Storm (aircraft carrier project)

According to the Director of KSCC Valery Polyakov, the ship is designed to perform various tasks in the far ocean zone, it will be able to strike at ground and sea targets of the enemy with its own weapons and aircraft of the airborne aviation group, in addition, it will be able to provide air defense with airborne defense systems and means air groups, provide combat stability and air defense of naval groups, as well as provide support for landing ^[4] .

For the first time, a large-scale model of a multi-purpose aircraft carrier (AVM) was shown to specialists behind the scenes at the international naval salon in St. Petersburg in July 2013, and was presented to the general public at the Army-2015 international military-technical forum held in Kubinka Moscow region in June 2015.

The general technical characteristics of the aircraft carrier of the Storm E project ( Storm 23000E is an export version of the AVM conceptual project for the Russian Navy), the development of which took place at the KSCC under the code “Lair”, were published in foreign media in May on janes.com .

The construction of the first aircraft carrier is expected no earlier than in 2025-2030. Estimated cost will be 350 billion rubles ^[5] .

In May 2016, Deputy Minister of Defense of the Russian Federation Yuri Borisov said that an agreement on the construction of a promising aircraft carrier could be concluded by the end of 2025 ^[6] .

In June 2016, it was announced that the construction of an aircraft carrier could take 8–9 years ^[7] .

It is assumed that the technical design of the aircraft carrier will begin in 2017-2018 ^[7] . The beginning of the main design phase is planned for 2020 ^[8] . Research and development work (R&D) on the creation of the first Russian nuclear aircraft carrier will begin in 2023 ^[9] . The start of work on the construction of an aircraft carrier is planned for 2024 ^[10] .

In November 2016, it was proposed to give the head aircraft carrier of the series the name “Marshal of the Soviet Union of Beetles” ^[11] .

In April 2016, it was announced about the possibility of building a promising aircraft carrier at the Zvezda Far Eastern shipyard in the city of Bolshoi Kamen .

According to the project, the length is 330 m, width - 40 m, maximum draft - 11 m. Displacement will not exceed 100 thousand tons. The aircraft carriers of the Storm project will receive an ice class and will be adapted to work in cold latitudes. The ship will receive two "islands", deck superstructures to house observation posts, a command bridge, electronic equipment and communications.

The aircraft carrier is designed with a conventional power plant, but it can be replaced by a nuclear one. In 2016, it was announced that the ships of the project would receive nuclear power plants. It is assumed that these will be RITM-200 nuclear reactors, which will be previously tested on the Arctic icebreaker ^[7] .

The aircraft carrier’s flight deck will have four launch sites, and its equipment will include two traditional springboards (ramps) and four electromagnetic catapults. Landing of aircraft will be provided by one aerofinisher ^[12] .

Air group

The air group includes from 70 to 90 pieces of equipment:

• Multipurpose fighters Su-57 ;
• Airborne early warning aircraft;
• Multipurpose fighters Su-33M ;
• Multipurpose fighters Su-35K ;
• Ka-27 multi-purpose and anti-submarine helicopters, as well as plans to install Ka-25 , Ka-28 , Ka-29 , Ka-31 and Ka-52K multi-purpose and anti-submarine helicopters, and some of these models will also be on the rescue aircraft carrier;
• MiG-29K and MiG-29KUB multipurpose fighters.

It is planned to provide the Storm air defense with four vertical-launch anti-aircraft missile launchers. There is a possibility that ship versions of the promising S -500 air defense systems ^[13] will be developed for the aircraft carrier’s equipment, which, presumably, will be able to detect aerodynamic and ballistic targets flying at a range of up to 800 km at a speed of up to 7 km / s.

Also, perhaps the ship will be equipped with an anti-torpedo system.

The aircraft carrier’s electronic complex will include various sensors, including radars with an active phased array antenna.

Polyakov noted that the characteristics of the ship can change during development at each stage of work ^[14] .

The ammunition stock of cruise missiles and aerial bombs is 3000 units ^[15] .

Model at the exhibition "Army 2015"

• AVKarpenko. OVT “Arms of the Fatherland” - A promising aircraft carrier of the Russian Navy / Ppomising Russian NAVY aircraft carrier (neopr.) . Domestic weapons and military equipment (July 31, 2015). (inaccessible link)
• IHS Jane's: Russia has developed a new nuclear supercarrier
• Newsweek: Russian supercarrier will challenge US as superpower