Soviet Cold War Naval Aviation

Morskaya Aviatsiya - Circa 3,500 aicraft and helicopters (1947-2024)

Soviet Naval Aviation, is a branch of the Soviet Armed Forces, attached to the Navy, which played a crucial role during the Cold War era and up to this day. As an integral part of the Soviet Navy, it providing air support, reconnaissance, and anti-submarine warfare capabilities for the Soviet fleet. Aviatsiya voyenno-morskogo flota (Soviet Naval Aviation) was a key component of Soviet maritime strategy. It operated a wide range of aircraft, including fighters, bombers, reconnaissance planes, and anti-submarine warfare aircraft, to protect Soviet naval assets and project power globally. One its primary roles was ASW. It operated specialized aircraft equipped with sonar and other detection equipment to hunt and destroy enemy submarines threatening Soviet surface ships and maritime interests.

It aso provided the long arm Naval Strike Capability: With long range strategic bombers aircraft capable of conducting precision strikes against enemy surface ships, installations, and land targets. This capability was particularly relevant during conflicts such as the Soviet-Afghan War.

Helicopter and Aircraft Carriers at least appeared in time. Cruisers already (and later destroyers) operated helicopters, but it's the 1960s Moskva class cruisers that really opened the ball. These specialized cruiser/helicopter carriers hybrid were the largest in the world and provided to the fleet an unprecedented level of ASW coverage, while being able to provide amphibious airbone capabilitoes as well.

Unlike the USN, the Soviet Union developed aircraft carriers that were essentiallmy hybrids, such as the massive Kiev class "heavy cruisers" which were essentually hybrids with a transverse landing deck for VTOL and helicopter, before starting the ambitious Admiral Kuznetsov-class carriers just before the collapse of the Soviet union. The latter, unlike the Kievs are still in service with the Russian Federation Navy today. In any cases, they extended the reach and capabilities of Soviet Naval Aviation like never before.

The Post-Cold War Era saw a rapid fall in numbers and capabilities, through the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, and naval aviation underwent significant changes. The Russian Navy inherited much of its equipment and assets, but budgetary constraints and shifting strategic priorities led to a reduction in its size and capabilities. However Russia has made efforts to modernize its naval aviation capabilities. This includes the development and acquisition of new aircraft, upgrades to existing platforms, and improvements in training and tactics to maintain a credible maritime defense posture.

USSR Pr1143.4 Super Carrier - Admiral Lazarev project.

Lessons of WW2

It's clear that WW2 or the great patriotic war as called in Russia today, had some influence on future developments about naval aviation, a brand that existed since 1912 in Tsarist times (see WW1 born as the Imperial Russian Air Service, was still found useful enough t take part, mostly from rivers, in the civil war by 1918-21, and was developed modestly but surely in the interwar as a small, competent force mixing land planes (not surprising from a land continent) and floatplanes, having desires for aircraft carriers but never building a single one. Unlike Germany or Italy which mostly refused to grant a separate naval air arm from the Luftwaffe and Regia Aeronautica respectively, the Morskaya Aviatsiya was seen as a separate branch from the VVS (regular air force), yet still was forced to adopt land based models, and some floatplanes and derivatives. Albeit officially formed as a separate branch in 1931, it was not as lucky as the USN/USMC naval branches or more so, the IJNA, which could choose its whole separate tree of models (from trainers to heavy bombers through fighters and everything in between) at its leisure, separate from Army models.

The second world war saw the use a few on-board catapulted models on cruisers and the only two battleships still in service, but Operation Barabarossa mostly decided of its fate. The Baltic, Northern and Black Sea fleet fell prey to the Luftwaffe and whatever assets survived took part mostly to land operation support. So did the Morskaya Aviatsiya, patrolling against axis ships over the Baltic or black sea, operating from riverine bases, used for reconnaissance and supply during ground operations. Those land-based were all thrown into the furnace of combat in classic land operations with the VVS, as did naval infantry units with the Army. This did not meant it was completely useless for naval operations: Oustide reconnaissance, they played offensive roles, including bombing, mining and anti-ship missions, especially over the black sea, which had clear seas and pristine weather most of the year. But burdened by a war on its own soil that mobilized all its resources, the Soviet Naval Aviation could certanly not expand and project power as some in the naval staff had hoped for in 1939-40. These projects were basically postponed to the postwar era.

