4 ms·
Ship class designations are weird. Russia keeps a ship or two designated as "battlecruisers" (in the WWII era, that would have meant a lightly-armored, probably
by brimble 4y ago
Ship class designations are weird. Russia keeps a ship or two designated as "battlecruisers" (in the WWII era, that would have meant a lightly-armored, probably fast, very large ship with battleship-class guns) that would just be called cruisers in most other navies, now. I've seen British ships with tonnage that would put them nearly up to a WWII-era heavy cruiser (step under a battlecruiser, the smallest thing generally regarded as a "capital ship" in that era) called a destroyer (formerly that would have been a much smaller size of ship), these days.
From their design, the ship class in question seem to be some kind of largish general-purpose missile cruisers with substantial armament and decent anti-air/anti-missile defenses, but not intended to survive sustained fighting (their weapon placement suggests that—all those missile tubes on the deck can't possibly be safe, but it might let them cram more weapons on there cheaply)
[VERY LATE EDIT] The TL;DR here is that "cruiser" and "destroyer" and all that are nearly meaningless without context of who's doing the labeling, and when.
[ANOTHER LATE EDIT] I overstated the degree to which the Kirov class' designation is misleading: its displacement is roughly in the range of WWII-era battlecruisers (~1/2 the displacement of an Iowa class battleship—armor is really, really heavy). It lacks battleship-class guns, but so does everything else these days and it'd be kinda silly if it had them.
- NikolaNovak 4y ago>>I overstated the degree to which the Kirov class' designation is misleading I could not figure it out easily - looks like Moskva was NOT a Kirov class, but a class down?
- brimble 4y agoCorrect. Toward the end of the age of big ship's guns it'd have been designated a heavy cruiser, probably. But, other countries operate ships they designate destroyers at roughly the same displacement, these days. Role of the ship, and just preference of the country deciding what they'll call them, is a bigger factor than size.
- speeder 4y agoThe battlecruisers are actual battlecruisers including having a lot of deck guns. They are nowhere near Ukraine though. Seemly their job is patrol seas where US warships might attack Russia. Also I`ve read the reason Iowa Battleship in USA is not fully decomissined is just in case they need it to take out the two Russian battlecruisers... not likely to be nededed but "just in case"
- ceejayoz 4y agoNo, the Kirovs don't have much in the way of guns. The main armament is 20 P-700 missiles. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirov-class_battlecruiser https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kirov-class_battlecruiser Lots of big missiles; the only real naval gun is a twin 130mm. (That's about the size of an Arleigh Burke destroyer's gun. The Iowa's 15" guns are 406mm.) If you're in gun range of a Kirov, something has gone badly wrong for the Kirov.
- nradov 4y agoAll US Navy battleships were completely decommissioned years ago. There is no possible way to reactivate any of them.
- irrational 4y agoBut, what if aliens start attacking Hawaii? Could we reactivate one of them then?
- dragonwriter 4y ago> From their design, the ship class in question seem to be some kind of largish general-purpose missile cruisers with substantial armament and decent anti-air/anti-missile defenses, My understanding is that the Moskva specifically had few and outdated anti-missile self-defense systems, but capable anti-air systems (and was, in fact, the main anti-air platform as well as the flagship for the Black Sea fleet.)