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Sunday 16 April 2017

Russian destroyer leader Kharkov 1932-1943

Leningrad-class

Laid down by Marti South, Nikolayev, Russia with yard number 223 on 19 October 1932, launched on 9 September 1934, commissioned on 19 November 1938 and sunk when attacked by German aircraft off the Crimean coast on 6 October 1943. Since 1925 discussions were going on to develop a large destroyer with a maximum displacement of 4.000 tons. This progress resulted in designing the Leningrad-class of destroyer leaders. The so-called Scientific-Technical Committee made between May 1929 and February 1930 a rough design. The final design which was drawn by section 1 of the Central Bureau Design mostly by P.O. Trakhtenberg. Consisting of subclass project 1 consisting of the Leningrad, Moskva, Kharkov and subclass Project 38 consisting of the Minsk, Baku and Tbilisi, succeeded by the Tahskent-class and comparable with the French contre torpilleurs of the same era. Project 38 was to improve the design faults and which work was done under supervision of V.A. Nikitin. The building of the Project 1 destroyers was authorized under the First Five-Year Plan with Project 38 under the Second-Five Year Plan.

Common technical specifications of this class. Displacement 2.180 (standard)-2.623 (full load) tons and as dimensions 127,5 x 11,7 x 4,06 metres or 418.4 x 38.5 x 13.4 feet. The machinery consisted of 3 shaft geared turbines and 3 water tube triangle boilers supplying 66.000 shp allowing a maximum speed of 40 (design) knots and with a speed of 20 knots was the range 2.100 nautical miles. Crew numbered 250-311 (in times of war). The armament consisted of 5x1-13cm/5.1” B-13 guns, 2x1-7,62cm/0.30” 34-K anti aircraft guns, 2x1-4,5cm/1.8” 21-K anti aircraft guns, 3x4-53,3cm/21” torpedo tubes, 68-116 mines and 52 depth charges.