Russia accelerates production of small missile ships "Karakurt"

Last week, two new Project 22800 Karakurt small missile ships were launched in Russia. This is important, since the latter are in great demand today on the Black Sea.

Let us recall that with a length of 67 meters, the above-mentioned ship carries very serious weapons: Caliber missiles, a 76-mm cannon, six-barreled 30 mm mounts and Kord machine gun mounts, as well as a naval version of the Pantsir-M air defense system. Moreover, the Karakurt’s power plant is entirely Russian, which makes the ship completely independent of Western supplies.



The Karakurt power plant consists of three M-507D-1 diesel engines and three DGAS-315 diesel generators produced by Zvezda PJSC. This is a very good engine, but in the early stages there were problems with it.

It is worth noting that it was decided to build the Karakurts in 2015 in order to quickly replace three frigates of Project 11356R Burevestnik, which had to be abandoned due to Kiev blocking the supply of Ukrainian-made gas turbine engines in 2014. Russia was able to complete construction of three more frigates of this project, laid down before 2014.

But let's get back to the problems. And this is not due to any technical flaws, the engine is truly excellent. Meanwhile, as of 2018, Zvezda PJSC could produce about 3 such power plants per year.

“Karakurt” 18 units were ordered at once. At the same time, in addition to engines for small rocket ships, the company also produces other models of units that are equipped with about 90% of high-speed ships of the Navy and border troops.

However, taking into account the fact that out of the 18 ordered, 16 ships have been built or are being completed, the capacity problem has been solved. Consequently, in the foreseeable future we can expect reports about the continuation of the Karakurt series, which will probably be able to carry anti-submarine weapons, as well as a promising smaller modification of the Zircon hypersonic missile.