Author: Rainbow Kursk
Recently, South Korea's ambition to develop aircraft carriers has become clear, Hyundai and Daewoo Group have launched their own aircraft carrier design schemes, and what is less known is that South Korea has purchased 2 Russian aircraft carriers and has plans to transform them into aircraft carriers that can be used for their own use, but finally gave up in the face of domestic opposition!
In 1995, South Korea successively found two aircraft carriers from the Russian Pacific Fleet - "Minsk" and "Novorossiysk"!
Both of these are the famous Kiev-class aircraft carriers of the Soviet Red Navy era!
Image: The aircraft carrier Minsk and the aircraft carrier Novorossiysk are the core ships of the Pacific Fleet of the Soviet Red Navy.
The Minsk was the second ship of the Kiev-class aircraft carrier of the Soviet Navy and the first aircraft carrier in the world to carry vertical/STOL fighters.
In addition to carrying carrier-based aircraft, the "Minsk" aircraft carrier is also equipped with shipboard weapons with anti-ship, air defense, all-round anti-submarine, and powerful firepower strike capabilities; the single-ship combat effectiveness is strong, and the dependence on escort ships is small, and the main mission is to perform formation anti-submarine and air superiority and air defense tasks, serve as formation command ships, carry out aerial reconnaissance and vigilance, attack enemy aircraft carrier formations and surface ships, and provide anti-ship missiles with super-visual attack, relay guidance, or target instructions for other surface ships and submarines to support amphibious operations. Implement vertical landing, etc.
Construction began on 28 December 1972 at the Nikolaev Shipyard, launched on 30 September 1975 and commissioned on 27 September 1978. After the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia inherited the ship, but due to the lack of economic strength of Russia after the collapse of the Soviet Union, it was decommissioned on May 30, 1992.
Image: The aircraft carrier Minsk is carrying a Yak-38 vertical take-off and landing fighter.
Novorossiysk, a Kiev-class vessel iii, was commissioned in 1975 at the Black Sea Nikolaev Shipyard in Ukraine, entered service in 1982, and was incorporated into the Battle Sequence of the Pacific Fleet of the Red Navy of the Soviet Union, just like the Minsk.
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the ship was eventually retired by the Russian Navy in 1993 due to lack of maintenance.
Photo: Although the Minsk and Novorossiysk are decommissioned ships, they are relatively young and have the potential for modification.
The two carriers were sold by Russia in 1995 at non-metallic prices, with 33 companies from around the world bidding.
In the end, South Korean trading company Young Distribution bid for the two carriers, and the company's chairman Cho Duk-young had the idea of bringing the two carriers back to China to contribute to the development of his own country's aircraft carriers.
According to South Korean literature, the price of these two aircraft carriers at that time was very cheap, with the "Minsk" only cost 4.6 million US dollars, and the "Novorossiysk" price was 4.3 million US dollars. Moreover, the two aircraft carriers are very short-lived, with the Minsk only serving for 15 years, and the Novorossiysk serving only 11 years. In contrast, the USS Enterprise has been in service for 50 years.
Image: Two of the most powerful warships of the Soviet Pacific Fleet are in South Korea's hands, who is most worried? It's Japan!
But these powerful aircraft carriers were sold at low prices because the contract was based on the disposal of scrap metal.
At the time, the Japanese broadcaster NHK published a provocative report that the main equipment on the carrier was still on the carrier and could be converted into a usable aircraft carrier, which led the Russian Navy to subsequently destroy the key equipment on the carrier.
The two carriers left the Pacific Fleet's port of Suevitskaya Gawan in October 1995 and were towed five days later near Pohang Port.
However, unlike the Chinese people's eagerness to arrive at the Varyag aircraft carrier since then, the South Korean people have unanimously resisted the two aircraft carriers. South Korean environmental groups marched to protest the entry of aircraft carriers, they are worried about oil leakage and possible radiation on the aircraft carriers, interestingly, although these two aircraft carriers are conventionally powered aircraft carriers, but the South Korean environmental organization has promoted them as nuclear-powered aircraft carriers, incitement to the Unknown South Korean people, so that the people because of fear of nuclear leakage and boycott these two aircraft carriers.
Photo: The Minsk arrives at the port of Pohang in South Korea, where South Korean environmental groups incite a boycott by advertising it as a nuclear-powered aircraft carrier.
At that time, the South Korean Navy was limited to coastal operations, and the aircraft carrier was a symbol of the ocean-going navy.
The South Korean Navy was happy to have acquired two aircraft carriers at once, and had plans to redesign and rebuild them, because South Korea had world-class shipbuilding capabilities at the time, and it was still possible to modify these two aircraft carriers.
The idea of the South Korean designers was the same as that of the later Russian modification of the aircraft carrier "Admiral Gorshkov" for India, that is, to dismantle the various weapons in the bow, lay the flight deck, make it a ski-jump take-off aircraft carrier, and intend to purchase Harrier vertical take-off and landing fighters.
Photo: South Korea's modification plan for the two carriers is similar to India's current AIRcraft carrier USS Vikramaditya.
However, the pressure from environmental groups and the opposition is too great, and the South Korean government is also very cautious about renovating the two aircraft carriers, fearing that it will irritate neighbors across the peninsula, and also worried about the opposition's criticism of the government, so it did not adopt the navy's proposal.
The aircraft carrier Novorossiysk was first handed over to POCO for dismantling.
In this process, South Korea still has something to gain, and the special steel for the construction of aircraft carriers will be sampled and studied, and it will be reverse-engineered. Kwon Young-hae, then president of South Korea's National Intelligence Service, led the project, and the technology acquired eventually helped build South Korea's Dokdo-class amphibious assault ship.
Photo: The dwelt steel of the South Korean Navy's Dokdo-class amphibious assault ships is smelted based on technology obtained on the Novorossiysk aircraft carrier.
The "Minsk" at this time was in worse condition than the "Novorossiysk" and was seriously rusty, but it went to the harbor of the South Korean naval port, which gave people a new blind eye to the fate of the aircraft carrier, and Japan has been paying attention to the South Korean aircraft carrier that has not yet been dismantled.
But environmental groups have begun to make trouble again, demanding that the aircraft carrier be disposed of quickly. The South Korean government was pressured to find a way for the ussk aircraft carrier Minsk. Unexpectedly, the Asian financial crisis soon followed, and South Korea had to sell its aircraft carrier in 1997 in exchange for funds.
In 1998, China CITIC Company learned of the news that south Korean aircraft carrier was idle, so it went to South Korea to buy it, and on August 31, 1998, the "Minsk" settled in Shatoujiao, Yantian District, Shenzhen, and was built into an aircraft carrier park.
There are many people in the South Korean Navy who did not seize the opportunity to convert usable aircraft carriers on the basis of these two aircraft carriers.
Photo: The aircraft carrier "Minsk", now located on the Yangtze River in Nantong, can be easily seen on the Sutong Bridge.
Yoon jong-gu, who was sent to Russia as officers to accept the two carriers, said it was the most regrettable moment in South Korea's defense history. The officer was later promoted to the rank of Admiral of the Republic of Korea. In South Korea's view, China has purchased only 70% of the "Varyag" that can be converted into "Liaoning" ships, and if there were not so many obstacles in South Korea at that time, maybe South Korea could have owned an aircraft carrier earlier!
Photo: The Novorossiysk, envisioned by the South Korean media, carrying an F-35B fighter jet.