"Admiral Lazarev", nuclear cruiser: history and characteristics

2024 Author: Howard Calhoun | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 10:16

Missile cruisers are a fairly new type of ships that did not grow out of classic cruisers with a rich biography, but formed a separate direction in world shipbuilding based on destroyers. A subclass of nuclear warships occupied a special place in their development.

And since they were created to conduct a nuclear missile war, they did not have traditional constructive protection. And part of the displacement, intended to carry heavy armor, was absorbed by more and more new types of weapons with their changed volumes and energy consumption, as well as crew quarters, for which the requirements have also changed, especially on ships designed for long autonomous navigation.

Orlan Project

The project was based on the premise of creating an ocean-going ship of unlimited autonomy, which was supposed to search for and then destroy nuclear submarine missile carriers in the vast oceans.

Leningrad Northern Design Bureau received a TOR for the development of a new project, which was named "Orlan" and number 1144. The project includeda local scheme for protecting the most important types of weapons from the impact of a missile attack. Therefore, most of the weapons were hidden below deck.

The main enemy of the new ship was assumed to be powerful enemy aircraft. And to combat it, air defense systems of various operating principles and calibers were introduced into the armament. Anti-ship missiles were designed to fight aircraft carriers.

Project 1144 was very extended in time, supplemented and reworked. The appearance of a multi-purpose warship loomed more and more clearly. At one of the stages, the future ship received the final classification, it became a heavy nuclear missile cruiser.

Ships of the Orlan project (abroad it received the designation Kirov-class battlecruiser named after the first TARK) have no analogues abroad. The total displacement of the cruiser is almost 26,000 tons, while even the non-serial missile cruiser with a nuclear power plant "Long Beach" of the US Navy is one and a half times less.

The government of the Soviet Union decided to build four warships of this class.

After the laying of the first cruiser, the project was finalized, and the next three cruisers were built according to project 11442. All ships differ in the types and number of weapons. It was assumed that all ships would be equipped according to the new project, but not all types of weapons were put into mass production and were added as they were ready. Therefore, only the last cruiser corresponds to the project almost completely.

Shipsproject 1144

TARK "Kirov", laid down in the spring of 1977, entered service in the last days of 1980. In 1992, she was included in the Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy under the new name "Admiral Ushakov" and was decommissioned in 2004. Currently awaiting disposal.

The next was the Frunze, laid down in the summer of 1978 and commissioned in the fall of 1984. The ship's new name is Admiral Lazarev. The nuclear cruiser was the only one of the ships of the Orlan project that served in the Pacific Fleet.

TARK "Kalinin" was laid down with some delay, in the spring of 1983, it entered service at the end of 1988. Later it became known as "Admiral Nakhimov". Currently under repair in Severodvinsk and will be handed over to the Northern Fleet in 2018.

The Admiral Lazarev, a nuclear-powered cruiser whose modernization can begin only after the first ship of the series is either scrapped in Severodvinsk or completes the reconstruction and leaves for the Admiral Nakhimov duty station, is waiting for her fate to be decided at the berth walls of a repair plant in the Pacific Ocean.

The construction of the fourth ship, the completion of the first stage of which took place at the collapse of the USSR and, in connection with this, a sharp reduction in funding, dragged on for many years. Laid down in 1986, it entered service only in 1998. But now the flagship of the Northern Fleet "Peter the Great" is the only one in service.

Cruiser technical data

So, the current "Admiral Lazarev", a nuclear-powered cruiser, whose length is 252, width - 28,5 and draft - more than 9 m, became the second ship of the Orlan project. The forecastle of a cruiser is about 70% of the ship's length. It is divided by watertight bulkheads into sixteen compartments. There are 5 decks throughout the hull. In the stern, below deck, there is a hangar for three helicopters and a lift to bring them upstairs, as well as rooms for storing fuel and ammunition. The main material of superstructures is aluminum-magnesium alloys.

