The Kirov class, Soviet designation Project 1144 Orlan (Russian: Орлан, lit. 'sea eagle'), is a class of nuclear-powered guided-missile battlecruisers of the Soviet Navy and Russian Navy, the largest and heaviest surface combatant warships (i.e. not an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship) in operation in the world. Among modern warships, they are second in size only to large aircraft carriers; they are similar in size to a World War I-era battleship. Defence commentators in the West often refer to these ships as battlecruisers - due to their size and general appearance. The Soviet classification of the ship-type is "heavy nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser" (Russian: тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер).
History
Originally built for the Soviet Navy, the class is named after the first of a series of four ships constructed, Admiral Ushakov, named Kirov until 1992. Original plans called for construction of five ships.
The lead ship of the class, Kirov, was laid down in March 1974 at Leningrad's Baltiysky 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). She is presently laid up and was slated to be scrapped in 2021.
Design
The class was originally conceived to counter the U.S. Navy's submarines with its large payload of SS-N-14 anti-submarine missiles, and later evolved to carry twenty P-700 Granit 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 carriers never came to fruition.
Weapon systems
The Kirov class's main weapons are 20 P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) 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.[2] The ships had some differences in sensor and weapons suites: Kirov came with Metel anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missiles, while on subsequent ships these were replaced with 3K95 Kinzhal (Russian: Кинжал – dagger) surface-to-air missile (SAM) 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 30 mm (1.18 in) AK-630 close-in weapon systems, which were supplanted with the Kortik air-defence system on later ships.
Other weapons are the automatic 130 mm (5 in) AK-130 gun system (except in Kirov which had two single 100 mm (4 in) guns instead), 10 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo/missile tubes (capable of firing RPK-2 Vyuga ASW missiles on later ships) 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 620 mi (540 nmi; 1,000 km).
Megathreads and spaces to hang out:
- 📀 Come listen to music and Watch movies with your fellow Hexbears nerd, in Cy.tube
- 🔥 Read and talk about a current topics in the News Megathread
- ⚔ Come talk in the New Weekly PoC thread
- ✨ Talk with fellow Trans comrades in the New Weekly Trans thread
reminders:
- 💚 You nerds can join specific comms to see posts about all sorts of topics
- 💙 Hexbear’s algorithm prioritizes comments over upbears
- 💜 Sorting by new you nerd
- 🌈 If you ever want to make your own megathread, you can reserve a spot here nerd
- 🐶 Join the unofficial Hexbear-adjacent Mastodon instance toots.matapacos.dog
Links To Resources (Aid and Theory):
Aid:
Theory:
Boats are great, I love taking a good boat to travel. You know, living in a country that is 95% coast, it'd be pretty neat to have a boat service that went to many major harbors and wasn't dedicated to tourists and gimmicked out with constant announcements to "look at the sea eagles" and shit. Yes siree, that would be real cool, might even be mildly affordable then.
(youseethejokeisthat Hurtigruten is a travesty nowadays and it was way better before as a method of transport but now it's just tourist schlock and the food was bad before but now its worse. Also who the fuck decided to make wooden benches without cushioning in the lounge??? To make it "cool" and "traditional" "Norwegian"?? Yeah, back-pain, really instills the national spirit.)
I don't live near a lot of coast but this sounds cool as fuck.
Currently imagining travelling slowly and comfortably ala amtrak but on rivers and gotta say, I'd probably go for it
Yeah, it is still cool AF, it is basically what you're imagining. It can be stunning, seeing the ancient mountains jutting straight up from the sea, the strange rock formations with all their local myths and legends, the little fishing villages and all the cool birds. I wouldn't blame someone for immersing themselves in everything Hurtigruten has to offer, but as a local who remembers :biden-rember: how different it was 10 years ago, I just want the simpler, more "honest" version back.
found this gem on natopedia:
Taking your own ships out of service for years and buying whole new ones to somehow own the ruskies![data-laughing data-laughing](https://www.hexbear.net/pictrs/image/b6671e8e-7f34-45d6-82d3-509fe8a4d683.png)
That doesn't seem to be quite correct, the ships were out of service were from April to June of the same year, and the 4 total ships are all sister ships originally planned to be built. 2 in Spain, 2 in Turkey, but the Spanish shipyard ran into financial trouble, and the projects had to be shifted to Turkey, hence the late delivery on the 2 other ships. Still wack to take them out of service anyway, even for a few months.
I agree but I also want to see the cool birds
You can go look for the cool birds without them piping the announcement in over the ship-wide PA right into your cabin
Ah I can see how that would be annoying, I assumed it was just on deck or something. Broadcasting it into every cabin is excessive
Ferries are the best, maybe even nicer to ride on than trains.