Upgraded Kirov class: Project 11442 [Admiral Nakhimov]

hoom wrote:The sonar bit was interesting to hear a US sub guy not wanting to be anywhere near it, didn't realise K has it too.

But the rest is either nothing new, severely outdated or outright wrong.

I found it interesting. He explains very well the weaponery and radars. But the sonar part is the best. Never heard something like that and it's not something you find in open sources.

Not exactly news... but whatever...

Russian Navy’s upgraded nuclear-powered missile cruiser to enter state trials in 2023

MOSCOW, September 23. /TASS/. The Project 1144 2M (Orlan-class) heavy nuclear-powered missile-carrying cruiser Admiral Nakhimov undergoing its repairs and upgrade at the Sevmash Shipyard in Russia’s northwest will enter sea trials in 2023, Deputy CEO of the United Shipbuilding Corporation for Military Shipbuilding Vladimir Korolyov told TASS on Thursday.

"We can say that our work is proceeding on schedule… I believe that the cruiser will enter trials in 2023," the deputy chief executive said in response to a question about the timeframe of completing the work on the Admiral Nakhimov.

In the course of upgrading the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, the shipbuilders have to deal with a lot of issues related to the warship’s powerplant, its weapons and radio-electronic armament. Specialists are carrying out a large amount of work on the cruiser’s missile systems, he said.

The pace of work on the Admiral Nakhimov vividly demonstrates that the Sevmash shipbuilders can both construct nuclear-powered underwater missile carriers and restore the technical readiness of such unique warships as Project 1144 Orlan-class heavy nuclear-powered cruisers, the deputy chief of the United Shipbuilding Corporation said.

The heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov has been under repairs at the Sevmash Shipyard since 1999. Real work on the warship has been carried out since 2013. It was earlier reported that the heavy missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov would enter trials in 2021.

The upgrade has substantially boosted the cruiser’s strike capabilities. In particular, the warship will carry 10 versatile shipborne launchers for eight Kalibr-NK or Oniks cruise missiles. Eventually, the Admiral Nakhimov will carry Tsirkon hypersonic missiles.

source

I recall one former member/troll who left in a huff who claimed that the Nakhimov would never be refurbished. Details are not something that NATzO deserves
to get for free.

Those shots were taken back in Feb 2021, so there has been ~11 months of progress since.

Its odd that for such a large and impressive ship there are next to no images on the web.  I'm sure security is tight, but even so...  

mnztr wrote:Wow 10 years of balls to the wall work. That is crazy. Does anyone wonder if they could have scratch built a Leider class in less time for less money? Yes I know it was not designed then...but going forward. What will cost less. A brand new Leider or updating another Orlan class?

Remember Ivan Gren?

Lider would be even worse

Upgrade both Kirovs and stick with Gorshkovs for now

2 kirov is enough with modernized VLS.

3m22 on half of the 80 cells, and kalibr with different modifications including anti sub and anti shipping variants make it deadly.

Then theres over 100 cells of redut.

This ship is a beast, and can fight 2 or 3 CBG on it's own with Zircon crippling world navy.

Its like the return of the cruiser with hypersonics

If he maintains distance,  it is basically unkillable

Then if he is carrying ASW helps and recon drones. 

This ship is a fleet killer

Arkanghelsk wrote:2 kirov is enough with modernized VLS.

3m22 on half of the 80 cells, and kalibr with different modifications including anti sub and anti shipping variants make it deadly.

Then theres over 100 cells of redut.

This ship is a beast, and can fight 2 or 3 CBG on it's own with Zircon crippling world navy.

Its like the return of the battleship with hypersonics

One sub can destroy it if it is manned very well.

The super hardware that fight ab entire army by itself doesn't exist.

You need numbers. 1 ships will never be enough.

Putting all their eggs on the Kirov is stupid. They need Gorshkovs in great numbers and upgrade other ships too. And that's what they are doing actually. They upgrade their oscar and udaloy and build a decent number of Gorshkov.

Kirov will be central ships of task forces.

With a Varan carrier it would be perfect.

Exactly, Russia introduces on the so-called distributed lethality concept.

The Kirov, is exposed to submarines, with an helo carrier anti submarine ship like 23900, or carrier is very good, of course you can never fully defend from submarines but commander of kirov will never be stupid enough to sit still in middle of atlantic or Pacific simply disclosing his location to enemy groups.

More likely Kirov can conduct missions when enemy fleet is detected to move to a position where conducting a zircon salvo launch is possible at maximum range.

From an anti shipping perspective, the kirov with zircon alters the naval balance of power.

Submarines still dominate, but if Kirov were to stay on the move, harbored within the safety of russian waters, and in early detection of an enemy fleet move to launch position it is raining unstoppable hypersonic salvo on the entire CBG.

The areas where kirov will be sailing to conduct said launch should be reconnoitered and the ship itself presents a juicy target to enemy submarines.

But with a cunning command, the ship will present sea denial and supremacy of up to 1500km.

Zircon is not stoppable by battle order of any western navy, that's a fact. A salvo of 8 to 12 it is impossible to do a thing , with aster, sm3, sylver sm6, phalanx, goalkeeper. It is absolutely not going to detect a fully powered maneuvering cruise missile coming mach 12 at sea level.

And no zircon is not aero ballistic missile, quasiballistic missile, semi powered gliding, or maneuvering gliding missile.

It is FULLY powered missile with characteristics not fielded by any navy in the world, who can even replicate such a target. No kinzhal and even avangard do not replicate the firing solution of zircon.

So again, Kirov with 194 VLS and about 40 zircons on board is enough to level several CBGs of enemy naval forces.

This fact does not change that russia is implementing distributed lethality. But is a force multiplier of epic proportions.

Also I would like to add, a submarine does not patrol randomly with its sonar flashing detecting everything in the ocean.

A kirov cruiser represents a datum point across thousands and thousands of km2 of endless waters.

The kirov has no business in litoral waters near coastal aviation , or for lurking subs to detect.

The kirov with its nuclear powerplant is built to be in the open sea, representing a tiny speck of a datum point that is unknown to the enemy and not possible to find conducting a search by airplane, because in open waters zircon will sink opposing carrier carrying said ASW and AWACS airplanes and then they will have nowhere to land, roughly 1000 to 1500 km from the datum point that zircon is launched.

For AWACS the situation is straight forward before even the first E2 Hawkeye is even deployed from his carrier, zircon has already been fired at lumbering CBG from 1500km away, so E2 is not detecting Kirov in open waters with such ease.

As for p8, and e3 they would have to first know where Kirov is sailing in large oceanic data plot, representing a datum speck and they covering a space for e3 of roughly 600km in radius.

Regarding satellite detection of Kirov , this is quite possible and again kirov will not be gallabanding in open water with no purpose for satellite to relay position to a submarine and come get him within weeks.

Rather kirov will conduct a mission set explicitly set out before even kirov goes underway.

By the time satellite sees kirov there has to be the marginal chance that a submarine is even nearby or along to kirovs mission route for interception by torpedo.

So it is not so simple in the world of ASW to simply go and kill kirov who represents tiny datum point in the endless ocean.

Kirov would be detect when passing off Norway and tracking will start there.

Then it's easy to keep an eye on it with AWACS and patrol aircraft.

In modern days it's really easy to track big ships.

Even on twitter with commercial satelittes people track them. Now imagine how easy it is when you have 20 military satelittes up in the sky with much better caracteristics.

US faces the same issue with its carrier. To easy to track them and russian/chibese subs can launch massive missile attacks before going in with torpedos.