Aircraft carriers

Modern aircraft carriers

   After the Second World War and to this day, aircraft carriers are actively used by the U.S. Navy in conflicts of varying intensity (Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan, Kosovo).

   The first aircraft carrier with nuclear propulsion has been put into operation in 1961. They became "Enterprise" (engl. USS Enterprise (CVN-65)), which has the greatest length (342.3 meters) of warships the world.

   In the USSR, the first aircraft carriers predeskiznye projects were implemented in 1943. Nevertheless, since the displacement of Admiral Nikolai G. Kuznetsov marshal positions with the Navy in 1955, all projects of construction of aircraft carriers had been closed to new marshal SG Gorshkov. Aircraft carriers to brand the Soviet propaganda as a weapon of aggression. Their combat capabilities and survivability lower, but the role and capabilities of Soviet missile cruisers overstatement. After coming to power, Brezhnev and the appointment of the Minister of Defense AA Grechko in 1967, Gorshkov changed his mind. The result was the construction of aircraft carriers "Minsk", "Kiev", "Novorossisk" with the deployment of their aircraft vertical takeoff and landing (SVVP) Yak-38.

   Due to a re-fighting capabilities SVVP building aircraft carrier, capable of carrying conventional aircraft type postponed. Because of this, the first and only carrier of this type, the Project 1143.5 heavy aircraft cruiser "Fleet Admiral Kuznetsov Soviet Union", was launched in 1985 and adopted in 1995.

   All Soviet and Russian aircraft carriers are referred to as "aircraft cruiser" in order to be able to cross the Dardanelles Strait, the passage of aircraft carriers which are not permitted under the Convention on the Regime of the Straits of 1936. The Dardanelles connect the Black Sea through the Bosporus to the Mediterranean Sea, and thus the Atlantic Ocean. This relationship was extremely important for the Soviet Navy, as the only sufficiently large fixture located on the Black Sea coast in Nikolaev (see Art. Ulianovsk (aircraft carrier)). In the current political situation, the construction of aircraft carriers is likely to be moved to another base. In addition to the purely terminological differences TAvKR "Admiral Kuznetsov" differs from the aircraft carriers of other countries, the existence of anti-missile, which theoretically gives him the opportunity to fight and without the deck aircraft, while the traditional indigenous missile armament of modern aircraft carriers is anti.