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(Vanilla) Proekt 47(3-turret variant, 1948) , 1962

Andromeda(USS Louisiana BB-71) & CaptainTadakoro380 all rights reserved.




The project of armoured flotilla leader returned in 1947, again through the back door. In January 1945, when victory was no longer in doubt, Stalin decided to reactivate the blue-water navy programme. The ‘10-year Plan of Naval Shipbuilding’ was approved by Sovnarkom on 27 November 1945; it included 188 destroyers, requiring series production based on a standard design. A dispute between the command and the managers of the shipbuilding industry then began regarding choice of a ‘standard’. The latter were able to convince Stalin that the launch of construction of a radically new project would require a considerable length of time not only to prepare documentation and instrumentation in the shipyards, but also to design and start production of new fittings and armament. The last prewar project to reach the production phase was Proekt 30 (Ognevoy class), which since the end of the war had been revived in a slightly improved version as Proekt 30K. The best way to start series production immediately was therefore to adopt the existing project with modifications. Stalin, who in his late sixties was conscious of the limited time that remained to realise his imperial ambitions, decided that all the wartime designs (Proekt 40, Proekt 41) were to be suspended, and all the resources of TsKB-53 (former TsKB-17) were to be devoted to an upgrade of the Ognevoy class, Proekt 30-bis (future Smely class, NATO ‘Skory’).

When in the second half of 1947 the Proekt 30-bis design work came to an end, in order to keep the team busy Nikitin (then Chief Constructor of the bureau) decided to revive the armoured flotilla leader concept and to re-use the code-name Proekt 47. This was the best way for him to evade the ban issued by Stalin on new studies for large destroyers while enabling him to access the funding allocated in the budget to studies of the future destroyer (the SP-46). The reasoning was simple: the ban applied to the destroyer, not the flotilla leader type, particularly an armoured variant. No one, of course, intended to revive the pre-war concept – on the contrary, it was planned to implement the latest (and if possible futuristic) solutions. As armour provided an excuse to design a large destroyer, Nikitin envisaged a vessel with 14mm side protection with a 10mm deck over the magazines and boiler uptakes. Moreover, the armour steel plates were to be part of the hull structure, so could practically be discounted when considering the other characteristics of the design. However, the Soviet industry had no experience of using armour plating as a structural element of a large ship, which complicated stress and stability calculations, and had no reliable welding technology.

This breakthrough design was created because of the freedom accorded to the engineers working on it: they were able to employ new types (many of them prototypes) of fittings and armament without the close surveillance of conservative naval officers and without the size of the ship being limited by budgetary constraints. In March 1948 two variants were ready: one with two twin and one with three twin 130mm DP mountings. The flush-deck hull, which featured a high degree of rake and sheer, allowed minimal structures above the weather deck thanks to spacious internal volume. Anti-aircraft guns were mounted directly on the weather deck behind breakwaters. The high-pressure steam plant, which featured two independent machinery rooms each combining two boilers, a single set of turbines and a full set of auxiliaries, was 100 tonnes lighter than that of Proekt 30-bis. An AC electrical circuit was adopted for the first time in the Soviet Navy. To reduce topweight, the fourth turret was placed in a recess in the deck. The three-turret variant was considered the more balanced design, but the two-turret variant had greater potential for subsequent modernisation – a feature unheard of in Soviet practice (both earlier and later).

Although extremely ‘modern’ by Soviet standards, the project lagged behind Western developments: in essence, it was still based on prewar concepts. It was a heavily gunned ship (albeit with DP mountings) with an impressive complement of torpedo tubes, but was seriously lacking in underwater sensors and ASW weaponry.

From a technical point of view it could reasonably be claimed that the design was the closest to Western standards in the history of the Soviet Navy. The Soviets had benefited to an extraordinary degree from the influx of modern Western technology during the Second World War as a result of Lend-Lease deliveries that featured modern weaponry, engines and sensors. Thus this should be added to the treasure trove of modern equipment, armaments, entire factories and scientific and engineering staff taken from Germany. All this provided a boost to the development of Soviet military technology on the eve of the Cold War.

Proekt 47 was intended to be a typical ‘paper’ design, with no prospect of being built. However, the Soviet system, dependent on the whims of one man, proved capable of another volte-face. It turned out that the Smely class of destroyers, which were classic gunboats with bad seakeeping, and weak armament with low-angle guns, proved to be unsuitable for ocean service as destroyers. The planned, huge 39,500-ton Stalingrad-class cruisers. This was the basis of Stalin’s decision to resurrect a destroyer project other than Proekt 30-bis. Design work on Proekt 47 designs were resumed, and this time Nikitin took over the role of Chief Constructor. The Proekt 47 design was well-advanced, and it was sufficient to shorten the hull of the two-turret version by 4 meters to prepare the preliminary design of Proekt 41, which was ready by August 1948. And in this way the last Soviet design of flotilla leaders? was transformed into a thoroughbred destroyer design. With the Neustrashimy (NATO ‘Tallinn’) class attracted considerable attention in the West – in contrast to the Soviet Union, where she was considered something of a white elephant. Nevertheless, she was a trendsetter for Soviet naval shipbuilding for two decades to come.