HOME

TheInfoList



OR:

''Kirov'' is the
lead ship The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very complex and may ...
of the of nuclear-powered
guided missile cruiser A cruiser is a type of warship. Modern cruisers are generally the largest ships in a fleet after aircraft carriers and amphibious assault ships, and can usually perform several roles. The term "cruiser", which has been in use for several hu ...
s. Originally built for the Soviet Navy and passed onto the succeeding Russian Navy, she and her three sister ships are the largest and heaviest
surface combatant Surface combatants (or surface ships or surface vessels) are a subset of naval warships which are designed for warfare on the surface of the water, with their own weapons and armed forces. They are generally ships built to fight other ships, subma ...
warships (i.e. not an
aircraft carrier An aircraft carrier is a warship that serves as a seagoing airbase, equipped with a full-length flight deck and facilities for carrying, arming, deploying, and recovering aircraft. Typically, it is the capital ship of a fleet, as it allows a ...
or
amphibious assault ship An amphibious assault ship is a type of amphibious warfare ship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory by an amphibious assault. The design evolved from aircraft carriers converted for use as helicopter carriers (and, as ...
) built by them. The Soviet classification of the ship-type is "heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser" (russian: тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер), nonetheless ''Kirov''s size and weapons complement have earned her the unofficial designation of a
battlecruiser The battlecruiser (also written as battle cruiser or battle-cruiser) was a type of capital ship of the first half of the 20th century. These were similar in displacement, armament and cost to battleships, but differed in form and balance of attr ...
throughout much of the world, as her size and displacement is similar to a typical
World War I World War I (28 July 1914 11 November 1918), often abbreviated as WWI, was one of the deadliest global conflicts in history. Belligerents included much of Europe, the Russian Empire, the United States, and the Ottoman Empire, with fightin ...
battleship A battleship is a large armored warship with a main battery consisting of large caliber guns. It dominated naval warfare in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The term ''battleship'' came into use in the late 1880s to describe a type of ...
. The appearance of the ''Kirov'' class was a significant factor in the U.S. Navy recommissioning the . She was named after a Project 26 cruiser (named after
Sergey Kirov Sergei Mironovich Kirov (né Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary whose assassination led to the first Great Purge. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and membe ...
, a Bolshevik hero).


History

She was laid down on 27 March 1974, at the Baltiysky Naval Shipyard in
Leningrad Saint Petersburg ( rus, links=no, Санкт-Петербург, a=Ru-Sankt Peterburg Leningrad Petrograd Piter.ogg, r=Sankt-Peterburg, p=ˈsankt pʲɪtʲɪrˈburk), formerly known as Petrograd (1914–1924) and later Leningrad (1924–1991), i ...
, launched on 26 December 1977, and commissioned on 30 December 1980, part of
Soviet Northern Fleet Severnyy flot , image = Great emblem of the Northern Fleet.svg , image_size = 150px , caption = Northern Fleet's great emblem , start_date = June 1, 1733; Sov ...
. When she appeared for the first time in 1981,
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
observers called her BALCOM I (Baltic Combatant I). Her first major deployment was in 1984 where she undertook a voyage to the
Mediterranean Sea The Mediterranean Sea is a sea connected to the Atlantic Ocean, surrounded by the Mediterranean Basin and almost completely enclosed by land: on the north by Western and Southern Europe and Anatolia, on the south by North Africa, and on the ea ...
. During her second major deployment from 1 December 1989 to 17 February 1990 to the Mediterranean, she suffered a reactor accident. Afterwards, she was placed in reserve. Repairs were never carried out, due to lack of funds and the changing political situation in the
Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen national ...
. She may have been cannibalized as a spare-parts cache for the other ships in her class. For political reasons, ''Kirov'' was renamed ''Admiral Ushakov'' after the 18th-century admiral
Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov ( rus, Фёдор Фёдорович Ушако́в, p=ʊʂɐˈkof; – ) was an 18th century Russian naval commander and admiral. He is notable for winning every engagement he participated in as the Admiral of t ...
in 1992, but subsequent photos suggest that it has since reverted to its original name. An overhaul was started in 1999, but the ship was written off in 2001 and was slated to be dismantled in 2003. In June 2004, the name ''Admiral Ushakov'' was transferred to the . In September 2004, it was revealed that the Severodvinsk-based Design Bureau Onega had been tasked with developing the dismantlement project for the cruiser, currently moored at the Severodvinsk Zvezdochka plant. According to the Zvezdochka plant, dismantlement of the former ''Admiral Ushakov'' would cost $40 million. This plan was halted when the Russian Navy planned to bring her back to service. In 2010, the Russian Navy again announced new plans for an overhaul of the cruiser. At the time, the plan was to modify and reactivate all of the ''Kirov'' battlecruisers by 2020. However, in 2012 it was reported that ''Admiral Ushakov'' and ''Admiral Lazarev'' would not be overhauled due to being in a state of "beyond repair". In 2015, Zvezdochka shipyard CEO Vladimir Nikitin claimed that it was dangerous to remove the spent nuclear fuel from the vessel's two reactors given the fact the ship had been given minimum maintenance for 34 years. In April 2019, Russia decided to scrap and recycle the ''Admiral Ushakov'' in 2021.


