Soviet carriers, post Cold War - alternate fates.

[Archibald]

I've been following that story over the last 25 years and when you think about it, it is a crazy saga. Special kudos to the Chinese who fooled everybody picking most of the Kievs, turning them into amusement parks only to finally... leave that to India (who got the last one !) and finally picked the second Kuznetsov to get the Lianoning.
And they very nearly lost the old rusted 70 000 tons hull into the Bosphorus straights in a force 10 gale.

Soviets aviation ship classes, OTL.

Moskva-class helicopter carrier - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Kiev-class aircraft carrier - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Now let the fun begin !

Scenario 1

- North Korea get one Moskva (edit) and the blueprints, courtesy of China. They build some of them to counter South Korea large amphibious ships.

- India and China gets an agreement to share better the Kiev-class cake. Let's say India gets two and China gets the other two. Then they methodically proceed to churn upgraded Kievs like crazy.

- The Soviets are a little faster and go to the end of their plans: two Kuznetsov and one Ulyanovsk. The later finished with conventional propulsion, as nuclear is too expensive for Yeltsin crumbling Russia.

Scenario 2

Russia gets one Ulyanovsk (nuclear or not), China gets the two Kuznetsov, India gets all the Kievs (just for the fun of it).

 

[Lascaris]

Need to get the money from somewhere... which probably means avoid the 1991 coup and have the new union treaty leading to some short of Eurasian Union as Nazarbayev was later proposing. It will be shedding territory in the periphery but it still has roughly 30% higher GDP than Russia. Varyag is completed by the end of the century and Ulyanovsk (for which we need another name) with a little bit of a delay... around 2015.

 

[Archibald]

Carriers sales to India and China can help, if only a little...

 

[Dilandu]

- North Korea get one Moskva (edit) and the blueprints, courtesy of China. They build some of them to counter South Korea large amphibious ships.

...They didn't even have destroyers in their fleet, how could they possibly manage a carrier?

- India and China gets an agreement to share better the Kiev-class cake. Let's say India gets two and China gets the other two. Then they methodically proceed to churn upgraded Kievs like crazy.

Two problems. First - all "Kiev"'s with the exception of the last one were pretty worn-out due to our constant problem with basing facilities (Party leadership often neglected the adequate base support, considering the Navy strength only as number of warships)

Second - they are VTOL ships. So, without extensive refit - which neither China nor India at this time could afford - they are essentially limited to helicopters. Also, their missile armament could not be exported because "Bazalt" missiles are forbidden for export.

- The Soviets are a little faster and go to the end of their plans: two Kuznetsov and one Ulyanovsk. The later finished with conventional propulsion, as nuclear is too expensive for Yeltsin crumbling Russia.

We finished "Pyotr Veliky" and several submarines at this time. It hardly would be "too costly" to add a nuclear carrier.

 

[Dilandu]

P.S. I once toyed with the idea of India ordering a Soviet carrier ship - a derivative of "Kiev"-class with P-35 missiles instead of P-500 - in mid-1980s instead of buying HMS "Hermes".

Or Peru buying a "Moskva"-class ship instead of two Netherlands cruisers in 1960s)

 

[bobtdwarf]

An interesting alternate buyer for Varyag would be Brazil. In the state of completion she was in it would be possible to remove the ASM's and ski jump and fit it for steam cats in a Western yard. India quite literally missed the boat in buying her

 

[Archibald]

Good idea. Better to buy an incomplete hull rather than a worn out one like Foch. Worse bargain on the short term, far better deal in the long term.

Were India and China ever in a kind of race to get Varyag ?

 

[Archibald]

.They didn't even have destroyers in their fleet, how could they possibly manage a carrier?

It's North Korea. If they could afford nukes... I mean, conventional logic and wisdom certainly don't apply to the Land-of-crazy-Kims (and I'm not taking about the Kardashians).

 

[bobtdwarf]

Good idea. Better to buy an incomplete hull rather than a worn out one like Foch. Worse bargain on the short term, far better deal in the long term.

Were India and China ever in a kind of race to get Varyag ?

I honestly don't know how much of one they were, as I recall there was some talk about who was going to buy her, just not sure how serous it was or if it was just the defense press ginning up interest. I do know that India was offered one of the older conventional powered US carriers and turned it down.

 

[Archibald]

Good idea. Better to buy an incomplete hull rather than a worn out one like Foch. Worse bargain on the short term, far better deal in the long term.

Were India and China ever in a kind of race to get Varyag ?

I honestly don't know how much of one they were, as I recall there was some talk about who was going to buy her, just not sure how serous it was or if it was just the defense press ginning up interest. I do know that India was offered one of the older conventional powered US carriers and turned it down.

A Kitty Hawk ?

 

[bobtdwarf]

Good idea. Better to buy an incomplete hull rather than a worn out one like Foch. Worse bargain on the short term, far better deal in the long term.

Were India and China ever in a kind of race to get Varyag ?

I honestly don't know how much of one they were, as I recall there was some talk about who was going to buy her, just not sure how serous it was or if it was just the defense press ginning up interest. I do know that India was offered one of the older conventional powered US carriers and turned it down.

A Kitty Hawk ?

yup..

 

[Nick]

I recall a 1970s Soviet carrier that was converted mid-build to have lots of satellite dishes - some kind of spy ship or space communications. Pretty sure it was a conventional carrier with a long runway, not a Moskva type.

Did I imagine it?

 

[bobtdwarf]

I recall a 1970s Soviet carrier that was converted mid-build to have lots of satellite dishes - some kind of spy ship or space communications. Pretty sure it was a conventional carrier with a long runway, not a Moskva type.

Did I imagine it?

I want to say that was the Orel...but we both might be imagining it

 

[Hood]

I recall a 1970s Soviet carrier that was converted mid-build to have lots of satellite dishes - some kind of spy ship or space communications. Pretty sure it was a conventional carrier with a long runway, not a Moskva type.

Did I imagine it?

Not quite, you are thinking of the Project 1941 Ural which was based on the hull and powerplant of the Project 1144 Kirov cruiser. The hull was purpose built and developed from the Pr.1144's rather than being a conversion during construction. Seems to have been a white elephant from the beginning, the dockside infrastructure not keeping pace to support such vessels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_communications_ship_SSV-33

 

[Nick]

I recall a 1970s Soviet carrier that was converted mid-build to have lots of satellite dishes - some kind of spy ship or space communications. Pretty sure it was a conventional carrier with a long runway, not a Moskva type.

Did I imagine it?

Not quite, you are thinking of the Project 1941 Ural which was based on the hull and powerplant of the Project 1144 Kirov cruiser. The hull was purpose built and developed from the Pr.1144's rather than being a conversion during construction. Seems to have been a white elephant from the beginning, the dockside infrastructure not keeping pace to support such vessels.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_communications_ship_SSV-33

That looks like it! I knew I wasn't bonkers despite the other voices in my head...

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