The largest nuclear-powered ship of the USSR. The largest nuclear ship of the USSR Ural ship with a nuclear power plant of the USSR

In December 1988, after the completion of state tests, an act was signed on the acceptance of the Ural ship with the Coral system into the Navy. In August 1989, the ship began its transition to its permanent home base in the Pacific Fleet. During the transition, the Coral system and its reconnaissance complexes were jointly operated by the crew and members of the industrial expedition, the head of which was O. Zolotov (Leningrad PTP Granit).

After arriving at their home base (Strelok Bay, Pacific Village, Pacific Fleet), the crew began preparing for a combat campaign to the area of the US missile defense test site on Kwajelein Atoll. However, this trip never took place. For a long time, the crew, even with the help of specialists from the Baltic Plant, could not eliminate the malfunction in the cooling system of the ship's nuclear installation. Graduates of military land schools and academies - specialists in the operation of unique complexes of the Coral system, Elbrus multipurpose complex and functional software - no longer wanted to serve in the fleet and began to be written off ashore.

The Navy could not solve the problem of operating the onboard nuclear installation and the main complexes of the Coral system for several years. After the collapse of the USSR, the equipment was mothballed and the technological premises were welded shut. This was the fate of the large nuclear reconnaissance ship "Ural" with the system of special technical reconnaissance equipment "Coral".
pvo.guns.ru/book/granit/ural.htm

If there are ships that are destined to become the floating misfortune of their own fleet, then the Ural is in the forefront. Lovers of mysticism can spot an ominous sign in the very design number of this floating island with a nuclear engine - 1941. Well, it was necessary to come up with the idea from the many digital combinations for the “Ural” to choose exactly this one. In our country, no one needs to explain what tragedies it is associated with in the public consciousness. In a word, mysticism is to blame, or it’s not the issue, but the 1941 project, for which billions of full-fledged Soviet rubles were spent in the 80s, ended in failure.

To understand why the ill-fated Ural was needed, you will have to look to the South Pacific. There, near nine dozen small islands of the Kwajalein Atoll, there is a top-secret training ground for the United States. The Minuteman and MX intercontinental ballistic missiles, launched for test purposes from the state of California, fly here. And since 1983, Kwawjalein has become one of the American research centers for the implementation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, conceived by President Ronald Reagan with the goal of disarming the USSR. From here, in preparation for “Star Wars,” interceptor missiles began to be launched, designed to hit Soviet nuclear warheads. Telemetry information from these tests could tell Moscow a lot about Reagan's machinations. However, how to get it?

The civilian vessels “Akademik Sergei Korolev”, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin” or “Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov”, equipped with special control and measuring systems for monitoring space objects, were not suitable for reconnaissance of what was happening on Kwajalein. The main thing is that they did not have active radars and were intended only to receive signals from domestic satellites. This means that it was necessary to build a special nuclear warship that would be capable of collecting the entire amount of available information about any subspace object on any part of its trajectory in any area of the World Ocean. This is how the 1941 Titan project arose. The designer of the ship was the Leningrad Central Design Bureau "Iceberg" of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, and the construction plant was the Baltic Shipyard named after S. Ordzhonikidze.

To collect a huge amount of intelligence about the launches of American ballistic missiles, electronics with capabilities unprecedented at that time were needed. 18 Soviet ministries with their own design bureaus and research institutes worked on its creation for the Ural. The Leningrad production and technical enterprise, specially created for this purpose, was engaged in equipping the unique ship with special equipment.

What came out in the end was called the ship's surveillance system "Coral". It was based on seven powerful radio-electronic complexes. To process the received information, a unique computing complex for its time was installed at the Ural, consisting of several ES-1046 and Elbrus computers. With their help, it was possible to decipher the characteristics of any space object at a distance of up to 1,500 kilometers. Experts claim that the Ural crew was able to determine even the secrets of their fuel by the composition of the exhaust gases of ballistic missile engines.

In the event of a war in remote areas of the ocean, the unique ship had to be able to fend for itself. To do this, he received artillery that approximately corresponded to the armament of the destroyer: one 76-mm artillery mount at the bow and stern, four quadruple launchers of the Igla man-portable anti-aircraft missile system, four six-barreled 30-mm AK-630 gun mounts and four double-barreled 12.7 mm Utes-M machine gun mounts. The ammunition should have been enough for at least 20 minutes of battle. The Ka-32 helicopter was located in the aircraft hangar at the stern. The nuclear power plant made it possible to travel indefinitely at a speed of more than 20 knots.

The miracle ship was to be operated by a crew of approximately 1000 people, of which at least 400 were officers and midshipmen. The intelligence complex personnel were divided into 6 special services.

For the relaxation of sailors on a long voyage, the Ural provided a smoking lounge, a billiard room, sports and cinema halls, a nature salon, slot machines, two saunas and a swimming pool.

It is clear that to accommodate all this technical splendor, a huge ship hull was needed. They made it so, taking as a basis the design of the Project 1144 nuclear-powered missile cruiser of the Kirov type. As a result, the length of the “Ural” turned out to be approximately two football fields, and the height from keel to tail was the size of a 28-story building.

The hopes that the USSR Ministry of Defense placed on the newest reconnaissance ship are evidenced by a truly unique fact: the completely civilian chief designer of the Ural, Arkharov, was immediately awarded the military rank of “rear admiral” upon completion of the work. Well, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor goes without saying.

