twice as less as the latter, they were superior in respect of agility. Low silhouette, low draught, and reliable mufflers made our D-3's irreplaceable in the operations in the enemy littoral.
D-3 and SM-3 were not the only torpedo boats developed in the USSR at the eve of the war. At that time a group of constructors developed a small torpedo boat Komsomolets, which had almost the same displacement as G-5, improved torpedo tubes, and better anti-air and anti-submarine defence. Successful test of D-3 made experienced Soviet boaters B.Nikitin and N.Khavin to think about a project of a small submarine chaser and a torpedo boat built on the same universal hull, and as the basis for their project they wanted to take the hull of D-3. Authorities supported this idea, and the industry received an order for development of a wooden hull, which could become either a small chaser or a torpedo boat, depending of the armament it carried. The bureau of low tonnage constructions, a subsidiary of Baltsudoproyekt, in 1941 successfully completed the task: by 1942 a group of constructors led by L.Yermash designed the small chaser OD-200 and torpedo boat TD-200 on a universal wooden hull. The latter, as compared with D-3, had the board torpedo tubes replaced by torpedo launchers, which protected torpedoes of icing. The production line of the wooden hulls was established at one of the evacuated factories: they were assembled on a slip out of details manufactured in a workshop according to standard templates. Apart of the wooden hull, also a universal steel hull had been developed, which became the basis for the small chaser OM-200, and torpedo boat TM-200.
Although the war slowed down finishing works on the Komsomolets, the project was not all scrapped. Together with D-3, "Komsomolets" will become the standard torpedo boat, said the deputy people's commissar for the Navy, Admiral Lev Galler, during one of the conferences in 1942; it is good both for the Baltic and the Black Sea. New boats had been commissioned for the navy since August 1944, and took part in the final battles in the Baltic. Nowadays in Severomorsk three machines, depicting the striking force of the Northern Fleet during the Great Patriotic War, have been turned into monuments. On the Gulf of Kola waterfront has been placed a famous "Katyusha" - the cruiser submarine K-21. In a gorge between two hills, on a concrete pillar, a navy torpedo bomber Il-4 soars in eternal flight. And in the centre of a downtown boulevard, while leaving behind a concrete wake sails from the past TKA-12 - a wooden boat of D-3 type. One of the two, with which the Northern Fleet met the Great Patriotic War.
Paul Neumann
Ropucha I, note twin 57 mm guns fore and aft. Ropucha II has one single-barrel 76 mm gun forward, 2 AK-630 CIWS aft.
The Ropucha (toad), or Project 775 class landing ships are classified in the Russian Navy as "large landing craft" (Bol'shoy Desatnyy Korabl). They were built in Poland in the Stocznia Północna shipyards, in Gdansk. They are designed for beach landings and can carry a 450 ton cargo. The ships have both bow and stern doors for loading and unloading vehicles, and the 630 m² of vehicle deck stretches the length of the hull. Up to 25 armored personnel carriers can be embarked.
While being designed for roll-on roll-off operations the ships can also be loaded using dockside cranes. For this purpose there is a long sliding hatch cover above the bow section for access to the vehicle deck. There are no facilities for helicopters.
The 28 ships of this type where commissioned from 1975 to 1991. The last three ships where of the improved variant Project 775M, also called Ropucha II. These have improved defensive armament and accommodation for an increased number of troops.
They were built for the Soviet Navy during the Cold War, but the current Russian Navy has little need for a long-range amphibious capability and most of them are kept in reserve or are retired. However, during the 2008 South Ossetia war ships of this type where used for landing troops at the Georgian port of Poti.
One ship of this class, the U402 Kostiantyn Olshansky, is in service with the Ukrainian Navy, and another was transferred to South Yemen in 1979 and remains in service with the Yemen Navy. The latter vessel is the only unit of this class in service outside the former USSR.
Early in the 1970s the Soviet Navy formulated a requirement for a conventional carrier, and a design bureau was assigned to the project in 1973. The initial sketch suggested a nuclear powered vessel of 75,000 to 80,000 tons equipped with four steam catapults and embarking an air group of seventy or more aircraft: fighters, attack aircraft, and aircraft for antisubmarine warfare and airborne early warning. By June 1974 this was revised downward to about 60,000 tons, still with nuclear power, and a fifty-plane air group. Two vessels were included in the 1976 five-year plan but the design parameters again were revised downward by 1979 and finally emerged as the Kuznetsov class, classified as Project 1143.5 although there was little similarity between these ships and the earlier type.
The Kuznetsov class was the first Soviet full decked carrier. Initially they were intended to carry a pair of steam catapults but the designers encountered considerable difficulties in developing a reliable unit, so the carriers were modified to feature a 12-degree ski jump that could launch current jet aircraft using a rolling takeoff into a moderate wind. Otherwise, the design was quite conventional, except that it included a large antiship and antisubmarine missile battery in addition to the usual antiaircraft weapons. The lead ship’s naming history reflects the turmoil inside the Soviet Union during its construction. It was laid down as the Tbilisi, renamed the Leonid Brezhnev on November 18, 1982, and finally, after President Mikhail Gorbachev denounced the former Soviet leader in November 1988, again renamed the Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov. The second unit of the class, the Varyag, was incomplete when the Soviet Union broke up and was sold to Chinese investors who propose to convert the ship into a floating casino.
The Soviet Navy’s plans for a very large conventional carrier finally became real with the inclusion of two such nuclear-powered vessels in the 1986 five-year plan. The design was derived from the concepts developed for the 1973 project. The ships were to be 1,089 feet long and 125 feet in beam with a draft of 38 feet and displace 85,000 tons fully loaded. Power came from four nuclear reactors generating steam for four geared turbines producing 200,000 shaft horsepower, sufficient to give them a speed of 30 knots. The flight deck was 246 feet wide across the angled deck and was to carry either two steam catapults in the waist and a 12-degree ski jump forward, or a total of four catapults on a conventional flat flight deck. The air group was seventy to eighty aircraft including antisubmarine helicopters and fixed wing airborne early warning aircraft. Like earlier Soviet carriers, these ships carried powerful antiship and antisubmarine missile batteries in addition to more conventional antiaircraft weapons. The first ship was laid down at the Chernomorskiy Shipyard 444 in Nikolayev on November 25, 1988, as the Kremlin but renamed the Ulyanovsk shortly afterwards. It was 40 percent complete when the Soviet Union broke up. Construction was terminated on November 1, 1991, and the ship was ordered to be scrapped on February 4, 1992, because the Ukraine, where the shipyard was located, and Russia could not agree on how to proceed. A sister ship was due to commence construction on the same slip once the Ulyanovsk was launched.
The Soviet Union’s development of aviation-capable ships followed a logical progression as the navy moved from defending against American ballistic missile submarines to protecting its own strategic submarines and finally projecting its strength against the United States Navy on the open ocean. Since the navy was very much a subordinate service to the army and the strategic rocket forces, it is not surprising that this progression was slow and sometimes tentative, since both political and financial support was limited. Nevertheless, the fleet’s designers demonstrated a clear understanding of the potential of naval aviation in the context of contemporary Soviet strategy and demonstrated themselves capable of producing very effective warships.
