This is perhaps the most heavily weaponized class of ships in the world,
ever! The Russian Kirov-class Battlecruiser. This ship is nuclear-powered, making it
stealthy, especially when you compare it to the conventionally-powered Russian aircraft carrier,
Admiral Kuznetsov , which infamously has an exhaust smoke that’s visible from space.
While Americans classify this ship as a battlecruiser, Russians simply call it
a cruiser, which is not that surprising. You see, Russia also considers its only aircraft
carrier … to be a cruiser. I guess this corvette is just Yuri’s fishing boat!
But jokes aside, nuclear-powered cruisers are not unheard of. In fact, Americans used to operate 9
nuclear cruisers, but they were all decommissioned in the 1990s due to high maintenance costs. Even
then, the largest American nuclear cruiser, USS Long Beach, was roughly half the size of
Kirov-class cruisers, which is why Piotr Velikiy, the only active ship of this class, is the closest
thing to a modern day nuclear battleship, making her the largest nuclear-powered warships in the
world, after aircraft carriers of course. But why this nuclear-powered cruiser has a giant
smokestack like conventionally-powered ships do, why the ship’s missile silos have to be flooded
with sea water, like submarines do, and why being armed to the teeth makes this ship a liability
for the Russian Navy, is Not What You Think! If you thought the giant smokestack was to exhaust
nuclear radiation, you are … not even close! Consider this: What if the nuclear reactor failed?
The Soviets had learned from their nuclear-powered icebreakers that there could be some problems with
this technology. So they had a second nuclear reactor onboard as backup. But what if the
backup reactor also failed? It would’ve been too embarrassing for the mighty Soviet battlecruiser
to be towed back to port with not just one, but two failed nuclear reactors, as the metaphorical
tail between her legs. This is why two oil burning boilers were installed on the ship as a backup to
the backup nuclear reactor, allowing the ship to continue sailing for up to 1,000 miles at a speed
of 17 knots. That’s what the smokestack was for. But on the Kirov-class battlecruisers, the smoke
is nowhere near as visible as it is on the Russian aircraft carrier, Kuznetsov. That said, those
two pictures that you saw earlier are actually photoshopped. I also fell for it once, but after a
simple reverse search of this satellite image, it turns out it’s the smoke from the eruption of Etna
volcano. And this one is actually from an oil rig that was on fire. So don’t blindly trust things
you see on the internet, including what I say. The two nuclear reactors aboard Piotr Velikiy give
the ship unlimited range for ten years at a time, after which they need to be refuelled. Each
reactor produces 103 megawatts of power, which is enough to supply a city with 150,000 inhabitants.
Now that may seem like a lot, but it's not enough! You see, a rarely advertised fact,
is that the Kirov-class battlecruisers are unable to achieve their maximum speed on nuclear power
alone. Nuclear-only gives the ship a sustained speed of 20 knots. To reach the maximum speed of
33 knots, the ship relies on the Combined Nuclear and Steam propulsion system, which means she has
to run on both nuclear and boiler power. But this is not the real limitation,
since this ship rarely sails at maximum speed. The real limitation is … the other ships. Piotr
Velikiy’s maximum speed is handicapped by the speed of the Admiral Kuznetsov task force,
which usually travels at 18 knots. The original requirement for sailing at 30 knots plus,
came from the idea that the Kirov-class would protect the Ulyanovsk nuclear-powered aircraft
carrier. But the construction of that carrier was stopped when the Soviet Union was dissolved.
SHIPS But why did
the Soviets build this nuclear Leviathan? Before I answer that, if you’re interested to
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description and claim your exclusive bonus. In the early 1960s, the US Navy commissioned its
first nuclear powered aircraft carrier USS Enterprise and two nuclear powered
cruisers USS Long Beach and USS Bainbridge. This became known as the US Navy’s Task Force One,
also dubbed The Nuclear Navy. As part of operation Sea Orbit, the three nuclear ships sailed around
the world for 65 days while maintaining a speed of 26 knots without ever having to refuel. This
put the Soviet leadership under a lot of pressure to develop their own Task Force One. Originally,
the Soviets started developing two separate nuclear-powered ships that were much smaller.