The Ural plant was laid down at the Baltic Shipyard in the summer of 1981. It was launched into the water in 1983. In 1989, the ship entered service with the USSR Navy. And immediately, under the command of Captain 1st Rank Ilya Keshkov, he set off on a two-month journey to his permanent base in the Pacific Ocean. During the voyage, the reconnaissance ship was secretly accompanied by our multi-purpose nuclear submarine. And also - many planes and ships of NATO countries, which were at a loss: why do the Russians need this ocean giant with space antennas?

At first, everything worked out great. On the way to the Pacific base, the crew tested the capabilities of their reconnaissance equipment. Without difficulty, the launch of the American space shuttle Columbia was discovered a thousand miles away. Then - the launch into orbit from the territory of the United States of two optical-electronic and radio-technical reconnaissance satellites launched under the “star wars” program. Such little things as incidentally recording the parameters of radar stations located along the way of foreign military bases, as well as NATO ships and aircraft accompanying the Ural, are not worth mentioning.

However, it would not be Soviet military equipment if everything went smoothly with it. Especially with undeveloped models, which no one had any operating experience. Hundreds of industry representatives, who along with the crew went on an ocean voyage, tried day and night to debug the equipment that kept breaking down. The cooling system of the nuclear reactor was malfunctioning, the computer system and some information collection systems were not working correctly. There was a five-degree roll to the left side, which could not be eliminated.

Everything turned out to be even worse when the Ural arrived at its base in the city of Pacific, nicknamed Tikhas by the sailors. (aka Fokino). No one could have imagined that the first voyage of the monstrously expensive unique ship would also be the last. There was no quay wall prepared for it. Just as they had not prepared anything like this before for the heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers Minsk and Novorossiysk. Therefore, it was impossible to supply either fuel, steam, water, or electricity from the shore to the ships. Their diesel generators and boilers threshed non-stop, knocking out precious motor resources, which were supposed to be spent only on campaigns. It is not surprising that those cruisers essentially “ate” themselves and were scrapped long before their due date.

Now the same fate awaited Ural. He, too, spent most of his time standing on mooring barrels in Strelok Bay. And in the summer of 1990, a fire broke out on a nuclear reconnaissance ship, which disabled the aft engine room. The electrical cables coming from the stern boiler were burnt out. For more than a year, the ship's energy supply was provided only by the bow engine, but soon it burned out too. After that, all the energy for the ship was provided only by emergency diesel generators. There was no money for repairs. The ship's commander, Captain 1st Rank Keshkov, in despair, even wrote an official letter to the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin. As one might expect, the commander did not receive any money for repairs or an answer.

As a result of all the misadventures, in 1992 the nuclear reactors of the Ural were shut down, and he himself was placed at a remote pier, turning an officer's dormitory into an unprecedented size. For this, the Pacific people sarcastically nicknamed the SSV-33 “Ural” cabin carrier. And the abbreviation SSV began to be deciphered as follows: special sleeping car.

So, can the idea of a nuclear reconnaissance ship be called an admiral’s adventure? No, of course not. Even standing on barrels in Streletz Bay, the Ural confidently controlled the entire northern part of the Pacific Ocean, intercepting radio traffic in the networks of the Navy, Air Force and ASW of the United States and Japan. If we had come closer to the territory of the United States, we would not have to regret today the thoughtless loss on our own initiative of the intelligence center in Lourdes, Cuba, from where the Russian military left at the direction of Yeltsin’s successor Vladimir Putin in 2002. Almost everything that the intelligence officers of the Main Intelligence Directorate and FAPSI did in Lourdes could have been done by the Ural: intercept any information from American communications satellites and ground-based telecommunication cables. Right down to telephone conversations between Americans from their own kitchens.

However, now it’s too late to regret it. Last year, the nuclear-powered reconnaissance ship Ural was sent for disposal to the Far Eastern Zvezda plant.

(1991-2001)

Vessel class and type Large reconnaissance ship Home port Pacific Manufacturer Baltic Plant named after S. Ordzhonikidze, Leningrad Launched into the water May 1983 Commissioned January 7, 1989 Removed from the fleet year 2001 Status Disposal Main characteristics Displacement 32,780 t/ 36,500 t Length 265 m Width 30 m Height 70 m Draft 7.5 m Booking No Engines NPP type OK-900, 2 × 171 MW,
2 boilers VDRK-500,
2 GTZA-688 turbo gear units Power 66 500 l. With. mover 2 Travel speed 21.6 knots (40 km/h) Autonomy of navigation 180 days Crew 950 people Armament Artillery 2 × 76 mm AU AK-176
4 × 12-mm coaxial machine gun mounts "Utyos-M" Flak 4 × 30 mm AK-630 Missile weapons MANPADS "Igla"
(16 missiles 9M-313) Aviation Group Helicopter Ka-32

Large reconnaissance ship "Ural"(BRZK SSV-33 "Ural") - a warship, the world's largest reconnaissance ship, the only ship of the project 1941 "Titan"(according to NATO classification - Kapusta), the largest surface ship with a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the USSR and Russia.

History of creation

The Soviet Union could not sufficiently monitor the tests of American missiles on the final trajectory: the USSR did not have military bases in the region. The PIK ships of the USSR Ministry of Defense and civilian ships that carried special control and measuring systems (for example, “Akademik Sergei Korolev”, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin” or “Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov”) did not have active radars and were intended to work on domestic space transponders objects.

Thus, the need arose for a special combat ship that would be capable of collecting the entire amount of available information about any subspace object on any part of its trajectory in any region of the globe.

The large reconnaissance ship "Ural" received a side number SSV-33. Abbreviation NNE served as a cover legend and stands for "Ship of Communication"- this is how reconnaissance ships were openly classified in the Soviet Navy.

