The Cruiser

 "Pyotr Velikiy" was the last of four Kirov class cruisers to be built. It is believed that Peter the Great is the only seaworthy example left.  The “Kirof” had a reactor accident and was never repaired. It is believed that she was cannibalized for spares.  The “Frunze” became inactive in 1994 and was decommissioned in 1998. The “Admiral Nakhimov “ was mothballed in 1999 but re-activated in 2005.  Her current status is unknown. An  5th  example was scrapped before it was completed.  Although commonly known as a cruiser, it lacks the characteristic heavy armour and it would be more appropriate to call it a super-sized guided missile cruiser.  The only other larger vessels would be aircraft carriers. The vessel has a crew compliment of 980 with no women on board.  Current policy does not allow women onboard sea-going vessels.

Being the flagship of the Russian Northern Fleet, some luxuries are at the order of the day.  The vessel is fully air-conditioned.  There is also a sauna and small swimming pool onboard.  When not on duty, the crew has access to a gym, a library and various crew rooms where they can watch TV, listen to music or play chess and pool.  The crew gets a glass of red wine with lunch – every day.  They claim that it enhances the production of red blood cells “should something go wrong” – on the nuclear side that is.  There is enough food on board to last 90 days.

 The vessel was designed to engage large surface ships and to defend the fleet against air and submarine attack. This ship has an impressive armament of missiles and guns as well as high-tech electronics. During the cruise it is fully armed. 

Main weapons are:

• 20 × SS-N-19 Shipwreck missiles mounted on deck,
• 12 × S-300F launchers with 96 missiles (for defence against large surface and air targets),
• 2 × Osa-MA with 40 missiles
• The Kashstan air-defence missile/gun system.
  

Other weapons are:

• The automatic 130 mm AK-130 gun system,
• 30 mm AK-630,
• 10 × torpedo/missile tubes,
• Udav-1 with 40 anti-submarine rockets
• and 2 × RBU-1000 six-tube launchers.

The RBU-1000 Smerch-3 is a 300 mm caliber Russian anti-submarine and anti-torpedo rocket launcher.  What makes the ship even more impressive is its ability to defend and attack up to 30 designated targets at any given time while some torpedoes are claimed to be accurate up to 550km.  Another interesting fact is that most of the weapons are on the port side of the vessel and almost none on the starboard side.