Aoshima 04588 RUSSIAN NAVY CARRIER-BORNE AIRCRAFT

The Soviet Navy emerged victorious from World War II, but remained in the deep shadow of the US Navy or the Royal Navy. Nor did it have on-board aviation or any modern aircraft that could compete with Essex-class aircraft carriers. This state of affairs began to change slowly in the 1960s due to the fleet expansion program pushed by Admiral Sergey Gorshkov. It was on his initiative that construction began, and in 1967 the first Moscow-class helicopter was commissioned, capable of operating 12 Kamow Ka-25 helicopters. Of course, the main task of the ship was ZOP activities, and not equal combat with American aircraft carriers. In the mid-1970s, however, the USSR commissioned the first Kyiv-class ship, which can be classified as a light aircraft carrier, with an air group of up to 36 aircraft, among which, next to the Yak-38 aircraft, were the ZOP Kamowa Ka-25 and Ka-27. The experience gained in the operation of the Moscow and Kyiv types of ships was to be crowned by the first class of aircraft carriers in the fleet in the history of the USSR. The construction of the first two units of it began in the 1980s, but only one of them entered service in the USSR Navy - Admiral Kuznetsov, capable of operating a maximum of 50 aircraft.