Ship device

There is a version that the basis of the ship project 1941 ("Titan") the hull of the ore carrier was taken. Probably the origins of this opinion stem from the fact that, as a rule, telemetry control vessels (for example, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin”) were indeed built on this principle.

Also, according to most sources, the Ural is identical in its power plant to the Project 1144 Orlan TAKR (which often leads to the erroneous conclusion that the Ural belongs to Project 1144).

In addition to the nuclear power plant, the ship was powered by two KVG-2 boilers operating on fuel oil - in the bow and stern engine rooms. The backup power plant was intended for use in ports, since the reactors were supposed to be shut down before entering the country’s territorial waters in order to eliminate possible troubles.

Being a warship, the Ural carried weapons - one 76-mm AK-176 M artillery mount in the bow and stern, four six-barreled 30-mm AK-630 artillery mounts and four double-barreled 12.7-mm Utes-M machine gun mounts " The ammunition should have been enough for at least 20 minutes of battle. The ship was also equipped with PPDO equipment - 4 installations of the Dozhd complex for firing special depth charges against underwater saboteurs. In addition, the ship had a hangar in which the Ka-27 helicopter was located.

On this hike "Ural" accompanied by a nuclear submarine. Along the way "Ural" visited and stood for some time in Cam Ranh.

On the Pacific Ocean "Ural" was based in the city of Pacific (aka Fokino, known among sailors as "Tijas" and having a postal address "Shkotovo-17").

For "Ural", as for other large ships of the Pacific Fleet: TAKR "Minsk" and TAKR "Novorossiysk", there was no quay wall of sufficient size, and therefore most of the time "Ural" was on a “barrel” in Strelok Bay.

BRZK SSV-33 "Ural" became the flagship of the 38th brigade of reconnaissance ships (OSNAZ) Pacific Fleet. In addition to him, the brigade also included SSV-80 “Pribaltka”, SSV-208 “Kuriles”, SSV-391 “Kamchatka”, SSV-464 “Transbaikalia”, SSV-465 “Primorye”, SSV-468 “Gavriil Sarychev”, SSV-493 "Asia", SSV-535 "Karelia".

Due to numerous breakdowns and accidents "Ural" never got to where it was built - to the Kwajalein Atoll, to the site of the US Armed Forces missile test site, but also from its permanent base "Ural" successfully controlled the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, intercepting radio traffic in the networks of the US Navy, Air Force and ASW.

accident rate

Even at the testing stage, problems in the operation of the ship were revealed: the cooling system of the nuclear reactor malfunctioned, the computer system and some information collection systems did not work correctly. These were the latest developments, the experience of using which had not yet been accumulated.

At the same time, during the construction stage at the Baltic Shipyard, not a single accident occurred on the ship due to the fault of the crew. The only case of a small fire at the control center, quickly extinguished by the crew, was due to the fault of a factory welder who carried out welding work without proper support. The first crew underwent serious and lengthy training to operate such a complex ship.

The problems began after, in accordance with the decision of the Supreme Soviet of the USSR to exempt former students from military service, almost all highly trained junior naval specialists in conscript service were transferred to the reserve.

This affected the overall preparedness and competence of the ship's crew.

Fatal incidents

The ship's crew members died in accidents:

In the city, the new crew was stationed in VG-67 (military camp, Leningrad, Kozhevennaya line). While attempting to leave the unit without authorization, sailor Ladygin fell through the sheets through a second-floor window and died.
In the city, a Baltic plant worker died from heart failure in the hold.
In the city, when the ship was near the wall of the Baltic Shipyard, a conscript sailor died from drinking methyl alcohol.
In the winter of 1990, due to an exacerbation of the disease, a sailor with "Ural".
In January 1991, while trying to desert (due to hazing) and swim to shore on a life raft, a sailor froze and died.
In 1991, a sailor saved two officers, a midshipman, and a sailor suffocating in an aviation fuel tank, sacrificing his own insulating gas mask. The ship's surgeon, senior lieutenant of the medical service M. Gabrielyan, who carried out resuscitation actions, brought back to life the military personnel poisoned by aviation fuel fumes, except for sailor Baskov, who saved his colleagues and two more victims: sailor Davletshin and petty officer 1st class Zubakin, who died as a result of severe intoxication. The recording of the funeral of sailor Baskov was transmitted over the ship's network.
At the end of December 1991, the ship's senior mate died in an accident on shore.
In February 1994, a recently called-up conscript sailor committed suicide (hanged himself).
Already when the ship was laid up at the plant, a plant worker who was in a state of alcoholic intoxication died as a result of an accident.

Disposal

SSV-33 "Ural" shortly before mothballing.

ship commanders

Captain 1st rank Keshkov (1983-1991)
Captain 2nd Rank Yarish (1991-1992)
Captain 1st Rank Tugan-Baranovsky (1992-1995)
Captain 1st rank Maksimchuk (1995-1997?)
Captain 1st rank Stukanev (1997-2000)
Captain 1st rank Granin (2000-2002)
Captain 1st Rank Bakunets was commander until August 2011 (until his seal was taken away) (2002-2011)

