A more 'aggresive' development of Soviet embarked naval aviation, from late 1950s to the 90s?

[tomo pauk]

Includes building of ships better suited for operation of the aircraft carried. Moskva class was was too small to start with, and still carried heavy missile set-up, Kievs were better suited but still the missile set-up was taking a lot of space, and Kuznetsov was too late.
Aircraft complement will also need a good rework, along the tech of the day as available to the Soviets.

 

[Monk78]

But why should they employ aircraft on ships when their land based aviation can do the job better ?
Granted range of their fighters was so short that left bombers without escorts more than 300 miles out

 

[tomo pauk]

But why should they employ aircraft on ships when their land based aviation can do the job better ?
Granted range of their fighters was so short that left bombers without escorts more than 300 miles out

I kinda felt like starting a new thread about topic that is rarely, if ever talked about here.

 

[Monk78]

I kinda felt like starting a new thread about topic that is rarely, if ever talked about here.

I agree all Cold War threads I love ...

 

[Monk78]

I kinda felt like starting a new thread about topic that is rarely, if ever talked about here.

I agree all Cold War threads I love ...

 

[Monk78]

If ussr gets a of escort carriers after ww2 from usn then that could be a nucleus of trained aircrew and personal granted mostly piston engines aircraft

other idea is using container ships fitted with primitive flight decks that can use regular fighters like su7 or mig21 fitted with RATO / JATO. Obviously would be “one shot” ships as they cannot recover these planes but would be a start esp in nuclear missions where survivability was questionable anyway

 

[steamboy]

Well they did get the Graf Zepplin after WW2 and stalin was all for the development of a carrier arm but his death was also the death of that. If the program was started and too far along to cancel following his death you could see the Soviets start with naval aviation using the Graf Zepplin (as terrible as she was) as a training ship or something else. Maybe they have an earlier bastion doctrine, basically using their carriers for defence of the Soviet union, or as power projection into the med and other places.

 

[Otto Kretschmer]

US has carriers because it is a sea power that needs to project power all around the world. The USSR only had a navy to prevent the US from redupplying troops in Europe

 

[Aghasverov]

How about completing the hulls of Sovetsky Soyuz and Sovetskaya Rossiya as carriers, with full-length flight decks? (Sovetskaya Ukraina probably being a total write-off...) would be a bit of a "learning curve", as the Soviets had essentially no experience with carrier-based naval aviation, but hey, gotta start somewhere...

 

[Catsmate]

Maybe the continuation of the Stalin plan for cruisers, but with aviation support to protect them from NATO strike aircraft? Later developed to support ASW groups (more helicopter carriers() to target the early Polaris SSBNs.

 

[Riain]

The heavy anti-ship missile battery on the Kievs 'replaces' the strike squadrons on board USN carriers while the SAM battery does similar for the fighter sqns. This leaves the Yak 36 free to do the things these missiles can't do, making them a force multiplier for this pretty 'ordinary' aircraft.

The other discussions we've had about Soviet aircraft shows that they likely can't do a hell of a lot better with CATOBAR aircraft in the 60s and 70s, it's a hard job given the technology of the era and in particular how the Soviets lagged behind the West in terms of engine, electronic and metallurgic performance. They could probably match the 50s F8 and A4 in the late 60s early 70s, but these would be up against F4s and F14s while their ship would be under threat from Buccaneers, A6s and A7s.

 

[CV12Hornet]

Given all the constraints listed, and their existing doctrine, I think a flat-deck ASW helicopter carrier would be the most sensible starting point. Say an enlarged, full-length flight deck version of the Moskva-class, or a scaled-down Kiev. This could be built in the 1960s as part of the Soviet buildup in ASW surface vessels.

Besides best fitting doctrine and resources of the time, having these ships also allows them to fiddle around with lift-jet V/STOL aircraft to complement their land-based efforts (Which IOTL were shelved because VG wings did the job with less technological risk). Then follow with an earlier move to STOBAR operations, perhaps by the early 1980s.

 

[Sam R.]

The jokes about Soviet bourgeois incompetence are usually projection by western analysts.

The Soviet nomenklatura were fairly vicious about large system suitability for purpose. Which means to get embarked naval aviation it needs to be like GuLag: a pet project whose failures are compensated by other benefits.

So you need a powerful nomenklatura advocate.
Who goes batty for naval embarked aviation.
Where there’s a secondary benefit for the Soviet ruling class as a whole.

point three is the hard one. GuLag made massive losses but provided better political stability than a liberal justice system when controlling striking urban and rural workers.

expensive specialist planes do not have this.

 

[Riain]

Given all the constraints listed, and their existing doctrine, I think a flat-deck ASW helicopter carrier would be the most sensible starting point. Say an enlarged, full-length flight deck version of the Moskva-class, or a scaled-down Kiev. This could be built in the 1960s as part of the Soviet buildup in ASW surface vessels.

Besides best fitting doctrine and resources of the time, having these ships also allows them to fiddle around with lift-jet V/STOL aircraft to complement their land-based efforts (Which IOTL were shelved because VG wings did the job with less technological risk). Then follow with an earlier move to STOBAR operations, perhaps by the early 1980s.

