Soviet destroyer Soobrazitelny (1940)
 Soviet stamp depicting Soobrazitelny
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Soviet Union | |
| Name | Soobrazitelny (Сообразительный (Astute)) |
| Builder | Shipyard No. 200 (named after 61 Communards), Nikolayev |
| Yard number | 1078 |
| Laid down | 3 March 1939 |
| Launched | 26 August 1939 |
| Commissioned | 7 June 1941 |
| Renamed |
|
| Reclassified |
|
| Stricken | 19 March 1966 |
| Honors and awards | Guards designation, 2 March 1943 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1966–1968 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | Storozhevoy-class destroyer |
| Displacement | |
| Length | 112.5 m (369 ft 1 in) ( o/a ) |
| Beam | 10.2 m (33 ft 6 in) |
| Draft | 3.98 m (13 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 shafts, 2 steam turbine sets |
| Speed | 36.8 knots (68.2 km/h; 42.3 mph) |
| Endurance | 1,380 nmi (2,560 km; 1,590 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph) |
| Complement | 207 (271 wartime) |
| Sensors and processing systems | Mars hydrophones |
| Armament |
|
Soobrazitelny (Russian: Сообразительный, lit. 'Astute') was one of 18 Storozhevoy-class destroyers (officially known as Project 7U) built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 Gnevny-class destroyer, Soobrazitelny was completed in 1941 to the modified Project 7U design.
Assigned to the
Design and description
Originally built as a Gnevny-class ship, Soobrazitelny and her sister ships were completed to the modified Project 7U design after Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ordered that the latter be built with their propulsion machinery arranged into separate units so that a single hit could not completely immobilize the ship.[1]
Like the Gnevnys, the Project 7U destroyers had an
The Project 7U-class ships mounted four
Modifications
By 1943, as a result of a need for increased AA armament due to air attacks, the 45 mm guns aboard Soobrazitelny had been replaced by seven single 37-millimeter (1.5 in) 70-K AA guns, and two twin-gun mounts for 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns had also been added. After her 1947 refit, an additional 37 mm gun was added together with four more twin Browning machine gun mounts, replacing the 76 mm guns and DShKs.[6]
Due to the threat of nuclear attack in the early 1950s, Soobrazitelny and several of her sisters were rebuilt as Project 32 rescue and decontamination ships due to their obsolescence as the Soviet Naval Command considered it necessary to have ships capable of rendering assistance to ships attacked by nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. In the event of war, the rebuilt ships were to conduct nuclear, biological, and chemical reconnaissance in areas that such weapons were used, tow damaged ships as large as light cruisers out of the contaminated zone, assist ship crews in pumping and firefighting and treating wounded, and carry out decontamination of ship interiors. They were also capable of assisting the crews of sunken submarines.[7]
To create space for the additional equipment, the torpedo tubes were removed and the original gun armament replaced by two double 57-millimeter (2.2 in) ZiF-31BS guns. The bridge was widened and a windshield installed, and the mast converted into a
Construction and career
Soobrazitelny was
Raid on Constanța and Siege of Odessa
Soobrazitelny's first combat operation was the
During July, Soobrazitelny was mostly occupied with escort service. She escorted the transports Dnepr and Chapayev from
While escorting three transports from Feodosia to Sevastopol between 6 and 7 September, Soobrazitelny had to be towed on the final leg of the route to avoid
Battle of the Kerch Peninsula and Siege of Sevastopol
For the Kerch–Feodosia Landing Operation, Soobrazitelny escorted three transports from Tuapse to Feodosia. On the last day of the year, Captain 1st rank Nikolay Basisty, commanding the naval forces in the operation, hoisted his flag aboard the ship. Clear skies later that day allowed for German air attacks, which Soobrazitelny put up AA fire against on five occasions. In two separate bombardments that day, she fired a total of 122 shells against a German airfield and a suspected troop concentration on the Kerch-Feodosia road. Five bombardments were conducted on New Year's Day 1942 in worsening weather conditions that covered her deck with ice. She continued to provide fire support to the landings and was targeted twice without result by German bombers on 3 January, when she was forced to return to Novorossiysk due to a lack of fuel; Basisty transferred his flag to the destroyer Boyky. In support of the landings, the ship expended 283 130 mm, 144 76 mm, and 146 45 mm shells. During 1941, she had made 43 sorties and escorted 44 transports, covering 13,874 nmi (25,695 km; 15,966 mi) in 1,108 running hours.[17]
