 Kirov-class battlecruiserFrunze | |
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Name | Kirov class |
| Builders | Baltic Shipyard,Leningrad |
| Operators | |
| Preceded by | Kara class |
| Built | 1974–1998 |
| In service | 1980–present |
| Planned | 5 |
| Completed | 4 |
| Cancelled | 1 |
| Active | 1 (1 undergoing refit) |
| Retired | 2 |
| General characteristics | |
| Type | Heavyguided-missile cruiser/battlecruiser |
| Displacement |
|
| Length | 252 m (827 ft) |
| Beam | 28.5 m (94 ft) |
| Draft | 9.1 m (30 ft) |
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 32 knots (59 km/h; 37 mph) |
| Range |
|
| Complement | 710 |
| Sensors & processing systems |
|
| Electronic warfare & decoys | 2 × PK-2 Decoy dispensers (400 rockets) |
| Armament |
|
| Armour | 76 mm plating around reactor compartment, light splinter protection |
| Aircraft carried | 3helicopters |
| Aviation facilities | Below-deck hangar |
TheKirov class, Soviet designationProject 1144Orlan (Russian:Орлан,lit. 'sea eagle'), is a class ofnuclear-powered guided-missileheavy cruisers of theSoviet Navy andRussian Navy, the largest and heaviestsurface combatant warships (i.e. not anaircraft carrier oramphibious assault ship) in operation in the world. Among modern warships, they are second in size only to largeaircraft carriers; they are similar in size to aWorld War I-erabattleship. Defence commentators in the West often refer to these ships as battlecruisers – due to their size and general appearance.[3] The Soviet classification of the ship-type is "heavy nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser" (Russian:тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер).
The appearance of theKirov class (first exemplar commissioned in 1979) played a key role in therecommissioning of theIowa-class battleships by theUnited States Navy in the 1980s.[4][5][6]
TheKirov class hull-design was also used for the Soviet nuclear-poweredcommand and control shipSSV-33Ural.
Originally built for theSoviet Navy, the class is named after the first of a series of four ships constructed,Admiral Ushakov, namedKirov until 1992. Original plans called for construction of five ships. The fifth vessel was planned to be namedFleet Admiral of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov, also referred asDzerzhinsky.[7] The name was later changed toOktyabrskaya Revolutsiya (October Revolution),[8] and then justKuznetsov;[9] but on 4 October 1990, plans for construction of a fifth vessel were abandoned.[7]
The lead ship of the class,Kirov, was laid down in March 1974 atLeningrad'sBaltiysky Naval Shipyard, launched on 27 December 1977 and commissioned on 30 December 1980. When she appeared for the first time,NATO observers called her BALCOM I (Baltic Combatant I).Kirov suffered a reactor accident in 1990 during her second deployment, which was in theMediterranean Sea. Repairs were never carried out due to lack of funds and thechanging political situation in theSoviet Union, and she was placed in reserve where she was renamedAdmiral Ushakov in 1992.[10] She is presently laid up and was slated to be scrapped in 2021.
Frunze, the second vessel in the class, was commissioned in 1984. She was assigned to the Pacific Fleet. In 1992, she was renamedAdmiral Lazarev. The ship became inactive in 1994 and was decommissioned four years later. On 21 February 2021, the Russian Armed Forces and the Russian State Atomic Energy Corporation Rosatom, signed a contract to dismantle and scrap the nuclear powered heavy cruiser.Admiral Lazarev set sail 30 April 2021 for 30th Shipyard. Dismantlement should be completed by 30 November 2025.[11]
Kalinin, nowAdmiral Nakhimov, was the third ship to enter service, in 1988. She was also assigned to the Northern Fleet. RenamedAdmiral Nakhimov in 1992, she was mothballed in 1999 and reactivated in 2005. She is undergoing overhaul and modernization atSeverodvinsk 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 renamedPyotr Veliky (afterPeter the Great) in 1992.[7] She currently serves as the flagship of Russia'sNorthern Fleet.
In 1983, acommand 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 theKirov-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 starting in 2010.
On 23 March 2004, English language press reported the Russian Navy Commander-in-Chief, Fleet AdmiralVladimir Kuroedov saidPyotr Veliky's 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.[12] The ship was sent to port for a month, and the crew lost one-third of their pay.