To the chief designer of "Ural", Arkharov M. A., for this unique project he was awarded the title of Hero of Socialist Labor. In addition, as a civilian, he received the military rank of “rear admiral”.
The ship has a built (constant) roll of 2 degrees to the left side, which was determined by a more developed superstructure on the left side. During the ship's transition to its deployment site and its stay in Strelok Bay before the fire in 1990, this roll was compensated by the ship's systems - working sensors for pitch and side motion, as well as hull deflection, showed a normal state.
The ship's reconnaissance equipment complex included a “photo camera” with a lens diameter of about 1.5 meters.
"Ural" is one of the rare ships freed from the dominance of rats. The operation of the equipment of the ship's reconnaissance complex had a detrimental effect on the rodents.
In 1988, the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, later the first and last President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev, planned to visit Ural. For him, the ship was specially painted on the pier side, part of the superstructure was cut off, and a ladder was installed to make it convenient to climb to the third tier. But all this turned out to be in vain: the Secretary General never boarded the ship.
While staying in Cam Ranh, a PDS (anti-sabotage service) patrol on the Ural used a weapon (a special grenade) against an unknown target in the water near the side of the ship. It turned out to be a large turtle.
In 1990, during the fire of the main artillery ammunition of the Pacific Fleet, the ship was 1.5-2 km from the fire site. Despite the huge number of shells and missiles scattered in different directions, thanks to the skillful leadership of the commander, Captain 1st Rank Keshkov, and the selfless actions of the entire crew, not a single shell, missile or fragment hit the ship. The crew, almost under heavy fire, at night, with the support of just one tug, brought him to safety.
In 1991, a box of 76 mm shells went missing while loading ammunition. The ship's commander, Keshkov, asked the crew to return the shells while remaining incognito. During the day, all the shells were returned, and Keshkov personally thanked the crew for each shell brought to his cabin over the “speakerphone.”
In the fall of 1991, during a powerful storm, the ship was torn from the “barrel” and carried out to the open sea. The tugs could not go to sea, the standard launch time for ship engines was from an hour to an hour and a half. The immobilized and helpless ship drifted a hundred meters from the rocky shore of the island. Putyatin. The next day, the ship's crew began to receive travel rations (for example, smoked sausage and condensed milk were added for breakfast), since formally the ship began to be located outside the roadstead, on the open sea.
There was an assumption within the ship's crew that the fate of the Ural was influenced by the connection between the name of the project (Titan) and its developer (Iceberg Design Bureau).

After arriving at their home base (Strelok Bay, Pacific Village, Pacific Fleet), the crew began preparing for a combat campaign to the area of the US missile defense test site on Kwajelein Atoll. However, this trip never took place. For a long time, the crew, even with the help of specialists from the Baltic Plant, could not eliminate the malfunction in the cooling system of the ship's nuclear installation. Graduates of military land schools and academies - specialists in the operation of the unique complexes of the Coral system, the Elbrus MVK and functional software - no longer wanted to serve in the navy and began to be written off ashore.

Let's find out more about the history of this ship...

During the Cold War, the USSR faced an urgent need to control potential ballistic missile launches from anywhere in the world. It was not possible to solve this problem by ground means; the USSR simply did not have military bases in many parts of the world. In turn, the ships of the Marine Space Fleet (“Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin” and others, see the articles “History of the Marine Space Fleet” and “The Last Flight of Yuri Gagarin”) did not have active radars and were intended to work on the “responders” of domestic spacecraft .

Thus, the decision was made to create a special combat ship that would allow control of any subspace object on any segment of its trajectory.

In 1977, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted a Resolution on the creation of a ship of Project 1941 (at the time of laying, it was named “Ural”) with a system of special technical reconnaissance equipment “Coral”. The preparation and coordination of the draft resolution with numerous ministries and departments was ensured by a group of employees of the 10th Main Directorate of the Ministry of Radio Industry and the Leningrad branch of the GPTP under the leadership of V. Kuryshev, who at that time held the position of deputy head of the main department.

The designer of the ship was the Leningrad Central Design Bureau "Iceberg" of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, and the construction plant was the Baltic Shipyard named after S. Ordzhonikidze. CNPO Vympel of the Ministry of Radio Industry was appointed the lead developer of the Coral system. More than 200 research institutes, design bureaus, manufacturing plants and installation and configuration organizations were involved in the creation of the Coral system. The Granit Production Association was appointed as the lead organization for carrying out installation and adjustment work on the complexes and the Coral system as a whole, conducting factory tests, ensuring state tests and handing over the system to the Navy.

The Ural was laid down in June 1981, launched in 1983, and on January 6, 1989, the Naval flag was raised on the ship. The ship received the hull number SSV-33.

If there are ships that are destined to become a floating misfortune of their own fleet, then the Ural is in the forefront. Lovers of mysticism can spot an ominous sign in the very design number of this floating island with a nuclear engine - 1941. Well, it was necessary to come up with the idea from the many digital combinations for the “Ural” to choose exactly this one. In our country, no one needs to explain what tragedies it is associated with in the public consciousness. In a word, mysticism is to blame, or it’s not the issue, but the 1941 project, for which billions of full-fledged Soviet rubles were spent in the 80s, ended in failure.

The civilian vessels “Akademik Sergei Korolev”, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin” or “Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov”, equipped with special control and measuring systems for monitoring space objects, were not suitable for reconnaissance of what was happening on Kwajalein. The main thing is that they did not have active radars and were intended only to receive signals from domestic satellites. This means that it was necessary to build a special nuclear warship that would be capable of collecting the entire amount of available information about any subspace object on any part of its trajectory in any area of the World Ocean. This is how the 1941 Titan project arose. The designer of the ship was the Leningrad Central Design Bureau "Iceberg" of the Minsudprom, the builder was the Baltic Shipyard named after S. Ordzhonikidze.

For the relaxation of sailors on a long voyage, the Ural provided a smoking lounge, a billiard room, sports and cinema halls, a nature salon, slot machines, two saunas and a swimming pool.