Articles list

Soviet Naval Air Force

Kamov Ka-10 Hat
Kamov Ka-15 Hen
Kamov Ka-18 Hog
Kamov Ka-25 Hormone
Kamov Ka-27 Helix
Mil Mi-14 Haze
Mil Mi-4 Hound

Yakovlev Yak-38
Sukhoi Su-17
Sukhoi Su-24

Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle
Myasishchev M-4 Bison
Tupolev Tu-14 Bosun
Tupolev Tu-142
Ilyushin Il-38
Tupolev Tu-16
Antonov An-12
Tupolev Tu-22
Tupolev Tu-95
Tupolev Tu-22M
Tupolev Tu-16
Tupolev Tu-22

Beriev Be-6 Madge
Beriev Be-10 Mallow
Beriev Be-12
Lun class Ekranoplanes
A90 Orlan Ekranoplanes

Soviet Naval Aviation

Early Jets developments in the USSR

This story should required several volumes as it's thick and amazing in scope and in detail. Long story short, the Soviet Air Force capitalized in its war experiences and mass-production products of WW2 to defined some of its priorities, but integrated Western technologies in both ends of the spectrum to access the next level in the immediate post-war technological race for better planes;

First, the same operation the Americans set in plane in 1945 (Operation Paperclip) occurred in the freed territories by the Red Army: Documents, models, prototypes, everything that was related to German research, and most importantly German scientists and engineers, were smuggled to the East. Spies also were part of rapid Soviet progresses: Famous British spiy Kim Filby passed some valuable informations and the British Rolls-Royce Nene was just shared to the Soviets in the open, at the astonishment of Stalin himself, by the new Labor government.

Comprehensively copied they formed the Klimov RD-45 that propelled the MIG-15, the best fighter jet of its era. Bomber-wise, that's a single off-course B-29 in a routine mission over Japan that was intercepted over Soviet territory, forced to land and while the crew was released, the place was not. It was comprehensively reversed-engineered and became later the Tupolev Tu-4 "Bull", the first Soviet long range modern heavy bomber, capable of carrying the Atomic bomb when it became available. Following Soviet bombers owe more to local engineering however, but this prize allowed to take shortcuts.

Back to the origins: The BI story

Soviet aviation already had a peak into jets with the wartime Bereznyak-Isayev BI-1, which first flew in May 1942 and was derived from the unmanned Korolev's RP-318-1 rocket aircraft which flew in 1940. The head of OKB-293, Viktor Fedorovich Bolkhovitinov attended the TsAGI conference on ramjet and rocket propulsion along with two of his top engineers, A. Ya. Bereznyak and A. M. Isaev, which were later tasked to work on a new prototype based on Korolev's engine. This was basically still a rocket aircraft, but with compressed air to force the propellant into the reaction chamber; The invasion of USSR put the program to a new level of emergency, and in this summer, project-G team and Andrey Kostikov the head of RNII sent a letter to Stalin and were answered back to have a prototype in 35 days. "BI" meant Blizhnii Istrebitel (close-range fighter).

This small, low-wing monoplane was to be armed with a pair of 20 mm (0.79 in) ShVAK cannon. The skin was plywood bonded with fabric cover, and the chemical propellant tanks were made of high-strength chromium-manganese-silicon steel pressured to 60 bar. The new plane was given test flights in the Urals. There were mild accidents but in January 1943 the BI-2 reached the speed of 675 km/h (364 kn; 419 mph) and the landing gear was switched from wheels to skis. The BI-3 reached an altitude of 4000 m (130000 ft) while the BI-4 was supposed to be the template, armed, for pre-production by Andrey Moskalev's factory. In March there was a new accident, fatal of a BI-1. It was estimated the plane was pushed in the treshold of 800 kph or beyond.

Studies went on by the team, back in Moskow, on the BI-5 and BI-6 in 1944. DM-4 ramjet engines were tested as well as a D-1-A-1100 engine. The BI-7 with the new RD-1 engine January 24 and March 9, 1945. But by that time the way forward was now shown by turbojets that used air, allowing much longer ranges, and the rocket plane program was abandoned. But the experienced team of Bolkhovitinov design bureau became prominent on the development of Soviet space industry and missiles afterwards.

Soviet jets propulsion in WW2

Using jet propulsion was not new for Soviet engineers. In the interwar already, various systems were used to boost some plane's speed, in particular fighters, as a complement to their piston engine. In particular the Polikarpov I-152/153 tested various statoreactors like the DM2 and larger DM-4. These were the only known biplanes to have ever used an auxiliary jet propulsion, an interesting and odd shortcut in technologies.

