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Leningrad-class destroyer
The six Leningrad-class destroyer leaders were built for the Soviet Navy in the late 1930s. They were inspired by the contre-torpilleurs built for the French Navy. They were ordered in two batches of three ships each; the first group was designated Project 1 and the second Project 38. These ships were the first large vessels designed and built by the Soviets after the October Revolution of 1917.
The two sister ships deployed in the Baltic Sea, Leningrad and Minsk, bombarded Finnish coast defense positions during the Winter War of 1939–1940. During Operation Barbarossa they provided fire support during the German siege of Tallinn and escorted the convoys when it was evacuated at the end of August 1941. Again they provided fire support during the Siege of Leningrad as they were blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by Axis minefields. Minsk was sunk by German air attack in September 1941, but was later raised and recommissioned. Neither ship did anything notable after the siege was lifted in January 1944. Moskva had a very short career in the Black Sea Fleet as she was sunk on 26 June 1941. Kharkov participated in most of the battles on the Black Sea coast, but was sunk by Stukas in October 1943 as she returned from a bombardment mission. Baku began the war in the Pacific, but was transferred to the Soviet Northern Fleet via the Northern Sea Route between 15 July and 14 October 1942, where she spent the rest of the war escorting Arctic convoys and attempting to intercept German convoys to their ports on the Arctic Ocean. Tbilisi had little to do until after the Soviet invasion of Manchuria when she transported naval infantry.
Not much is known of the details of their post-war careers. Most underwent a lengthy modernization in the early 1950s before being relegated to roles as training or target ships in the late 1950s. They were scrapped or expended as targets in the early 1960s.
Ordered under the First Five-Year Plan, the three Project 1 destroyer leaders were intended to lead flotillas of destroyers in combat. Rather than copy the British concept of a slightly enlarged version of the standard destroyer like HMS Codrington was for the A-class destroyers, the Soviets chose to copy the French contre-torpilleurs like the Vauquelin class, a series of very large and very fast destroyers that were not intended to cooperate with other, slower destroyers. When the Leningrads were being designed the only destroyers in service for them to lead were old ex-Tsarist ones that were only capable of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph), but the Leningrad-class ships were designed for 40 knots (74 km/h; 46 mph). They were the largest ships built thus far from the keel up by Soviet shipbuilders and were plagued with delays and design issues as the Soviets overestimated their ability to construct ships of their size, having only previously built the Uragan-class guard ships, only one-third the size of the Leningrads. The three Project 38 ships were ordered under the Second Five-Year Plan and were slightly larger than their Project 1 half-sisters, but otherwise identical.
The three Project 1 ships were 127.5 m (418 ft) long overall. They had a beam of 11.7 m (38 ft) and a maximum forward draft of 4.06 m (13.3 ft) and a rear draft of 3.76 m (12.3 ft). They displaced 2,150 long tons (2,180 t) at standard load, and 2,582 long tons (2,623 t) at full load. The Project 38 ships displaced 2,350 long tons (2,390 t) at standard load, and 2,680 long tons (2,720 t) fully laden; between 100–200 long tons (100–200 t) more than their half-sisters. The Leningrads had a metacentric height of 1.22 m (4.0 ft). Their massive bridge structure made them both top-heavy and poor seaboats because of the concentration of weight forward. The ships pitched heavily at the bow, even after the addition of ballast forward, so much so that it interfered with firing the guns in bad weather. The hull structure was too weak to allow all of the guns to be fired at the same time. At high speeds they were hard to steer and vibrated heavily.
As a result of experience in the First World War, these ships were designed to use five of the new 130 mm (5.1 in) 50-caliber B-13 guns then under development in single mounts. One superfiring pair was forward and another aft of the superstructure while the fifth gun was mounted between the bridge and the forward funnel. It was intended as a replacement for the Tsarist-era 55-caliber gun, but with a shorter barrel more suited for use in destroyers. More propellant was used in the B-13 to duplicate the ballistics of the older weapon, but this caused severe erosion problems with the barrel. Determining the solution proved to be a long and difficult process and the first guns weren't delivered until 1936, three years after the Project 1 ships were launched. The guns could be depressed to −5° and elevated to a maximum of +45°. They fired 33.5-kilogram (74 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 870 m/s (2,900 ft/s) which gave them a range of about 25,500 m (27,900 yd). Their rate of fire was 6–10 rounds per minute.
