TAKR - Cold War History - Gorshkov

Khrushchev was succeeded by Brezhnev and Andrei Grechko became Minister of Defense. Gorshkov immediately changed his course by 180 degrees and returned to Kuznetsov's ideas for creating an ocean fleet - albeit in a peculiarly truncated version.

Three years after the removal of NS Khrushchev (1964) and the arrival of Leonid Brezhnev to the leadership of the country, A.A.Grechko was appointed Minister of Defense. Since then, SG Gorshkov began to show initiative in the formation of the proposed N.G. Kuznetsov oceanic fleet, balanced by genera of forces and classes of ships, the necessity of which was confirmed by the experience of the combat service of the Navy ships in the ocean. In addition, he enlisted the support of Minister A. A. Grechko, with whom he was linked together in the defense of Novorossiysk (1942-1943), and had a strong associate in the person of the Minister of Shipbuilding Industry B. Ye. Butoma (Minsudprom was restored in 1965).

Norman Polmar [Aircraft Carriers Volume 1] in 1969 posed the questions: do Soviet aircraft need aircraft carriers? Just what and for what? Polmar gave four answers

1. The first postulate: the Russian Navy under no circumstances will be able to wrest the dominance of the enemy from the sea, the difference in industrial potentials and shipbuilding capacities is too great. Therefore, the construction of atomic superavianos seemed to be wasteful.
2. Postulate two: the Russian Navy will not conduct local wars in remote theaters. The landing of the Russian landing force to help the progressive forces of Zanzibar seemed to be something quite surreal, although such a prospect could justify the existence of a small carrier-based fleet of 2 to 3 ships that does not claim to seize the dominion of the sea. If the British had such a fleet, the Falklands war would not have lasted so long.
3. Postulate three: the Russian Navy at the moment can not afford to keep exhibition ships. For what kind of purpose did Argentina and Brazil at first need dreadnoughts, and then aircraft carriers? For prestige. No wonder all historians call the late XIX - early XX century in Latin America a bad parody of the Anglo-German race of naval weapons.
4. The fourth postulate: the fleet should have multi-purpose aircraft carriers capable of supporting the actions of other ships and providing limited air support.

In December 1962 the first aircraft carrier of the Soviet Navy was laid down in the shipyards Nº 444 of Nikolayev, Ukraine. Project 1123 was known as the Moskva class by NATO. All the Soviet aircraft carriers, from the Moskva to the incomplete Ulyanovsk, were constructed in those shipyards located in the Black Sea. Thence they had to go to the Mediterranean through the Straits of the Dardanelles, pertaining to Turkey, and thence from the Mediterranean to move to any other place in the world. The problem was that by the convention of Montreaux of 1936 the passage of aircraft carrier by that Straits was prohibited. To avoid diverse diplomatic problems, the Soviet fleet denominateed its aircraft carrier as Aircraft Carrier Cruisers. The Kuznetsov is denominated TAKR (Tyazholiy Avionosnyy Kreyser) or Heavy Aircraft Carrying Cruiser.

The idea of creating a balanced fleet was taken as the basis for the development of a draft plan for military shipbuilding (1971-1980), begun in 1968. It was provided with the implementation of a number of complex R&D by the forces of the Naval Academy (VMA), Navy, Air Force and Industry institutes, with participation of the Central Design Bureau of Minsudprom, and subsequently the Minaviaprom Design Bureau.

Part of the work carried out in this direction was the work of the Nevsky Design Bureau (as it began to be called since 1966, TsKB-17), simultaneously with the design of the VCR with VTOL (Project 1143), in support of the selection and selection of optimal ways for creating promising aircraft carriers with conventional aerodynamic aircraft Catapult take-off and landing on the aerofinisher), not inferior in terms of their combat capabilities to the deck aircraft of the probable enemy.

The deputy chief designer of the project 1153, the head of development of the technical proposal for the creation of TAKR project 11435, was O.P.Efimov. Such aircraft significantly exceeded the VTOL by their performance characteristics (LTH) and combat effectiveness.

Conducted in the preparation of the new plan, comprehensive R & D once again convincingly proved the need to create ships of an aircraft carrier type for the domestic fleet. However, the decisions made in the 1970's. Political and military leadership of the country in the areas of development of aircraft carriers, were inconsistent and contradictory.

Re-asserted by D.F.Ustinov (as secretary of the CPSU Central Committee and later by the Minister of Defense), a reassessment of the role and effectiveness of the VTOL with the air defense system of the ship's joint and the area of combat patrolling of submarine missile carriers, as well as the ability of the domestic aircraft industry to create a shipborne vertical takeoff and landing fighter capable of successfully solving these tasks. This significantly delayed the design and construction of much-needed for the Navy full-fledged aircraft carriers with catapult take-off of aircraft that are not inferior to their best foreign images of deck aviation.

The initial base for design work on the creation of large aircraft carrying ships of the Soviet fleet was carried out by the Nevsky Design Bureau (NPKB) in 1968-1970, with the development of the draft plan for military shipbuilding in 1971-1980, the development of ships of an aircraft carrier type, and further development of the TTZ issued by the Navy in 1971-1972, the pre-design of the aviation ship (Project 1160), in 1973-1977. Technical proposal, draft and technical projects of the "large cruiser with aviation armament" (draft 1153).

The design and construction work on them did not end with the construction of ships, However, they included the definition of the main co-executors and contractors, preparation, coordination and assignment of tasks to them, which facilitated the formation of a complex system of stable counterparty ties and eventually accelerated the design and construction of the head ship of Project 11435, as well as the creation of ship aviation and other weapons for it.

In 1967, the Black Sea Fleet was replenished with another "unparalleled in the world" creation of Gorshkov - the antisubmarine cruiser (PKR) "Moscow", the ship anti-submarine defense of the far zone with the group-based helicopters. The deck hangar housed 14 helicopters, which coped with the tasks of searching for submarines much more effective than the guards. The main task of "Moscow" was a 24-hour search for boats, for which in the air, at a distance of 50 km from the ship, was continuously four helicopters. A year later, a flag was raised on the same type of SKR "Leningrad". The first long-distance marches of "Moscow" and "Leningrad" That these ships are not capable of counteracting American submarines because of the increased combat qualities of the latter. In addition, American carrier groups in the Mediterranean Sea behaved extremely impudently, defiantly flying over the very deck of Soviet helicopter carriers.

In the early 1970s, the complex research project "Order" was carried out, which dealt with issues of interaction between aircraft carriers, naval missile-carrying aircraft and shock submarines. The preliminary design of the aircraft carrier prepared by the Nevsky Design Bureau contained eight variants of the ship with a displacement of 40,000 to 100,000 tons. In the summer of 1972, the chief designer of the design, Arkady Morin, presented the ship to Defense Minister Grechko, simultaneously with the reports of the chief designers of nuclear submarine missile carriers (Subsequently Project 941 Akula / Typhoon and Project 949A "Antey / Oscar"). All three projects were actively supported by the Minister of Shipbuilding Industry Boris Butoma, Who considered them the basis of the future Soviet fleet. In July 1973, the Nevsky Design Bureau recommended the variant of the nuclear aircraft carrier (project 1160) with catapult take-off aircraft (Su-27K fighter and anti-submarine P-42) with a displacement of 80,000 tons for further design.