Atoll radar antenna without protective housing

At first, everything worked out great. On the way to the Pacific base, the crew tested the capabilities of their reconnaissance equipment. Without difficulty, the launch of the American space shuttle Columbia was discovered a thousand miles away. Then - the launch into orbit from the territory of the United States of two satellites of optoelectronic and electronic intelligence, launched under the "Star Wars" program. Such little things as incidentally recording the parameters of radar stations located along the way of foreign military bases, as well as NATO ships and aircraft accompanying the Ural, are not worth mentioning.

Everything turned out to be even worse when the Ural arrived at its base in the Pacific settlement, nicknamed by the sailors as Texas. No one could have imagined that the first voyage of the monstrously expensive unique ship would also be the last. There was no quay wall prepared for it. Just as they had not prepared anything like this before for the heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers Minsk and Novorossiysk. Therefore, it was impossible to supply either fuel, steam, water, or electricity from the shore to the ships. Their diesel generators and boilers threshed non-stop, knocking out precious motor resources, which were supposed to be spent only on campaigns. It is not surprising that those cruisers essentially “ate” themselves and were scrapped long before their due date.

There is information in various sources that the Ural was still on combat duty, despite the breakdowns, the ship successfully controlled the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, intercepting radio traffic in the networks of the Navy, Air Force and PLO of the USA and Japan.

In 2001, the ship, which had gone on only one combat campaign, was finally decommissioned and laid up on a remote pier. Next to him, too, was a brother in misfortune - the missile cruiser "Admiral Lazarev" (formerly "Frunze", one of the four nuclear missile attack cruisers of project 1144 "Orlan"; the only remaining cruiser of project 1144 "Peter the Great" is now the flagship Northern Fleet of the Russian Navy).

In April 2008, a tender was held for the disposal of the ship and its nuclear power plant.

The ship is being dismantled (2010) at the Zvezda Shipyard.

Tactical and technical data of the ship

SSV-33 "Ural"

Communications and control vessel

chief designer M.A. Arkharov

Baltic plant, 1988

Displacement: standard 32,780 tons, total 34,640 tons (according to other sources 32,780 tons / 36,500 tons);

Length: 265 meters;

Width: 30 m;

Draft: 7.8 m (7.5 m);

Reservations: none;

Power plant: OK-900 type nuclear power plant, 2 x 171 MW, 2 VDRK-500 boilers, 2 GTZA-688 turbo-gear units;

Speed: 21.6 knots;

Cruising range: unlimited;

Autonomy: 180 days;

Armament: one 76-mm artillery mount fore and aft, four six-barreled 30-mm Oka gun mounts and four double-barreled 12.7-mm Utyos-M machine gun mounts. The ammunition should have been enough for at least 20 minutes of battle;

Anti-aircraft weapons: Igla MANPADS (16 9M-313 missiles);

Aviation: 1 Ka-32 helicopter;

Crew: 233 officers, 690 foremen and sailors (according to other sources - 890 crew members in total, of which at least 400 officers and midshipmen);

In the Navy from 01/06/89 to 2001.

(38th brigade of reconnaissance ships - OSNAZ Pacific Fleet)

Completed 1 hike -

from Leningrad to Fokino, Abrek b.

The basis of the radio-electronic equipment of the ship is the reconnaissance complex "Korall", which includes two computers of the "Elbrus" type and several computers "ES-1046".

Elbrus is a series of Soviet supercomputers developed at the Institute of Fine Mechanics and Computer Technology (ITMiVT) in the 1970s-1990s, as well as processors and systems based on them.

The main difference of the Elbrus system is its focus on the high-level languages of the 1980s. There are no Assembler-class languages in the system. The base language is Autocode Elbrus El-76 (author V. M. Pentkovsky), in which the system-wide software (OSPO) is written, is the language of the Algol class. It resembles the Algol-68 language, the main difference is the dynamic type binding, which is supported at the hardware level. During compilation, the El-76 program was translated into non-operand commands of the stack architecture.

The main difference between the Elbrus architecture and most existing systems is the use of tags. In the Elbrus system, each memory word has, in addition to the information part containing the data element, also a control part - the element tag, on the basis of which the processor hardware dynamically selects the desired operation variant and controls the types of operands.

The hardware and OS implement a flexible mechanism for managing virtual memory (called "mathematical" in the documentation). The programmer is given the opportunity to describe arrays of up to 2 to the 20th power of elements.

Interesting facts from the life of the ship

* The chief designer of Ural, M. A. Arkharov, received a medal and the title of Hero of Socialist Labor for this unique project. In addition, being a civilian, he received the military rank of Rear Admiral.

* The ship has a built (constant) roll of 2 degrees to the left side, which was determined by a more developed superstructure on the left side. During the ship's transition to its deployment site and its stay in Strelok Bay before the fire in 1990, this roll was compensated by the ship's systems - working sensors for pitch and side motion, as well as hull deflection, showed a normal state.

* Due to its unique design, the Ural is the only three-masted warship in the world (except for the training sailing ships that are part of many navies).

* The ship’s reconnaissance equipment complex included a “photo camera” with a lens diameter of about 1.5 meters.

* In 1988, “Ural” was visited by the General Secretary of the CPSU Central Committee, later the first and last President of the USSR, Mikhail Gorbachev. Part of the superstructure was specially cut off for him and a ladder was installed to make it convenient to climb to the third tier. But all this turned out to be in vain: the Secretary General never boarded the ship.

