In the last century, the United States and the Soviet Union competed for hegemony, and both countries made vigorous efforts to develop in the field of conventional equipment and nuclear equipment, hoping to overwhelm each other. In particular, Soviet engineers built many shocking and large weapons, such as the big guy in the picture who looks like a ship and an airplane.
The scientific name of this big guy is ground effect aircraft, the ground effect is also known as the wing effect or wing effect, simply put, when the moving aircraft is very close to the ground (or water surface), the pressure difference between the upper and lower body of the entire aircraft body increases, and the lift will increase sharply.
Because it was first discovered in the Caspian Sea, the United States gave him the nickname caspian monster. The aircraft is 106 meters long and weighs 495 tons, each of the eight turbofan engines can produce 127,000 kN of thrust, the take-off weight reaches 495 tons, and the maximum range is 7500KM, which is enough to cover the coasts of Western European countries.
The largest in the picture is the US C5 Galaxy transport aircraft, which has a takeoff weight of 379 tons, which is the largest strategic transport aircraft of the US military. The Caspian monster was a full circle bigger than him.
The first use of the Caspian Monster design was to transport and carry out landing missions, which could carry an infantry battalion and about 850 people at the same time. Because of the wide hatch design, the 850 soldiers could leave the aircraft in less than five minutes and land on the ground for combat, as well as carry a variety of light and heavy weapons as standard for infantry battalions and supplies to support a day of high-intensity combat.
Compared with the landing craft, the Caspian Sea Monster voyage can set off on its own to reach the landing area, the second is that the load can send more personnel and equipment at a time, the third is fast, it can rush to the beach at a high speed of three hundred knots, and such a big guy rushes to the beach at high speed basically cannot organize defense.
The former Soviet Union also developed the Kitty Hawk, a smaller aircraft than the Caspian Sea Monster, dedicated to landing operations, with plans to equip 120 aircraft, but because the defense minister who supported her stepped down, only 4 were equipped.
Of course, this is not enough, the Caspian monster can also carry six heavy anti-ship missiles to sneak up on the US aircraft carrier battle group. Because of its low flight altitude and limited by the curvature of the Earth, the radar carried by the battleship is very close to it, often less than 30 kilometers, and for the Caspian sea monster, thirty kilometers can be flown almost in the blink of an eye. By the time the opponent reacts and prepares to attack, the Caspian monster has already completed its attack mission and escaped the range of the opponent's anti-ship missile.
This threat is much larger than that of ordinary bombers, because the submarine flying aircraft carrier is difficult to detect, and the Caspian sea monster itself is highly fast, and the range of anti-ship missiles will increase by a large margin. The success rate of attacking aircraft carriers is much higher.
Now Russia has proposed a plan to transform an aircraft carrier with a Caspian monster, setting up a flight deck in the center of the back of the aircraft, flanked by anti-ship missiles and ship islands. The advantage is that the mothership is high in speed and difficult to track, and it is easier for the carrier to take off with high speed headwinds and strong carrier-based aircraft. But the disadvantage is that it is not easy to control, once the left and right weight imbalance will fall into the sea, and the flight deck area is too small.
The Caspian Monsters only built two, partly for financial reasons. On the other hand, it is also because of the inherent shortcomings of the ground effect aircraft, that is, it must be attached to the sea to fly, which makes her easy to be attacked by the waves, and the two hundred knots of high-speed direct impact on the waves is not a joke.
Therefore, this red giant beast has only been able to experiment in the inland sea, and it is difficult to say whether it can be safely reached if it runs to the open sea in wartime. Now that the red beast has been abandoned in the shipyard, it is still huge enough to be daunting.
Now Russia wants to revive these ground effect vehicles, more to make them as an area of emergency rescue, civilian transportation. In Russia's inland seas, the Role of the Arctic is still very large. I look forward to the early emergence of these big men.