Ulyanovsk (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 OREL (which never went beyond blueprints), and the initial commissioned name was to be Kremlin , but was later given the name Ulyanovsk. The vessel was named after the Soviet town of Ulyanovsk, which was in turn named after Vladimir Lenin's original name.
She would have been 85,000 tons in displacement, or 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 makes aircraft available, by way of a ski jump. The configuration would have been very similar to U.S. Navy carriers, though with the typical Soviet twist of adding ASM and SAM launchers. Her hull was laid down in 1988, but the project was cancelled, (at 40%) along with a sister ship, in 1991 after the end of the Cold War. Scrapping began on 4 February 1992.
External links
hazegray.org entry
Last updated: 06-06-2005 05:47:41