* In 1990, during the fire of the main artillery ammunition of the Pacific Fleet, the ship was 1.5-2 km from the fire site. Despite the huge number of shells and missiles scattered in different directions, thanks to the skillful leadership of the commander, Captain 1st Rank Keshkov, and the selfless actions of the entire crew, not a single shell, missile or fragment hit the ship. The crew, almost under heavy fire, at night, with the support of just one tug, brought him to safety.

* The first commander of the Ural, captain 1st rank Ilya Keshkov, turned to Russian President Boris Yeltsin for help. Didn't receive an answer.

Journalist's impressions of Ural

In 2006, a correspondent for the newspaper Trud visited the Urals. He managed to catch the last years of the ship.

In Strelok Bay in the south of Primorye, for a decade and a half, the nuclear reconnaissance ship SSV-33 “Ural” has been rotting at the pier without any benefit. Sarcastically nicknamed by the Pacific Islanders the cabin carrier. SSV also stands for “special sleeping car.” What else can you call this headache of today's admirals? Since 1992, after a single combat campaign, the giant reconnaissance ship was used as an officers' dormitory. It was somehow possible to live on it.

And what were the hopes... Almost a thousand crew members. The ability to stand off the coast of the United States for months and “cover” their entire territory with electronic intelligence means. Record everything - from the trajectories of ballistic missiles to conversations on mobile phones. Everything here is unique. Intelligence equipment and a computer center are state-of-the-art. For relaxation there is a smoking lounge, a billiard room, sports and cinema rooms, a nature salon, slot machines, two saunas and a swimming pool. It is not for nothing that the absolutely civilian chief designer of the Ural, Arkharov, was awarded the titles of Hero of Socialist Labor and Rear Admiral after the commissioning of his brainchild.

The picture that opened up to us today on board the Ural is terrifying. Perhaps the curse of the ship lies in the fatal number for the country, 1941? That’s exactly what, unfortunately, it occurred to someone to name this unique project.

It’s strange, but the ship with the nuclear installation was allowed through the checkpoint without any hindrance. The dark eye sockets of the windows of the former training detachment of signalmen, as well as the swimming pool, where sailors once underwent light diving training, looked gloomily. Desolation and decay. And in the middle is the Ural, tightly moored to the pier. Even just getting on board is now dangerous. Many ladders no longer have handrails. Railings are cut along the sides. There are no handles on the doors. The copper plugs and taps have long since been screwed together and sent for scrap. The crew has shrunk to 15 people and fits in one cockpit. The nuclear reactors are shut down and one officer is looking after them. There is water in many rooms. Roll to starboard - 7 degrees. Two years ago, when it was a couple of degrees cooler, the Ural was docked and tried to be leveled. It didn't work out. They spat on it and left it to rot.

Of course I can’t help but remind you about the tragic fate of the spacecraft "Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin" and about space

Nuclear-powered electronic reconnaissance ship SSV-33 "Ural".

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Nuclear-powered electronic reconnaissance ship SSV-33 "Ural"

A warship, the world's largest reconnaissance ship, the only ship of the 1941 Titan project (according to NATO classification - Kapusta), the largest surface ship with a nuclear power plant (NPP) in the USSR and Russia.

History of creation.

During the Cold War, in the era of confrontation between two world centers - the USSR and the USA, the warring parties were looking for opportunities to gain access to a variety of strategic information about the “probable enemy”, while hiding their own secrets.

One of these secrets was a missile range in the South Pacific Ocean, which the United States used to launch its ballistic missiles.

The Soviet Union could not sufficiently monitor the tests of American missiles on the final trajectory: the USSR did not have military bases in the region. The PIK ships of the USSR Ministry of Defense and civilian ships that carried special control and measuring systems (for example, “Academician Sergei Korolev”, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin” or “Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov”) did not have active radars and were intended to work on domestic space transponders objects.

Large reconnaissance ship "Ural" during sea trials.

The Ural was laid down in June 1981, launched in 1983, and on January 6, 1989, the Naval flag was raised on the ship.

The Russian and Soviet fleets already had ships with a similar name: the auxiliary cruiser Ural took part in the Battle of Tsushima, and the minelayer Ural fought in the Baltic during the Great Patriotic War. In modern Russia, the border patrol ship "Ural" serves.

The large reconnaissance ship "Ural" received the hull number SSV-33. The abbreviation SSV served as a cover legend and stands for “Communication Vessel” - this is how reconnaissance ships were openly classified in the Soviet Navy.

The structure of the ship.

There is a version that the hull of an ore carrier was taken as the basis for the Project 1941 ship (“Titan”). Probably the origins of this opinion stem from the fact that, as a rule, telemetry control vessels (for example, “Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin”) were indeed built on this principle.

Also, according to most sources, the Ural is identical in its power plant to the Project 1144 Orlan TAKR (which often leads to the erroneous conclusion that the Ural belongs to Project 1144).

Being a warship, the Ural carried weapons - one 76-mm AK-176M artillery mount in the bow and stern, four six-barreled 30-mm AK-630 artillery mounts and four double-barreled 12.7-mm Utes-M machine gun mounts. . The ammunition should have been enough for at least 20 minutes of battle. The ship was also equipped with PPDO equipment - 4 installations of the Dozhd complex for firing special depth charges against underwater saboteurs. In addition, the ship had a hangar in which the Ka-27 helicopter was located.

The massive three-tier superstructure and spacious masts housed numerous combat laboratories.

In total, the ship's crew consisted of 890 people, of which at least 400 were officers and midshipmen. The intelligence complex personnel were divided into 6 special services.

The basis of the radio-electronic equipment of the ship was the Coral reconnaissance complex, including two Elbrus-type computers and several ES-1046 computers.

Atoll radar antenna without protective housing.