Perhaps the Moskva class could be like the British escort Cruiser concept of 1961; plenty of scope for a big missile battery but still having the through deck. Once the through deck is there its doubtful the Soviets wouldn't try to make use of it with fixed wing aircraft.

 

[SealTheRealDeal]

Things only get done in the USSR when it suits the interests of a faction.

So post WWII Stalin gives shore based naval aviation to the VVS. The Soviet Navy then scrambles to make a carrier force to ensure the continued existence of the AV-MF.

 

[Riain]

OK, then lets assume some faction likes ship-borne naval aviation, what is the technological capability of the Soviet Union to develop carrier aircraft and ships from the 50s?

I don't think a 10-15,000 ton through-deck ship by the early 60s wouldn't be difficult for them, although they might struggle with the cats and wires. What about a 20-25,000 ton ship in the early 60s? What's the chance the Soviets get hold of an exported Majestic in the 60s with its BS4 catapult and arrestor systems, or can get the drawings and some spare parts via espionage?

What engines and avionics do the Soviets have in the 60s that could be suitable for a carrier fighter? The Mig21s 1 hour flight endurance would not be suitable for a carrier fighter so I'd guess that some outright performance would be traded for flight endurance, maybe Mach 1.5 for 1.5-2 hours light endurance and a decent weapons load.

 

[CV12Hornet]

The two fighter engines available to the USSR through most of the 1960s are the Lyulka AL-7 and Tumansky R-11. Most of the radars available are rangefinding units or simple search radars like the Sapfir-21 mounted on the MiG-21. For longer-range work there's the Su-15's and Yak-28P's Oriol-D, which are capable of guiding the medium-range K-8 missile; the Tu-28's Smerch is likely to be too big.

The problem is more takeoff and landing. Soviet fighter aircraft of this era pretty consistently had issues with long takeoff rolls and high landing speeds, neither of which are desirable for a carrier aircraft.

 

[steamboy]

What we could see however is instead more helicopter carriers, various Moskva analogues and efforts to get aircraft, they'd probably have to be completely new designs due to the aforementioned high landing speeds/long take off times.

 

[Monk78]

If we can consider another option for aggressive use of soviet naval aviation may I suggest another route. What if the AVMF assets are more numerous and based in the multiple soviet military overseas bases around the ? This will give soviets unsinkable aircraft carriers around the major chokepoints of the world.

Apart from interdicting the NATO SLOC in open expanses of Pacific and Atlantic , it will enable them to achieve almost all their military objectives in event of a global war. And realistically with the resources available to them any carrier vs carrier battle in open ocean would just be a needless one sided slaughter anyway given the massive superiority USN has in that dept

Soviet Military Expansionism and post-Soviet Revival

Since 1939, when the Workers and Peasants Red Army established first garrisons in independent Baltic States, the Soviet Union began rapid military expansion outside of its borders.

www.numbers-stations.com

So every such base could have an airgroup equivalent to a carrier air group , including fighters, bombers and strike planes all under AVMF command. Their goal could be
1 Disrupt maritime activity in all chokepoints around Eurasia and Africa
2 Outer line of defence of USSR against NATO naval forces
3 Sanctuary for Soviet submarines
4 Bolster the airforces of the host nation in case of global conflict

Lets say at the peak of their influence in late 70s and early 80s we can have bases at
Guinea
Angola
South Yemen
Libya
Syria
India
Vietnam
Madagascar
North Korea [possibly]

equivalent to 8 Carrier groups worldwide, each groups could include
1 unit of recon/tanker/ASW planes
1 regiment of FLagon/FIshbed fighter
1 regiment of Fishbed J [multirole]
1 regiment of Fitter C/Flogger strike versions
1 regiment of Badger/Blinder

Last 2 regiments equipped with AshM/ASM , and others with basic A2G weapons but trained to conduct antishipping strikes

cons
obviously land based so limited mobility but again there is no way USSR can catch up with USN in naval aviation without ASB
require govts friendly enough to host them [ but here the presence of these forces can be used by host nations to intimidate their neighbors ]
cost : we can decrease the number of regiments in PVO/AVMF on mainland USSR correspondingly, bases I'm sure are very costly too but so is creating CVBGs
Vulnerability : Land bases are much easier to hit than tracking and sinking a ship in the open ocean but by that time the USN /USAF was so advanced that I doubt if it was a problem for them to track and sink a handful of soviet carriers which might have pretty anemic defences and minimal escorts.Plus atleast land bases are not vulnerable to the excellent NATO SSNs .Furthermore a lot more SAMs /AAA can be used to protect the bases and possibly by providing aircraft with hardened shelters, clearly in a nuclear war it makes little difference but that also brings the added political complication of nuking a base which might be close to population centers of 3rd world nations
doctrine: one would ask why not just base strategic aviation and VVS assets there ? Those branches rarely had training or means to conduct strikes on enemy naval forces and aircraft if directly under AVMF will hopefully have better training and specialized weapons for maritime interdiction

 

[Llewwyy]

If the Soviets decide to make a proper carrier, why would they convert a land based fighter to a naval one? If they start in the 50s, when they came up with the Mig 15, who is to say that they could not come up with equally good aircraft for the navy.