There is no general reservation on the cruiser, but the bottom is made double to protect against combat damage, and at the waterline level, a thickened sheathing belt stretches along the perimeter, its height is 1 m below the waterline and 2.5 m above it.

Armored protection

Armored protection is made in the engine and reactor compartments, missile cellars, helicopter hangar, ammunition cellars, fuel storages. Artillery installations, the ship's main command post and combat information post were protected.

"Admiral Lazarev" - nuclear cruiser, the characteristics of which allow unlimited time to be in autonomous navigation on a nuclear reactor. And on boilers at the declared speed, it can be at sea for 1000 days.

Its maximum displacement is 26.2 thousand tons. On auxiliary boilers, it can reach speeds of seventeen knots, and on the main plant - 31 knots, or in land measurement 57 km / h.

Power plant

Admiral Lazarev is a nuclear-powered cruiser powered by nuclear fuel.

Two-shaft power plant withfive blade screws. It consists of two thermal neutron pressurized water reactors with a power of 600 MW, two steam turbines with a total capacity of 140,000 hp. s.

Each of the two autonomous sections of the steam generating plant includes a reactor with systems and maintenance devices. PPU is located in the reactor compartment. On both sides of it, along the bow and stern of the ship, there is a steam turbine plant of two autonomous parts, and each of them works for its own line.

The cruiser also provides a backup option for providing turbines with steam. Automated fossil fuel steam boilers produce 115 tons of steam per hour each.

The supply of steam and condensate is carried out on any board through an extensive network of pipelines.

The ship is powered by four turbine generators, each with a capacity of 3000 kW, and four gas turbine generators of 1500 kW each. They are placed in four compartments.

Such a power plant allows you to provide electricity and heat to a small city of thousands per 150 population.

Missile weapons

TARK "Admiral Lazarev" is a nuclear-powered cruiser, whose armament is missile, anti-aircraft, artillery, torpedo-mine, supplemented by aircraft.

The main strike force of the ship is twenty anti-ship missile systems (ASMS) "Granit" - supersonic cruise missiles with a launch weight of 7 tons, flying low at the target, with a flight range of more than 600 km. They are located in launchers below deck in the bow. The elevation angle is 47°.

Missiles in flight are autonomous, one of them flies higher than the others in a salvo and controls them, distributes targets, in front of the target they all perform a complex anti-aircraft maneuver.

For close defense, the cruiser is equipped on both sides of the bow superstructure with Osa-MA air defense systems with retractable twin-beam launchers for 40 missiles.

The main means of air defense of the far zone on the cruiser are two S-300F Fort anti-aircraft missile systems, with six vertical launch launchers each.

One launcher is designed to launch eight missiles, that is, the ship can fire 96 missiles at the same time. The Fort is able to hit targets with a flight speed of up to 1.3 km/sec at a distance of up to 75 km, at an altitude of 25,000 to 25,000 meters.

Artillery and anti-aircraft weapons

The nuclear missile cruiser "Admiral Lazarev" was equipped with a two-gun 130-mm AK-130 turret located in the stern with an M-184 fire control system, which can simultaneously track two targets. Horizontally, the guns can turn 180°, vertically descend to minus 10° and rise to 85°.

This versatile complex can fire at air, coastal and sea targets at a speed of up to 86 rounds per minute at a distance of up to 25 km.

"Admiral Lazarev" - a nuclear cruiser, the short-range anti-aircraft artillery on which was represented by fourbatteries of two six-barreled 30-mm AK-630M assault rifles and a total ammunition load of 48 thousand shells.

ASW weapons

The heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Lazarev was equipped with the Vodopad missile system as anti-submarine weapons, with model 83RN or 84RN missile-torpedoes launched from torpedo tubes along the sides of the ship. The rocket dived into the water, the engine was started at a depth, it flew out and flew through the air to the target at a distance of up to 60 km. Only there the warhead was separated - a 400-mm homing torpedo UMGT-1 or a nuclear depth bomb. Ammunition was up to thirty missile torpedoes.

