Project 1153 OREL
Encyclopedia
Project 1153 OREL was a 1970s-era
Soviet
program to give the Soviet Navy
a true blue water aviation capability. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults. It was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. It was cancelled as being too expensive and a reduced version of 60,000 tons and fifty aircraft was proposed. This was also turned down for cost reasons.
OREL would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carrier
s available to the U.S. Navy
. While the project never saw fruition, it later resulted in the abortive Ulyanovsk
program. The ship class was codenamed after the Eagle (Орёл), as all major Soviet ship classes were named after birds (see Russian ship naming conventions
); the actual projected name of the class is not known.
1970s
File:1970s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: US President Richard Nixon doing the V for Victory sign after his resignation from office after the Watergate scandal in 1974; Refugees aboard a US naval boat after the Fall of Saigon, leading to the end of the Vietnam War in 1975; The 1973 oil...
Soviet
Soviet Union
The Soviet Union , officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics , was a constitutionally socialist state that existed in Eurasia between 1922 and 1991....
program to give the Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
a true blue water aviation capability. The ship would have been about 75-80,000 tons displacement, with a nuclear power plant and carried about 70 aircraft launched via steam catapults. It was designed with a large offensive capability with the ship mounts including 24 vertical launch tubes for anti-ship cruise missiles. It was cancelled as being too expensive and a reduced version of 60,000 tons and fifty aircraft was proposed. This was also turned down for cost reasons.
OREL would have resulted in a program very similar to the aircraft carrier
Aircraft carrier
An aircraft carrier is a warship designed with a primary mission of deploying and recovering aircraft, acting as a seagoing airbase. Aircraft carriers thus allow a naval force to project air power worldwide without having to depend on local bases for staging aircraft operations...
s available to the U.S. Navy
United States Navy
The United States Navy is the naval warfare service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the seven uniformed services of the United States. The U.S. Navy is the largest in the world; its battle fleet tonnage is greater than that of the next 13 largest navies combined. The U.S...
. While the project never saw fruition, it later resulted in the abortive Ulyanovsk
Soviet aircraft carrier Ulyanovsk
Ulyanovsk was the first of a class of Soviet nuclear-powered supercarriers which for the first time would have offered true blue water aviation capability for the Soviet Navy...
program. The ship class was codenamed after the Eagle (Орёл), as all major Soviet ship classes were named after birds (see Russian ship naming conventions
Russian ship naming conventions
The Russian and Soviet Navy's naming conventions were similar to those of other nations. A problem for the non-Russian reader is the need to transliterate the Cyrillic names into the Latin alphabet...
); the actual projected name of the class is not known.
External links
- "Project 1143.7 Orel Ul'yanovsk class," GlobalSecurity.orgGlobalSecurity.orgGlobalSecurity.org, launched in 2000, is a public policy organization focusing on the fields of defense, space exploration, intelligence, weapons of mass destruction and homeland security...
. - "A Brief Look at Russian Aircraft Carrier Development," Robin J. Lee.