Would you be able to share some light on what a cruiser is (that's how this ship is classified on wikipedia) vs another kind of ship. I am comparing to the british navy which doesn't seem to have anything above destroyer (outside of aircraft carriers). In these days and age where all war ships seem to be essentially floating missile launch platforms, what is the difference?
Ship class designations are weird. Russia keeps a ship or two designated as "battlecruisers" (in the WWII era, that would have meant a lightly-armored, probably fast, very large ship with battleship-class guns) that would just be called cruisers in most other navies, now. I've seen British ships with tonnage that would put them nearly up to a WWII-era heavy cruiser (step under a battlecruiser, the smallest thing generally regarded as a "capital ship" in that era) called a destroyer (formerly that would have been a much smaller size of ship), these days.
From their design, the ship class in question seem to be some kind of largish general-purpose missile cruisers with substantial armament and decent anti-air/anti-missile defenses, but not intended to survive sustained fighting (their weapon placement suggests that—all those missile tubes on the deck can't possibly be safe, but it might let them cram more weapons on there cheaply)
[VERY LATE EDIT] The TL;DR here is that "cruiser" and "destroyer" and all that are nearly meaningless without context of who's doing the labeling, and when.
[ANOTHER LATE EDIT] I overstated the degree to which the Kirov class' designation is misleading: its displacement is roughly in the range of WWII-era battlecruisers (~1/2 the displacement of an Iowa class battleship—armor is really, really heavy). It lacks battleship-class guns, but so does everything else these days and it'd be kinda silly if it had them.
> From their design, the ship class in question seem to be some kind of largish general-purpose missile cruisers with substantial armament and decent anti-air/anti-missile defenses,
My understanding is that the Moskva specifically had few and outdated anti-missile self-defense systems, but capable anti-air systems (and was, in fact, the main anti-air platform as well as the flagship for the Black Sea fleet.)
The battlecruisers are actual battlecruisers including having a lot of deck guns. They are nowhere near Ukraine though. Seemly their job is patrol seas where US warships might attack Russia.
Also I`ve read the reason Iowa Battleship in USA is not fully decomissined is just in case they need it to take out the two Russian battlecruisers... not likely to be nededed but "just in case"
> Also I`ve read the reason Iowa Battleship in USA is not fully decomissined is just in case they need it to take out the two Russian battlecruisers... not likely to be nededed but "just in case"
The Iowa and Wisconsin (originally New Jersey and Wisconsin, but then Congress specifically intervened to override the Navy and specify Iowa to replace New Jersey) were returned to the reserve status and kept in mothballs because Congress ordered the Navy to keep to Iowa-class BBs in reserve in case needed to support Marine amphibious operations (this ended in 2006), not to fight the Kirovs.
Lots of big missiles; the only real naval gun is a twin 130mm. (That's about the size of an Arleigh Burke destroyer's gun. The Iowa's 15" guns are 406mm.) If you're in gun range of a Kirov, something has gone badly wrong for the Kirov.
Correct. Toward the end of the age of big ship's guns it'd have been designated a heavy cruiser, probably.
But, other countries operate ships they designate destroyers at roughly the same displacement, these days. Role of the ship, and just preference of the country deciding what they'll call them, is a bigger factor than size.
Most of the other replies here say it’s all about size, and size does matter, but it’s not the whole story.
Generally, cruisers are designed with capabilities that allow them to operate anywhere on the ocean on their own, or as the lead vessels in small groups of ships (along with frigates and destroyers). Destroyers are usually smaller and have a more limited set of capabilities, and are intended to operate as ocean-going support ships in a combat group. Frigates are usually even smaller, with similar set of capabilities to a destroyer, but more limited equipment and intended to operate relatively close to their home ports.
Every navy has different sizes for each, with the USA having some of the largest ships of each designation. You should also keep in mind that each type of ship has gotten progressively larger over time; as of WWII, destroyers were roughly 2000 tons, and cruisers were about 8000 tons.
> Most of the other replies here say it’s all about size, and size does matter, but it’s not the whole story.
Originally the distinctions were (mostly) of purpose, but after WWI a series of treaties (mostly the Washington Naval Treaty and the First and Second London Naval Treaties) set out size, equipment, and numerical limits for various categories, so a whole lot of the interwar design and classification was based on gaming treaty limits, and the resulting naming patterns had a lasting influence that gradually faded.
In modern usage it's mostly just about size. Naval non-carrier surface combat vessels have a bunch of roles and weapon systems, but tend to be generalists and not specialists. So everything has cruise missiles and SAMs and radars and antisubmarine helicopters, etc... If it's big it's a "cruiser" and if it's small it's a "frigate" and everything else is a "destroyer". And there's a bunch of overlap and ambiguity.
