The Kirov class, Soviet designation Project 1144 Orlan (Russian: Орлан, lit. ‘sea eagle’), is a class of nuclear-powered guided-missile battlecruisers of the Soviet Navy and Russian Navy, the largest and heaviest surface combatant warships (i.e. not an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship) in operation in the world. Among modern warships, they are second in size only to large aircraft carriers; they are similar in size to a World War I-era battleship. Defence commentators in the West often refer to these ships as battlecruisers - due to their size and general appearance. The Soviet classification of the ship-type is “heavy nuclear-powered guided-missile cruiser” (Russian: тяжёлый атомный ракетный крейсер).

History

Originally built for the Soviet Navy, the class is named after the first of a series of four ships constructed, Admiral Ushakov, named Kirov until 1992. Original plans called for construction of five ships.

The lead ship of the class, Kirov, was laid down in March 1974 at Leningrad’s Baltiysky Naval Shipyard, launched on 27 December 1977 and commissioned on 30 December 1980. When she appeared for the first time, NATO observers called her BALCOM I (Baltic Combatant I). She is presently laid up and was slated to be scrapped in 2021.

Design

The class was originally conceived to counter the U.S. Navy’s submarines with its large payload of SS-N-14 anti-submarine missiles, and later evolved to carry twenty P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles for countering the U.S. carrier strike groups. Ultimately the class were intended to operate alongside new nuclear-powered aircraft carriers for global power projection, however these carriers never came to fruition.

Weapon systems

The Kirov class’s main weapons are 20 P-700 Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) missiles mounted in deck, designed to engage large surface targets. Air defense is provided by twelve octuple S-300F launchers with 96 missiles and a pair of Osa-MA batteries with 20 missiles each. Pyotr Velikiy carries some S-300FM missiles and is the only ship in the Russian Navy capable of ballistic missile defence.[2] The ships had some differences in sensor and weapons suites: Kirov came with Metel anti-submarine warfare (ASW) missiles, while on subsequent ships these were replaced with 3K95 Kinzhal (Russian: Кинжал – dagger) surface-to-air missile (SAM) systems. The Kinzhal installation is in fact mounted further forward of the old SS-N-14 mounting, in the structure directly behind the blast shield for the bow mounted RBU ASW rocket launcher. Kirov and Frunze had eight 30 mm (1.18 in) AK-630 close-in weapon systems, which were supplanted with the Kortik air-defence system on later ships.

Other weapons are the automatic 130 mm (5 in) AK-130 gun system (except in Kirov which had two single 100 mm (4 in) guns instead), 10 21-inch (533 mm) torpedo/missile tubes (capable of firing RPK-2 Vyuga ASW missiles on later ships) and Udav-1 with 40 anti-submarine rockets and two sextuple RBU-1000 launchers.

Russia is developing a new anti-ship missile to equip Kirovs called the 3M22 Tsirkon, which is capable of traveling at hypersonic speeds out to at least 620 mi (540 nmi; 1,000 km).

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  • hexaflexagonbear [he/him]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Straight up leaving Canada if they push policies to make RTO mandatory for everyone. It’s expensive everywhere in Ontario, most jobs are based out of Toronto, and unless you’re a boomer or a millionaire you probably have a 1+ hour commute each way. This place sucks so much.

  • Woly [any]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Drank too much (mistake), ordered pizza (mistake), ate too much before bed (mistake), got up super late (mistake), ate more pizza for breakfast (mistake).

    I also didn’t drink any coffee in the morning because I was too lazy to make it and now I have a headache (mistake).

  • DengistDonnieDarko [none/use name]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Finding an apartment be like, “you must make $4500 a month and have 700 credit points to rent this closet we put a fridge into. There is on site laundry you have to pay $4 in quarters to use and the dryer is always broken. No pets. Give me $100 for your application so I can tell your broke ass to go die. No refunds.”

  • ClimateChangeAnxiety [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Franchising should be illegal. If we refuse to make franchising illegal we should at least require that all franchises respect the same rules as every other location.

    You don’t get to fill my mailbox with ads and coupons for Subway and then the Subway in the hospital I work in doesn’t accept coupons because they’re run by Aramark. Fuck you, give me a sandwich at a not insane price.

    This has been my very minor complaint of the day.

    • blashork [she/her]@hexbear.net
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      4 months ago

      I refuse to call it that cause it’s just a bad name. I’ll continue calling it dungeon meshi or dunmeshi, but I am partial to the better localizations like ‘dungeon delights’ and ‘gluttons and dragons’

  • Lerios [hy/hym]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    not to self-aggrandise here but i have gotten SO good at doing nothing at my bullshit job. i read and steal period products and print character sheets for free. my cookie clicker score is insane.

    BUT, the managers are coming over from fr*nce tomorrow so i have to do a bunch of shit tonight to make it look like i’ve been doing my job the whole damn time, and i have to come in early unpaid and probably sit through a really annoying meeting about targets and how we’re falling short of them. truly i suffer more than jesus france-cool

    the upside is that one of the two managers is approximately our age and he pays for our shit when we’re together, so we’re hoping we can turn the two of them against each other and get the cooler one to take us drinking on his company card afterwards.

  • Dingus_Khan [he/him, they/them]@hexbear.net
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    4 months ago

    Remember like six months ago when a minor change to the site prevented people from logging in without first doing some minor things in their browser? I didn’t bother and just kept lurking because I’m a lazy dummy, and somehow the problem solved itself for me. Another win for total apathy I suppose