The Kirov battlecruiser is without a doubt the most iconic surface warship of the Soviet Union.
Ironically, she appeared only in the final decade of the Cold War, when the military balance between
the two superpowers began tilting in favour of the United States. Two Kirov battlecruisers remain
in service with the Russian Navy – they are the Pyotr Veliky, or in English the Peter the Great,
and the Admiral Nakhimov. The pair are the largest guided missile warship currently operational in
the world. Admittedly, aircraft carriers tended to be much bigger, but as far as surface combatants
go, nothing comes close to the Kirov. They are actually similar in size to the great
dreadnought battleships of the two world wars. To be clear, the Russians do not classify the
Kirov class as a battlecruiser, and indeed nothing about the ships, or their mission set,
bear much resemblance to a true battlecruiser of old. Russia refers to the class as the Project
1144 nuclear-powered heavy cruiser. The Kirov class was actually designed originally
as a large anti-submarine warship. Its intended victims were supposed to be
the nuclear ballistic missile submarines of the US Navy. But the Russians quickly figured out that
you can pack so much more firepower into such a big ship than just anti-submarine missiles.
The Kirov's mission was expanded, to attack high-value surface targets, like aircraft
carriers, and to provide long-range air warfare capabilities using its S-300 air defence complex.
The early 1980s saw the introduction of more technologically advanced classes of surface
warships into the Soviet Navy, including the Slava class cruiser, the first Soviet warship
that used marine gas turbine engines. It was in this environment that the Kirov class was created.
The lead ship of the class, the Kirov, was built between 1973 and 1977, by the Baltic Shipyard,
which had a long history of building large warships going all the way back to Tsarist Russia.
The Kirov was commissioned in 1980, although she was later renamed the Admiral Ushakov. Three more
battlecruisers were launched before the collapse of the Soviet Union. They are the Admiral Lazarev,
the Admiral Nakimov, and the Pyotr Veliky, although the Pyotr Veliky was only commissioned
in 1998 because of the lack of funding. The Kirov battlecruisers had been a favourite
project of Admiral Sergei Gorshkov, the supreme commander of the Soviet Navy.
However, support for the project was not universal among the senior naval staff,
many of whom consider the best use of resources to be nuclear submarines. This is of course the
conventional wisdom of the Soviet naval doctrine. The Kirov class represents a shift away from
that doctrine, into directly challenging the United States for command of the sea.
The Kirov class is supposed to operate alongside future Soviet aircraft carriers to wrestle sea
control away from the United States. Many staff officers in the Soviet Navy believe that strategy
to be infeasible, given the Soviet Union’s more limited resources compared to the United States.
However, the Kirov class is very much the ultimate expression of the vision of Admiral Gorshkov,
which is to build a blue water navy to challenge the Western Powers on the high seas.
Today, only two Kirov battlecruisers remain in the Navy. The Pyotr Veliky is currently the flagship
of the Russian Northern Fleet, and basically the unofficial flagship of the entire Navy.
The Admiral Nakimov is undergoing modernisation, at a fairly enormous financial cost. She will be
refitted with modern weapons, including universal VLS cells, the Zircon hypersonic missile,
and improved anti-submarine weapons. The other two battlecruisers have been decommissioned and are
scheduled to be scrapped. The Russian Navy simply couldn’t afford their enormous operating cost.
The enormous sunk cost of building these two ships
was simply not enough to ensure their place in the Russian Navy in the post-Soviet era.
The two decommissioned ships, the Admirals Ushakov and Lazarev, have been cannibalised,
and used as a cache for spare parts, to keep the two active ships in operational conditions.
The Kirov battlecruiser displaces about 28,000 tons, about three times that of
an Arleigh Burke destroyer. Length is 252 metres, slightly shorter than the Chinese
aircraft carrier the Liaoning. Complement is 710. The ship's propulsion is based on a combination
of nuclear power and steam turbines. The automated nuclear machinery comprises two nuclear reactors
to make steam, and two steam turbines producing 70,000 horsepower each, for a total of about
140,000 horsepowers. This propulsion system provides a full speed of 31 knots.
The ship also has two secondary steam boilers – they are conventional oil-fired boilers,
to be used as a backup in an emergency. So, this is in case the main machinery for steam production
malfunctions. When operating on its secondary boilers, the ship's speed is only 14 knots and the
ship has an endurance at sea of about 60 days. The main machinery is arranged in three compartments:
one compartment houses the two nuclear reactors, and the other two house the steam turbine units
and the secondary steam boilers, respectively. Armament on board the class has changed over time,
and will continue to evolve as work on the Admiral Nakimov draws to a close.
