Russian Craisers "Kirov" will never go out into the sea again?

The USSR hoped to create ships capable of resisting the American underwater fleet. But in practice, they are rather a symbol of power, not a real threat. Russian Kirov Crucers, which were adopted during the Cold War, are often considered to be superfluous because of their size and advanced weapons. Focus translated the article of military analyst Mai Carlin about Soviet heavy atomic cruisers of the Kirov class and the prospects of their further use.

The Soviet Union launched its class of cruisers with managed missiles in the late 1970s. The Cold War was in full swing, so the USSR and the United States put warships on the conveyor within a long -term arms race. The new Soviet vessels of the Kirov class have been the largest ships, except for aircraft carriers built worldwide since the Second World War. Because of their size and weapons, these vessels are often called combat cruisers.

Kirov class has all the qualities that in theory should make a warship powerful, but their operational efficiency has proven to be limited. Most likely, Moscow left Kirov's armed ships only because of an acute deficit in its Navy. When developing components for the future Kirov class, Soviet officials were aware that this class should be able to withstand the US underwater fleet.

In particular, the USSR needed that a new class of battleships would be able to carry a significant combat load of protical SS-N-14 protracid missiles, and later-anti-ship missiles P-700 "Granite". In the end, the main weapon of Kirov ships was a long-range anti-ship Granite (which received the SS-N-19 ShipWreck). The ShipWreck rocket was developed in the 1970s to replace the outdated Soviet missile missiles P-70 "Amethyst" and P-120 "Malachite".

As the US Navy has increased its aircraft carrier groups, the USSR needed a more powerful rocket complex. Kirov class was named after the first of a series of four ships built during the Cold War. Although the Soviet fleet planned to build at least five such cruisers, the collapse of the USSR prevented this goal. "Kirov"-the flagship of this class-was laid in the mid-1970s at the Leningrad Baltic Navy.

Until 1980, it was officially put into operation and received the NATO NATO NATO "Baltic Balb ship I" (Balcom). Frunze became the second completed ship of the class, after which "Kalinin" (now "Admiral Typlomov") and "Yuri" (now "Petr Great") appeared. Each of these atomages was adhered to for equipping with different sensors, including the SPS of targets, radar/land detection radar and a hydraulic locker mounted on the housing.

The power plant used a combination of nuclear energy and steam turbines on these ships, which theoretically enabled the vessels to develop a maximum speed on water up to 31 knots. When the first two ships of the Cyrov class retired, Admiral Tikhumov was selected for the 2006 modernization repair. According to the Russian state media, this cruiser will return to the system at some point, although thoughts on this issue diverge.

Some experts believe that ships in this class will never go out to sea again. According to TASS, the ship will return to the system, armed with anti -ship "Zircon" and hypersonic glander "Avangard". The predictable zircon hypersonic velocity makes it invulnerable even for the most modern Western missile defense systems, including Patriot. Russian sources claim that the rocket can fly at a speed of 8. 0 Mach (several times higher than sound speed).

If this is true, Zircon is the fastest rocket in the world. On paper, these characteristics seem unsurpassed, but Moscow is famous for exaggerating the capabilities of their weapons systems. Maya Carlin is the author of national security articles in The National Interest, the analytics of the Security Policy Center and a former Anna Sobol-Levi researcher at IDC Duchy in Israel. Her articles are published in many publications, including the National Interest, the Jerusalem Post and Times of Israel.