Is It a Battleship? Is It an Aircraft Carrier? Russia Combined Both Into One Ship

[rangerrebew]

June 27, 2020

Is It a Battleship? Is It an Aircraft Carrier? Russia Combined Both Into One Ship

Meet the Kiev class.
by Kyle Mizokami

Key Point: The Kiev-class carriers packed enough firepower to be called a battleship.
 
 

At the tail end of the Cold War, the Soviet Union produced a number of unique aircraft carriers. Known as the Kiev class, the carriers were the Soviets’ initial foray into the world of fixed wing naval aviation, and the only Soviet carriers to become fully operational. The story of the Kiev carriers is also the story of a land power forging a path to become a naval power, seeking to realize a fleet that could challenge the mighty U.S. Navy.

The Kiev-class aircraft carriers had their origins in the tenure of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov. Appointed by Nikita Khrushchev to the position of Commander in Chief of the Soviet Navy in 1956, Gorshkov served in that position for a remarkable twenty-nine years. He oversaw the expansion of the Soviet Navy from a strategically insignificant force in the years after World War II to a well-balanced one that could project power into the Third World, a problem that became obvious during the Cuban Missile Crisis when the Soviet Navy had no long-range striking forces it could send to meet the U.S. naval blockade of Cuba.

https://nationalinterest.org/blog/reboot/it-battleship-it-aircraft-carrier-russia-combined-both-one-ship-163618

[PeteS in CA]

If "battleship" means a ship with 12"-18" main guns, ummmmm, no. All but one of the 4 had a pair of 3" guns, and the 4th had a pair of 100mm guns. They carried a heavy load of missiles and of torpedoes, but that would be more like a guided missile cruiser. And the aircraft were VTOL Yak-38s which were akin to British Harriers (a bit faster, longer range). So it wasn't a battleship, and it was an aircraft carrier with an asterisk. The class has also been out of Russian service since 1996, though one was sold to the Indian navy, refurbished, and put back in service.