15.07.2007 ~ Varyag

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Fri, 03 Feb 2012 16:17:03

A curious tale of money, lies & geography

Before the fall of the Berlin wall the USSR developed a keen interest in furthering their blue water surface fleet. Efforts prior had resulted in the very Russian take on the battleship formula, the formidable Kirov class battle-crusier (think the Matrix lobby scene; fast, lots of guns with little thought of reloads). They then turned their eyes to airborne naval power projection.

Warfare since the Spanish civil war had rooted air-power as the military's 'big-toe'. Accordingly the US/UK/France found common solutions to the problems of seagoing aviation (albeit by just copying British efforts to date). The Soviets, never the imitators cold war era spy novels implied, took the common recipe and applied their own thinking. The initial result was the Kiev class aircraft carrier, which merged the capabilities of the battleship with that of an aircraft carrier.

A good start, but if the Reds were serious about naval projection they knew they'd have to deal with sea and land based high performance air superiority fighters. For this task the VTOL Forger and it's short range AAMs was ill equipped.

This shortcoming would lead to the development of the slightly more conventional Kuznetsov class of aircraft carrier. This new breed eschewed the steam catapult ubiquitous in western carrier design, opting instead for a bow mounted ski-ramp (as used by the British Invincible class light carrier). This small gesture immediately indicated the class was defensive in nature, not capable of fielding heavily laden bombers required for offensive operations.

The keels of two Kuznetsov class carriers were laid, the Admiral Kuznetsov (formally the Tbilisi, then the Leonid Brezhnev) and it's sister ship; the Varyag. But world events were catching up. Northrop would later take credit for the end the cold war, boasting its B-2 'Spirit' stealth bomber stretched the Russian need for air-defence past its means.

The formal end of cold war hostilities negated the need for immediate Soviet naval power projection and the big expensive ocean going carriers lost their raison d'etre. Kuznetsoz would survive, becoming the flagship of the Russian navy. The rival Ulyanovsk class super carriers were scrapped, a fate the Varyag would share.

Varyag. Never a lucky ship...

Originally titled 'Riga' after the Latvian capital city, it was a name that wouldn't stick. It is said that Moscow abruptly changed it's mind midway during the actual naming cermoney due to Latvias bid for independence. This prompted the Riga to became the Varyag. To the superstitious, this was a bad omen.

Construction of the Varyag halted in 1992 at 70% completion, geography beginning to play its part in the vessels faith. At the time the USSR conducted most of its heavy ship building exercises at the Chernomorsky Plant on the Black sea, in the Ukraine. The break-up of the union would result in the Ukraine inheriting a good deal of Russian military equipment, including the the rotting Varyag.

Cash-strapped, the Ukraine's government unsuccessfully attempted to sell the uncompleted vessel back to Russia, then India and finally China. In 1994 they decided enough was enough, opting to sell the vessel for scrap.

For sale: aircraft carrier, no careful owners, $20,000,000

There's a certain irony about a 67,500-ton combat vessel being stripped bare, left to rust, then purchased by shady Hong-Kong investors to serve as an 'entertainment complex'. Yep, the Chinese, having attempted to purchase the vessel in '92 as an active carrier have returned to grab the hull with the public intention of creating a floating casino, albeit under the guise of the 'Agencia Turistica e Diversoes Chong Lot Limitada' (no longer listed). It's a successful purchase, if at 3 times the going rate for a vessel of it's size. Now with ownership of the rusting flattop, all it's new owners have to do is get it home...

Stuffing Turkey

Moving an un-powered vessel the size of an aircraft carrier was never going to be an easy ride, especially when the vessel in question doesn't even have a rudder. Enter the seafaring Dutch, a tugboat and an extremely patient Filipino crew.

And patience was more than required, almost a year and a half steaming wide lazy circles waiting for permission from the Turkish government to pass through the narrow Bosphorus Straits. The Chinese government would eventually intervene, promising 2 million tourists in exchange for the vessels passage.

The first leg of the planned route finally down, the tug and it's charge made for the Suez canal. One can only presume no-one at Chong Lot read the transit papers and made the assumption that "if it floats" it can "wander on through". This is not the case, only vessels that provide their own power can move through the canal.

With the short-cut option effectively eliminated and geography grinning ear to ear, the only alternative left was the long way around... Africa, by the Cape of Good Hope, past the Indian Ocean, through the Straits of Malacca and into the China Sea. Final destination: Dalian, China. 627 days later.

Shady Hong Kong investors?

Chong Lot are a curious bunch. Curious in a Clint Eastwood no-named stranger kind of way. Their listed offices in Macau don't actually exist. Further digging will reveal they are a vague subsidiary of a firm named Chinluck holdings. Directors of Chinluck are alleged to have very close ties to the Chinese military. But we can rest easy, the Varyag was just going to be a floating Las Vegas...

In the end there's the beginning?

The Varyag would spend three years tied to a pier... 'not-sinking'... and very little else until 2005. The gutted carrier was placed in dry-dock, its exterior sand-blasted, grinded and primed. Eyebrows finally cocked when the Varyag emerged from dry dock not speckled with flashing neon lights but in an ominously militaristic PLAN grey colour scheme.

Oh those sneaky Commie bastards!

So while thems theres sly, slant eyed red commie bastards are not making iPods, Big Macs, eating rice and picking fights with Leprechauns they're off amassing big ass engines 'o war and the smarts to use em. Land of the Rising Gun* indeed!

Ahem...! This tale isn't competely without precedent. The Chinese have been buying up legacy aircraft carriers since the late eighties (including the aforementioned Kiev), but despite generous offers by various ship builders for brand new state of the art CTOL carriers, no orders were forthcoming.

Scuttlebutt has it that China is vacuuming all the information it can acquire with a view to building it's own blue water fleet, with estimates ranging from 2010 to 2020 for an operational flat-top (the first number being a curious one should escorts vessels, a power plant, offensive and defensive weapon fits and (more importantly!) aircraft that can actually use it are taken into account).

Varyag, however, has gone the way of the Riga. With the new paint-job came new responsibilities and a new title: Shi Lang. Curiously, Shi Lang was an admiral for the Ming-Qing Dynasty who re-took 'unsinkable aircraft carrier' Taiwan in 1683. Another precedent with plans of a repeat?

* Yes, I realise Japan is actually the land of the Rising Sun, but if you hadn't noted, that particular paragraph is laced with hill-billy-esque xenophobic FUD for a comedic effect**

** Some people just don't get it!

Nod: a soft gentle shout-out to Ms.Krissie =)

Tags: 07, aircraft, military, what.

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