Ulyanovsk (
Cyrillic:
Улья́новск) was the first of a class of Soviet
supercarriers which for the first time would have offered true
blue water aviation capability for the
Soviet Navy. This was based upon the 1975
Project 1153 OREL (which never went beyond blueprints) and the initial commissioned name was to be
Kremlin, but was later given the name
Ulyanovsk"." Rochlin, G. I.; La Porte, T. R.; Roberts, K. H. Footnote 39.
Naval War College Review. Autumn, 1987, Vol. LI, No. 3. after the Soviet town of
Ulyanovsk, which was in turn named after
Vladimir Lenin's original name.
It would have been 85,000 tons <!-- Specify displacement type --> in
displacement (more than the older
Forrestal-class carriers but smaller than contemporary
Nimitz class carriers of the
U.S. Navy).
Ulyanovsk would have been able to carry the full range of fixed-wing carrier aircraft, as opposed to the limited scope in which
Admiral Kuznetsov launched aircraft, by way of a ski jump. The configuration would have been very similar to U.S. Navy carriers though with the typical Soviet practice of adding
anti-ship missile (ASM) and
surface-to-air missile (SAM) launchers. Its hull was laid down in 1988, but the project was cancelled at 40% complete along with a sister ship in 1991. Scrapping began on 4 February 1992.
The
People's Republic of China is expected to build two nuclear aircraft carriers based on the Project 1143.7...
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