A pair of 76.2 mm (3 in) 34-K anti-aircraft (AA) guns were mounted on the rear deckhouse in single mounts. Manually worked, they had an elevation range of −5° to +85°. Their muzzle velocity of 813 m/s (2,670 ft/s) gave their 6.61-kilogram (14.6 lb) time-fuzed shrapnel shells a maximum range of 8,600 m (9,400 yd). Their rate of fire was about 15–20 rounds per minute. Light AA guns initially consisted of two semi-automatic 45 mm (1.8 in) 21-K AA guns mounted on either side of the bridge. These had been adapted from the 45 mm anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K) and consequently lacked time-fuzed ammunition, which meant that only a direct hit would detonate the rounds. On the surviving ships these were supplemented during the war by six to ten fully automatic 37 mm (1.5 in) 70-K AA guns and two to eight DK 12.7 mm (0.50 in) machine guns. Some ships landed their middle 130 mm gun in exchange for more light AA guns. Photographic evidence shows that some ships received Lend-Lease, water-cooled 0.5 in (12.7 mm) Browning M2 AA machine guns.
They were the first Soviet ships to mount quadruple torpedo tubes, one 533 mm (21.0 in) launcher between the funnels and the other aft of the rear funnel. Sources disagree if any reload torpedoes were carried. The Leningrads were given a square stern with ramps to facilitate minelaying. They could carry 68 Model KB, 84 Model 1926 or 115 Model 1912 mines. Although no sonar was initially fitted, just the Arktur hydrophone system that was useless at speeds above three knots, they carried 20 B-1 and 32 Model 1931 depth charges. At some point during the war Baku, Minsk, Leningrad and Tbilisi were fitted with British Lend-Lease ASDIC (sonar), Type 285 fire control radars and American SG air search radars.
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Leningrad-class destroyer AI simulator
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Leningrad-class destroyer
The six Leningrad-class destroyer leaders were built for the Soviet Navy in the late 1930s. They were inspired by the contre-torpilleurs built for the French Navy. They were ordered in two batches of three ships each; the first group was designated Project 1 and the second Project 38. These ships were the first large vessels designed and built by the Soviets after the October Revolution of 1917.
The two sister ships deployed in the Baltic Sea, Leningrad and Minsk, bombarded Finnish coast defense positions during the Winter War of 1939–1940. During Operation Barbarossa they provided fire support during the German siege of Tallinn and escorted the convoys when it was evacuated at the end of August 1941. Again they provided fire support during the Siege of Leningrad as they were blockaded in Leningrad and Kronstadt by Axis minefields. Minsk was sunk by German air attack in September 1941, but was later raised and recommissioned. Neither ship did anything notable after the siege was lifted in January 1944. Moskva had a very short career in the Black Sea Fleet as she was sunk on 26 June 1941. Kharkov participated in most of the battles on the Black Sea coast, but was sunk by Stukas in October 1943 as she returned from a bombardment mission. Baku began the war in the Pacific, but was transferred to the Soviet Northern Fleet via the Northern Sea Route between 15 July and 14 October 1942, where she spent the rest of the war escorting Arctic convoys and attempting to intercept German convoys to their ports on the Arctic Ocean. Tbilisi had little to do until after the Soviet invasion of Manchuria when she transported naval infantry.
Not much is known of the details of their post-war careers. Most underwent a lengthy modernization in the early 1950s before being relegated to roles as training or target ships in the late 1950s. They were scrapped or expended as targets in the early 1960s.
