List of battlecruisers of Russia

Izmail under construction in Saint Petersburg

After the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russian Naval General Staff decided that it needed a squadron of fast "armored cruisers"^{[Note 1]} that could use their speed to maneuver into position to engage the head of the enemy's battle line, much as Admiral Tōgō had done during the Battle of Tsushima against the Russian fleet.^[1] This concept was very different from the primary roles for the battlecruiser envisioned by the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German High Seas Fleet, which consisted of scouting for the main battle fleet and attacking enemy reconnaissance forces.^[2] The Royal Navy came to the same conclusion and developed the Queen Elizabeth-class fast battleships that could force battle on an enemy fleet and had enough protection to attack any type of ship.^[3] However, World War I and the Russian Civil War interrupted the construction of the Russian Borodino-class ships and all were scrapped.

Twenty years later the Soviet Navy issued a requirement for a ship capable of dealing with enemy cruisers, but the design began to grow as it was modified to allow for combat with German pocket battleships on even terms, and later modified to gain parity with the Scharnhorst-class battleships. Two ships were laid down in 1939, but development of their new guns lagged significantly behind their construction and six 38-centimeter (15 in) twin-gun turrets were ordered from Germany in 1940. The working drawings for the turrets and guns had not even been received when Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. The incomplete hulls of both ships were ordered scrapped in 1947.^[4]

The Navy revived its requirement for a "cruiser-killer" during the war, but the design process was quite lengthy as questions as to its armament, speed and size were debated. Joseph Stalin was the key supporter of these ships and made many of the important decisions himself, overriding the desires of the Navy. Thus, after his death in 1953, little time was wasted in cancelling the three ships that had been laid down. The hull of the most advanced ship was used as a target and the other two were scrapped on their slipways.^[5]

In the 1970s, the Navy initiated a project to construct a nuclear-powered ship capable of accommodating anti-aircraft, anti-ship and anti-submarine guided missiles in a single hull. This type, classed as a "heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser" by the Soviets, eventually emerged as the largest non-aircraft carrying surface warship built since the end of the Second World War, and was termed in the West as a battlecruiser.^[6]

Key

:^α The Kirov class was fitted with a primarily missile based main armament; this is reflected in the table with "Main armament" given instead of "Main guns".

Borodino class

The four Borodino-class battlecruisers (also referred to as Izmail class) of the Imperial Russian Navy were all laid down in December 1912^{[Note 2]} at Saint Petersburg for service with the Baltic Fleet. Construction of the ships was delayed as many domestic factories were already overloaded with orders and some components had to be ordered from abroad. The start of World War I slowed their construction still further as the foreign orders were often not delivered and domestic production was diverted into things more immediately useful for the war effort. The ships were launched in 1915–16, but the outbreak of the Russian Revolution in 1917 put a stop to their construction, which never resumed.^[7] The incomplete hulls were later sold for scrap by the Soviet Union, although some thought was given to completing the most advanced hulls. The Soviet Navy made a serious proposal in 1925 to convert Izmail, the ship closest to completion, to an aircraft carrier, but this plan was later cancelled as a result of political maneuvering on the part of the Red Army.^[8]

Kronshtadt class

Right elevation of Kronshtadt class

In the 1930s the Soviets began development of a large cruiser (большой крейсер; bol'shoy kreyser) capable of destroying 10,000-long-ton (10,160 t) cruisers built to the limits imposed by the Washington Naval Treaty, which the Soviets had not signed. Several designs were proposed, but rejected by the Navy before the concept was merged with the small battleship (Battleship 'B') then being designed for service with the Baltic and Black Sea Fleets after the Soviets agreed to follow the terms of the Second London Naval Treaty in 1937. The new design was significantly larger and was also tasked with dealing with German pocket battleships. Four were ordered shortly afterward, but the beginning of the Great Purge in August 1937 hindered the completion of the design process and the project was cancelled in early 1938 after being criticized as too weak in comparison to foreign ships.^[14]

