Here's Why America (and the World) Still Fears Russia's Kirov-Class Warship The Kirovs (Project 1144) originated as nuclear-powered anti-submarine cruisers designed to hunt down American missile submarines or protect Soviet nuclear "bushings" from US and British attack ships. During their initial concept, the Soviets did not focus on anti-ship capabilities on their surface ships. However, advances in missile technology, coupled with the increasing threat posed by American surface ships, and especially American ships, made it possible to imagine a ship capable of combining surface, underground and anti-submarine warfare capabilities. Capable of performing all these tasks, the ship was extremely large by Cold War standards. Built around the P-700 Granit surface-to-surface missile system, the Kirovs could threaten Western carrier battlegroups while playing an anti-submarine role. With a displacement of twenty-six thousand tons, the Kirovs dwarfed previous Soviet surface ships. Indeed, the United States No surface warships of this size had been built since World War II.

Unfortunately, the author did not fully reveal the weapons and capabilities of this ship. Its greatness comes from the challenge of building a ship that can accommodate a multi-layered system of defense and attack. This ship (after the completion of modernization in 2023) will include a 4-layer air defense system - a long-range S500 system (up to 600 km), medium-range missiles (up to 250 km), as well as a complex. a range (up to 120 km) and a complex short-range SM shell (up to 40 km). And this ship will have several hundred anti-aircraft missiles, so that it can protect against US carrier aircraft without any problems.
In addition, it is equipped with 64 Zircon anti-ship missiles (with a range of up to 1000 km), which will allow the American carrier strike group to hit their aircraft without going into coverage. Also 3 anti-submarine helicopters (thanks to interchangeability, they can provide 24-hour anti-submarine defense and target designation) and anti-submarine missiles with a launch range of up to 100 km - which significantly exceeds. The launch range of American torpedoes, which will also allow this ship to destroy American submarines from an inaccessible area. It turned out to be too big for any combination of weapons, and this is a very formidable Machine today! But it is very expensive, therefore, unfortunately, there are very few in Russia :(