Naval War College, explained that the Soviets wanted to create a defensive вЂњblue beltвЂќ in their offshore waters. James Holmes, a professor of strategy at the U.S. Multiple mechanical problems have plagued the ship ever since, and she doesnвЂ™t go anywhere without an accompanying tug vessel.Д«ut there was a logic behind the Ulyanovsk. The massive ships have never figured significantly in the Soviet or Russian naval inventory.Д¬urrently, Russia has only one carrierвЂЉ-вЂЉthe significantly smaller Admiral KuznetsovвЂЉ-вЂЉlaunched in 1985. That the Soviets even wanteda supercarrier was remarkable. The Soviets planned a complement of 3,400 sailorsвЂЉ-вЂЉroughly half of the crew aboard an American Nimitz-class carrier, but sizable compared to other Soviet vessels. Plus, the carrier would have had helicopters for search-and-rescue work and anti-submarine warfare missions. The shipвЂ™s designers planned three elevatorsвЂЉ-вЂЉeach capable of carrying 50 tonsвЂЉ-вЂЉto move aircraft to and from the cavernous hanger deck. UlyanovskвЂ™s two steam catapults, ski-jump and four sets of arresting cables would have created a bustling flight deck. The carrier would have carried at least 44 fighters on boardвЂЉ-вЂЉa combination of Su-33 and MiG-29 attack jets configured for carrier operations. Ulyanovsk could have easily reached 30 knots while under way. Her propulsion system would have comprised four KN-3 nuclear reactors, a model originally used to power enormous Kirov-class battlecruisers, such as the heavy guided-missile cruiser Frunze. Named after Vladimir LeninвЂ™s home town, everything about the supercarrier was huge, even by Russian standards. Department of Defense illustration via Wikimedia. The PentagonвЂ™s rendering of the supercarrier. During the вЂ™60s and вЂ™70s, workers built Moskva-class helicopter carriers and Kiev-class carriers at South Shipyard 444.Д«ut none of these ships came close to the Ulyanovsk. The famous Russian battleship PotemkinвЂЉ-вЂЉscene of the famous 1905 naval mutiny and the subject of Sergei EisensteinвЂ™s classic filmвЂЉ-вЂЉlaunched from the same shipyard.Д®arly in the Soviet period, the shipyard constructed battleships. ItвЂ™s an old facility, dating back to the 18th century when Prince Grigory Potemkin signed orders in 1789 authorizing new docks to repair Russian naval vessels damaged during the Russo-Turkish War. The ship was such a large project that builders wouldnвЂ™t have finished her until the mid вЂ™90s.Д¬onstruction took place at the Black Sea Shipyard in UkraineвЂЉ-вЂЉoften called Nikolayev South Shipyard 444. But now the Kremlin is spending billions of rubles modernizing its militaryвЂЉ-вЂЉand wants a new supercarrier to rival the United States.Д«uilders laid the keel for the Ulyanovsk in 1988, just as the Soviet empire began to break apart. The Ulyanovsk died in the scrap yards in 1992. As the Cold War ended, Russia plunged into years of economic hardship that made building new ships impossible. Moscow never finished the project, because it ran out of money. Navy away from the MotherlandвЂ™s shores.Д«ut the Ulyanovsk is a tantalizing вЂњalmostвЂќ of history. With a nuclear-powered engineвЂЉ-вЂЉand working in conjunction with other Soviet surface warfare vessels and submarinesвЂЉ-вЂЉthe supercarrier would have steamed through the oceans with a purpose. Had she ever sailed, the Soviet supercarrier Ulyanovsk would have been a naval behemoth more than 1,000 feet long, with an 85,000-ton displacement and enough storage to carry an air group of up to 70 fixed and rotary wing aircraft.

Soviet aircraft carrier ulyanovsk