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The Project 1144 Orlan (meaning Sea eagle) class nuclear powered missile cruisers, are some of the largest and most powerful surface warships of the Russian Navy, though they were originally built for the Soviet Navy. In the western countries they are usually known by their NATO designation Kirov, after the lead ship of the class, the battlecruiser ''Kirov''. They are among the biggest warships in the world, second only to aircraft carriers, and are similar in size to a World War I battleship. Although in the West the ships are designated as battlecruisers because of this, the Kirov lacks the characteristic heavy armour. Soviet and Russian naval analysts always referred to it as a "large missile cruiser." It is more appropriate to consider the Kirov a super-sized guided missile cruiser, analogous to the ''Alaska''-class cruiser which had the displacement and armament of a battlecruiser but otherwise was more similar to a heavy cruiser in mission and construction. The appearance of the Kirov class was a significant factor in the U.S. Navy recommissioning the ''Iowa'' class.
Armament This ship has an impressive armament of missiles and guns as well as electronics. Its largest radar antenna is mounted on its foremast, and called "Top Pair" by NATO. The Kirov class's main weapons are 20 × SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles mounted on deck, designed to engage large surface targets, and air defense is provided for with 12 × S-300F launchers with 96 missiles and 2 × Osa-MA with 40 missiles. The ships had some differences in sensor and weapons suites; the lead ship Kirov came with SS-N-14 ASW missiles; on subsesquent ships they were replaced with 4 × 9K331 Tor SAM systems. Kirov and Frunze had eight 30 mm AK-630 close-in weapon systems, which were supplanted with the Kashstan air-defence missile/gun system on later ships. Other weapons are the automatic 130 mm AK-130 gun system (except on Kirov which had two single 100mm guns instead), 10 × torpedo/missile tubes (capable of firing SS-N-15 missiles on later ships, Udav-1 with 40 anti-submarine rockets and the 2 × RBU-1000 six-tube launchers. Deployment The lead ship, Kirov (renamed Admiral Ushakov in 1992 for political reasons) was laid down in June of 1973 at Leningrad's Baltiysky Naval Shipyard, launched on December 26 1977 and commissioned on December 30 1980. When she appeared for the first time in 1981, NATO observers called her BALCOM I (Baltic Combatant I). Kirov suffered a reactor accident in 1990 while serving in the Mediterranean Sea. Repairs were never carried out, due to lack of funds and the changing political situation in the Soviet Union. She may have been cannibalized as a spare parts cache for the other ships in her class. In 1984 the second ship in the ''Kirov'' class, ''Frunze'', was completed. She was assigned to the Pacific Fleet. In 1991, she was renamed Admiral Lazarev. The ship became inactive in 1994 and was decommissioned four years later. ''Kalinin'' was the third Kirov-class ship to enter service, in 1988. She was also assigned to the Northern Fleet. Renamed to Admiral Nakhimov, the ship was mothballed in 1999 and reactivated in 2005. Construction of the fourth ship, Yuri Andropov encountered many delays; her construction started in 1986 but wasn't completed until ten years later, in 1996, whereforth she was christened Pyotr Velikiy (Peter the Great). The ship has been declared the flagship of the Russian Northern Fleet. On March 23 2004, the Russian Northern Fleet Chief Commander, Admiral Vladimir Kuroedov said that Pyotr Velikiy The ship was sent to port for a month, and the crew lost one-third of their pay. Examinations found no problems with the ship's reactor. The fifth ship, to be known as Dzerzhinsky, also ran into delays. Her name was changed to October Revolution, and then Kuznetsov, and later scrapped while incomplete. Description Radars: Sonar Fire control: Units See also | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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