This was only possible because of the extreme sturdiness of these planes, entirely metallic and built "like a tank" -a feature that is still characteristic, in a caricatural way for NATO pilots. Extreme resilience and low technology. In fact jet propulsion went back to the Tsarist Russian mathematician and multi-disciplinary, visionary engineer Konstantin Tsiolkovski, the fundation of GDL lab at Leningrad (first tests of jet prop. by V.P. Glouchko in 1928), and the GIRD (F.A.Tsander) an institute for the development and study of reaction propulsion.

Fusion will create the RNII in 1932, allowing the emergence of a new generation of scientists like Korolev and Tikhonravrov, with the blessing of Marshal Toukhatchevski. Financing came in 1933, and new engines were created and tested. This led to an interesting plane, the BiTCh-11, a flying wing that was to be propelled by Tsander's OR-2 rocket, but never flew other than as a glider. It was reminiscent of the Me 163 Komet made by Lippisch and Messerschmitt during ww2.

Tsander passed out in 1933 (Typhus) replaced by L. Korneev, but more rockets are tested. In 1933 Korolev and ChtChetinkov created an ambitious two-seat cantilever rocket-propelled monoplane called RP-218, which stayed as a paper project. In the mid-1930s they promoted another project, the Raketonplan 318, a towed rocket plane capable of 1000 kph. However in 1937-38 Stalin's purges severed the team (including Glouchko) and later even Korolev was sent to the Gulag for ten years.

Modified, the RP-318 was tested in February 1940. Meanwhile Loulka, assisted by Chtcherbakov and Kozlov created the RD-1, a compressed, eight-stage reaction propeller, but studies were cut short by the great relocation of all factories, bureau and facilities in the Urals. Only in the fall of 1944, as the Me 262 was operational, the TR-1 was tested. But it was produced only from 1947, incorporating technology from reverse-engineered BMW and Jumo engines.

An example of Soviet early jet era:

Lavotchkine LA-15 "Fantail"

The Lavochkin La-15 was an early Soviet jet fighter, rival of the Mikoyan-Gurevich MiG-15, even better in some areas, but much more complicated and costly. It was known as NATO "Fantail", but also Plant 21 Izdeliye 52, and USAF Type 21.

Development

Lavochkin already produced many propeller fighters in the War and already produced the La-150 to answer a 1945 order for a single-seat fighter using the German Junkers Jumo 004 turbojet adapted from captured Me-262s. The La 150 first flew in September 1946, followed by the La-152 in December 1946 with the engine relocated to the nose, reducing thrust loss. The La-160 was given the benefit of some German studies, and for the first time, swept wings. It flew in June 1947. Eventually the next La-168 (April 1948) used the new promising turbojet based on the Rolls-Royce Nene, in response to a 1946 specification for a transonic interceptor.

Crucial to these developments, the recently acquired -out in the open- Rolls-Royce Derwent V and Nene turbojets were comprehensively reverse engineered and re-emerged as the Klimov RD-500 and Klimov RD-45. The La-15 Aircraft 174 was a backup but the main production was intended for the the Nene-powered Aircraft 168. The first was flown before the Mikoyan-Gurevich I-310 (MiG-15 prototype), on January 1948 but lost in May due to vibrations. The second 174D underwent State Acceptance Tests from August 1948 and had virtually identical performances to the MiG-15, better maneuverability but reduced rate of climb. Approved for production in September 1948 it was given the designation La-15 in April 1949.

Design

The plane had a barrel-like fuselage, the Klimov RD-500 (Derwent) engine was placed behind the pilot, and it had with shoulder-mounted swept wings with 6 degrees anhedral and a characteristic T-tail. It became popular with pilots because of its easy handling and pressurized cockpit. It was equally popular with ground crews as being reliable. However official enthusiasm was not that high, since the La-15 was basically much more complex to built compared to the MiG-15 requiring complicated and expensive production tooling and highly skilled workers. In the end, total production only reached 235 La-15s. They only served with the Soviet Air Force until 1953. A far cry from the Mig-15.

Operational History

A stated above, the La-15 only served for three little years. Production started in 1949 and went on in 1951, but it was tested operationally by the 192nd Fighter Wing at Kubinka in March 1949. It was directed to front-line combat units but this was accompanied by numerous accidents, which aggravated its case for the top brass although this was also the case for the MiG-15. In the end, the Soviet doctrine about ease of production being paramount, the development of this alternative fighter was killed and all the green lights were given to the MiG-15.

