were now no more than tourist attractions and well past their day in any case. The Russians had always had a fondness for building things big, and building them strong. Kirov was both.
Officially designated a nuclear guided missile cruiser, Western planners referred to her as a battlecruiser, and in size and scale she was really very much closer to that ship type, which had first entered the naval lexicon during the First World War-a ship with the speed of a fast cruiser, yet the fighting power of something much bigger. At 32 knots, Kirov was as fast as any destroyer or cruiser in the world. Yet her armament was considerably stronger, updated with the very latest in new Soviet technology for both guns and missile systems.
Her primary armament was a potent array of anti-ship missiles that were carried on her long forward deck section. Unable to compete with the West in terms of aircraft carriers, Russia pursued an intensive development in the area of missile technology, and now possessed some of most lethal and efficient anti-ship missiles on earth.
Kirov also boasted the latest in Soviet naval gun technology, twin 152mm guns mounted on their new stealth turret to help lower the radar signature. The gun was the equivalent of a 5.9 inch naval battery, and could fire 30 rounds per minute at a range exceeding 25 kilometers. The day of the big gun was long gone. Even these 152mm turrets would be thought of as typical secondary armament on an old WWII battleship, or the primary guns on lighter class cruisers of that era. Heavy cruisers might carry a bigger 8 inch gun, and the battlecruisers and battleships trumped this with guns firing shells in the range of 11 to 16 inches in diameter. The Japanese behemoth Yamato carried the largest guns in the world at 18 inches, three times as large as those mounted on Kirov. Yet, in her day, the year 2021, no ship mounted bigger or a more potent array of weapons.
For air defense, long-range SAM batteries were augmented by medium range missile defense systems and an array of rapid firing Gatling guns should anything penetrate this defense.
Finally, the ship was also equipped with the latest UGST versatile deep-water homing torpedo, a total of 10 firing tubes, five on each side. This was an extremely dangerous weapon, able to range out as far as 50 kilometers and travel that distance in one hour at its highest speed. As it approached the target, be it a submarine or surface ship, or even the wake of a surface ship, it could home in beginning at a range of 2 kilometers.
The aft section of the ship was also a landing platform for three helicopters. Two KA-40 naval helos could provide over the horizon reconnaissance, radar picket duties, and ASW defense carrying the APR-3 water-jet- propelled torpedo capable of attacking submarines at a submerged depth of 500 meters and KAB-250PL guided depth charges. One KA-226 scout chopper was a modified version of the rescue helo built for the Moscow police, and carried a 30 mm cannon with provisions for air-to-air or surface attack missiles on two stubby wing pods. With a flight endurance of between 4 and 6 hours, the helo mounted HD-optical zoom and infrared cameras, and also had laser range finding. All in all, the battlecruiser literally bristled with weaponry, one of the most powerful surface combatants in the world. Considering the chaos and contradiction of the nation all this had come from, it was a miracle the ship was ever rebuilt.
Admiral Leonid Volsky had sailed her throughout her trials and made two world cruises, showing the flag in ports o’ call all across the globe and again troubling the dreams of many Western naval analysts. Now, in the year 2021, increased tensions had put the Russian Navy on a near wartime footing.
The long fall had swept away Russia’s stilted Soviet political structures, leaving a hard shell of dysfunctional autocracy in its place in the neo-Russia that grew from the ashes. Her armies had diminished, just as the navy had been broken up and sold off to scrap yards, third world countries and even China had picked over the bones, purchasing one of Russia’s two large fleet aircraft carriers from Ukraine after that country inherited the ship from the old Black Sea Fleet. China was still rising, more powerful on the world stage than ever, but Russia never regained her lost glory. She was kept at arm’s length by NATO, shunned by the troubled European Union, and was a strange bedfellow in the new Asian coalition she had tried to forge with China.
