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By A. D. Baker, III, Editor, Combat Fleets of the World
The third Soviet Navy Slava-class cruiser, Chernova Ukraina, cruises here from the Black Sea to her new home port in the Pacific during
October 1990. The fourth and last ship of the class, Admiral Lobov, was launched on 15 August at the 61 Kommunars Shipyard, Nikolayev, after which, according to the Soviet press, there will be no further warships built at the facility, which had been responsible for building destroyers and cruisers since prior to World War II. With the ending of major combatant construction at Baltic Shipyard Leningrad, where the keel for a fifth Kirov-class nuclear- powered cruiser was cut up in 1989, there are now no true cruisers being built in the Soviet Union, and only two yards are building destroyersized ships: North Yard (formerly Zhdanov Shipyard) in Leningrad, which is building the Sovremennyy class; and Yantar Shipyard in Kaliningrad, which is building the Udaloy class. Chernova Ukraina differs primarily from her two predecessors in having the new Top Plate radar atop the forward tower mast in place of Top Steer and in having a number of additional decoy rocket launchers.
Neustrashimyy (“Redoubtable”), the first of a class of Soviet Navy frigates formerly known as “Bal-Com-8” by NATO, is seen during trials in December 1990. Apparently fully- equipped in this view, Neustrashimyy lacks any provision for the prominent cruise missile launch tubes of other Soviet major surface combatants built over the last three decades. Instead, the 426-foot-long, 4,000- ton-plus, gas turbine-powered ship is equipped primarily for antisubmarine warfare with fixed torpedo tubes angled forward out of the after deck
house structure and flanking a large helicopter hangar. A single RBU- 6000 antisubmarine rocket launcher is mounted forward. For air and surface defense, the frigate has four octuple vertical launch groups for SA-N-9 missiles (with a single Cross Sword tracker/illuminator), a 100mm. dual-purpose gun forward, and two of the new CADS-1 gatling gun/ point defense missile mountings flanking the hangar. A variable depth sonar housing at the stern rises higher than the large helicopter deck and is flanked by mine rails. Great
M.O.D., BONN
attention has been paid to radar and infrared signature reduction, with the sides of each level of the superstructure being broken by horizontal knuckles to reduce radar return, and unusually low stacks (the after group of exhausts are immediately abaft the taller of the two masts, which is surmounted by the antenna for a Top Plate 3-D radar). The hull sides have an almost flat flare, and the sheer line of the upper deck is reversed downward at the bow to improve the arc of fire of the 100-mm. gun at low angles.
Proceedings / June 1991