Russian firm Displays Mockup of Advanced Helicopter Carrier at Army 2022

Nevskoye Design Bureau, subsidiary of Russia’s state-owned United Shipbuilding Corporation, unveiled a scale model of a multi-purpose amphibious assault ship at the ongoing Army 2022 international military-technical forum.

The ship’s mock-up is on display in USC’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, TASS reported.

Helicopters will be able to take off from the warship’s upper deck that accommodates a helipad for as many as 15 gunships.

Older reports suggest that the future amphibious assault ship would displace about 30,000 tones. The warship is about 220m long and 42m wide and has a designed waterline draft of 7m. 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.