Featured Image Credit: Getty Stock Image
Topics: Russia, US News, World War 2
Joe Yates
During the Cold War, both the Soviet Union and the US were thinking up horrendous ways to win the conflict.
Following the conclusion of World War II, which was brought to an abrupt end through the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki, an arms race began between the two allies.
By 1967, America's arsenal exceeded a shocking 31,000 warheads, while 20 years later, the Soviet Union boasted of over 40,000.
In the midst of all the madness, the Lun-class ekranoplan was created - although you may have heard of it by its nickname, the 'Caspian Sea Monster'.
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The 283-tonne, 63ft plane was designed back in 1975, and used 12 years later towards the end of the Cold War by soviet and Russian navies. It is equipped with six fixed-elevation anti-ship missile launchers, and two twin turrets.
The beast was part of the Soviet's wing-in-ground-effect programme (WIG), and while it looks as if it was lifted from a scene in Star Wars and dropped on the coast of the landlocked Caspian Sea - often described as the largest lake in the world - it wasn't and took years to build.
While we've been describing the ginormous vessel as a plane, in actual fact it falls under the 'ground effect' category, which would classify it as a ship - no, not a spaceship, but a boat.
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Despite looking strikingly similar to traditional aircrafts, ekranoplans like the Lun are not, nor are they hovercrafts.
The ship, which was retired in the late 90s just years after the conclusion of the Cold War, miraculously floated above the water with the help of its eight jet engines.
It flew using a cushion of air beneath its wings generated by the ground effect acting on its large wings when within about 13 feet above the surface of the water.
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According to the International Maritime Organization, the MD-160 is in fact classified as a maritime ship - a large vessel that travels the world's oceans.
With it gliding just 13 feet above the water, it essentially made it near impossible to detect on radars - or at least extremely tricky.
Speaking of the programme and referring to the ship as 'Utka', which means duck in Russian, CIA officials added: "The Utka class WIG is a tactical strike and coastal defence vehicle for the Soviet Navy. It carries six supersonic SS-N-22 anti-ship cruise missiles.
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"The Utka, can engage enemy ships out to its radar horizon (about 35 kilometers/22 miles) but can fire the SS-N-22 out to the missile's 100-kilometer (62-mile) range with over-the-horizon targeting data.
"The Utka is larger than a US Boeing 747 jet airplane and flies at about 250 knots [287 mph]. One Utka has been built."
They added: "We believe that an Utka strike force or coastal defense force would give the Soviets a quick-reaction capability against surface combatants.
"However, unless the Utka can pop up out of ground effect to extend its radar horizon, it will require external sources of targeting information."
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It lays dormant on the coast of Derbent, a city in southern Russia, and fortunately for the residents 21 miles away in the small village of Samurçay, by the Russian border in Azerbaijan, the once heavily-armed craft has been converted into a museum.