The Nuclear Giant Returns: Russia's Kirov Class Is Finally Ready

Added: 2026-06-03

[00:00:11]This is the Admiral Nakamoff leaving the birth at  Sevmos. The tugs fall away. The nuclear signature on the monitoring stations begins to register  a steady heat bloom. The press service of the Northern Fleet has confirmed a specific milestone.  The cruiser has entered the third stage of sea trials. The final stage for the engineers on  board. This means every system from the reactor control room to the missile deck is operating  under combat conditions. The ship is not new.

[00:00:39]The class is Soviet, but the weapons inside the  deck are not Soviet. Walking the forward deck reveals a landscape of flat steel hatches. The  old granite launchers are gone. In their place, a grid. 176 vertical launch cells are now welded  into the hull. This is not an estimate from open- source intelligence. This is the configuration  released by the design bureau. The breakdown is specific. 80 cells belong to the offensive  mission. The remaining 96 cells belong to the defensive mission. No other surface ship anywhere  carries this number of ready rounds. The American Tyonderoga carries 122. The Chinese type 055  carries 112. The Russian cruiser carries 176.

[00:01:24]The crew does not reload at sea. The doctrine  assumes one massive engagement, one sorty, one salvo, and then return to base. Inside  those 80 cells, three different missiles sit in identical tubes. The loader does not care which is  which. The fire control computer decides. First, the P800 ONX. This is a ram jet. It flies at  treetop height. The speed is Mach 2.5. against a surface group. The ONX arrives before the radar  warning receiver finishes its first sweep. Second, the 3M14T Caliber. This missile flies subsonic,  but the range is 1500 km. The Admiral Nakamov can stand off the coast of Norway and strike  a target inside Germany. No need to enter the fjords. No need to risk the shallow water. Third,  the 3M22 Zirkcon. This is the hypersonic weapon Mach 9 at boost phase. The trajectory takes the  missile above the atmosphere. It descends at an angle that defensive systems cannot compute.  The zirkcon explode with 300 kg warhead and kinetic energy. It impacts. The kinetic energy  alone splits the target. The 80 cells hold these three weapons in any mix. The commander  decides before sailing. Heavy on zircon for carrier hunting. Heavy on caliber for coastal  bombardment. Heavy onx for fleet engagement.

[00:02:49]The remaining 96 cells serve a different purpose.  They are not for killing the enemy. They are for erasing the enemy's weapons. This is the naval  S400 system. The Russian designation is the Parliament Radut complex. 96 cells, but some of  those cells hold quadpacked missiles. The 91100 interceptor fits four to a tube. In practical  terms, the cruiser carries over 200 interceptors.

[00:03:17]The radar on the main mast is an active  electronically scanned array, four fixed faces, no moving parts. The system detects a sekming missile  at 40 km. It assigns an interceptor in less than 1 second. The doctrine of the northern fleet places  the Admiral Nakimov at the center of any surface group. The smaller frigots and corvettes screen  the perimeter, but the battle cruiser provides the umbrella. Anything that flies within 150 km  of the flagship enters the engagement zone.

[00:04:04]The reactors are KN3 models, two of them, 300  megawatt each. The thermal output drives two steam turbines and four turbo generators. The  ship can sprint at 32 knots. The interesting number is not the speed. The interesting  number is the endurance. The cruiser does not burn fuel oil. The reactors do not need  refueling for 7 years. The only limits are the food stores and the crews sanity. The third  stage of trials includes a full power reactor test. The engineers in the main control room  watch the pressure readings. The steam valves open to 100%. The shaft horsepower reaches the  design specification for the first time since the refit began 7 years ago. The vibration  through the hull changes at 30 knots. The older Kiraov class shook violently at high  speed. The new mounts and dampeners reduce the resonance. The acoustic signature  drops. The submarine listening posts hear less of the cruiser at flank speed  than they did during Soviet exercises.

[00:05:21]Inside the bridge, the layout is fully digital.  The old analog consoles from the Soviet era are gone. The crew works at large highresolution  LCD panels mounted on hardened workstations. The Russian-made ara integrated bridge system presents  synthetic radar imagery, satellite tracks, and weapon telemetry on a single unified glass  interface. The combat information center sits four decks below the armor belt. The operators watch  a single large display. The radar feeds from the ASA arrays. The sonar feeds from the bow-mounted  low-frequency array. The satellite feed from the Lyanna Reconnaissance Constellation. The ship does  not need airborne early warning. The cruiser's own radar sees out to 600 km against bombersized  targets. The fire control computer filters the clutter. The operator selects the 80 offensive  cells. The computer selects the interceptors from the 96 defensive cells. The human decision is only  the launch order. Everything else is automatic.

[00:06:34]The press service of the Northern Fleet describes  this as the third and final stage. The first stage tested the reactors at Pier side. The second stage  tested the radars in sheltered waters. The third stage tests the missile launch computers in open  ocean. The cruiser is currently firing telemetry rounds. These are missiles without warheads. The  radar tracks the launch plume. The fire control computer corrects the trajectory. The telemetry  data streams back to Sevmos for analysis. One specific test involves the Zirkcon. The telemetry  round flies a high apogee trajectory. The radar tracks the re-entry vehicle. The interceptor cells  remain cold. This is not an interception test.

[00:07:15]This is a targeting test. The cruiser proves  it can guide a hypersonic missile from launch to impact using its own radar without offboard  assistance. The Admiral Nakimoff will enter the Northern Fleet's order of battle before the winter  ice closes the White Sea. The crew has trained on the new systems for 18 months. The reactors  are stable. The cells are loaded. 176 missiles, 80 to strike, 96 to shield. Three weapons in  the offensive battery. Four interceptors in the defensive battery. A nuclear power plant  that asks for nothing but coolant water and attention from the engineers. Until now,  that's all for today and thanks for watching.