During the new year, while the world was celebrating with sparklers and ordinary fireworks, Russian Ministry of Defence posted a video of their Northern Fleet carrying out live-fire exercises at sea. This video shows the fleet firing all kind of weapons while they were at sea. Every weapon available on a ship was fired during this live exercise. The video starts with a fly-by of Russia’s only aircraft carrier, the Admiral Kuznetsov, it was followed by the launch of a SA-N-9 Kinzhal, which is a medium-range missile.
The carrier is shown in the video where it launches the point defense missiles and fires the dual 30-mm Gatling guns of the Kashtan close-in weapon system. Kuznetsov’s Kashtans can stop any anti-ship missiles or aircraft that hovers over the ship and can be seen on the carrier’s screen.
Another shot shows the battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy launching P-700 Granit anti-ship missiles. It is one of the two battlecruisers in existence. This gigantic 24,500-tons of the ship is dedicated to anti-surface warfare. Velikiy is the flagship of the Northern Fleet and is equipped with 20 Granit missiles, a 30-foot long supersonic anti-ship missile which has a 1500-pound warhead. Velikiy uncovers one of its verticle launch silos and a Granit missile in the video as well. The Granit looks like a small plane that emerges riding a pillar of fire. Another view of the launch, captured from a nearby helicopter, shows the size of the massive missile.
Russian Navy also has medium caliber deck guns while the Pyotr Velikiy is equipped with the twin-barreled AK-130 dual gun system. The AK-130 has 130-mm, 70 caliber guns. The AK-130 is fully automatic and can hit targets at a range of 17-miles. It is capable of firing sixty times per second and can hit any target on surface, shore and in the air. The Russian battlecruiser carries 840 rounds of the AK-130 gun.
One of the Northern Fleet ships has a quintuple 533-mm torpedo tube launcher and launches a torpedo into the water. It is also a Pyotr Velikiy since there is five-tube torpedo launcher on it. Other than this ship, there is only one other ship in Russian Navy with five torpedo tubes.
The video also shows latest submarine of Russia, Severodvinsk. It is a Yasen-class cruise missile submarine. The ship was commissioned in 2013 after a long construction period of 18-years. It’s a large submarine that has a length of 458-feet and displaces 13,800 tons submerged. Russia plans to build eight Yasen class submarines. Each of these ships will be capable to carry 24 Oniks anti-ships missiles or 40 Kalibr anti-ship/land attack cruise missiles.
The Russian Navy shows the deadliest launch at the end of the video. The RSM-56 Bulava nuclear-tipped submarine-launched ballistic missile is launched from an underwater submarine. The launch was probably made from Yury Dolgoruky. This submarine carries 16 Bulava missiles. Each of these missiles has a payload of six independently targetable 150 kiloton nuclear warheads.
The display of the fireworks is very impressive, however, after watching all the ships and weapons, it can be concluded that the designs of all the weapons and ships are very old. The two ships that were mostly used in the video, Kuznetsov and Pyotr Velikiy, cannot be the future of Russian Navy.
Check out this video for the complete show:
