Borodino-class vessel under construction in Saint Petersburg in 1916Kirov-class missile cruiser at sea in 1986
After the end of the Russo-Japanese War of 1905, the Russian Naval General Staff decided that it needed a squadron of fast "armored cruisers" (Броненосный крейсер; bronenosnyy kreyser)[note 1] that could use their speed to maneuver into position to engage the head of the enemy's battle line, much as Admiral Tōgō had done during the Battle of Tsushima against the Russian fleet.[1] This concept was very different from the primary roles for the battlecruiser envisioned by the British Royal Navy and the Imperial German High Seas Fleet, which consisted of scouting for the main battle fleet and attacking enemy reconnaissance forces.[2] The Royal Navy came to the same conclusion and developed the Queen Elizabeth-class fast battleships that could force battle on an enemy fleet and had enough protection to attack any type of ship.[3] However, World War I and the Russian Civil War interrupted the construction of the Russian Borodino-class ships and all were scrapped.
Twenty years later the Soviet Navy issued a requirement for a ship capable of dealing with enemy cruisers, but the design began to grow as it was modified to allow for combat with German pocket battleships on even terms, and later modified to gain parity with the Scharnhorst-class battleships. Two ships were laid down in 1939, but development of their new guns lagged significantly behind their construction and six 38-centimeter (15 in) twin-gun turrets were ordered from Germany in 1940. The working drawings for the turrets and guns had not even been received when Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941. The incomplete hulls of both ships were ordered scrapped in 1947.[4]
The Navy revived its requirement for a "cruiser-killer" during the war, but the design process was quite lengthy as questions as to its armament, speed and size were debated. Joseph Stalin was the key supporter of these ships and made many of the important decisions himself, overriding the desires of the Navy. Thus, after his death in 1953, little time was wasted in cancelling the three ships that had been laid down. The hull of the most advanced ship was used as a target and the other two were scrapped on their slipways.[5]
In the 1970s, the Navy initiated a project to construct a nuclear-powered ship capable of accommodating anti-aircraft, anti-ship and anti-submarine guided missiles in a single hull. This type, classed as a "heavy nuclear-powered missile cruiser" by the Soviets, eventually emerged as the largest non-aircraft carrying surface warship built since the end of the Second World War, and was termed in the West as a battlecruiser.[6]
^ abMcLaughlin 2003, p. 244
^Roberts 1997, p. 18
^Burt 1986, p. 251
^McLaughlin 2004, pp. 99–117
^McLaughlin 2006, pp. 102–23
^Tucker-Jones, Anthony (2015). Soviet Cold War Weaponry: Aircraft, Warships and Missiles. Pen & Sword Aviation. ISBN 978-1473823617. Retrieved 20 October 2016.
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