In the bow, a twelve-barreled 213-mm bomb launcher RBU-6000 "Smerch-2" was installed, and two 303-mm bomb launchers 6 RBU-1000 "Smerch-3" were installed in the stern.

Air Squadron

"Admiral Lazarev" - a nuclear cruiser, on board of which an aviation detachment of three heavy helicopters of anti-submarine modification or target designation was based, depending on the tasks assigned. They could perform search and rescue, reconnaissance and target designation, anti-submarine search tasks. In addition to the hangar below deck, lift and storage of ammunition, the cruiser was equipped with a runway at the stern and an aviation control post with the necessary navigational equipment. Separate cabins were provided for the crews.

The cruisers of this project were the first to receive such a displacement reserve so that both cars and fuel supply for them could be covered under deck.

Radar weapons and communications

"Admiral Lazarev" - a nuclear-powered cruiser with the latest electronic weapons. It included the MR-600 Voskhod and MR-710M Fregat-M surveillance radars, combined into the Flag radar complex, two Vaigach navigation stations, two Podkat low-flying target detection stations, and the Privod-V system. » for radio navigation of helicopters.

Radio reconnaissance and electronic warfare were carried out by the Cantata-M complex. The countermeasures also included two twin launchers of a jamming complex with 400 rounds of ammunition, a towed decoy torpedo target with a powerful noise generator.

The Typhoon-2 radio communication complex consisted of communication systems in different wavelength ranges, including the Tsunami-BM satellite communication.

Control was carried out using the combat information and control system (CICS) "Lumberjack 44".

Ship crew

The nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Lazarev, pr. 1144/11442, served a crew of more than seven hundred people, including 100 to 120 officers.

For officers and midshipmen, single and double cabins were intended, for sailors and foremen - cockpits designed for 6-30 people. The team members had at their disposal two baths, a sauna, a 6 × 2.5 m swimming pool, fifteen showers, a medical unit with an X-ray room, an outpatient clinic, an operating room, an infirmary and a pharmacy.

For recreation on the cruiser there are three cabins, salon, gym.

And on board there was its own television studio, three elevators and forty-nine corridorsalmost twenty kilometers long.

The cruiser's past

"Admiral Lazarev", a nuclear-powered cruiser, until 1992 bearing the name "Frunze", from 1984 to 1996 changed several tail numbers: 190, 050, 028, 014, 058, 010, 015. The cruiser was launched in the spring of 1981, entered service in the fall of 1984, and in the fall of 1985 made the transition from the B altic to the duty station in Vladivostok.

On the way, the TARK called at the ports of Luanda in Angola, Aden in South Yemen and several ports in Vietnam.

The collapse of the Soviet Union led to serious problems, including in the Navy. While the last ship of the series was being completed with great effort, the first two fell into almost complete disrepair. In the 90s of the last century, the Admiral Lazarev was withdrawn from the fleet for a long-term conservation and laid up in Abrek Bay. At the end of the century, it was prepared for disposal, then a small part of the funds for repairs was found at one of the regional repair enterprises.

At the end of 2002, a fire broke out on the ship in one of the cockpits. The fire was fought for four hours, but it was safely extinguished. Two years later, nuclear power plants were removed from the cruiser.

This is what the Admiral Lazarev nuclear cruiser looked like back in 2011 (photo below).

The future of the cruiser

While the ship is laid up, it is useless to guess about its future fate. The decision on modernization has been made, but whether it will be carried out, and to what extent, will showtime.

"Admiral Lazarev" - a nuclear-powered cruiser, the modernization of which will have to take place according to the reduced technical project for the restoration of the Admiral Nakhimov TARK, has now undergone repairs in the dock to restore buoyancy at the 30th shipyard of the Pacific Fleet and is awaiting further changes in its fate.

Let today there is only one of the four highly autonomous TARKs in service, they still remain the largest and most powerfully armed in the world in their class. The first and only nuclear-powered surface ships of the Soviet and later Russian navy, which have no analogues in the world.