How would the Soviets have used a Borodino-class battlecruiser converted into an aircraft carrier?
Short answerPoorly. The Soviet Navy lacked a suitable carrier air group, supporting ports, maintenance capacity, and a clear operating area where the ship offered more than land-based aircraft.
NotesA Borodino conversion prompts a political joke about Stalin's purges, then raises the aircraft problem. The Soviet Union had few suitable carrier aircraft in the 1920s, although the Polikarpov I-15 and I-16 are mentioned as later possibilities. A carrier would add little beside land airfields when the Northern and Baltic fleets faced ice, the Pacific Fleet had little interwar role, and the Black Sea offered no clear need. Royal Sovereign's poor return condition illustrates the maintenance burden of a large capital ship without suitable facilities. The counterfactual depends on a carrier air group, ports, maintenance, and strategic purpose, none of which the Soviet Navy had developed.