One was an anti-submarine warship and the other was a destroyer with focus on air defence. But
eventually both ships were combined into one larger ship as part of Project 1144 Orlan.
Even though the Soviets laid down five Kirov-class ships, only four were finished, with the last one,
Piotr Velikiy commissioned by Russia in 1998. Back in the 1980s, when Kirov class ships entered the
Soviet service, the US Navy decided to bring four Iowa-class battleships back to life, to add more
muscle to its fleet. Although, the commissioning of Kirov was not the real reason why the US Navy
brought back its World War II era battleships. The primary reason for this reactivation was President
Reagan's push for a 600-ship Navy. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the other three ships of the
Kirov class were put in reserve since it was too expensive to operate and maintain them. Similarly,
the Americans retired their four Iowa battleships in the early 1990s, and this time, for good.
The design of this nuclear behemoth was simple. If the Soviet leadership saw any empty space on
the ship, the designers had to make sure to fill it in! Besides armament, which I will cover in
depth shortly, there are 20 kilometres of hallways on this ship, 140 state rooms for officers and
32 berthing areas for sailors. In total, the ship houses 744 sailors. There's also two saunas and 1
small pool. Grandma is unfortunately not included but sailors receive a daily glass of red wine.
Weighing at 25,860 tons, Piotr Velikiy is three times the size of an Arleigh Burke
destroyer. And yet, it’s still only about half the size of World War II era battleships such
as Bismarck (49,500 tons) and the Iowa class (60,000 tons). But being smaller than half a
century old battleships, doesn’t make this ship any less lethal. In fact, quite the opposite.
The Soviets designed the Kirov class battlecruisers with the goal of putting every
single naval weapon that they had into it. They really ordered every item that was on the menu!
Just for comparison, US Navy’s Arleigh Burke class destroyers have 96 VLS cells,
and Ticonderoga class cruisers have 122 VLS cells. Note that Evolved SeaSparrow Missiles are quad
packed inside a single VLS cell. Additionally, both classes carry up to eight harpoon missiles,
and the Arleigh Burke also has a SeaRam with 11 missiles. But the Kirov battlecruiser carries
up to 386 missiles of various kinds. This more than doubles and triples the amount
of the armament that US Navy’s cruisers and destroyers carry respectively.
The main armament of the battlecruiser are the 20 giant missile launch cells that house P-700 Granit
anti-ship cruise missiles. Each missile weighs about 7 tons and can be armed with a 1,600lb
explosive warhead or a 500 kiloton nuclear bomb that can be delivered up to 388 mi away.
Soviets claim that it's impossible to intercept it, because even if there was a direct hit,
the rocket would fly to its target by inertia, simply because it's so big. Now I am not a
rocket scientist, but I am somewhat skeptical about this claim. However what is true, is that
the missiles can be launched in swarm mode, in groups of 4 or 8. In this approach, one missile
flies higher than others in order to select and distribute the targets to the other missiles
in order of priority. This ensures the maximum probability of destroying the highest priority
target. Russians claim that their only active Kirov class cruiser, Pyotr Velikiy, can sink
any aircraft carrier in the world within minutes, with the help of Granit missiles. With that said,
Granit missiles are 1970s technology. In the west it is widely believed that even if all 20 missiles
were launched, the modern Aegis combat system aboard US Navy Cruisers and Destroyers would
easily intercept all of them. So far, not a single Granit missile has ever been used in combat.