Soobrazitelny escorted a transport from Novorossiysk to Feodosia and returned with another between 6 and 9 January. During these sorties, she expended 67 76 mm and 100 45 mm shells against unsuccessful German air attacks. On 15 January she supported the landing at
Repaired, the ship departed for Sevastopol on 6 March carrying 170 soldiers to reinforce the garrison. She was caught in a storm that night, suffering flooding and having a depth charge mount swept overboard. Nearing Sevastopol, the destroyer was attacked without result by three German bombers and targeted by artillery, forcing her to steam into Severnaya Bay at high speed under a smoke screen. Escaping unscathed, she returned to the Caucasus with the old cruiser Komintern and a transport.[17] After repairs, Soobrazitelny and the destroyer Bditelny supported the Crimean Front by bombarding German positions from Feodosia Gulf in a futile effort to stem the German assault on 9 May during the German offensive against the Kerch Peninsula (Operation Bustard Hunt).[18][19] She departed Batumi on the night of 25 May with Sposobny and Voroshilov. The warships carried a total of 3,017 soldiers from the 9th Naval Infantry Brigade, 33 field guns, 27 light machine guns, and a significant quantity of ammunition, desperately needed by the defenders of Sevastopol. A few hours from Sevastopol on 27 May, a lone German bomber made an unsuccessful attack.[17] This was followed by constant attacks on the ships until they reached Severnaya Bay. Unloading troops and weapons in a half hour, she departed that night with 301 wounded and 456 convicts aboard. During the next day, Soobrazitelny escaped unscathed from multiple air attacks. Between 26 and 27 May, the destroyer expended 36 130 mm, 121 76 mm, and 212 45 mm shells.[20]
During the next few weeks, Soobrazitelny made constant sorties between bases. She arrived in Novorossiysk from Poti on 27 June, with 305-millimeter (12 in) artillery shells for Sevastopol on deck. While refueling for the voyage to Sevastopol, she was sent to assist the severely damaged Tashkent back to port,[20] taking off 1,975 wounded soldiers and evacuated civilians from the destroyer leader before being relieved by torpedo boats and Bditelny. While at Novorossiysk, Soobrazitelny survived a large air raid on 2 July that sank Tashkent, Bditelny, and a hospital ship. Her AA gunners were training when the raid began and opened fire on the attackers, helping the ship to escape without direct hits. However, a near miss threw debris from a railway track on the pier she was moored to onto the deck and mangled rails that tied the bow to the pier. Due to fears of a further German attack, the destroyer departed for Tuapse after the rails were unbent. She spent July and August under repair.[21]
Battle of the Caucasus and end of the war
Returned to service, Soobrazitelny fired a total of 345 130 mm shells against German positions on the coast of Tsemes Bay in two separate bombardments on 1 and 2 September as German forces closed in on Novorossiysk. She and Boyky bombarded Yalta on the night of 4 October, targeting a reported concentration of troops and boats transporting German troops from Sevastopol to Kerch. Soobrazitelny expended 203 main-gun shells, one of which was erroneously reported by partisans to have sunk a submarine in Yalta harbor, and drove off an approaching torpedo boat with 76 mm fire. While steaming to Poti in November, five sailors died of burns suffered when a pipe burst in a boiler room, the only losses aboard her during the war.[21]
In late November, the Black Sea Fleet command planned a major raid on the Romanian coastline, involving Voroshilov, Kharkov, and Soobrazitelny in one force under squadron commander
| External image | |
|---|---|
 Guards flag presented to Soobrazitelny |
Soobrazitelny continued to make sorties between bases in the first half of 1943, and expended a total of 605 130 mm shells in bombardments on 31 January and 4 February against targets near Novorossiysk and in support of the landing at nearby Yuzhnaya Ozereyka.