The Soviet authorities therefore stopped production, but the La-15s already in service were disarmed by 1953. Some apparently never even flew. Their engines were dismounted and reused in the massive KS-1 Komet air-to-surface missile while the emptied planes were expended as nuclear bomb tests fodder. Of course the La-15 was never use in Korea and quickly faded into history and the unlucky MiG-15 rival.

Variants

Aircraft 174/174D: First and second prototypes with the Klimov RD-500 engine
Aircraft 180: It was a planned trainer, two-seat conversion intended designation La-15UTI, that was dropped when the La-15 development was stopped as a whole.

Specs

Dimensions	To come
Weight	2,575 kg (5,677 lb)/3,850 kg (8,488 lb)
Engine	Klimov RD-500 centrifugal compressor turbojet, 15.59 kN (3,500 lbf) thrust, Fuel capacity: 1,060l (233.2Imp Gal), Wing loading: 238 kg/m2 (49 lb/sq ft), Thrust/weight: 1:2.4
Performances	1,007 km/h (626 mph; 544 kn) at 8,000m (26,350ft), Range: 1,145 km (711 mi; 618 nmi) at 10,000m (32,810ft), Service ceiling: 13,500 m (44,300 ft), Rate of climb: 31.7 m/s (6,240 ft/min), Time to altitude: 5,000m (16,400ft) in 3.1min, 10,000m (32,180ft) in 9min

Development of Soviet Naval Aviation in the 1950s

To attack surface ships at long ranges, the Soviet Navy was unique in deploying large numbers of bombers in a maritime role, developed by the late 1950s under Kruchtchev and when the The Kiev class aircraft carriers were deployed in the late 1970s with 30 aircraft aboard, including Yak-38 VTOL fighters, this capability was ported over even farther theaters. For the first time, a projection of power did not needed land based. The Admiral Kuznetsov class supported more conventional aircraft such as the Su-33 "Flanker-D" and the MiG-29 "Fulcrum".

But the land-based aircraft component was never forgotten and "old birds" such as the Tupolev Tu-16 "Badger" and Tu-142 Bear-F (based on the the Tu-16) saw the addition of the supersonic Tu-22M "Backfire" bombers equipped high-speed anti-ship missiles. NATO believed at first they were interceptors for its supply convoys traveling sea lines across the North Atlantic Ocean but their true primary role was to protect the mainland from attacks U.S. carrier task forces attacked in depth.

The last commander of Soviet Naval Aviation, Colonel-General Viktor Pavlovich Potapov was appointed in 1988 but after the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, these assets were inherited by successor states' forces, notably Ukraine whereas Crimea returned in 2014 under Russian control and with it, the vital black sea fleet.

Aircraft and helicopters

The Soviet naval aviation developed a land-based medium to short range bomber branch, used for bombing and torpedoing ships in the 1950s: the Tupolev Tu-14 Bosun, Ilyushin Il-28 Beagle and long-range Myasishchev M-4 Bison, but also webnt on with its flying boat evolution with the Beriev Be-6 Madge and Beriev Be-10 Mallow. The new kids on the block were of course helicopters, namely the Kamov Ka-10 Hat, Kamov Ka-15 Hen, Kamov Ka-18 Hog and Mil Mi-4 Hound (mostly for assaults).

Radical changes of the 1960-70s

(to come)

The 1980s: A golden decade for naval aviation

(to come)

Soviet Naval Aviation in 1990:

Ship based aircraft

79 strike fighters: Yakovlev Yak-38
219 naval helicopters: 113 Kamov Ka-25, 106 Kamov Ka-27

Shore based aircraft

269 bombers: 129 Tupolev Tu-22M, 125 Tupolev Tu-16, 15 Tupolev Tu-22
198 attack aircraft: 97 Sukhoi Su-17, 101 Sukhoi Su-24
90 Anti-submarine warfare aircraft: 50 Tupolev Tu-142, 40 Ilyushin Il-38
65 reconnaissance aircraft: 50 Tupolev Tu-16, 15 Antonov An-12
45 electronic-warfare aircraft: 10 Tupolev Tu-22, 20 Tupolev Tu-95, 15 Sukhoi Su-24
90 seaplanes Beriev Be-12
118 anti-submarine warfare helicopters Mil Mi-14
40 refueling aircraft Tupolev Tu-16 N and Z
c60 Amphibious assault/ASW heavy helicopters Mil Mi-8
c80 Ilyushin Il-18 (reserve bombers)