But why do the launch cells aboard the Kirov class battlecruiser get flooded with sea water
prior to the launch of the missile? The reason is that the Granit missiles were originally designed
for submarines. In other words, Granit missiles were designed to be launched from underwater. So
instead of redesigning the launch system, Soviet engineers decided to save a lot of money and time,
and added the launch system to the battlecruiser as is, which meant the launch cells would need
to be flooded just like a submarine. Another unique weapon system aboard the
battlecruiser is the RPK-6 Vodopad, which in Russian means waterfall. It’s a torpedo-tube
launched missile which is ejected into water from one of 10 torpedo tubes on the ship. A few seconds
later, a solid-fuel rocket engine propels the missile out of the water and travels up to 31
miles to its target. Next, the missile deploys either a nuclear depth charge, or a torpedo,
both of which aim to destroy an enemy submarine. Speaking of submarines, the battlecruiser
houses three KA-27 and KA-31 helicopters inside its hangar below the stern deck,
which can be used to track enemy submarines. But what about incoming missile attacks? Well,
to say that the battlecruiser can defend itself, would be an understatement,
as it has a multi-layered anti-air defence system. For long-range air defence,
the Kirov-class is equipped with the S-300 Fort missile system, which is basically a land based
S-300 missile system fitted under the hull of the ship. The giant rotating drums hold a total of 94
long range missiles on Pyotr Velikiy. Each missile has a maximum range of 93 miles. For mid-range air
defence, the battlecruiser is equipped with 128 Kinzhal surface to air missiles which
have a range of up to 7.5 miles. Finally, the ship is equipped with not one, not two, three,
four or five, but six Kortik Close-in weapon systems. Kortik can destroy incoming targets up
to 2.5 miles away with its two 30mm rotary cannons that shoot 9,000 rounds per minute. Kortik is also
equipped with 8 missile tubes that can intercept targets up to 5 miles away. The Russians claim
that Kortik’s effectiveness in destroying incoming targets is somewhere between 96% and 99%.
And if all of the above wasn’t enough, there’s a giant AK130 dual barrel 130mm cannon that can
launch 90 projectiles within a minute up to 14 miles away. That would equate to about 4 tons
of metals and explosives being ejected from the barrel. The gun is fully automatic, since
it’s fully computerised and takes into account both the speed of the ship and the motion of the
waves. The gun can also be fired manually from within, in case of a computer malfunction.
It’s worth noting that all four Kirov-class battlecruisers were built slightly differently,
and had slightly different armaments. As new weapon systems were developed, they were
immediately installed on the newest ship of the class. And that approach remains true to this day,
since Russians are currently refurbishing the Admiral Nakhimov battlecruiser to carry Kalibr
cruise missiles, P-800 Oniks anti-ship missiles and the Pantsir-M anti-air missile system. The
Russian hypersonic missile, Tsirkon, is also planned to be installed on Admiral Nakhimov.
Russians have literally stuck a weapon in every corner of these ships. But having a larger and
heavily-weaponized ship is actually a liability, because it makes the ship the highest priority
target. Two smaller cruisers can carry as many missiles, but now you have to have
to hit two targets instead of one. Now you might think that for such a powerful ship,
the battlecruiser would have an impressive resume of combat missions. Well, maybe it's a good
that it doesn’t, but here’s Pyotr Velikiy's most memorable deployments. In February 2009, the ship
was conducting anti-pirate operations in the Gulf of Aden. The crew of the Russian warship managed
to capture a total of three Somalian pirate boats, while most ships apprehended were peaceful fishing
vessels. Now if you ask me, using such a large nuclear-powered surface warship to hunt pirates
is an overkill. It's like using a cannon to shoot mosquitos! Beside that one anti-pirate incident,
Piotr Velikiy has sailed once alongside the aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov, in 2016.
As impressive as Kirov-class battlecruisers are, they are very expensive to maintain. The
harsh reality is that after the collapse of the Soviet Union, Russia simply couldn’t afford to
maintain all four of its nuclear leviathans. So 3 out of 4 were essentially mothballed. In
2019 it was decided that the two battlecruisers in reserve, Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Lazarev
would be scrapped as it would be too expensive to modernise them. The third battlecruiser,
Admiral Nakhimov has been sitting at a Shipyard in Severodvinsk since 1997,
and is expected to rejoin the Russian Navy in 2024. And as for Pyotr Velikiy,
in 2023, it was reported that she would also be scrapped since it would
just be too expensive to refurbish her. Play War Thunder, this free vehicle combat
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