Kronshtadt under construction in 1941

The Navy, however, still had a requirement for a ship capable of defeating enemy cruisers and the original concept was revived as Project 69. The proposed size of the ship continually escalated as the requirement was revised to allow it to fight larger ships like the German Scharnhorst-class battleships. The preliminary design was finally approved in January 1939 and two ships were laid down in November 1939, before the detailed design had even been approved.^[15]

The Project 69 ships were intended to use a newly designed 305-millimeter (12 in) gun in a new triple turret, but they were both well behind schedule when Joseph Stalin asked the Germans in February 1940 if any triple 283-millimeter (11.1 in) turrets were available for purchase under the German–Soviet Commercial Agreement. When they said no, he then asked if any twin 380-millimeter (15.0 in) turrets were available instead. Krupp had six incomplete turrets on hand that had originally been ordered before the war to rearm the Scharnhorst-class battleships, but they had been cancelled after the start of World War II. A preliminary purchase agreement was made to buy 12 guns and six turrets later that month, well before any studies were made to see if the substitution was even possible. It was later determined that they could be used, so the agreement was finalized in November 1940 with the deliveries scheduled from October 1941 to 28 March 1943.^[16]

"Project 69-I" ("Importnyi"—Imported) modified the two ships to use the German guns, even though they still lacked data for the turrets and their barbettes. The detailed design was supposed to be completed by 15 October 1941, but it was rendered pointless when the Germans invaded the Soviet Union in June.^[17] Neither ship had progressed very far at that time and both had been damaged during the war, so they were ordered scrapped on 24 March 1947 after some thought had been given to completing Kronshtadt as either an aircraft carrier or a mother ship for whalers.^[18]

Stalingrad class

Side and plan views of the Stalingrad class

The Navy reissued its requirements for a large cruiser to destroy enemy light cruisers in 1943, but none of the designs submitted were acceptable. The requirement was reissued in 1944 for a larger ship and the concept was approved by the Poliburo in 1945. However, the Navy and the Shipbuilding Commissariat disagreed about the feasibility of laying down any ships of new design before 1950, so a committee was appointed under the chairmanship of Lavrentiy Beria to resolve the issue. It mostly sided with the Shipbuilding Commissariat, but a program of seven large cruisers was approved later that year. Preliminary design work was not completed until 1948 and the size of the ship ballooned to 40,000 tonnes (39,368 long tons). Stalin intervened several times during the design process and ordered the ship's displacement reduced to 36,500 metric tons (35,924 long tons) and speed increased to 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) as well as specifying its armament as 305 millimeters (12.0 in), rather than the 220 millimeters (8.7 in) preferred by the Navy. All of these changes delayed approval of the detailed design until 1951.^[21]

The first ship was begun in November 1951 and the other two followed in 1952. By this time Stalin's support was the main impetus behind the ships and little time was wasted cancelling them after his death on 5 March 1953. Stalingrad's hull was ordered to be used for weapons tests while the two other ships were scrapped where they lay. The hull was launched in 1954 after it was modified to suit its new role. It was towed from Nikolayev to Sevastopol in 1955, but it grounded at the entrance to Sevastopol Bay. Initial attempts to pull it off the rocks by brute force failed, and the capsizing of the battleship Novorossiysk further delayed salvage work, so that she was not freed until mid-1956. She served as a target for the first generation of Soviet anti-ship missiles and a wide variety of armor-piercing weapons before she was scrapped in the early 1960s.^[22]

Kirov class

Right elevation of Kirov-class

In the 1960s, the Soviet Union originated Project 1144 Orlan, a project intended to design and build a large, nuclear powered anti-submarine vessel. At the time, the Soviets did not envisage that arming surface ships with anti-ship missiles was required, as then current doctrine had it that submarines were the main platform for attacking enemy shipping.^[29][30] However, the sinking of the Israeli destroyer INS Eilat in 1967 by anti-ship missiles fired from an Egyptian missile boat led to a re-think of the use of surface ships in the role. The threat of US Navy surface ships, which were increasingly capable of a range of different missions, led to the idea of a single ship combining anti-aircraft, anti-ship and anti-submarine capabilities crystalising.^[31][32]

