''Kirov'' is the

lead ship The lead ship, name ship, or class leader is the first of a series or class of ships that are all constructed according to the same general design. The term is applicable to naval ships and large civilian vessels. Large ships are very comple ...

of the of nuclear-powered guided missile cruisers. Originally built for the

Soviet Navy The Soviet Navy was the naval warfare Military, uniform service branch of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy made up a large part of the Soviet Union's strategic planning in the event of a conflict with t ...

and passed onto the succeeding

Russian Navy The Russian Navy is the Navy, naval arm of the Russian Armed Forces. It has existed in various forms since 1696. Its present iteration was formed in January 1992 when it succeeded the Navy of the Commonwealth of Independent States (which had i ...

, 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 naval warfare, warfare on the surface of the water, with their own weapons and armed forces. They are generally ships built to fight oth ...

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 hangar facilities for supporting, arming, deploying and recovering carrier-based aircraft, shipborne aircraft. Typically it is the ...

amphibious assault ship An amphibious assault ship is a type of warship employed to land and support ground forces on enemy territory during an armed conflict. The design evolved from aircraft carriers converted for use as helicopter carriers (which, as a result, ar ...

) built by them. The Soviet classification of the ship-type is "heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser" (), 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 att ...

throughout much of the world, as her size and displacement is similar to a typical

World War I World War I or the First World War (28 July 1914 – 11 November 1918), also known as the Great War, was a World war, global conflict between two coalitions: the Allies of World War I, Allies (or Entente) and the Central Powers. Fighting to ...

battleship A battleship is a large, heavily naval armour, armored warship with a main battery consisting of large naval gun, guns, designed to serve as a capital ship. From their advent in the late 1880s, battleships were among the largest and most form ...

. 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 (born Kostrikov; 27 March 1886 – 1 December 1934) was a Russian and Soviet politician and Bolshevik revolutionary. Kirov was an early revolutionary in the Russian Empire and a member of the Bolshevik faction of the Russ ...

, a Bolshevik hero).

History

She was laid down on 27 March 1974, at the Baltiysky Naval Shipyard in

Leningrad Saint Petersburg, formerly known as Petrograd and later Leningrad, is the List of cities and towns in Russia by population, second-largest city in Russia after Moscow. It is situated on the Neva, River Neva, at the head of the Gulf of Finland ...

, launched on 26 December 1977, and commissioned on 30 December 1980, part of Soviet Northern Fleet. When she appeared for the first time in 1981,

NATO The North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO ; , OTAN), also called the North Atlantic Alliance, is an intergovernmental organization, intergovernmental Transnationalism, transnational military alliance of 32 Member states of NATO, member s ...

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 east by the Levant in West Asia, on the north by Anatolia in West Asia and Southern Eur ...

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 Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR), commonly known as the Soviet Union, was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 until Dissolution of the Soviet ...

. 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 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 system that uses radio waves to determine the distance ('' ranging''), direction ( azimuth and elevation angles), and radial velocity of objects relative to the site. It is a radiodetermination method used to detect and track ...

antenna is mounted on its foremast and called " Top Pair" by

. ''Kirov''s main weapons are 20 P-700 Granit (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 (SA-N-4 Gecko) with 40 missiles and the

Kashtan CIWS The Kortik (, "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 (, English: Chestnut), with the NATO designation CADS-N-1 Kashtan. The Korti ...

(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, sometimes called the Arabian Gulf, is a Mediterranean seas, mediterranean sea in West Asia. The body of water is an extension of the Arabian Sea and the larger Indian Ocean located between Iran and the Arabian Peninsula.Un ...

. * 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'', ''Kirov'' is sunk by the Norwegian submarine ''Kobben''. Featured in the 66 book Kirov alt history series by author John Schettler

References

External links

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

History

Armament

In popular culture

See also

References

External links