Only her resources saved her from being relegated to the status of a third rate nation now-the vast mineral deposits, timber and oil of Siberia. Yet American oil companies, ever more thirsty for light sweet crude, had played hard ball with the Russians of late. They had tried to squeeze her out of the Caspian basin long ago, and the flow of aid and technology from the West had frozen in the pipelines of Siberia. Now even the oil fields languished in decline, but as Saudi Arabia failed, and the center of gravity shifted to the Pacific, Russian leaders pushed back against encroaching Western influence and control, and went so far as to embargo their oil, refusing to deliver it to British or American terminals, or to traffic in US dollars. The tensions eventually saw the deployment of Russian military forces near the breakaway republic of Georgia, where the Americans still kept a guarded watch on Iran, and push too often came to shove when the military was involved.
American carrier battlegroups still plied the oceans, largely unchallenged. Yet in recent months, Kirov had led several extended training exercises in the Norwegian Sea, an old hunting ground for the Russians, and the doorstep to the rich warm, commerce laden waters of the Atlantic. This latest maneuver was designed to simulate a raider breaking out into the North Atlantic accompanied by a single attack submarine.
And they were late.
As he waited for Rudnikov to report, the Admiral could not help but perceive the irony of his own situation. Here he sat in this waking zombie of a ship, resurrected from a sure appointment with the scrapping yards and pressed once again into useful service. Yet the uncanny echo of past mishaps still seem to haunt him, and the ship itself. His exercise was off schedule, and another old submarine was having trouble with its weapons.
Miles to the south, the cruiser Slava was deploying a line of target barges fitted with radar jammers to pose as a NATO task force in the Norwegian sea. If they had been real enemies, thought Volsky, they would have acquired his ship long ago and have missiles inbound while he still chafed and restlessly waited on Rudnikov and his old submarine to fit the proper warhead on his missiles. The exercise would have to be deemed a failure and replayed as soon as the approaching weather front cleared. There was nothing else to be done.
“Where is Rudnikov? Why hasn't he reported? What are they doing down there in that fat Oscar II? This whole situation is ridiculous!” The Admiral vented his impatience yet again.
Vladimir Karpov, the ship’s Captain, and his Chief of Operations Gennadi Orlov were listening, half amused, half embarrassed. This was all too typical of the fleet these days, old rusty ships; misplaced men and missions. Volsky had been intent upon changing that ever since taking his post as Admiral of the Northern Fleet. He had insisted that Kirov be built, then assigned as flagship of the fleet before he made it his own. It was a pity that there were not three or four destroyers that could sail with Kirov today, but those ships were still on the drawing boards. Kirov was alone in the cold, icy sea for this exercise, and it was just going to get colder and more lonesome as the day wore on.
Captain Karpov shook his head, noting the admiral’s obvious displeasure. “We would be better to wait, Admiral,” he said. A serious man, his eyes always seemed to look swollen and bloodshot, bulging under his thick woolen cap emblazoned with the gold insignia of the navy. A bit round shouldered from too many days at a desk earlier in his business career, Karpov had taken to the sea when things fell apart and the old Soviet Union dissipated.
“Wait until this front passes through and the weather clears. The targeting buoys and towing lines will be all in a tangle in these seas. Tell Rudnikov to get his missiles sorted out and meet us off Jan Mayen tomorrow at 1100 hours. There is no further need to proceed here. We should stand the men down and try again later.”
The Admiral looked at him sourly. “That will put us another day late back to Severomorsk,” he said. Then a look of resignation crossed his features, his eyes dim and distant. “Probably best to do as you suggest,” he decided. “Give the orders, Karpov. Give the damn orders, and let me know when Orel is finally ready. Tell Rudnikov-this time no excuses!”
“Aye, sir. I'll see to it.”
Chapter 2
Captain Karpov was a straight laced and competent man, with a sharp intelligence, strong will, and much ambition. One of the only men on the ship that did not owe his present position to Volsky, the Captain had a volatile personality that sometimes seemed oddly out of place in a man with his obvious intellectual capacity. He was easily frustrated, sharp tempered, somewhat high strung and very defensive at times, though he balanced these emotions well with the steely logic of his mind. A thinker and planner, he had already plotted his course to the bridge of Kirov,
