Leaderboard

It's amusing how regular military development is portrayed as some convoluted play by Americans. Soviets had no need for aircraft carriers as Soviet fleet was purely defensive force, not really a blue water navy. Once Soviets started to invest in fleet, the need for actual carriers and carrier aircraft surfaced. Yak-38 was important machine as it gave much needed experience in VTOL and STOL carrier operations; it was to be replaced by more capable Yak-141 later. Regardless of how good or bad Yak-38 was, it was still a second best VTOL aircraft as all other VTOL projects around the world went nowhere. Similarly, the one and only non-American nuclear powered carrier is Charles de Gaulle. All others use gas or steam turbines. Compared to British Invincible class carriers or French Clemenceau class, Kuznetsov was more capable in all regards. Even that, Kuznetsov was not really a new design - just a redesigned 1143 project. The actual new, nuclear powered, carrier planned was Ulyanovsk. Of course, Russian military went in steady decline after 1991, but we will see how well you do once your country collapses