Neustrashimy

History

Neustrashimy (Неустрашимый, Dauntless) was a destroyer built for the Soviet Navy in the early 1950s. She was to be the prototype for an extended production run but only one ship was built. Neustrashimy was considered too big for series production and a modified design, the Kotlin class was chosen for series production instead. The Soviet Designation was Project 41. This was the first Soviet ship to be given a NATO reporting name being called the Tallinn class.
The ship was built by Zhdanov Shipyard, Leningrad, laid down 1950, Launched 29 January 1951, on extended trials between 28 January 1952 and commissioning on 31 January 1955. She served in the Baltic Fleet and was decommissioned February 1974

Design

The idea of a multi-purpose destroyer came up as early as 1939, with the demand being that such a ship should be capable of engaging surface, air and underwater targets effectively. The outbreak of the war however prevented further design work to be done until after the war. Work was picked up in 1946, yet it was not before 1949 when the final design of Project 41, Neustrashimy, was approved and the hull laid down.

Being 134m long and with a beam of 13.4m, Neustrashimy displaced up to 3,810 tons under a full load. The hull of Project 41 was divided into fourteen watertight compartments with the possibility to flood individual compartments if so needed. The amount of superstructure was kept to a bare minimum, with only armament, funnels and the forward superstructure being present, and in a similar manner the amount of portholes was reduced as much as possible compared to preceding designs. Up to 305 men would crew the ship.

Neustrashimy's main armament consisted of four 130mm/58 SM-2-1 dual purpose guns mounted in two twin turrets, one fore and one aft. These guns could fire a 33kg heavy shell at ranges up to 27,700m, or against air targets at an altitude of almost 20km. Depending on whether or not the gun rammer was used, the reload of these guns varied between four and six seconds.

For anti-aircraft purposes eight 45mm/68 21-KM machine cannons were installed in four twin mountings, which were capable of firing up to 40 rounds every minute against targets 10.7km away or 6.4km high. Close range defense was covered by eight 25mm/79 110-PM guns in two quadruple mountings, firing on average 270-300 rounds per minute against surface targets 3km away, or air targets at an altitude of up to 1.7km.

Two quintuple Torpedo launchers were mounted on Neustrashimy, with a caliber of 533mm and no reloads being carried. Also provisions were made to allow up to 48 mines to be carried as well as 105 depth charges.

Neustrashimy's machinery was divided into two seperate sections, to decrease the risk of losing all engine power to a single hit. Two boilers each would feed steam to one turbine, to for a total power output of 64,200shp which would accelerate the vessel to a speed of up to 33.5 knots. Carrying up to 740 tons of fuel oil, Neustrashimy could reach a cruising range of 5,200 nautical miles while going 14 knots.

Service

Even before Neustrashimy was commissioned, early trials concluded that her machinery was insufficient and would not meet the design power and thus the ship would not be able to reach her design speed. Further trials also revealed severe vibration issues, a wet foreship which rendered the two fore 45mm mountings useless and a problematic behaviour of the ship when going in reverse.

Following a few years of mostly publicity work, Neustrashimy was sent to be modernized in 1958. This modernization saw the removal of the 25mm guns, an upgrade to the 45mm guns which replaced the twin mountings with quad mountings and missile armament was added to the vessel, as well as a modernization of the radar and sonar equipment. This procedure would take until 1960.

While Neustrashimy never saw actual combat, she was affected by a friendly fire incident in 1969 when a Soviet destroyer accidently fired at her, with one shell piercing the aft superstructure for no casualties.