Russia’s powerful new frigate is rebuilding its Black Sea Fleet

While the Russian Navy has been a basket case both on the surface and down below since the fall of the Berlin Wall almost three decades ago, in recent years, we've seen an attempted comeback. There are plans to build few ships to fill out the fleet.

However, the budget has been a problem. Russia just simply hasn't been able to build ships in the same quantity or as quickly as the Soviet Union used to. The Soviet Union built 17 Sovremennyy-class guided-missile destroyers. When production was in full swing, it took about four years from laying down the ship to commissioning. Today, a smaller Steregushchiy-class frigate takes as many as eleven years to build.

So, Russia sought to cut down on its RD time and expenses. After the Cold War, Russia started building some ships for other countries. China, for example, acquired four Sovremenny-class destroyers (two incomplete at the time the Soviet Union fell, two newly-built from Russia). But Russia's biggest naval customer is India, who got a modified version of the Krivak called the Talwar-class guided-missile frigate. Six of those vessels were built for India, but it didn't take long for Russia to want a few of their own.

In Russian service, the vessel is called the Admiral Grigorovich-class frigate. It is equipped with a single launcher for the SA-N-7 surface-to-air missile, an eight-cell launcher for the SS-N-27 Sizzler surface-to-surface missile, a single 100mm gun, two CADS-N-1 point-defense systems, and two twin-mounted 21-inch torpedo tubes. These frigates can also operate a Ka-27 Helix helicopter, giving them additional anti-submarine weaponry.

The production of these vessels, however, has come to a screeching halt. This is because Russia sourced the propulsion plants from Ukraine, which halted deliveries after the Russian takeover of Crimea.

Learn more about these ships in the video below.