Large reconnaissance ship "Ural" on a voyage.

Combat service.

In 1989, after entering service, the Ural made a 59-day transition to its permanent place of service - the Pacific Ocean.

On this voyage, the Ural was accompanied by a nuclear submarine. On the way, the Ural visited and stood in Cam Ranh for some time.

In the Pacific Ocean, "Ural" was based in the city of Pacific (aka Fokino, known among sailors as "Tihas" and having a postal address of "Shkotovo-17").

For the "Ural", as for other large ships of the Pacific Fleet: the TAKR "Minsk" and the TAKR "Novorossiysk", there was no quay wall of sufficient size, and therefore most of the time the "Ural" was on a "barrel" in Strelok Bay.

BRZK SSV-33 "Ural" became the flagship of the 38th brigade of reconnaissance ships (OSNAZ) of the Pacific Fleet. In addition to him, the brigade also included SSV-80 “Pribaltka”, SSV-208 “Kuriles”, SSV-391 “Kamchatka”, SSV-464 “Transbaikalia”, SSV-465 “Primorye”, SSV-468 “Gavriil Sarychev”, SSV-493 "Asia", SSV-535 "Karelia".

Due to numerous breakdowns and accidents, the Ural never got to where it was built for - to the Kwajalein Atoll, to the site of the missile test site of the US Armed Forces, but from the point of its permanent deployment, the Ural successfully controlled the northern part of the Pacific Ocean, intercepting radio traffic in the networks of the Navy, Air Force and ASW of the USA and Japan.

Disposal.

The world's largest nuclear-powered warship installation died at the pier with the shameful nickname “cabin carrier”. We continue to publish materials about top secret Soviet Cold War-era projects involving the use of nuclear energy. , capable of staying in the air for an unlimited time, designed for a sudden landing from the depths of the sea of a marine battalion with tanks and armored personnel carriers, which simply would not have been equaled in the ocean...

These are not characters from science fiction films at all. Thousands of our scientists and designers worked on the creation of these unprecedented deadly machines. Some of their ideas remained on the archive shelves. But we managed to bring something to life.

For example, giant nuclear-powered electronic intelligence ship SSV-33 "Ural", who is dying today in the Pacific Fleet. The abbreviation SSV in the USSR Navy was used to refer to all reconnaissance ships. They did this in hopes of confusing the enemy. Because SSV is short for “communications vessel.”

If there are ships that are destined to become the floating misfortune of their own fleet, then the Ural is in the forefront. Lovers of mysticism can spot an ominous sign in the very design number of this floating island with a nuclear engine - 1941. Well, it was necessary to come up with this idea from the many digital combinations for the "Ural" to choose exactly this one. In our country, no one needs to explain what tragedies it is associated with in the public consciousness. In a word, mysticism is to blame, or it’s not the issue, but the 1941 project, for which billions of full-fledged Soviet rubles were spent in the 80s, ended in failure.

To understand why the ill-fated Ural was needed, you will have to look to the South Pacific Ocean. There, near nine dozen small islands of the Kwajalein Atoll, there is a top-secret training ground for the United States. The Minuteman and MX intercontinental ballistic missiles, launched for test purposes from the state of California, fly here. And since 1983, Kwawjalein has become one of the American research centers for the implementation of the Strategic Defense Initiative, conceived by President Ronald Reagan with the goal of disarming the USSR.

From here, in preparation for “Star Wars,” interceptor missiles began to be launched, designed to hit Soviet nuclear warheads. Telemetry information from these tests could tell Moscow a lot about Reagan's machinations. However, how to get it?

Civil courts " Academician Sergei Korolev», « Cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin" or " Cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov", equipped with special control and measuring systems for monitoring space objects, were not suitable for reconnaissance of what was happening on Kwajalein. The main thing is that they did not have active radars and were intended only to receive signals from domestic satellites.

This means that it was necessary to build a special nuclear warship that would be capable of collecting the entire amount of available information about any subspace object on any part of its trajectory in any area of the World Ocean. This is how the 1941 Titan project arose. The designer of the ship was the Leningrad Central Design Bureau "Iceberg" of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry, and the construction plant was the Baltic Shipyard named after S. Ordzhonikidze.

QUICK REFERENCE

Performance characteristics of the CCB-33 "Ural":
Displacement 34640 tons
Length – 265 meters
Width 30 meters
Height - 70 meters
Draft - 7.5 meters
Speed - 21.6 knots
Nuclear reactor – 2 units of 171 MW each, type OK-900
Power - 66,500 hp.
Crew – 950 people

Armament:
Artillery guns - 2 x 76 mm AK-176
Anti-aircraft guns - 4 x 30mm AK-630 and 4 x Igla MANPADS
Machine guns - 4 x 12 mm coaxial machine gun mounts
Helicopters - 1 x Ka-32

Radar equipment:
Locator/Radar - 3 MR-212/201 "Vychegda-U"
Air target detection radar - MR-750 "Fregat-MA".

What came out in the end was called the ship's surveillance system "Coral". It was based on seven powerful radio-electronic complexes. To process the received information, a unique computing complex for its time was installed at the Ural, consisting of several ES-1046 and Elbrus computers. With their help, it was possible to decipher the characteristics of any space object at a distance of up to 1,500 kilometers. In addition, the ship’s reconnaissance equipment complex included a “photo camera” with a lens diameter of about 1.5 meters. Experts claim that the Ural crew was able to determine even the secrets of their fuel by the composition of the exhaust gases of ballistic missile engines.

