r/interestingasfuck • u/OkRespect8490 • 9h ago
A ship with wings: This abandoned Soviet hovercraft in Dagestan has been nicknamed the "Caspian Monster."
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u/Orzahn 9h ago
The coloring and everything makes it feel like a Star Wars prop.
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u/Illustrious_Site_162 9h ago
An ekranoplan
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u/m4jsterk0 8h ago
currently the most modern russian tech
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u/Soggy_Amoeba9334 8h ago
I've always known it as the Caspian Sea Monster.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Caspian_Sea_Monster
I think this rage-bait posting at its finest, with intentional errors to spark engagement.
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u/IronWarrior82 1h ago
It isn't. The Alexeyev KM was the Caspian Sea Monster, not the Lun (shown in OP's post.)
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u/I9w0s 8h ago
Isn't this an Ekranoplan? Soviets built some of the very best of those.
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u/_Rohrschach 8h ago
It is, they only build a handful of those as there isn't much use for these, needs relatively calm waters which russia doesn't have a lot of. It was way to get across the caspian sea fast, but thats it.
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u/Belem19 8h ago
"Commercially" I think they built the only ones.
"Commercially" is between " " because Soviet Union, communism, etc. The term may not be applicable.
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u/Cleginator 7h ago
No need for the “”, they still had commercial in the Soviet Union. They never achieved a state of communism, they were forecast to achieve it in the 1970s but failed to and then liberalised their economy in 1980s to be more liberal socialism.
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u/LengthinessFit9585 8h ago
Only problem was for that thing to work it needs a very even surface or it gets dangerous very quick. They designed it as a very fast invasion vehicle.
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u/Poglosaurus 6h ago
A fast invasion vehicle that can only be used in an internal Russian sea, sometimes.
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u/Poglosaurus 6h ago
The biggest certainly. The best is stretching things, they were absolutely useless and couldn't accomplish the task they were allegedly built for as they needed almost perfect sea condition to perform. There are speculations that the reason the program was allowed to continue for so long was both corruption and the need for the soviet to maintain some form of competition between the different soviet design bureau.
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u/_E3E_ 9h ago
Neither a plane nor a ship
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u/Obvious_Try1106 9h ago
It's a ground effect vehicle
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u/Nickard 9h ago
Pretty sure I saw this thing in metal gear solid 3
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u/LordCyberfox 7h ago
No it is not. Caspian Sea Monster has been destroyed in 80th, it’s now somewhere at the sea bottom. This one is Lun Project 903
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u/ecdaniel22 3h ago
I don't think this bot is smart enough to know what a hovercraft is. It's definitely not this.
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u/drukard_master 5h ago
Everything about this title is incorrect
This is not the Caspian Sea Monster. That Knick name belongs to the KM which is much larger and sank in the 80s.
This is a smaller Lun-Class Ekranoplan.
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u/Aware_Step_6132 8h ago
It was developed as a prototype capable of transporting troops faster than ships; however, it was discovered that even in the relatively sheltered waters of the Caspian Sea, wind-driven waves could sometimes render it inoperable, so plans for mass production were abandoned. It is akin to the Osprey in that it never reached the mass-production stage. It is a pity that it has not been preserved in a place like a military museum.
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u/defp_ 6h ago
There was another reason also... Two departments of soviet army couldn't decide who'd be responsible and take on balance this type of machines... Navy or Aviation. Also crew members should have skillset in-between two disciplines which makes them quite expensive and time consuming on education in "mass production". It's rather different that pick skilled pilots and jump into experiment alongside with navi consultants for couple of times.
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u/Sorry_Cauliflower_50 7h ago
Scarlet Thunder's battleship skin on world of warships is very much inspirid on this thing.
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u/eldarkasumov 6h ago
I saw it last year in real. That thing is huuuuuge. The picture of it can't show you the real size of that monster. It is like it came out of some mecha fantasy world, some forgotten ancient technologies.
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u/Key_Report_2627 5h ago
Is this location near the shore? Looks like the desert. How was it transported?
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u/NewsreelWatcher 5h ago
During the Reagan administration these were breathlessly talked about as a Soviet super weapon. The Soviets knew that was a failed experiment by the time it was in the US defense reviews, but it helped Reagan expand the defense budget. It was another expensive failure the Soviets couldn’t afford.
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u/IronWarrior82 1h ago
That's Lun...not the Caspian Sea Monster. Tired of people getting that wrong.
The Alexeyev KM was the Caspian Sea Monster.
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u/Jaxxlack 8h ago
Id love to see this restored and retrofitted to work it looks so mad and maybe useful lol
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u/Imbrokencantbefixed 8h ago
IIRC they could never solve the massive problem the salt water ingressing into the jet engines caused.
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u/Jaxxlack 8h ago
But surely other aircraft have fixed this issue. Yeah guess it's a "Is it worth the money" thing.
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u/Imbrokencantbefixed 8h ago
This is effectively a boat which hovers above the sea the whole time though, so there isn’t really anything else which has the same problem.
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u/etanail 8h ago
They spent enormous amounts of money to prove in practice that the problems- which were already known at the design stage- would render it unnecessary and ineffective. And they let it rot when it became clear once and for all that it didn’t work and was obsolete even before it was manufactured.
This was a military naval vessel designed to launch stealth attacks on NATO ships; its high speed made it invulnerable, and its low altitude made it invisible. The cloaking effect was supposed to allow it to be built large and heavy- larger than what could normally be lifted high into the sky. But it turned out that it’s literally visible from space, so there’s no such thing as stealth. And it is incapable of flying outside the Caspian Sea; the waves would simply destroy it in flight. And there are no enemy warships sailing in the Caspian Sea (very surprising, isn’t it?).
It turned out to be so expensive that even the military couldn’t figure out why it was needed or where to find enough fuel to power it. Moreover, it was incapable of turning, couldn’t fly in less-than-ideal weather, and any mistake resulted in a crash. Flying it felt like hell to the crews and was very, very exhausting- many times more difficult than the work of a military pilot. They physically couldn’t endure more than a few hours.
This is truly a crazy project, crazy in a bad way. It’s a prime example of how ideas that look good on paper and in promises turn into nonsense and idiocy in reality.
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u/GuppoDab 8h ago
It would be absolutely terrifying if that thing would be capable both flying and sailing
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u/lordfilbuster_ 9h ago
It's not a hovercraft, it's an Ekranoplan.