StarDestroyer.Net BBS

We haven't had a warship versus thread in awhile, so I thought that I'd bring one up.

On side we have that big Soviet rocket cruiser, Kirov. She's big, bad and ready to defend Mother Russia's shores.

On the other side we have the pride of the USN's surface fleet, the Guided Missile Strike Cruiser gunning in to toss some TLAMs at Russia.

Who wins this hypothetical one-on-one fight?

Hmm, could you provide some specs for the CGSN (google turned up nothing)? I assume you're not referring to the Virginia (CGN-38) Class guided missile cruisers...

If you are talking about one of the Buker Hill class ships, then it really depends on who gets lucky. Both ships can put up a wall of AA missles, with the edge going to the CG with the Aegis. But only one of the "Shipwreck" missles has to get through,and then you can kiss the CG goodbye! Tomahawks have greater range, but the Kirovs have a hell of a lot of AA missles. A Kirov should be able to handle a Harpoon hit or two, maybe even a couple of Tomahawks, but it won't be feeling good. Reminds me of playing Strike Fleet on the old Commodore 64. Who ever can get a missle through the others defense wins, with the Kirov having an edge in being able to absorb a hit. Assuming all warheads are conventional.

6 AV-8B, 2 SH-60, 2 Mk. 26 missile launchers, 2 Mk. 71 8" guns, 16 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 8 Tomahawk cruise missiles, Aegis combat suite and armor.

I'd expect CGSN to win a small majority of the time. She's more likely to get over the horizon targeting data first and her air defence suit is more likely to defeat a missile attack from the Kirov then the Kirov to knock down all her missiles. Though I see this as often being MAD, and even coming down to a gunnery duel sometimes.

I remember seeing a mockup of one of these in the '85-'86 Janes ATWFS if IRRC. Always thought it would be a good ship killer, but not good for much else.

A mockup of what? All the CGSN proposals were well dead by the mid 80's and pictures of Kirov were plentiful. Something I just noticed though, is that the flight deck CGSN doesn't have twin Mk.26 launchers, it seems to only have a single one forward and that may well be unable to put out enough missiles to stop twenty Shipwrecks.

Sea Skimmer wrote:A mockup of what? All the CGSN proposals were well dead by the mid 80's and pictures of Kirov were plentiful. Something I just noticed though, is that the flight deck CGSN doesn't have twin Mk.26 launchers, it seems to only have a single one forward and that may well be unable to put out enough missiles to stop twenty Shipwrecks.

Gah, I forgot about that. The 17000-ton non-flight-deck one was the double-ended one, wasn't it?

There was a model of the proposed design for CGSN. Looked like a Tarawa class LHA but didn't ride as high. Don't remeber how many launchers it had.