Russian battlecruiser Kirov

Common card · No. 348305

Admiral Ushakov is the lead ship of the Project 1144 Orlan (NATO reporting name Kirov class) of battlecruisers. Originally built for the Soviet Navy as Kirov and passed onto the succeeding Russian Navy, it and its three sister ships are the largest and heaviest surface combatant warships (i.e. not an aircraft carrier or amphibious assault ship) built by them. It was laid down on 26 March 1974 at the Baltic Shipyard in Leningrad, launched on 27 December 1977, and commissioned on 30 December 1980. In May 1992 all four ships of the class were renamed, and Kirov was given the name Admiral Ushakov. Kirov entered service in the Northern Fleet in 1981 and remained in service until 1990, when it suffered a reactor accident while in the Mediterranean Sea. In 1999 there was a proposal to modernize the ship, but the plan was abandoned, and Admiral Ushakov was decommissioned in 2002.

Read on Wikipedia · Image Public domain