The Future of Soviet Naval Aviation post-1991

Assuming that the USSR survives 1991 mostly intact, what will happen to their aircraft carriers?

After the collapse of the USSR, Russia sold off all but one of their five aircraft carriers between 1991 and 1996, retired both of it's Moskva-class helicopter carriers, and scrapped the unfinished Ulyanovsk nuclear carrier. Meanwhile, Ukraine sold the unfinished Varyag carrier to China in the 1990s. Russia has not built a carrier since, largely due to the fact that they do not have any ports large enough to build one. However, Ukraine remaining a part of the Union in this ATL means that the Soviets continue to have the facilities to build more carriers in the future.

Will a surviving Soviet Union keep at least a few of it's carriers? I would think that they would keep the Admiral Kuznetsov as in OTL, but after that there are a number of options, none of which are necessarily mutually exclusive, but some are certainly more feasible than others:

- Complete the Varyag
- Complete the nuclear-powered Ulyanovsk
- Convert one or more of the old Kiev-class carriers into STOBAR carriers
- Keep and maintain one or more Kiev-class as they are, and invest in the Yak-141 VTOL fighter instead
- Build completely new carriers (such as the proposed Shtorm) later on, after economic recovery

I don't see the Soviets retaining their Moskva-class helicopter carriers much longer, as they reportedly had problems maneuvering in rough seas.

Why yes I did read The Sixth Battle, why do you ask
 
I suspect that the Kiev class carriers would be converted as the budget allowed and the Varyag would be completed unless the economy was very poor. (Odds are, even if the SU is deep in crisis as in OTL, simply surviving would mean the economy was better than it was for the post-Soviet states in the 90s.)

The resulting 6 carriers would be a valuable resource for intervening around the world or for showing the colours. While hardly an equal to the US carrier doomstacks, a Soviet navy built around 6 reasonably capable carriers launching reasonably modern aircraft would put them in clear second place on the world's oceans.

Whether the Ulyanovsk is completed would depend on relations with the US and the economic constraints IMO. The biggest value in completing the ship is in competing with the US - both to show "we can do it too", and thus maintain the Soviet claim to being a peer of the US, and for the practical value its range would give to intervening far from Soviet ports (its design also has advantages over the older carrier designs for launching heavier planes and managing higher sortie rates, which also have their own value). So Ulyanovsk is more of a nice-to-have IMO, and thus liable to be cut if relations with the US are good enough or the economy is bad enough (or some combination of the two).

I suspect the Yak-141 would be cut early if this Soviet Union is having a budget squeeze. But that's just an unfounded gut feeling... The Yak-141 does seem to have been quite close to being production ready, so deploying it on the Kiev-class ships could be preferred to retrofitting them with ski-jumps.

fasquardon
 
This is another subject close to heart so to say, i believe what Yeltsin and his mafia did to the soviet carriers (and to the navy, and to the military, and to the country as a whole) build with so much effort and sweat and sacrifice was nothing short of criminal.

Regarding the Kievs and any refits/upgrades, the question is would it be cheaper to just modify them all to Baku spec and build the Yak-41, or to not only modify them like say Vikramaditya, but also have them operate the MiG-29K. In first case they largely only have to pay for the planes, in latter case they have to pay to both significantly modify the ships AND buy the planes. So money wise, the first option is more likely.

Of course, there are many other possible options, they could for instance still sell the Kievs to China and India but in this case for a good few billions with the work to convert them done at Nikolayev and with several dozens of MiG-29Ks sold to go with them as well. If nothing more, this will at least provide work and orders for the shipyards and plane factories, and/or finance help with finishing Ulyanovsk. Hell they could even build a whole carrier or LHD like Kherson class project 11780 or LPD project 1609 for anyone with the cash.

Fast forward, even having "just" the 3 big carriers Tbilisi, Riga and Ulyanovsk, the VMF would be a formidable force (providing that the rest of the navy and the military in general is maintained in a reasonably good condition). USSR today could possibly be building a Shtorm type carrier at Nikolayev, and /or LHDs of new design (like the Lavina type).
 
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