Russia initially planned to reactivateAdmiral Ushakov andAdmiral Lazarev by 2020,[2][13] 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, both ships were earmarked for scrapping in 2021.[14] The scrapping ofAdmiral Lazarev began in early 2021.[15]
As of early 2022, onlyPyotr Velikiy was operational. Modernization ofAdmiral Nakhimov is ongoing and was reported, in 2021, to continue until "at least" 2023,[16] with the modernization ofPyotr Velikiy to immediately follow and last for about three years.[17][18] However, in early 2022, Sevmash CEO Mikhail Budnichenko stated that the ship would be delivered to the Russian Navy in 2022. This deadline would also be missed, and Sevmash later clarified that they expected to return the ship to service in 2024.[19]
The modernization ofAdmiral Nakhimov and her sister ship is to be extensive, withAdmiral Nakhimov expected to receive 174 Vertical-launch (VLS) tubes: 80 for anti-surface and 94 for anti-air warfare, among other upgrades.[20] In early 2022, the Sevmash CEO noted that weapons systems forAdmiral Nakhimov would include: the Fort-M (NATO reporting name: SA-N-6 Grumble) and Pantsyr-M (SA-22 Greyhound) air defense systems andPaket-NK andOtvet antisubmarine warfare weapons. It was also reported that the cruiser would potentially be armed with up to 603M22 Zircon hypersonic anti-ship missiles.[21]
The class was originally conceived to counter theU.S. Navy's submarines with its large payload of SS-N-14 anti-submarine missiles, and later evolved to carry twenty P-700Granit anti-ship missiles for countering the U.S. carrier strike groups. Ultimately the class were intended to operate alongside new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for global power projection, however these carriersnever came to fruition.[22][23]
TheKirov class's main weapons are 20P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) missiles mounted in deck, designed to engage large surface targets. Air defense is provided by twelve octupleS-300F launchers with 96 missiles and a pair of Osa-MAbatteries 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.[2] The ships had some differences in sensor and weapons suites:Kirov came withMetel anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missiles, while on subsequent ships these were replaced with3K95 Kinzhal (Russian: Кинжал – dagger) surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. TheKinzhal installation is in fact mounted further forward of the old SS-N-14 mounting, in the structure directly behind the blast shield for thebow mounted RBU ASW rocket launcher.Kirov andFrunze had eight 30 mm (1.18 in)AK-630close-in weapon systems, which were supplanted with theKortik air-defence system on later ships.
Other weapons are the automatic 130 mm (5 in) AK-130 gun system (except inKirov which had two single 100 mm (4 in) guns instead), 10 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo/missile tubes (capable of firingRPK-2 Vyuga ASW missiles on later ships) andUdav-1 with 40 anti-submarine rockets and two sextupleRBU-1000 launchers.
Russia is developing a new anti-ship missile to equipKirovs called the3M22 Tsirkon, which is capable of traveling athypersonic speeds out to at least 620 mi (540 nmi; 1,000 km).[24][25]
| Kirov /Admiral Ushakov | Frunze /Admiral Lazarev | Kalinin /Admiral Nakhimov | Yuri Andropov /Pyotr Velikiy | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Anti-ship missiles | 20 xP-700 Granit (SS-N-19 'Shipwreck') | |||
| Anti-submarine missiles | 1 x twinRPK-3 Metel (SS-N-14 'Silex') | |||
| RPK-2 Vyuga (SS-N-15 'Starfish') launched via 533 mm torpedo tube | ||||
| Surface-to-air missiles | 12 × 8S-300F (SA-N-6 'Grumble') | 6 × 8S-300F (SA-N-6 'Grumble') | ||
| 2 x 209K33 Osa (SA-N-4 'Gecko') | 6 × 8S-300FM (SA-N-20 'Gargoyle') | |||
| Space reserved for 16 x 83K95 Kinzhal (SA-N-9 'Gauntlet') | 8 x 83K95 Kinzhal (SA-N-9 'Gauntlet') | |||
| Guns | 2 × 1 AK-100 100 mm | 1 × 2 AK-130 130 mm | ||
| close-in weapon systems | 8 xAK-630 | 6 xCADS-N-1 | ||
| Anti-submarine rockets | 2 xRBU-1000, 1 xRBU-12000 | |||
| Torpedo tubes | 10 x 533mm torpedo tubes forType 53 | |||
Combined nuclear and steam propulsion system (CONAS) is used on the Kirov battlecruisers. Complementary to the nuclear component, there are two conventional boilers installed as a backup in case of reactor failure. Both components can drive two geared steam turbines, generating 120,000hp (89 MW), at two prop shafts.[26]
| Name | First Namesake | Second Namesake | Builder | Laid down | Launched | Commissioned | Status |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Admiral Ushakov (ex-Kirov) | Sergei Kirov | Fyodor Ushakov | Baltiysky Zavod,Leningrad | 27 March 1974 | 26 December 1977 | 30 December 1980 | Scrapped in 2021[14] |
| Admiral Lazarev (ex-Frunze) | Mikhail Frunze | Mikhail Lazarev | 27 July 1978 | 26 May 1981 | 31 October 1984 | Scrapped in April 2021[27] | |
| Admiral Nakhimov (ex-Kalinin) | Mikhail Kalinin | Pavel Nakhimov | 17 May 1983 | 25 April 1986 | 30 December 1988 | Mothballed in 1999. Modernisation started in 2015.[28] Was due to return to service in 2024,[29] but this has been pushed back to "sometime in 2025."[30] Admiral Nakhimov started new sea trials in August 2025. "[31] | |
| Pyotr Velikiy (ex-Yuriy Andropov) | Yuri Andropov | Peter the Great | 11 March 1986 | 29 April 1989 | 9 April 1998 | In service with theNorthern Fleet | |
| Admiral Flota Sovetskogo Soyuza Kuznetsov (ex-Dzerzhinsky, ex-Oktyabrskaya Revolutsiya) | Felix Dzerzhinsky,October Revolution | Nikolay Gerasimovich Kuznetsov | Cancelled, 4 October 1990 | ||||