These ships are big-ish soviet-era vessels designed primarily (as I understand it) for anti-ship cruise missile focus, but they fill all roles.
> So it looks like they're larger than destroyers but have a similar function.
The Ticonderoga class cruisers are basically the same size as the Arleigh Burke destroyers (smaller than the Flight III, larger than earlier ones) and much smaller than the Zumwalt-class destroyers.
There's a degree of what amounts to fashion in the naming, and “cruiser“ is out of fashion for newer ships.
I'm no Navy expert. But, here's my understanding of today's Navies.
* Corvette/Frigates -- Smaller ships with smaller munitions. They're just missile platforms. Anything smaller than a Corvette basically is ignored for most discussions. Frigates are slightly larger than Corvette.
* Destroyers -- Bigger than Frigates. Not only do Destroyers have significant missile capacities (like Corvette / Frigates), Destroyers are big enough for major sensor suites. SONAR, RADAR, etc. etc. Maybe enough for a CWIS (aim-bot with a gatling gun, designed to automatically shoot down enemy missiles as they approach).
* Cruisers -- Bigger than Destroyers. More missiles, more sensors. While a Destroyer might have 1x CWIS and 1x RADAR, you might be seeing 2x or 3x CWIS or RADARS on the larger Cruiser class.
> In these days and age where all war ships seem to be essentially floating missile launch platforms, what is the difference?
Defense. You need a lot of power to run those RADAR systems, which are constantly scanning the skies for enemy missiles. Corvette/Frigates are too small to have a CWIS / anti-missile defense system, so they need to hang around larger ships (like Destroyers or Cruisers) for defense.
Multiple Destroyers could be stationed next to each other to increase their defenses. But if two Destroyers were just going to sail together (for better RADAR coverage and/or defenses), its a better idea to just make a slightly bigger ship, but with twice the RADAR / twice the defense of a singular Destroyer.
The difference is less the CIWS and more the amount of displacement that they have to spend on capabilities and the generality of those capabilities.
Even LCSs, effectively overpowered corvettes, have CIWS. They don't have the radar which can deal with threats further out than the 10 miles or so that their SeaRAM can deal with.
Frigates have more room to fit larger radars, power plants to feed them, and missiles to fire with them. Smaller frigates usually have 8-16 VLS tubes with ESSM or SM-2 to deal with threats 30+ miles out. Bigger ones, like the planned Constellation class, will have 32.
Destroyers are where you get enough room to start having strike and long range defense capabilities. The radar is now powerful enough to track ballistic missiles coming in from space, and they have missiles that can intercept them like SM-3. They also have extra VLS to store strike capabilities, like Tomahawk missiles. US Arleigh Burke class Destroyers have 96 VLS cells.
Cruisers have an interesting role. In the US navy, we don't really need them. We have a slightly larger destroyer hull with extra room for a fleet command center that we call cruisers to make congress happy. In navies that don't have carriers, though, their role is to be the main strike platform for the fleet. They'll have mounts for the largest mobile missiles in their arsenal, like the Russian P-700 Granit, which NATO called "Shipwreck".
Carriers are the most important part of the US Navy. Their power projection and sea control capabilities are unmatched. Each one carries their own airborne radar squadron, as well as 44+ strike fighters to not only defend it but to strike back at their foes. The carrier allows the fleet to know everything that happens within 500 miles, and destroy anything that it doesn't want there.
So, why don't we want to just have lots of cruisers? A mix of survivability and flexibility. While offensive capability scales linearly with tonnage, survivability falls to the cube-square law and only increases as the cube root of tonnage. Carriers are a special exception to this, because their aircraft are such a force multiplier. However, they're extremely expensive so very few countries can afford more than one or two. The US, however, is required by congress to have at least 10. For flexibility, it's often nice to have more platforms with less capabilites in more places than one platform with more capabilities in one place.
> Carriers are the most important part of the US Navy. Their power projection and sea control capabilities are unmatched. Each one carries their own airborne radar squadron, as well as 44+ strike fighters to not only defend it but to strike back at their foes. The carrier allows the fleet to know everything that happens within 500 miles, and destroy anything that it doesn't want there.
Modern US Carriers are pretty absurd though. Do they really need 2 runways and 4 catapults?
I get it, in combat, you really want to launch your aircraft really fast. But it does show how building one-ship with 2x runways is considered better (by the US Navy anyway) than building 2x ships with 1x runways each.
There's a lot of decisions that went into the design of these ships. I'm not sure if they all made sense... it all comes down to what modern naval combat is (and frankly, no one really knows what modern naval combat is... there hasn't been a clash of major powers since WW2. Falklands War IMO doesn't count since Argentina isn't really the same kind of power as United Kingdom)
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I think everyone knows that our Carriers are vulnerable to enemies. But they're so useful for power projection that we keep building them...