Armament

This ship had an armament of missiles and guns as well as electronics. Its largest
radar Radar is a detection system that uses radio waves to determine the distance (''ranging''), angle, and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It can be used to detect aircraft, ships, spacecraft, guided missiles, motor vehicles, w ...
antenna is mounted on its foremast and called " Top Pair" by
NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO, ; french: Organisation du traité de l'Atlantique nord, ), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental military alliance between 30 member states – 28 European and two No ...
. ''Kirov''s main weapons are 20
P-700 Granit The P-700 ''Granit'' (russian: П-700 "Гранит"; en, granite) is a Soviet and Russian naval anti-ship cruise missile. Its GRAU designation is 3M45, its NATO reporting name SS-N-19 ''Shipwreck''. It comes in surface-to-surface and subma ...
(SS-N-19 Shipwreck) missiles mounted on deck, designed to engage large surface targets, and air defense is provided for with 12 S-300F (SA-N-6 Grumble) launchers with 96 missiles, two
Osa-M The 9K33 ''Osa'' (, literally "wasp"; NATO reporting name SA-8 ''Gecko'') is a highly mobile, low-altitude, short-range tactical surface-to-air missile system developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s and fielded in 1972. Its export version ...
(SA-N-4 Gecko) with 40 missiles and the
Kashtan CIWS The Kortik (russian: Кортик, "dirk") close-in weapon system (CIWS) is a modern naval air defence gun-missile system deployed by the Russian Navy. Its export version is known as Kashtan (russian: Каштан, English: Chestnut), with the N ...
(CADS-N-1) air-defence missile/gun system. Other weapons are the automatic 130 mm AK-130 gun system, 30 mm AK-630, 10 torpedo/missile tubes, Udav-1 (SS-N-14 Silex) with 40 anti-submarine missiles and the two RBU-1000 six-tube launchers.


In popular culture

* In the film '' Threads'', ''Kirov'' collides with in the
Persian Gulf The Persian Gulf ( fa, خلیج فارس, translit=xalij-e fârs, lit=Gulf of Persis, Fars, ), sometimes called the ( ar, اَلْخَلِيْجُ ٱلْعَرَبِيُّ, Al-Khalīj al-ˁArabī), is a Mediterranean sea (oceanography), me ...
. * In the novel ''
The Hunt for Red October ''The Hunt for Red October'' is the debut novel by American author Tom Clancy, first published on October 1, 1984, by the Naval Institute Press. It depicts Soviet submarine captain Marko Ramius as he seemingly goes rogue with his country's cutt ...
'', ''Kirov'' is deployed to the North Atlantic in pursuit of the title submarine, where it has a close encounter with American aircraft. * In Tom Clancy's ''
Red Storm Rising ''Red Storm Rising'' is a war novel, written by Tom Clancy and co-written with Larry Bond, and released on August 7, 1986. Set in the mid-1980s, it features a Third World War between the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Warsaw Pact force ...
'', ''Kirov'' is sunk by the Norwegian submarine ''Kobben''.


See also

* , a ''Kirov''-class cruiser, lead ship of a Soviet 1930–1940s class of conventional cruisers * ''Admiral Ushakov'' (warship), for other ships named for Fyodor Fyodorovich Ushakov


References


External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Kirov Kirov-class battlecruisers Ships built in the Soviet Union 1977 ships Cold War cruisers of the Soviet Union Nuclear ships of the Soviet Navy Ships built at the Baltic Shipyard