Kirov (later Admiral Ushakov) in 1985

Initially, the Project 1144 ship was intended for a displacement of 9,000 tons, and equipped with anti-air and anti-ship missiles, torpedos and anti-submarine rockets, and either 57 mm or 76 mm guns. At the same time, a second nuclear-powered type was at the planning stage, Project 1165, for a cruiser containing anti-ship and anti-aircraft missiles. In August 1971, the requirements of these two different projects were amalgamated into one single hull that became Project 1144.1, which saw the ship's projected displacement start to increase.^[29]

The first hull was laid down at the Baltiysky Zavod in Leningrad in March 1974 under the name Kirov. By the time the ship was launched in December 1977, she had been reclassified as Project 1144.2, a "heavy nuclear-powered guided missile cruiser" (тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер; tyazholyy atomnyy raketnyy kreyser).^[32] Commissioned into the Northern Fleet, Kirov was the largest surface warship, excluding aircraft carriers and amphibious assault vessels, built since the end of the Second World War.^[31] Equipped with both anti-ship and anti-submarine missiles, as well as area defence and point defence surface to air missiles, torpedoes and a pair of 100 mm guns, the ship gave the Soviet Union a visible platform for power projection in the immediate absence of large aircraft carriers.^[31] Following the appearance of Kirov, two more units, Frunze and Kalinin, were commissioned at four-year intervals. When Frunze was commissioned in 1984, it was seen to have a different weapons fit to Kirov, with the pair of single 100mm guns swapped for a twin 130mm turret, and the SS-N-14 Silex ASW missile system deleted in favour of adding eight SA-N-9 Gauntlet SAM launchers. In the event, none of the four ships of the class received a completely identical armament fit.

Comparison of weapons fit of Kirov class 

The aft sections of Kirov (left) and Frunze (right) showing differences in weapons fit - Kirov has a pair of single 100mm guns, and two pairs of AK-630 CIWS mounts either side of the flight deck, whereas Frunze has a twin 130mm turret and eight SA-N-9 VLS in place of the CIWS mounts.

	Kirov / Admiral Ushakov	Frunze / Admiral Lazarev	Kalinin / Admiral Nakhimov	Yuri Andropov / Pyotr Velikiy
Anti-ship missiles	20 x SS-N-19 Shipwreck
Anti-submarine missiles	1 x twin SS-N-14 Silex
	SS-N-15 Starfish (via 533mm torpedo tube)
Surface-to-air missiles	12 x 8 SA-N-6 Grumble			6 x 8 SA-N-6 Grumble
				6 x 8 SA-N-20 Gargoyle
	2 x 20 SA-N-4 Gecko
		16 x 8 SA-N-9 Gauntlet
Guns	2 x 1 AK-100 100 mm	1 x 2 AK-130 130 mm
CIWS	8 x AK-630		6 x CADS-N-1
Antisubmarine rockets	2 x RBU-1000
	2 x RBU-12000
Torpedo tubes	10 x 533mm torpedo tubes for Type 53

The size of the Kirov class was approximately 28,000 tons full load. This was around the same size as a First World War battleship, and significantly bigger than any contemporary cruiser design, leading to commentators in the west describing them as "battlecruisers".^[33][34] Their appearance was a major factor in the US Navy reactivating its four Iowa-class battleships in the early 1980s.^[35] The fourth unit, Yuri Andropov, was launched in April 1989, with plans for a fifth ship, to be named Admiral Kuznetsov.^[36] However, the fall of the Soviet Union saw funding for the Navy collapse - the fourth ship, renamed as Pyotr Velikiy, was not commissioned until 1998, while the fifth hull was cancelled, and the remaining three laid up in varying states of disrepair.^[31] The first two are projected to eventually be scrapped, while Kalinin (renamed as Admiral Nakhimov), considered to be in better condition, is intended to undergo a major overhaul to return her to active service by 2018.^[37]

See also

• List of battlecruisers of the Second World War

Notes

Footnotes

Citations

References