Hello everyone, you are watching another episode of Military TV.
In today’s session, we will discuss Why the Kirov Class Seems to be a Nightmare for
the U.S Navy.
If you are curious on the answer, stay tuned only at this channel!
The Kirov class has the official name as Project 1144 or Sea Eagle.
It is a class of nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers that serve the Soviet and Russian
navies since 1980.
It was first constructed between 1974 and 1998, four units were complete in total.
In 2021, one is still operated, the other two have been retired and another one is undergoing
refurbishment.
This ship was actually designed to either hunt American missile submarines, or protect
Soviet nuclear bastions from U.S. and British attack boats.
At the time of their initial conception, the Soviets did not focus on anti-ship capabilities
in their surface ships.
However, due to the advancements in missile technology, along with the growing threat
posed by American surface ships, particularly carriers, made it possible to imagine a ship
that could combine surface, subsurface and antisubmarine warfare capabilities.
The ship was extremely large in comparison to the Cold War standards.
The Kirovs, which are based on the P-700 Granit surface-to-surface missile system, might pose
a threat to Western carrier battle groups while simultaneously providing anti-submarine
protection.
With a displacement of 26,000 tons, the Kirovs dwarfed previous Soviet surface ships.
Indeed, the United States itself had not built any surface warfare vessels of this size since
World War II.
Only aircraft carriers and large flat-decked amphibs were larger than the Kirov.
Anyway, before we move further, let’s take a look at detail specifications of this ship.
With a standard displacement of 24,300 tons, and 28,000 tons when fully loaded, the ship
has the overall lengths of 252 meters and a beam of 28.5 meters.
It has two shaft CONAS, two KN-3 nuclear marine propulsion with two GT3A-688 steam turbines
that generate the vessels to reach up to 32 knots with the range of 1,000 nautical miles.
It was also fitted with the Voskhod MR-900 search 3D radar, the Fregat MR-710 3D search
radar, and two Palm Frond navigation radars.
In addition, the Kirov class is also equipped with Horse Jaw LF hull sonar and the Horse
Tail VDS sonar.
This ship is also fitted with two PK-2 decoy dispensers of 400 rockets.
For the information, it can also take up to three helicopters.
In regards to the armaments, this ship seems to be heavily loaded.
It can carry 20 P-700 Granit AShM, 96 S-300F Fort SA-N-6 Grumble surface-to-air missiles,
48 S-300F Fort and 48 S-300FM Fort-M long-range SAM missiles, 3K95 Kinzhal point-defense SAM.
It also armed with one twin AK-130 130mm/L70 dual-purpose gun.
8 AK-630 six-barreled Gatling 30mm/L60 PD guns and six CADS-N-1 Kortik gun/missile systems.
Additionally, this vessel also equipped with antisubmarine rocket launcher and antisubmarine
torpedo tubes to launch the type 53 torpedo or RPK-2 Vyuga antisubmarine missile.
Anyway, if the above specifications does not clearly tell us why this vessel seems to fear
of the U.S Navy, the most apparent factor to note is that the Kirov class has the most
Vertical Launching System (VLS) cells of any battleship in which its impressive capacity
up to 352.
Keep in mind that the US Navy's outstanding Arleigh Burke-class destroyers have 122 VLS
cells, while the Chinese Type 055 destroyers only have 112 VLS cells.
For this reason, it is clear that the Kirov class ship is a concern for the US, China,
and other major nations due to their exceptionally massive weaponry.
This battleship has been sailing for decades and is still one of the most dangerous and
deadliest battleships ever built.
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