Postwar
Soobrazitelny underwent a major refit at Shipyard No. 445 in Nikolayev between 19 December 1945 and 25 August 1947. She was modernized and rebuilt at Sevmorzavod between 29 December 1951; this became a conversion to a Project 32 rescue and decontamination ship on 17 February 1956. During this period she was renamed SDK-11 on 20 March 1956 and then SS-16 on 12 February 1957, the latter after the Soviet Navy decided to classify her as a regular rescue ship. The conversion was completed in 1958, and SS-16 began sea trials on 17 August before being accepted on 30 September of that year.[7] After a brief period in this auxiliary role, she was mothballed at Sevastopol on 27 March 1960 and reclassified as a target ship on 14 September 1963, receiving the designation TsL-3 on 31 December of that year. A group of Black Sea Fleet veterans petitioned the Main Staff of the Navy in 1965 to have the former destroyer preserved as a museum ship, but were rejected due to the cost and the presence of other naval museums in Sevastopol. Struck from the Soviet Navy on 19 March 1966, the ship was scrapped at Inkerman between 1966 and 1968.[9][25] She was the last surviving Project 7U destroyer.[26]
Citations
- ^ Rohwer & Monakov, p. 52; Balakin, p. 8
- ^ Balakin, pp. 30, 44; Yakubov & Worth, p. 101
- ^ Yakubov & Worth, pp. 101, 106–107
- ^ Hill, p. 42
- ^ Yakubov & Worth, pp. 101, 105–106
- ^ Balakin, pp. 21, 26
- ^ a b c Balakin, pp. 181–183
- ^ Rohwer & Monakov, pp. 234–235
- ^ a b c Berezhnoy, pp. 354–355
- ^ Khorkov, p. 24
- ^ a b c Balakin, p. 112
- ^ Rohwer, p. 97
- ^ a b c Balakin, p. 113
- ^ Rohwer, p. 100
- ^ a b Balakin, p. 114
- ^ Rohwer, pp. 115–116
- ^ a b c d Balakin, pp. 115–116
- ^ Rohwer, p. 164
- ^ Balakin, p. 106
- ^ a b Balakin, p. 117
- ^ a b c Balakin, pp. 118–120
- ^ a b Balakin, pp. 121–122
- ^ Platonov, p. 225
- ^ Balakin, pp. 125–126
- ^ Balakin, p. 189
- ^ Balakin, pp. 186–187
Sources
- Balakin, Sergey (2007). Легендарные "семёрки" Эсминцы "сталинской" серии [Legendary Sevens: Stalin's Destroyer Series] (in Russian). Moscow: Yauza/Eksmo. ISBN 978-5-699-23784-5.
- Berezhnoy, Sergey (2002). Крейсера и миноносцы. Справочник [Guide to Cruisers and Destroyers] (in Russian). Moscow: Voenizdat. ISBN 5-203-01780-8.
- Hill, Alexander (2018). Soviet Destroyers of World War II. New Vanguard. Vol. 256. Oxford, UK: Osprey Publishing. ISBN 978-1-4728-2256-7.
- Khorkov, Geliy (1981). Советские надводные корабли в Великой Отечественной войне [Soviet Surface Ships in the Great Patriotic War] (in Russian). Moscow: Voenizdat. OCLC 10593895.
- Platonov, Andrey V. (2002). Энциклопедия советских надводных кораблей 1941–1945 [Encyclopedia of Soviet Surface Ships 1941–1945] (in Russian). Saint Petersburg: Poligon. ISBN 5-89173-178-9.
- ISBN 1-59114-119-2.
- Rohwer, Jürgen & Monakov, Mikhail S. (2001). Stalin's Ocean-Going Fleet. London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-4895-7.
- Yakubov, Vladimir & Worth, Richard (2008). "The Soviet Project 7/7U Destroyers". In Jordan, John & Dent, Stephen (eds.). Warship 2008. London: Conway. pp. 99–114. ISBN 978-1-84486-062-3.
Further reading
- Budzbon, Przemysaw (1980). "Soviet Union". In Chesneau, Roger (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922–1946. Greenwich, UK: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 318–346. ISBN 0-85177-146-7.
External links
