The Drive:
Russia recently concluded a series of drills in the Barents Sea, situated above the Arctic Circle, which had occurred in an area that overlapped in part with where NATO forces were conducting the alliance’s largest exercise in decades. The Kremlin had caused something of a stir by alerting civilian pilots and mariners in the area that it would be firing unspecified missiles. Now we know that these launches included the use of an unusual torpedo tube-launched anti-submarine missile system known as the RPK-6 Vodopad, or Waterfall.
On Nov. 15, 2018, the Russian Ministry of Defense released a video showing Kirov-class nuclear battlecruiser Pyotr Velikiy, or Peter the Great, firing multiple Soviet-era RPK-6s, which NATO also refers to as the SS-N-16 Stallion. An unnamed nuclear-powered submarine was also reportedly involved in this specific drill.
The exercise offered both vessels the opportunity to try to seek out and conduct simulated attacks on each other, according to the video’s caption. Unfortunately, it doesn’t say whether Pyotr Velikiy or the submarine scored the most “kills” against the other.