Currently, the Peter the Great is equipped with 20 of the P-700 Granit long range anti-ship missile
system, better known in the West as the SS-N-19 Shipwreck. Twenty vertical launching cells for
the Granit missile are installed under the upper deck of the Pyotr Velikiy. The Granit
originates from the 1980s. It has a supersonic speed and a very long range of over 625 km.
It has huge warhead of 750 kg of high explosives. On the downside, the weapon is very big at about 7
tons, which is basically three times the size of most other anti-ship cruise missiles. It is not
capable of flying at a very low altitude. So, it is likely to be detected fairly early on by radar
systems, giving the target more time to respond. But, if the Granit lands a hit, it will almost
certainly cripple any warship. The long-range Granit cannot be controlled once launched.
But, when fired in a salvo, the missiles share targeting information while in-flight. One
missile becomes the leader, and it will maintain a high altitude, to facilitate target acquisition.
The other missiles follow the leader at a lower altitude, and use the information passed down from
the leader to lock onto their targets. If the lead missile is destroyed, one of the other missiles
will automatically assume the lead role. The battlecruiser is also fitted with a
doubled-barrelled 130 mm naval gun, the AK-130, with a dual-purpose capability.
It is a large calibre gun well-suited for naval fire support during amphibious
operations. It can maintain a respectable rate of fire by virtue of its double-barrel guns.
When loaded with special shells, it can serve in a pinch as anti-aircraft artillery.
The Kirov class uses the navalised S-300FM air defence missile Complex. It has 12 vertical launch
modules of 8 cells each, providing a total of 96 VLS cells. This is an improved version
of the basic S-300 naval air defence system, designed specifically for the Kirov class.
It has a range of 165 km, and uses projectiles with hypersonic speed of Mach 6. The S-300FM
is capable of engaging both air and surface targets. It can also intercept ballistic missiles,
making the Kirov one of the few ships in the Russian Navy capable of ballistic missile defence.
The S-300 air defence system is getting quite old, but it is still very capable. Back during
the Cold War, the S-300 can basically blow any NATO combat aircraft out of the sky.
Secondary air defence systems include 64 of the 3K95 Kinzhal air defence missiles,
known in the West as the SA-N-9 Gauntlet. They are located near the front of the Pyotr Veliky
in an 8 by 8 VLS configuration. The 3K95 Kinzhal is a short-range missile for defending the
battlecruiser itself from incoming projectiles, as opposed to defending other friendly ships. The
Kinzhal is guided by a combination of radio command and infra-red guidance. A final layer
of secondary air defence is provided by 6 of the Kortik close-in weapon systems, better known
in the West by its export name, the Kashtan. This is a very capable gun-and-missile CIWS.
6 of these weapons provide a well-rounded point defence capability for the Kirov battlecruiser.
For anti-submarine warfare, the Pyotr Veliky has ten torpedo tubes, and carries 20 anti-submarine
missiles or the Type 53 torpedoes, including reloads. The anti-submarine missile is the Vodopad
SS-N-16. It basically fires a heavy torpedo in a 50 km radius from the ship, landing right on
top of an enemy submarine. The torpedo is the standard 533 mm heavy torpedo, belonging to the
Type 53 series. The latest variant of this family of torpedoes is called the Fizik-2,
which has a long reach and very dangerous. However, the most important anti-submarine
assets are the Kamov Ka-27 helicopters. They are carried inside a hangar below the deck,
at the stern of the ship. When getting ready to launch, the Ka-27 helicopters
are lifted to the helipad using a large elevator. The Kirov class usually carries around 3 helos,
but it can reportedly cram up to 5. The Ka-27 has long range and sustained flight endurance. It also
has a decent payload of torpedoes and sonobuoys. All of these are useful traits for an ASW helo.
Just as crucially, the helicopters can provide over-the-horizon detection with its own radar
systems, finding surface targets, including enemy warships, for the Kirov battlecruiser to attack.
There are also four of the RBU series of rocket-propelled depth charge launchers.
These are essentially close-range weapons against submarines, and also frogmen. They
fire a large salvo of unguided depth charges, with an effective range of between 1 to 3 km.
