Kirov-class battlecruiser


The Kirov class, Soviet designation Project 1144 Orlan, is a class of nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers of the Soviet Navy and Russian Navy, the largest and heaviest surface combatant warships in operation in the world. Among modern warships, they are second in size only to large aircraft carriers, and of similar size to a World War I era battleship. The Soviet classification of the ship-type is "heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser". The ships are often referred to as battlecruisers by Western defence commentators due to their size and general appearance.
The appearance of the Kirov class played a key role in the recommissioning of the s by the United States Navy in the 1980s.
The Kirov class hull design was also used for the Soviet nuclear-powered command and control ship SSV-33 Ural.

History

Originally built for the Soviet Navy, the class is named after the first of a series of four ships constructed,, named Kirov until 1992. Original plans called for construction of five ships. The fifth vessel was planned to be named Fleet Admiral of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov, also referred as Dzerzhinsky. The name was later changed to Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya, and then just Kuznetsov; but on 4 October 1990, plans for construction of a fifth vessel were abandoned.
The lead ship of the class, Kirov, was laid down in June 1973 at Leningrad's Baltiysky Naval Shipyard, launched on 27 December 1977 and commissioned on 30 December 1980. When she appeared for the first time in 1981, NATO observers called her BALCOM I. She is currently in reserve.
Kirov suffered a reactor accident in 1990 while serving in the Mediterranean Sea. Repairs were never carried out, due to lack of funds and the changing political situation in the Soviet Union.
In 1983, a command and control ship, SSV-33 Ural, was launched, although the ship would not be officially commissioned until 1989. She utilized the basic hull design of the Kirov-class vessels, but with a modified superstructure, different armament, and was intended for a different role within the Soviet Navy. Ural was decommissioned and laid up in 2001, due to high operating costs, and scrapped in 2016.
, the second vessel in the class, was commissioned in 1984. She was assigned to the Pacific Fleet. In 1992, she was renamed Admiral Lazarev. The ship became inactive in 1994 and was decommissioned four years later. She is currently in reserve. On 19 September 2009, General Popovkin, Deputy MOD for Armaments, said the MOD is looking into bringing Admiral Lazarev back into service.
, now Admiral Nakhimov, was the third ship to enter service, in 1988. She was also assigned to the Northern Fleet. Renamed Admiral Nakhimov in 1992, she was mothballed in 1999 and reactivated in 2005. She is undergoing overhaul and modernization at Severodvinsk Shipyard.
Construction of the fourth ship, Yuriy Andropov, encountered many delays; her construction was started in 1986 but was not commissioned until 1998. She was renamed in 1992. She currently serves as the flagship of the Russia's Northern Fleet.
On 23 March 2004, English language press reported the Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief, Fleet Admiral Vladimir Kuroedov said Pyotr Velikys reactor was in an extremely bad condition and could explode "at any moment", a statement which may have been the result of internal politics within the Russian Navy. The ship was sent to port for a month, and the crew lost one-third of their pay.
Russia initially planned to reactivate and by 2020, but it was later indicated that the condition of the reactor cores of both ships was such that it would prove difficult, expensive and potentially dangerous to remove the spent nuclear fuel and repair the cores. As a consequence, it is likely that both ships will be scrapped. The modernization of Admiral Ushakov seems unlikely due to an alleged nuclear incident which may have left one of its reactors damaged with scrapping to start in 2016 or later. Other sources disagree, stating that all four ships will be modernized and returned to service. In 2014 some maintenance work was performed on Admiral Lazarev. Skepticism was expressed regarding the ability of Sevmash shipyard to simultaneously modernize two Kirov-class battlecruisers.
Currently, only remains operational. Modernization of Admiral Nakhimov is ongoing, with the modernization of Pyotr Velikiy to immediately follow and last for about three years.

Design

Armament

The Kirov class's main weapons are 20 P-700 Granit missiles mounted in deck, designed to engage large surface targets. Air defense is provided by twelve octuple S-300F launchers with 96 missiles and a pair of Osa-MA batteries with 20 missiles each. Pyotr Velikiy carries some S-300FM missiles and is the only ship in the Russian Navy capable of ballistic missile defence. The ships had some differences in sensor and weapons suites: Kirov came with SS-N-14 anti-submarine warfare missiles, while on subsequent ships these were replaced with 3K95 Kinzhal surface-to-air missile systems. The Kinzhal installation is in fact mounted further forward of the old SS-N-14 mounting, in the structure directly behind the blast shield for the bow mounted RBU ASW rocket launcher. Kirov and Frunze had eight AK-630 close-in weapon systems, which were supplanted with the Kortik air-defence system on later ships.
Other weapons are the automatic AK-130 gun system, 10 torpedo/missile tubes and Udav-1 with 40 anti-submarine rockets and two sextuple RBU-1000 launchers.
Russia is developing a new anti-ship missile to equip Kirovs called the 3M22 Tsirkon, which is capable of traveling at hypersonic speeds out to at least. If the missile passes developmental tests, it could enter service in 2020, being deployed first aboard Admiral Nakhimov and later in Pyotr Veliky when it finishes upgrades in 2022. Depending on the choice of types of missiles will amount to 40 - 80.

Fire control

Ships