In the event of a war in remote areas of the ocean, the unique ship had to be able to fend for itself. To do this, he received artillery, which approximately corresponded to the armament of the destroyer:
— one 76-mm artillery mount at the bow and stern;
— four quadruple launchers of the Igla man-portable anti-aircraft missile system (16 9M-313 missiles);
— four six-barreled 30-mm AK-630 artillery mounts;
- four double-barreled 12.7-mm Utes-M machine gun mounts.

The ammunition should have been enough for at least 20 minutes of battle. The Ka-32 helicopter was located in the aircraft hangar at the stern. The nuclear power plant made it possible to travel indefinitely at a speed of more than 20 knots.

The miracle ship was to be operated by a crew of approximately 1,000 people, of which at least 400 were officers and midshipmen. The intelligence complex personnel were divided into 6 special services. For the relaxation of sailors on a long voyage, the Ural provided a smoking lounge, a billiard room, sports and cinema halls, a nature salon, slot machines, two saunas and a swimming pool.
It is clear that to accommodate all this technical splendor, a huge ship hull was needed. They made it so, taking as a basis the design of the Project 1144 nuclear-powered missile cruiser of the Kirov type. As a result, the length of the Ural turned out to be approximately two football fields, and the height from keel to keel was the size of a 28-story building.

Large reconnaissance ship SSV-33 « Ural » became the flagship of the 38th brigade reconnaissance ships(OSNAZ) Pacific Fleet. In addition to him, the brigade also included SSV-80 “Pribaltka”, SSV-208 “Kuriles”, SSV-391 “Kamchatka”, SSV-464 “Transbaikalia”, SSV-465 “Primorye”, SSV-468 “Gavriil Sarychev”, SSV-493 "Asia", SSV-535 "Karelia".

The hopes that the USSR Ministry of Defense placed on the newest reconnaissance ship are evidenced by a truly unique fact: the absolutely civilian chief designer of the Ural, Arkharov, was immediately awarded the military rank of “rear admiral” upon completion of the work. Well, the title of Hero of Socialist Labor goes without saying.

The Ural plant was laid down at the Baltic Shipyard in the summer of 1981. It was launched into the water in 1983. In 1989, the ship entered service with the USSR Navy.. And immediately, under the command of Captain 1st Rank Ilya Keshkov, he set off on a two-month journey to his permanent base in the Pacific Ocean. During the voyage, the reconnaissance ship was secretly accompanied by our multi-purpose nuclear submarine. And also a lot of planes and ships of NATO countries, which were at a loss: why do the Russians need this ocean giant with space antennas?

At first, everything worked out great. On the way to the Pacific base, the crew tested the capabilities of their reconnaissance equipment. Without difficulty, the launch of the American space shuttle Columbia was discovered a thousand miles away. Then - the launch into orbit from the territory of the United States of two satellites of optoelectronic and electronic intelligence, launched under the "Star Wars" program. Such little things as incidentally recording the parameters of radar stations located along the route of foreign military bases, as well as NATO ships and aircraft accompanying the Ural, are not worth mentioning.

However, this would not be Soviet military equipment if everything went smoothly with it. Especially with undeveloped samples, which no one had any operating experience. Hundreds of industry representatives, who went on an ocean voyage with the crew, tried day and night to debug the equipment that kept breaking down:
— the cooling system of the nuclear reactor malfunctioned;
— the computer system and some information collection systems did not work correctly;
— there was a five-degree roll to the left side, which could not be eliminated.

There was an assumption within the ship's crew that the fate of the nuclear giant Ural was influenced by the connection between the name of the project (Titan) and its developer (Design Bureau Iceberg). Everything turned out to be even worse when the Ural arrived at its base in the Pacific city, nicknamed Tikhas by the sailors (aka Fokino). No one could have imagined that the first voyage of a monstrously expensive unique ship would also be the last.
There was no quay wall prepared for it. Just as they had not prepared anything like this before for the heavy aircraft-carrying cruisers Minsk and Novorossiysk. Therefore, it was impossible to supply either fuel, steam, water, or electricity from the shore to the ships. Their diesel generators and boilers threshed non-stop, knocking out precious motor resources, which were supposed to be spent only on campaigns. It is not surprising that those cruisers essentially “ate” themselves and were scrapped long before their due date.

Now the same fate awaited “Ural”. He, too, spent most of his time standing on mooring barrels in Strelok Bay. And in the summer of 1990, a fire broke out on a nuclear reconnaissance ship, which disabled the aft engine room. The electrical cables coming from the stern boiler were burnt out. For more than a year, the ship's energy supply was provided only by the bow engine, but soon it burned out too. After that, all the energy for the ship was provided only by emergency diesel generators. There was no money for repairs. The ship's commander, Captain 1st Rank Keshkov, in despair, even wrote an official letter to the then Russian President Boris Yeltsin. As one might expect, the commander did not receive any money for repairs or an answer.

As a result of all the misadventures in 1992, the nuclear reactors of the Ural were shut down, and he himself was placed at a remote pier, turning an officer’s dormitory into an unprecedented size. For this, the Pacific people sarcastically nicknamed the SSV-33 “Ural” cabin carrier. And the abbreviation CSV began to be deciphered as follows: special sleeping car.

Almost everything that the intelligence officers of the Main Intelligence Directorate and FAPSI did in Lourdes could have been done by the Ural: intercept any information from American communications satellites and ground-based telecommunication cables. Right down to telephone conversations between Americans from their own kitchens.
However, now it’s too late to regret it. Last 2010, the nuclear-powered reconnaissance ship Ural was sent for disposal to the Far Eastern Zvezda plant.

/Sergey Ishchenko, svpressa.ru And en.wikipedia.org /