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Russian tech firm unveils project of advanced helicopter carrier at Army forum

As the scale model suggests, helicopters take off from the warship’s upper deck that accommodates a helipad for as many as 15 gunships

PATRIOT PARK /Moscow Region/, August 17. /TASS/. The Nevskoye Design Bureau (part of the United Shipbuilding Corporation) unveiled a scale model of a cutting-edge multi-purpose amphibious assault ship at the Army 2022 international military-technical forum, a TASS correspondent reported from the scene on Wednesday.

The ship’s mock-up is on display in the United Shipbuilding Corporation’s demonstration pavilion in the Patriot Congress and Exhibition Center near Moscow. The mock-up suggests that the combat ship has a two-tier hangar for accommodating helicopters and armored personnel carriers, as well as a flooded dock for transporting and putting afloat up to three Zubr-class amphibious assault hovercraft.

As the scale model suggests, helicopters take off from the warship’s upper deck that accommodates a helipad for as many as 15 gunships.

Helicopter carrier project

TASS reported in 2021, citing the Nevskoye Design Bureau that the future amphibious assault ship would displace about 30,000 tonnes. The warship is about 220 meters long and 42 meters wide and has a designed waterline draft of seven meters. The new warship can accelerate to 24 knots.

The Zaliv Shipyard in the Crimean city of Kerch is currently building the Project 23900 multi-purpose helicopter carriers Ivan Rogov and Mitrofan Moskalenko for the Russian Navy that were laid down in 2020. The amphibious assault ships are designed to sealift and land an amphibious assault force onto equipped and unequipped shores.

Project 23900 has been engineered by the Zelenodolsk Design Bureau and approved as a replacement for the delivery of French Mistral-type helicopter carriers. Russian amphibious assault ships are capable of carrying an air task force of heavy helicopters of different classes and transporting from several hundred to more than a thousand marines. The warships will be outfitted with a boat dock for landing an assault force and will transport armored vehicles.

The Army 2022 international military-technical forum organized by Russia’s Defense Ministry runs on August 15-21 on the premises of the Patriot Park near Moscow, at the Alabino practice range and the Kubinka airfield, and also in all of Russia’s Military Districts and on the Northern Fleet, in more than 30 Russian regions.

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