No, TinWing is partially right. Initially it was project 10200 ASW helicopter carrier, based on the hull of Projekt 1609 “Kapitan Smirnov” fast container ship. It was really intended to be a cheaper rival for 1143.5 but in fact came out nearly as expensive and complex, additionally it was too noisy and didn’t meet military requirements for structural strength and damage control. Therefore, when 1143.5 was preferred, Halzan was re-designed into 11780 fast landng ship. After addition of SAMs and ability to handle Yak-38 it’s displacement was already around 45kt. It was deemed to be too expensive and anyway the only avilable slip for ship of such size was occupied by 1143.5. So, this is not a new design, but rather from the end of 1980’s

I doubt it. Although it looks like 3M54TE, it should have slot for folding wings and I dont see a trace of that. It looks very similar to one of the torps which were displayed at IDEX-2005 in St.Peter this summer.

One of Juliets was equipped with auxulary nuclear reactor, although it was not intended to rebuild the older boats. I believe that one of Liras also suffered the cutting out and replacement of reactor compartment, as did K-19.

Exactly. Does anybody remember, that this was about Chinese carrier?

I don’t think that’s the point…
Chinese could just as well have built a new hull it they wished. They certainly have the tech to do so… Dalian SY have built many larger and more complicated ships than the Varyag.

Larger yes, but more complicated than CV… Could you name them, please :diablo:

1) Rif M is installed in bow station on Piotr Veliky CBGN. Currently it still uses the 48N6E2 missile from Favorit (S-300PMU2) and respective FCS – 30N6E1 radar, AFAIK.
It ispossible to install 9M96E and 9M96E2 missiles from S-400 SAM. These missiles are much smaller than 48N6 (330 and 420 kg compared to 1800 kg) and they have respective range of 40 and 120 km. Four of them can be installed in one launch container of 48N6, much like ESSM quad launcher. Nevertheless, there are no indications, that this has been actually done on Piotr.
2) Regarding Your second question, it should be long range 3D Podberiozovik radar, an intended replacement for Voshod radar in Flag radar complex, installed on 1144, 1164 and others larger units. You can read about it here:
http://www.milparade.com/catalog/pdf/572.pdf

That’s a picture from MAKS-99 air show. Let’s wait one week and see what will be shown at MAKS this year.

Yes, it looks pretty much like Fregat-MAE.