However, their practical value against submarines seems dubious, at least to me,
because their short range. In the event that an enemy submarine came with one kilometre,
or even three kilometres of the Kirov, something must have gone horribly wrong on both sides.
The Kirov class nuclear-powered battlecruiser is loaded with an incredible amount of firepower.
The Soviet designers have taken advantage of the sheer size of the ship to pack it with weapons.
The ship has supersonic anti-ship missiles, with large warheads, to cripple enemy warships. The
class also has the reputable S-300 air defence system, and a large load of helicopters to deal
with submarine threats. While much of the technology, including the radar systems,
on the Kirov class is quite old, the single active ship, the Pyotr Veliky, still represents
a frightening arsenal of firepower, and one that cannot be ignored by any NATO strategist.
The Pyotr Veliky, or the Peter the Great, has been frequently deployed on overseas port visits,
and sometimes to participate in bilateral naval exercises. The Russian government is
obviously leveraging the imposing size and the formidable weaponry onboard the battlecruiser,
to effectively show the flag around the world, and if necessary, to make a show of force.
The Pyotr Veliky made a major voyage lasting 6 months between 2008 and 2009,
and was sent on a deliberate show-the-flag mission. In September 2008, a fleet of Russian
warships belonging to the Northern Fleet crossed the Atlantic Ocean and headed for the Caribbean.
The squadron was led by the battlecruiser Pyotr Veliky, and also included the Udaloy class
anti-submarine destroyers. They were headed to Venezuela to participate in a joint naval exercise
with the Venezuelan Navy. This represented the first major show of force by the Russian Navy
in the Caribbean since 1991. The naval deployment was perceived by the United
States to be a retaliation for NATO stepping up its naval operations in the Black Sea.
After the conclusion of the military exercise with Venezuela, the Pyotr Veliky sailed to India
to join the Indian Navy in another naval exercise. Over the course of this voyage, the squadron led
by the Pyotr Veliky paid port visits in Turkey, France, Nicaragua, Panama and South Africa.
The other Kirov cruiser, the Admiral Nakimov, is undergoing modernisation. The Admiral Nakimov
was commissioned in 1988, but spent most of her previous career in port due to a lack of funding
in the twilight of the Soviet Union. She made just one major deployment into the Mediterranean,
before being mothballed shortly after. In 2006, the Russian Navy reactivated the ship, and
announced plans to modernise her, upgrading her weapons and sensors with the latest technology.
The finishing date for the reconstruction was initially scheduled for 2012, but this
was repeatedly pushed back, first to 2018, and then to 2020, and then 2022. As of right now, the
Admiral Nakhimov may re-join the Northern Fleet in late 2022, or sometime in 2023 at the latest.
The upgraded Admiral Nakhimov is expected to replace her 20 massive Granit missiles
with a universal VLS battery of 80 cells, which will carry a combination of the Kalibr and Onyx
missiles. These weapons are much more stealthy and capable than the old and oversized Granit.
Perhaps more critically, the Admiral Nakhimov is expected to use the Zircon hypersonic missile.
We have analysed the capability of the Zircon in a previous video,
which identified several reasons why the Zircon can penetrate any existing fleet air defence.
These include its stealth capabilities, hypersonic speed and manoeuvrability. Once the Zircon
is operationalised, it will likely become the most dangerous conventional anti-ship weapon
in the world. The S-300 air defence complex will also be replaced by a naval version
of the more advanced S-400. The S-400 is more capable in pretty much every single way, with
increased range and superior missile guidance. The close-in weapons systems will also be changed
to the Pantsir-M CIWS, which is the latest generation of Russian point defence system.
This should be a major reinforcement to the self defence capability of the ship. The anti-submarine
capability will also be improved, with the introduction of the Paket-NK torpedo system.
This is a dual-purpose torpedo system that can attack enemy submarines and also intercept
incoming torpedoes. There will also be a newer and more capable anti-submarine missile system that
will be compatible with the universal VLS cells, which carry the ship’s anti-surface missiles.
In short, the refit of the Admiral Nakhimov, once it gets completed, will make the battlecruiser
far more powerful in every way. It will possess the greatest amount of firepower found inside any
single warship in the entire world. She will have an incredible amount of anti-ship striking power
especially, making her a legitimate apex predator of other ships, and even submarines to an extent.
Once the modernisation of the Admiral Nakhimov
is completed, the refit of the Pyotr Veliky is expected to begin.