Recently, russians launched the fifth Admiral Gorshkov-class Project 22350 frigate, Admiral Amelko, in St. Petersburg. According to the project, 10 such frigates were planned to be built.
Five of them have already been launched, and three have already been put into service. Although all of these frigates are supposed to carry 3M22 Zircon missiles, only one has been finished due to ongoing problems. This was reported by Naval News.
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The keel of the new Admiral Amelko frigate was laid back in 2019, and its commissioning into the russian Navy is scheduled for 2027. This means it will have taken eight years from keel-laying to completion.
However, a retrospective view shows that things are progressing even more slowly. The first frigate under this project was laid down in 2006 and commissioned in 2018, i.e., 12 years later. Currently, only the eighth frigate has been laid down, so at this rate, the tenth and final frigate is expected by the mid- or late-2030s.
We can mention Japan, which plans to build and commission 12 Mogami-class frigates over the next eight years. In addition, this country recently agreed to sell 11 such frigates to Australia, with three to be built in Japan and the remaining eight in Australia.
The difference in speed is staggering, even though their displacement is almost identical. Although Admiral Amelko was planned to be built in a conventional, non-modernized variant with 16 vertical launchers, it appears that it was modernized after all.
The Admiral Amelko received 32 cells for 3M55 Oniks anti-ship missiles, 3M22 Zircon hypersonic missiles, as well as 3M14 Kalibr cruise missiles. This was confirmed by the signs at the ceremony site.
In addition, Admiral Amelko is armed with a 130 mm AU A-192M gun and two 3M89 Palash air defense systems with two six-barrel 30 mm guns and eight Sosna-RA anti-aircraft missiles.
When discussing the 3M22 Zircon, it’s worth remembering that on August 21, russians fired these missiles from temporarily occupied Crimea at Sumy Oblast. They once again proved to be ineffective and inaccurate, which is why russian propagandists now try to avoid mentioning this Putin's "wunderwaffe."
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