Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrier

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Admiral Kuznetsov in 2017
Class overview
Name	Kuznetsov class
Builders	Chernomorskiy Shipyard 444 Dalian Shipbuilding Industry
Operators	Soviet Navy  Russian Navy  People's Liberation Army Navy
Preceded by	Kiev class
Succeeded by	Ulyanovsk class (USSR — cancelled) Project 23000E (Russia — planned) Type 003 (China — launched)
Subclasses	Type 001 Type 002
Built	1982–2019
In commission	25 December 1990–present
Completed	3
Active	2 (Chinese PLA Navy) (+1 inactive Russian Navy vessel undergoing refit)
General characteristics
Type	Aircraft cruiser/Aircraft carrier
Displacement	43,000 t (42,000 long tons), light[1][2] 55,000 t (54,000 long tons), standard[1][2][3] 58,600 t (57,700 long tons), max[1][2]
Length	305 m (1,000 ft 8 in)
Beam	72 m (236 ft 3 in)
Draught	11 m (36 ft 1 in)
Propulsion	Steam turbines 80,000 shp (60,000 kW)[3] 200,000 shp (150,000 kW)
Speed	29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph)
Range	8,500 nmi (15,700 km; 9,800 mi) at 18 kn (33 km/h; 21 mph) 3,800 nmi (7,000 km; 4,400 mi) at 29 kn (54 km/h; 33 mph)
Complement	1,500
Armament	(Kuznetsov) 12 P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) anti-ship missiles[4] 192 3K95 Kinzhal (SA-N-9 Gauntlet) SAMs[4] 8 Kashtan CIWS mounts 6 AK-630 AA guns 1 UDAV-1 ASW rocket launcher (Liaoning and Shandong) 3 × Type 1130 CIWS 3 × HQ-10 SAMs
Aircraft carried	30–50[4] 18–32 × fixed-wing aircraft 18–24 × helicopters
Aviation facilities	Angled arrested landing flight deck Bow ski-jump

The Kuznetsov-class aircraft carrying cruiser (Russian: Авиано́сцы ти́па «Кузнецо́в» Avianо́stsii Tipa "Kuznetsо́v"), Soviet designation Project 1143.5, is a class of STOBAR aircraft carriers operated by the Russian and Chinese navies. Originally designed for the Soviet Navy, the Kuznetsov-class ships use a ski-jump for launching high-performance jet aircraft and arrestor gears for landing. The design represented a major advance in Soviet fleet aviation over the Kiev-class carriers, which do not have full-length flight deck and could only launch VSTOL aircraft. The Soviet Union's classification for the class was as a heavy aircraft-carrying cruiser, which permits the ships to transit the Turkish Straits without violating the Montreux Convention.^[5] However, the Chinese variants are classified as aircraft carriers.

Because of the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, the three Kuznetsov-class ships were built over a protracted construction period of almost four decades. Two ships were originally laid down at the Nikolayev South Shipyard in the Ukrainian SSR, to be followed by the first of the Ulyanovsk-class nuclear-powered supercarriers. Only the lead ship Admiral Kuznetsov had been commissioned when the Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and the ship now serves in the Russian Navy. Construction of her sister ship Varyag was abandoned until 1998, when an independent Ukraine sold the uncompleted ship to China for use as a floating casino, along with a complete set of design blueprints. After a protracted towed journey through three different oceans, Varyag arrived at the Dalian Shipyard and was eventually completed and commissioned in 2012 as China's first aircraft carrier, the Type 001 aircraft carrier Liaoning. China subsequently constructed a third ship to a modified Type 002 design, commissioning Shandong in 2019.