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The Kuznetsov Up Close
By Norman Polmar, Author of Guide to the Soviet Navy
The Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Kuznetsov has departed the Black Sea and Mediterranean, passed through the Strait of Gibraltar, and sailed into an unknown future. The Kuznetsov, the largest warship ever built in a Soviet or Russian shipyard, was at anchor at Severmorsk on the Kola Peninsula when this article was written. It is not known when or if the ship Will go to sea again. Nor is it known if a sister ship, the Varyag,
Will go to sea, or if a third, larger carrier, the nuclear-propelled Ul’yanovsk, will be completed.
Although seemingly small in comparison with the USS Nimitz (CVN-68)-class carriers, the 65,000-ton Kuznetsov is the largest Warship to be built by any country °flter than the United States since die end of World War II. Further, she is one of the most heavily armed warships afloat. Beneath the ski ramp at the forward end of the flight deck are vertical launching Cells for 12 SS-N-19 antiship mis- stles. These are supersonic mis- stles with a range of some 300 nautical miles, carrying a warhead of about one ton. While Western sources credit the SS-N-19—aptly named “Shipwreck” by NATO intelligence—with nuclear capability, a 1989 Soviet broadcast stated explicitly that the ship would not carry nuclear weapons.'
More ominous is the ship’s defensive armament: 24 vertical launchers for the SS-N-6 missile, with 192 missiles in the below- deck launchers. Eight multiple launchers—called CADS (combined air-defense system) by Western intelligence—are provided for the SA-N-11 short-range missiles. Each launcher has rails for up to eight missiles, as well as two 30-mm. Gatling guns (with six barrels each). Unlike previous close-in gun systems in Soviet ships, the CADS has autonomous search-and-track radars (similar to the U.S. Navy’s Phalanx). There
are also a pair of 30-mm. Gatling guns amidships, both port and starboard, and two single mounts at the stem—a total of six guns, in addition to the 16 missiles in the CADS mounts.
The Kuznetsov's final defensive weapons are a pair of rocket launchers designated RBU-1200 (Raketnaya Bom- bometnaya Ustanovka). These ten-tube weapons are mounted at the carrier’s stem; whereas RBUs are usually antisubmarine weapons, these launchers may be part of an active antitorpedo system. (The launchers have been seen only in the Kuznetsov and one earlier carrier.)
The weapons and other ship functions are supported by massive radar and electronic arrays. Many systems—including the fixed-array Sky Watch radars—were fitted earlier in the Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union Gorshkov, the four-VSTOL carrier built by the then-Soviet Navy. The antennas in the Kuznetsov are dominated by the massive, circular Cake Stand tactical aircraft navigation (TACAN) antenna. The more significant Sky Watch radars are the primary air- surface search radars. Like the SPY-1 radars in the U.S. Navy’s Ticonderoga (CG-47)-class cruisers, the antennas are placed at 90° angles to the ship’s centerline, two forward and two aft on the superstmcture. (On the smaller Arleigh Burke [DDG-51]-class destroyers, the antennas are at a 45° angle to the centerline.)
Above each Sky Watch antenna is a solid-bar electronic countermeasures (ECM) antenna. A variety of other ECM antennas, mostly bell- and bowl-shaped, are stacked along the sides of the large island structure. The quantity and variety of electronic and electro-optic equipment on the Kuznetsov testify to the technology level of the Soviet Navy on the eve of the Soviet Union’s collapse as a superpower.
Less clear is the Kuznetsov's aircraft situation. Soviet sources have stated that the ship will carry up to 60 aircraft, while Western sources generally credit the ship with some 30 aircraft—the number that can be accommodated in the ship’s hangar. The tie-down devices that cover U.S. carrier flight decks are not obvious on the Kuznetsov, indicating that only a few, if any, aircraft normally would be stowed on deck.
Based on the ship’s flight trials, that began in the fall of 1990, the ship’s air group will probably be comprised primarily of MIG-29K Fulcrum air-intercept and attack fighters and Su-27K Flanker air-intercept fighters.2 Both are high-performance fighters with pulse-Doppler radar, infrared search-and- track devices, and helmet-mounted sights. The Flanker can mount up to ten air-to-air missiles, the Fulcrum six missiles plus bombs or air-to-surface missiles. Both aircraft have a 30mm. multibarrel cannon.
The carrier also has operated two-seat Su-25UB Frogfoot transition trainer-attack aircraft, although there is no indication at present that attack variants will be embarked in the ship. Ka-27 Helix helicopters are used for search-and-rescue, with a radar early warning variant having been sighted. (This aircraft will provide radar surveillance in lieu of the modified, fixed-wing An-74 Madcap STOL aircraft, which has been seen in a radar configuration.)
While the Kuznetsov’s air group would be inferior to the 80 high-performance aircraft in a Nimitz-class carrier, the Kuznetsov could provide an effective aerial fighting force in many scenarios—if and when the ship goes to sea.
'Moscow TASS report by Yuriy Kozmin, 22 November 1989, 0746 GMT.
•See “Soviet Tailhooks,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, December 1991, pp. 88-89.
'See “Memoirs of Wartime Minister of the Navy,” U.S. Naval Institute Proceedings, November 1991, p. 103.
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Kuznetsov | |
Builder: | Black Sea Shipyard, Nikolayev |
| (south) |
Laid down: | January 1983 |
Launched: | 5 December 1985 |
Completed: | November 1989 |
Displacement: | 65,000 tons full load ; |
Length: | 997 feet |
Flight deck width: | 230 feet |
Beam: | Approx. 125 feet 1 |
Draft: | Approx. 36 feet |
Propulsion: | Steam turbines; 200,000 shaft |
| horsepower; 4 shafts |
Boilers: | 8 |
Speed: | Approx. 30 knots |
Even without aircraft on deck, the Kuznetsov is an impressive sight as the carrier steams through the Strait of Gibraltar en route to the Russian Northern Fleet operating area. Unlike her U.S. counterparts, the Kuznetsov is heavily armed: shown here (counterclockwise, from left) are one of the four groupings of six SA-N-9 vertical missile launchers and one CADS mount, with twin 30-mm. Gatling guns and four rails for SA-N-11 missiles, and a closeup view of a CADS mount ( no missiles are fitted). Defensive systems include a large number of electronic-countermeasure (ECM) devices. The Sky Watch phased-array radars are similar to the AN/SPY-1 radars in U.S. Aegis-class ships; the bar-like antenna above each screen is for identification- friend-or-foe (IFF). The ship’s offensive missile battery consists of 12 SS-N-19 antiship missile tubes hidden in the flight deck.
Note: The ship originally was named Leonid Brezhnev on 18 November 1982; eight days after the death of General Secretary Brezhnev, she was renamed Tbilisi by the Soviet government in November 1988 to honor the capital of the Georgian Soviet Socialist Republic. In 1990, with anti-Soviet riots in Georgia, the ship was renamed for Admiral N. G. Kuznetsov, the Commander-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy from 1939 to 1947 and again from 1951 to 1956.'