Ordered under the First Five-Year Plan, the three Project 1 destroyer leaders were intended to lead flotillas of destroyers in combat. Rather than copy the British concept of a slightly enlarged version of the standard destroyer like HMS Codrington was for the A-class destroyers, the Soviets chose to copy the French contre-torpilleurs like the Vauquelin class, a series of very large and very fast destroyers that were not intended to cooperate with other, slower destroyers. When the Leningrads were being designed the only destroyers in service for them to lead were old ex-Tsarist ones that were only capable of 30 knots (56 km/h; 35 mph), but the Leningrad-class ships were designed for 40 knots (74 km/h; 46 mph). They were the largest ships built thus far from the keel up by Soviet shipbuilders and were plagued with delays and design issues as the Soviets overestimated their ability to construct ships of their size, having only previously built the Uragan-class guard ships, only one-third the size of the Leningrads. The three Project 38 ships were ordered under the Second Five-Year Plan and were slightly larger than their Project 1 half-sisters, but otherwise identical.
The three Project 1 ships were 127.5 m (418 ft) long overall. They had a beam of 11.7 m (38 ft) and a maximum forward draft of 4.06 m (13.3 ft) and a rear draft of 3.76 m (12.3 ft). They displaced 2,150 long tons (2,180 t) at standard load, and 2,582 long tons (2,623 t) at full load. The Project 38 ships displaced 2,350 long tons (2,390 t) at standard load, and 2,680 long tons (2,720 t) fully laden; between 100–200 long tons (100–200 t) more than their half-sisters. The Leningrads had a metacentric height of 1.22 m (4.0 ft). Their massive bridge structure made them both top-heavy and poor seaboats because of the concentration of weight forward. The ships pitched heavily at the bow, even after the addition of ballast forward, so much so that it interfered with firing the guns in bad weather. The hull structure was too weak to allow all of the guns to be fired at the same time. At high speeds they were hard to steer and vibrated heavily.
As a result of experience in the First World War, these ships were designed to use five of the new 130 mm (5.1 in) 50-caliber B-13 guns then under development in single mounts. One superfiring pair was forward and another aft of the superstructure while the fifth gun was mounted between the bridge and the forward funnel. It was intended as a replacement for the Tsarist-era 55-caliber gun, but with a shorter barrel more suited for use in destroyers. More propellant was used in the B-13 to duplicate the ballistics of the older weapon, but this caused severe erosion problems with the barrel. Determining the solution proved to be a long and difficult process and the first guns weren't delivered until 1936, three years after the Project 1 ships were launched. The guns could be depressed to −5° and elevated to a maximum of +45°. They fired 33.5-kilogram (74 lb) projectiles at a muzzle velocity of 870 m/s (2,900 ft/s) which gave them a range of about 25,500 m (27,900 yd). Their rate of fire was 6–10 rounds per minute.
A pair of 76.2 mm (3 in) 34-K anti-aircraft (AA) guns were mounted on the rear deckhouse in single mounts. Manually worked, they had an elevation range of −5° to +85°. Their muzzle velocity of 813 m/s (2,670 ft/s) gave their 6.61-kilogram (14.6 lb) time-fuzed shrapnel shells a maximum range of 8,600 m (9,400 yd). Their rate of fire was about 15–20 rounds per minute. Light AA guns initially consisted of two semi-automatic 45 mm (1.8 in) 21-K AA guns mounted on either side of the bridge. These had been adapted from the 45 mm anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K) and consequently lacked time-fuzed ammunition, which meant that only a direct hit would detonate the rounds. On the surviving ships these were supplemented during the war by six to ten fully automatic 37 mm (1.5 in) 70-K AA guns and two to eight DK 12.7 mm (0.50 in) machine guns. Some ships landed their middle 130 mm gun in exchange for more light AA guns. Photographic evidence shows that some ships received Lend-Lease, water-cooled 0.5 in (12.7 mm) Browning M2 AA machine guns.
They were the first Soviet ships to mount quadruple torpedo tubes, one 533 mm (21.0 in) launcher between the funnels and the other aft of the rear funnel. Sources disagree if any reload torpedoes were carried. The Leningrads were given a square stern with ramps to facilitate minelaying. They could carry 68 Model KB, 84 Model 1926 or 115 Model 1912 mines. Although no sonar was initially fitted, just the Arktur hydrophone system that was useless at speeds above three knots, they carried 20 B-1 and 32 Model 1931 depth charges. At some point during the war Baku, Minsk, Leningrad and Tbilisi were fitted with British Lend-Lease ASDIC (sonar), Type 285 fire control radars and American SG air search radars.