Nah, that's the benefit of the Supercarriers actually.
A typical carrier (Chinese Shandong) is 70,000 tons. The Gerald Ford Supercarrier is 100,000 tons.
So you can see that 3x regular carriers cost as much tons as 2x Supercarriers (210,000 tons vs 200,000 tons). But 2x supercarriers have 4-runways total and 8 catapults, while 3x carriers would only have 3-runways.
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The real problem with "Supercarriers" is that you've got all your eggs in one basket. Killing one supercarrier is kinda-sorta like killing two carriers, in terms of capabilities.
More efficient for the US Navy to use, but also more efficient for the enemy to kill.
Don't know if this is just a meme or actually called that by real Navy members, but I heard them referred to as "missile sponges", i.e. to "soak up" missiles fired at the convoy/battle group.
Destroyers are around 8000 tons. Cruisers are around 10,000 tons.
You need 16,000 tons of metal to make 2x Destroyers. You only need 10,000 tons of metal to make 1x Cruiser.
Your crew sizes are also merged together with the larger-ships, meaning you need fewer sailors to perform the same amount of firepower. Two Destroyers would have a lot of redundant jobs compared to one Cruiser.
The distinctions between surface warship classes are somewhat arbitrary. Some modern frigates and destroyers are larger than WW2 cruisers. Originally cruisers were lightly armored vessels intended for long range, high speed commerce raiding to disrupt enemy logistics. They weren't intended to stand in the line of battle and slug it out with heavily armored battleships. But now modern cruisers carry large numbers of missiles for attacking other ships, or striking surface targets, or defending an aircraft carrier from air and missile attacks. So the key distinction that characterizes a cruiser is basically just "more missiles".
The US Navy is gradually decommissioning their cruisers and can't afford to build new ones.
> The US Navy is gradually decommissioning their cruisers and can't afford to build new ones.
The Ticonderoga class cruisers are 9,600 tons, the Arleigh Burke Flight III destroyers are 9,700 tons, the Zumwalt class destroyers are almost 16k tons.
We have newer cruisers, we just call them destroyers.
Well, can't afford while keeping 9 super carriers and 30 odd virginia class. It should be noted that the current generation of super subs can fire cruise missiles at shore targets as well as old cruisers could. Add in the shift in drone technology and the argument for big, non carrier surface combatants looks poor.
> Add in the shift in drone technology and the argument for big, non carrier surface combatants looks poor.
The newer American destroyers are bigger than the last cruisers we built, so phasing out of cruisers isn't about not having big, non-carrier surface combatants.
The Zumwalts are cancelled now. The calculus seems to be that if you are building a modern capital ship then it's either an aircraft platform, an assault ship or it needs to be able to go underwater - because it will cost just as much. There is a sharp division between naval assets to be used in war, and everything else.
Sure, but they are the newest destroyers we have, and illustrate (along with the Flight III Ashleigh Burke) a pattern. DDG(X) won't be twice the Ticonderoga-class displacement like the Zumwalt-class, but they'll also be bigger than the Ticonderoga by a sizable margin.
The key distinction is what name when applied to the hoped for platform will win funding from the national tax authority - what ever that is.
In the UK talk of cruisers is a no-no, the last "through deck cruisers" were actually aircraft carriers, and no one is falling for that again. Thus the Type 45's are definitely destroyers despite displacing 9400 tonnes. In other lands the Ticonderoga's are cruisers, even though they displace 9600 tonnes, the Arleigh Burke are destroyers at 9300 tonnes, but the Zumwalt's come in at 14000 tonnes as destroyers as well! Note, there will only ever be three Zumwalt's.
Some are bigger than others, which means that they can launch more missiles (and maybe also longer range missiles). They may also have more powerful radars, and have a more central role in coordinating the fleet as a whole.
Also, they have more people, so it's a bigger deal if they get sunk.
Originally cruisers were pretty much the largest ships in a fleet, capable of independent long range cruising missions. Battleship was a broader term.
The development of HMS Dreadnought heralded a revolution in big gun capital ship design and modern battleships were sometimes referred to as Dreadnought class battleships, though for a long time that’s been the only kind. Particularly large or capable cruisers are sometimes called battle cruisers.
This ship doesn’t have big guns because it’s a missile ship so it can’t be a battleship, but it is a capital ship, which makes it a cruiser.
"Cruiser" is an old term, and it originally referred to the mission rather than to the ship. Cruisers were usually smaller ships such as frigates or sloops, because bigger ships were too expensive to use in that role.
Battleships were the last descendants of the ship of line, which basically meant a ship big enough and heavily armed enough to not be a weak link in the line of battle.
