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From: 002@pnet16.cts.com (J.W.Cupp Lcdr/Usn)
Newsgroups: sci.military
Subject: Re: Soviet use of "Aircraft Carrier" title
Message-ID: <1991Jun18.074505.15176@amd.com>
Date: 14 Jun 91 22:16:09 GMT
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From: 002@pnet16.cts.com (J.W.Cupp Lcdr/Usn)


Your response falls into the easy pitfall known as "mirror-imaging."
Simply put, it is wrong to apply western (i.e., USN) standards to the
Soviet Navy.  They are not the USN.  It some respects, it's almost
impossible to avoid a little mirror-imaging...that is, projecting one's
own thought process onto another...but some of the sentences you wrote
typify what I've heard from many people, and they are incorrect from
the Soviet point of view.

[Please don't read this as a personal attack.  I'm only writing because
they way you put it gets so widely espoused.]

For instance, you say that the KIEV class "ASW Carrier" (your words) is
no match for any U.S. carrier.  I much prefer to call it an "Aircraft
Carrying Cruiser" mainly because this is what the Soviets call it, and
it is their ship.  It wasn't built to take on a NIMITZ or AMERICA
head-to-head.  It was built to take fixed wing aircraft far to sea,
where they can easily down unarmed, slow, and not-very-manueverable
P-3's.  Why shoot down P-3's?  To protect Soviet SSBN's.  Check out the
other armaments, and you'll see that the KIEV is a pretty respectable
ASW platform even without aircraft.  Why ASW?  To attack U.S. SSN's,
and therefore protect Soviet SSBN's.

The newer class, as has already been stated, is at sea, and is in
training workups.  It is not nuclear powered.  Having a ship is one
thing; having a large cadre of trained naval aviators is another.
(Reference the Japanese Navy experience at the Marianas Turkey Shoot,
followed by the battle of Leyte Gulf in WWII.)  The Soviet navy is
making steady progress towards full-fledged carrier aviation
capabilities, but they still have a long way to go.

J. W. Cupp 
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The above is merely my opinion, and not to be construed as anything else.