Soviet destroyer Bystry (1936)

	Aerial view of sister ship Razumny, March 1944
History
Soviet Union
Name	Bystry (Быстрый (Fast))
Ordered	2nd Five-Year Plan
Builder	Shipyard No. 198 (Andre Marti (South)), Nikolayev
Laid down	17 April 1936
Launched	5 November 1936
Completed	27 January 1939
Commissioned	7 March 1939
Fate	Sunk by mine, 1 July 1941; Refloated, 13 July 1941; Sunk by aircraft, September 1941;
General characteristics (Gnevny as completed, 1938)
Class and type	Gnevny-class destroyer
Displacement	1,612 t (1,587 long tons) (standard)
Length	112.8 m (370 ft 1 in) ( o/a)
Beam	10.2 m (33 ft 6 in)
Draft	4.8 m (15 ft 9 in)
Installed power	3 water-tube boilers; 48,000 kW);
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 geared steam turbines
Speed	38 knots (70 km/h; 44 mph)
Range	2,720 nmi (5,040 km; 3,130 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Complement	197 (236 wartime)
Sensors and ; processing systems	Mars hydrophone
Armament	4 × single 130 mm (5.1 in) guns; 2 × single AA guns; 2 × single 45 mm (1.8 in) AA guns; 2 × single AA machineguns; 2 × triple 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes; 60–96 mines; 2 × depth charge racks, 25 depth charges;

Bystry (

bow

salvaged to repair one of her sisters.

Design and description

Having decided to build the large and expensive 40-knot (74 km/h; 46 mph) Leningrad-class destroyer leaders, the Soviet Navy sought Italian assistance in designing smaller and cheaper destroyers. They licensed the plans for the Folgore class and, in modifying it for their purposes, overloaded a design that was already somewhat marginally stable.^[1]

The Gnevnys had an

kW) using steam from three water-tube boilers which was intended to give them a maximum speed of 37 knots (69 km/h; 43 mph).^[3] The designers had been conservative in rating the turbines and many, but not all, of the ships handily exceeded their designed speed during their sea trials. Others fell considerably short of it, although specific figures for most individual ships have not survived. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Gnevnys varied between 1,670 to 3,145 nautical miles (3,093 to 5,825 km; 1,922 to 3,619 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph).^[4]

As built, the Gnevny-class ships mounted four

paravanes intended to destroy mines and a pair of depth-charge throwers.^[7]

Construction and service

Built in

drydocked the following day for repairs. She was in very poor condition and her hull was patched to move her out of the drydock pending a final decision on whether to repair her. The ship was struck by several bombs during a German airstrike in September and sank. Her guns were removed 20 November – 15 December and used to reinforce the coastal defenses of Sevastopol. Her bow was later salvaged to repair her sister Besposhchadny.^[9]^[10]