Recently, more and more publications have appeared on the Soviet shipbuilding programs of the thirties and forties. The projects of domestic aircraft carriers were also not ignored, however, apart from general phrases on this topic, nothing specific was reported in the periodicals. The fact is that almost all the developments of Soviet aircraft carriers of the pre-war and war years did not leave the stage of pre-draft design and therefore it is very difficult to tell about them in detail. And yet we will make such an attempt.
On September 7, 1937, in pursuance of the resolution of the Defense Committee under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR of August 13/15, 1937 No. 87, the People's Commissar of Defense of the USSR K. E. Voroshilov sent a report to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party (Bolsheviks) I. V. Stalin and the chairman of the Council of People's Commissars V. M. Molotov on the revised plan for the construction of warships of the Naval Forces of the Red Army. In this document, in particular, an increase in the total tonnage of ships of the main classes in comparison with previous plans was motivated by the inclusion of heavy cruisers and aircraft carriers in the construction program. In total, it was supposed to build two aircraft carriers - for the Northern and Pacific fleets. The laying of the first was planned in 1941, the second in 1942, with the delivery of these ships in the fourth five-year plan. The military shipbuilding program for the third five-year plan was not approved, but work on the aircraft carrier, designated Project 71, began.
On June 27, 1938, a tactical and technical assignment (TTZ) was sent to the RKKF Shipbuilding Directorate for the design of this ship. In October of the same year, the TTZ was considered at the Main Naval Headquarters of the RKKF and, having approved with minor remarks, ordered to prepare it in the form of an assignment for the People's Commissariat of the Shipbuilding Industry (NKSP) to create a pre-draft project. In the list of design work of the NKSP for 1939, this task was no longer included, and it was included in the order of industry, approved on November 29, for 1940. But already in January 1940, it turned out that the NKSP unilaterally did not accept eleven points of the new order, including the task for the pre-sketch design of the aircraft carrier. Since the order turned out to be more pressing issues than the aircraft carrier, the question about it in the government was not raised.
This is how Project 71 ended, and the outbreak of the Great Patriotic War immediately stopped all work begun on it.
During the war years, the Naval Academy carried out research work on the topic "Trends in the development of a warship", within the framework of which in 1943 a pre-sketch design of an aircraft carrier was created using the existing developments on project 71, as well as materials from a group of specialists who had visited before the war on the German aircraft carrier Graf Zeppelin under construction. The completion of this research work in 1944 coincided with the government's decision to design a new generation of warships, taking into account the experience of the Second World War. In development of this decree, in January 1945, by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy, a number of commissions were created with the task of preparing proposals for the selection of the necessary types of warships, including aircraft carriers. However, in parallel with this, in 1944, TsNII-45 resumed work on the aircraft carrier project, which received the designation "Project 72".
With a standard displacement of 23,700 and a total displacement of 28,800 tons, this ship was supposed to have a waterline length of 224, a width of 27, 9, a side height of 20, 9, a draft at a standard displacement of 7, 23 and a full displacement of 8, 45 m. turbo-gear units with a capacity of 36,000 liters. with., operating from eight boilers with a capacity of 73 t / h, would provide an aircraft carrier with a full speed of 30 knots and a cruising range of an 18-knot course of 10,000 miles. Reservations were envisaged: side - 90 mm, 30-mm flight and 55-mm hangar decks. It was planned to install exclusively anti-aircraft guns on the ship. Eight paired 130-mm universal turret artillery mounts B-2-U with two sets of fire control devices (PUS) "Smena" in the pre-war years were designed for destroyers pr. 35 and leaders of pr. 40. However, their development at that time was not left the design stage and were subsequently abandoned. The situation was better with eight paired 85-mm universal turret artillery mounts 92-K with four sets of PUS "Soyuz". The artillery pieces and fire control devices themselves were already mass-produced, and the two-gun turret was being prepared for testing. Subsequently, this weapon system was installed on destroyers pr. Z0K and 30-bis. In addition, the aircraft carrier was supposed to supply twelve paired 37-mm anti-aircraft guns V-11 and twenty-four new paired 23-mm anti-aircraft guns. The latter were still being developed, but then preference was given to 25-mm guns based on the 84-KM artillery system. The ship's aviation armament consisted of 30 aircraft. To ensure their flights, catapults, aerofinishers, roll stabilizers, special landing lights, etc. were envisaged. The issues of storing aviation fuel and its supply to aircraft were especially worked out. So, the gas storage was separated from the adjacent rooms by special flooded cofferdams.
Aviation fuel in the tanks was under pressure in an inert gas environment, and the gas lines themselves passed through a pipe filled with the same gas. The ship's crew consisted of up to 2,000 people.
The already mentioned special commission, which worked at the beginning of 1945 and worked out the requirements for aircraft carriers, came to the conclusion that the ship of project 72 did not quite correspond to them. It turned out that the command of the fleet, with a clear understanding of the need for the presence of ships of this class in the Navy, had not fully defined its attitude to the concept of their construction.
Most likely, this circumstance was not the main reason, but it largely influenced the fact that there were no aircraft carriers in the new shipbuilding program for 1946-1955 approved on November 27, 1945.
