Russia’s Modernized Nuclear Battlecruiser Finally Powers Up Its Reactors: Report

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Russia’s Modernized Nuclear Battlecruiser Finally Powers Up Its Reactors: Report

The hugely delayed effort to return the Russian Navy’s nuclear-powered battlecruiser

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to service is finally yielding some tangible results, according to

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. Russian state media states that the 28,000-ton battlecruiser’s two nuclear reactors are now online, with claims that the warship should go back to sea for trials starting this summer. It remains to be seen whether that timeline proves anywhere remotely accurate, with the warship’s return to service having been delayed multiple times in the past.

“Last Sunday, the second nuclear reactor was physically launched on the Admiral Nakhimov cruiser,” an unnamed source in Russia’s defense-industrial complex

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the state-run TASS news agency. The same outlet reports that the warship’s first reactor went online at the end of December 2024.

A July 20, 2024, satellite image from the berth at Sevmash shipyard shows the Admiral Nakhimov in the water, but with much work still to be done before it can start sea trials.

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Earth

“The consecutive physical launch of the cruiser’s two reactors demonstrates the readiness of the entire nuclear powerplant of the ship for operation in all modes,” TASS reported today, noting that the Admiral Nakhimov is currently in the Sevmash shipyard in the port city of Severodvinsk on the White Sea.

First launched in 1986, the Admiral Nakhimov is part of the class of warships known in Russia as the Project 11442, which is

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. In its modernized form, the battlecruiser has the revised designation Project 11442M.

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Admiral Nakhimov, which was originally named Kalinin, photographed in around 1991, just three years after being commissioned into service. DoD

For years, the Admiral Nakhimov was in dry dock undergoing a deep refit, with the original promise being that the warship would eventually emerge as basically new, with a whole range of new weapons and sensors. While those ambitions have been scaled back, adding another Kirov class vessel to the Russian Navy would be a powerful statement, both in terms of capabilities and, more significantly, prestige.

Currently, the Russian Navy operates a single Kirov class battlecruiser,

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(Peter the Great), which serves with the Northern Fleet having undergone only minor modernization. As a result, it still relies primarily on its Soviet-era weapons and sensors. At one time, it was planned that the Pyotr Veliky would undergo the same in-depth rework as the Admiral Nakhimov, once the work on the latter had been completed. The status of those plans is now very uncertain, with

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that the Russian Navy may retire the battlecruiser altogether and concentrate on the Admiral Ushakov.

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SEVMASH shipyard continues upgrading the Project 11442/Kirov class heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser Admiral Nakhimov (ex. Kalinin) to Project 11442M mod. I wonder when (and if) this decades long upgrade saga will end.Video released in November 2022 by SEVMASH.

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Two earlier hulls, the Admiral Ushakov and the Admiral Lazarev have been out of service for many years and have since been consigned to scrap.

While there have been many interruptions to the effort to get the Admiral Nakhimov back to operational status — not least the turmoil as a result of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine — it should be recalled that this was never going to be a straightforward undertaking.

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The Admiral Nakhimov seen in the the Sevmash shipyard in 2017, totally stripped and with a green and red base coat applied.

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screencap

After all, the Admiral Nakhimov had sat idle for over a decade in the frigid White Sea, with work only really starting to progress in 2014. Since then, the planned delivery date has also been pushed back repeatedly. Originally the project was going to be completed around 2018. Then it was pushed back to 2019, and then 2020. As of 2017, TASS

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that work on the battlecruiser should be completed by 2021. Then, in 2021, it was reported that the warship wouldn’t return to service before 2023, while in 2022 the Sevmash shipyard stated that service re-entry had now been pushed back to 2024.

It’s certainly not the case that the shipyard has been idle, however.

Previous images from Severodvinsk have shown huge portions of the warship entirely gutted, with the expectation that they will accommodate new weapons and sensors.

The ambition of thoroughly remodeling the battlecruiser has certainly been evident, although it remains to be seen exactly how thorough this has been, once the warship finally goes back to sea.

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The Admiral Nakhimov surrounded by scaffolding, in the the Sevmash shipyard in 2017.

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screencap

Originally, the refit was set to provide the Admiral Nakhimov with no fewer than 174 vertical launch tubes — which would provide it with more than any other surface combatant or submarine in the world. Plans called for 80 of these tubes to accommodate various modern Russian cruise missiles, including the subsonic

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, the supersonic

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, and supposedly the hypersonic

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.

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The former location of the Granit (SS-N-19 Shipwreck) missile farm in the hull of the Admiral Nakhimov during its refit. Now, vertical launch cells should fill the space where 20 angled Granit launch tubes were previously found.

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screencap

As far as Russia has claimed, Zircon has to date only been deployed on Russian Navy 

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 frigates, although there is compelling evidence that the missile has also been 

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. Previously, there were public announcements that the Kirov class

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for the hypersonic weapon, although any such plans would have been superseded by the delays with the modernization of the Admiral Nakhimov.

Meanwhile, for air defense, other tubes would reportedly be filled with surface-to-air missiles associated with the

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system, derived from the land-based

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system. While these were part of the previous armament, they would have been bolstered by eight Pantsir-M combined gun/missile systems for short-range air defense. Other

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in the past have suggested that missiles from the land-based

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air defense system may be incorporated, as a further evolution of the S-300FM, which would provide a more robust anti-ballistic missile capability.

Alongside these new weapons, the Admiral Nakhimov was at one time set to have almost every item of combat-related equipment replaced with more modern successors as part of a wide-ranging systems overhaul.

A video gives some idea as to how extensive the work on the Admiral Nakhimov has been (starts at 4:45):

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If the Admiral Nakhimov does emerge with the promised full set of new weapons and sensors — and that’s a big question — it will provide the Russian Navy with its most powerful surface combatant. The modernized warship — together with the less-capable Pyotr Veliky — will then be available as the centerpieces of Russian flotillas. Their value will be greater since the prospect of the aircraft carrier

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returning to service — at least, any time soon — remains unclear.

With the Russian Defense Ministry meanwhile prioritizing the war in Ukraine, as well as modernization of the strategic arsenal, the Russian Navy may well consider itself lucky to be able to put a major surface combatant into service, albeit a reworked one. This is especially relevant since plans to develop a new class of ‘super-destroyer’

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, with current construction programs focusing on more modest frigates and corvettes, as well as new-generation submarines.

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A model of the Project 23560 Lider class nuclear-powered destroyer, work on which appears to have been suspended indefinitely. Artem Tkachenko via Wikimedia

It’s worth noting that the Kirov class represents the last nuclear-powered surface combatant in service anywhere in the world, with the U.S. Navy having retired the last of

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in the 1990s, primarily on cost grounds.

Once again, whatever the final configuration of the Admiral Nakhimov once it returns to service, this impressive warship will be a very significant symbol of Russian naval power and one that could potentially serve for many more years to come.

Contact the author: *****@*****.tld

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#Russias #Modernized #Nuclear #Battlecruiser #Finally #Powers #Reactors #Report

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