Slava-class
The Soviet-built Slava-class guided-missile cruiser — a Cold War "carrier-killer" anchored around 16 deck-mounted P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship missiles and an S-300F area air-defence system, now reduced to two active hulls after the sinking of the Black Sea flagship Moskva.
Cold War “carrier-killer” cruiser — a heavy surface combatant that packs sixteen deck-mounted P-1000 Vulkan anti-ship missiles and an S-300F area air-defence system, now reduced to a two-ship force after the flagship Moskva sank in 2022.
Overview
The Slava-class, known officially as Project 1164 Atlant, is a Soviet-designed, gas-turbine-powered guided-missile cruiser built for the Soviet Navy and inherited by the Russian Federation. The class was intended to hunt NATO carrier strike groups by saturating them with long-range heavy anti-ship missiles, while also providing fleet air defence with an S-300F Fort (SA-N-6) surface-to-air system. Three hulls were completed at the 61 Communards Shipyard in Mykolaiv (now Ukraine) during the 1980s; a fourth was left unfinished. After the lead ship, Moskva, was sunk by Ukrainian anti-ship missiles on 14 April 2022, only Marshal Ustinov (Northern Fleet) and Varyag (Pacific Fleet) remain in active service.
Development
Design work on a follow-on to the Kresta-II-class cruisers began in the late 1960s, culminating in the Project 1164 specification approved in the mid-1970s Naval Technology. The lead unit, then named Slava, was laid down in 1976 and commissioned in January 1983 Wikipedia. Two sister ships followed — Marshal Ustinov (formerly Admiral Flota Lobov) in 1986, and Chervona Ukrayina (later renamed Varyag) in October 1989 RussianShips.info. All construction ceased at Mykolaik after the dissolution of the USSR, leaving a fourth hull, Ukrayina, incomplete. Post-Cold War budget pressures kept the class largely pier-side until the 2010s, when the two surviving cruisers underwent extensive overhauls and received the upgraded P-1000 Vulkan missile set.
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