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Originally Posted by bash
Whether your big warship is a traditional BB or a CG it's only as effective as its infrastructure allows. The Kirov class made for an effective (on paper) area denial platform because it could operate for long periods without replenishment thanks to its nuclear propulsion. It could move its anti-ship missiles wherever they were needed and keep them there for a long time. It had enough other weapons to defend itself while on station.
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The Soviet Navy really had no aircraft carriers to compete with the US Navy super-carriers. The Kiev's were basically large ASW platforms, and they only built one Kuznetsov before the USSR collapsed. The Kirov was an interim solution to what the Soviet needed to defend their territorial seas and their SSBN's launching sites in the Arctic against NATO airpower and nuclear submarines. How effective the Kirov's were is a debatable question, but they scared the US Navy enough into reactivating and modifying four Second World War battleships.
Quote:
Originally Posted by bash
A Kirov-esque CG without nuclear propulsion is tied to its supply tail. It basically has to move from gas station to gas station or hold up in a port to act as a fleet-in-being. It's far less effective as a singular threat than a Kirov. So you have to build a battle group around it to be able to protect supply lines and keep from being cut off.
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A Kirov sized warship could probably hold about twice the missile ordinance (maybe a bit more) of an Arleigh Burke Class missile destroyer. The number of missile cruiser/destroyer sized ships in the world of the size and class of a Burke Class destroyer (say 8,000 to 15,000 tons) stands at about 130-150 ships worldwide. As far as I know none of them are nuclear powered and all of them can carry between 80 and 120 or more air defence, anti-ship and land attack missiles. None of these are small ships (their as big as WW2 cruisers), and would your logic not also apply to them?
Quote:
Originally Posted by bash
This basically limits such ships to prowl around China's nine dash line claims to harass unarmed shipping and smaller navies. That's a huge amount of money to spend to be a bully. If China wants to waste that kind of money that's fine. Russia only has 2 Kirovs left, big ships are very expensive and need a lot of support infrastructure.
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The article states why China might build ships the size of the Kirov's not that it is going to.
China has built two Kuznetsov class carriers and has a third carrier under construction the size of a Kitty Hawk Class carrier, and plans to build three more of them which will give China a fleet of six aircraft carriers by 2030. It is also building a whole fleet of missile cruisers, destroyers and frigates, and has four amphibious carriers equal in size of the America Class LHA's under construction. And China has an active and expanding nuclear submarine programme, and has built a whole series of artificial fortress islands across the South China Sea. This massive naval expansion has cost a huge amount of money and is mainly designed to take on the US Navy head on in the Eastern Pacific.
China is geographically at a disadvantage against the US Navy and its allies in the Eastern Pacific. It can be confined to its coast quite easily by US air power and submarines. Its economy is also highly dependent on foreign trade through shipping and the importation of oil. It also has ambitions on incorporating Taiwan back into China, hence the construction of a large blue water fleet. If building a warship the size of the Kirov armed to the teeth with missiles could contribute to keeping the US Navy hundreds of miles away from the Chinese coast and Taiwan I think they might build one or two of them.