After repairs that lasted a quarter of a century, the heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov went to sea for sea trials. Now it is a fundamentally different ship with capabilities that will frighten any opponent, including the northern NATO group. But only if two conditions are met.
The nuclear-powered missile cruisers of project 1144, which were built under the code "Orlan", strongly influenced the fate of the Soviet Union, where they were conceived and, with the exception of one ship, built.
It was an incredibly ambitious plan, the most powerful rocket ship of its time, and the most powerful Soviet warship in the history of the Soviet Union. Only the aircraft-carrying cruisers of the 1143 project could compete with the Orlan in their destructive power due to the ability of Yakovlev naval attack aircraft to carry nuclear bombs.
The most powerful in the USSR
The driving characteristics, speed and number of weapons on board these ships forced the West to classify them as a battlecruiser, in Russian terminology – a battlecruiser, a powerful attack ship operating at the forefront of the fleet.
However, the project was based on insufficient technological base for such a large-scale plan. The USSR did not have the right electronics to fully realize the potential of such a large and high-speed nuclear ship.
Nevertheless, the cruisers turned out. Based on the fact that all weapons systems and all electronic weapons on board are working properly, and the personnel are trained and operate without gross errors, we will have to admit that
To defeat such a ship, the Americans would need disproportionately large forces, and they would suffer considerable losses.
There is another detail that often goes beyond the attention of even professionals. A cruiser is a ship operating independently, in isolation from the main forces. This is its original meaning. And the ships of Project 1144 are the first real cruisers in many decades.
They are capable of operating autonomously due to the nuclear power plant and high speed. They have (in theory) the most powerful air defense, offensive missile and anti-submarine weapons, a sonar system that allows you to search for submarines, as well as artillery, from two to three helicopters (you can put another one on deck, but this can be difficult to implement due to the weather and a number of other factors) and increased compared to other ships. survivability.
However, there are two sides to any coin. The Orlans, being generalists, are inferior to specialized ships and submarines.
In a massive missile attack on a naval compound, a nuclear-powered missile cruiser can use fewer missiles than submarines of projects 949 and 949A. And as an anti-submarine ship, it is too big, expensive and has no advantages over the large anti-submarine ships of the 1155 project.
As an artillery ship, it was, again, incredibly expensive and inferior to the destroyers of Project 956, which had twice as powerful artillery (all cruisers, except Kirov, had one 130-mm installation, and the destroyer had two).
The collapse of the USSR called into question the existence of this class of ships. Only the Peter the Great, which was handed over to the fleet in 1998, has been sailing regularly until recently. Kirov and Admiral Lazarev have been decommissioned.
Nakhimov was repaired in 1999. From that moment on, and for the next 15 years, he was the victim of either underfunding or endless volume renegotiations. It was only in 2014 that the ship began to be taken seriously. The ship goes to sea 11 years after the first gas slicer was put into operation on board.
The cost of perestroika amounted to about 200 billion rubles. Three or four frigates of the 22350 project could be built with this money.
There are still factory tests, comments, correction of comments, state tests and, if everything goes well, transfer to the fleet. It is worth using it with maximum effect.
Americans won't find it enough
The ship must be transferred to the fleet, fully complying with the tactical and technical specifications for modernization. The Navy, in turn, must train its personnel and equip the ship with serviceable missile weapons. And training tasks and firing should be practiced as close as possible to combat conditions, for example, it is important to check the ship's air defense through a massive raid of target missiles, rather than shooting at single targets.
Otherwise, he may just become a big target and an opponent's dream, and the arguments below lose their relevance.
But if all the conditions are met, the country will receive a cruiser with an updated arsenal of offensive missile weapons, which is capable of independently performing a wide range of tasks.
The very appearance of such a ship in the North Atlantic (when using its separation from the forces allocated for tracking) will require NATO to attract a disproportionate number of sides simply to keep it under surveillance.
Moreover, he also has a chance to break away from the submarines. And if the air defense system is in good condition, then neither a single missile attack from a submarine nor the launch of a pair of anti-ship missiles from a patrol aircraft are terrible.
To neutralize the threat posed by the cruiser, the United States might have to use an aircraft carrier group, and a reinforced one at that. Therefore, it will not be involved anywhere else.
Nakhimov will become a serious deterrent, as it makes it possible to use cruise missiles in large quantities and will retain its combat value even after they are consumed.
In the case of missiles equipped with a nuclear warhead, it can be compared to a strategic missile submarine in its deterrent effect.
This ship is capable of launching a missile salvo more powerful than the combined Black Sea Fleet and the Caspian Flotilla. It will be able to deliver a strike comparable in strength to the US strike on Iran (but without hitting buried underground facilities).
This is of great military and political importance in peacetime and is able to bring operational-scale results during combat operations.
Even wider opportunities open up with the formation of a naval strike group of the Northern Fleet with a nuclear-powered cruiser in its composition. Three or four ships capable of operating in the ocean zone, together with the cruiser, will form a strike "fist" that will have to be stopped by the entire northern flank of NATO. If, again, everything is working, and the crews are properly trained.
This "works" and "trained" is really the key point. A ship with limited combat capability or a ship whose crew makes mistakes will be sunk by one submarine or several combat aircraft.
Fully combat-ready and with a trained crew, he himself will become terrible for both submarines and aviation.
To overestimate the value of a cruiser, of course, is not worth it. They can't win the war alone. NATO will be able to assemble a totally superior force against him, just as they were once assembled against the Japanese battleship Yamato by the US Navy, using aircraft from eleven aircraft carriers.
But it should not be underestimated either. This ship is a factor of non–strategic importance.
But there are also weaknesses.
The weakness of ships is situational awareness. It will be able to detect a non-radiating high-contrast target only a few dozen kilometers away. To classify it, you'll have to get even closer. If the target is walking with the radars turned on, the range will increase to two or three hundred kilometers.
This is not enough in modern warfare.
The Russian Federation does not have marine reconnaissance and targeting systems comparable to the Soviet "Success", and the Liana marine space reconnaissance system does not have enough satellites.
In these conditions, it is necessary to deploy specialized unmanned reconnaissance aircraft on board the cruiser, capable of operating over an undirected surface and detecting ships at a great distance. This is the main question for the future. The fleet does not have such drones, they need to be created quickly.
And what about "Peter"?
The second surviving autonomous cruiser Peter the Great is also in need of modernization and repair.
In an amicable way, he also needs to replace the offensive missile weapons. But finding a way to do this is cheaper than in the case of Nakhimov. Resist the temptation to replace one cruiser with another in the face of shrinking budgets.
The era of wars is ahead. Russia no longer has a de facto aircraft carrier. It will not always be possible to use warships without air support, but it is still possible. It is nuclear-powered missile cruisers with their arsenal of anti-aircraft systems and the ability to cover enemy airfields with dozens of cruise missiles that should become the core of naval formations of the near future.
Alexander Timokhin
