Shershen-class torpedo boat

The Shershen class was the NATO reporting name for a class of torpedo boats built for the Soviet Navy and allies. The Soviet designation was Project 206 Shtorm.

Design
The torpedo boat was designed as a round bilge successor to the Project 183 torpedo boat. This simple torpedo boat was designed for cheap manufacture and easy maintenance. They share a common engine room with the Osa, Mol, Bogomol, and Turya classes. Constructed of duralumin, they are best used in groups inshore, in good weather, and most importantly under friendly air cover. Their defensive and EW systems are the bare minimum to engage in any type of combat.

Their torpedo armament is anti-surface only and the torpedoes are ejected by a powder charge. The torpedoes were controlled by a radar based OTA-53-206 fire control system. The 53-56 torpedoes in Warsaw Pact navies had a rudimentary anti-surface wake homing ability; the export models were the 53-56VA straight-run only variant.

Although designed to carry depth charges, they have no sonar, and the DC racks were often removed.

Soviet Navy
A total of 87 boats were built for the Soviet Navy between 1960 and 1970. The boats were built at yards in Zelenodolsk and Yaroslavl

Export


Project 206 boats were exported to:


 * Angola: 4 boats


 * Bulgaria: 7 boats, delivered in 1970. They were discarded and scrapped in 1992.


 * Cambodia: 1 unit; ex-Vietnamese, ex-USSR donated by Vietnam in 1998. No torpedo tubes or DC racks. Due to refurbishment before the transfer, this is one of the more active units in the Cambodian navy.


 * Cape Verde Islands: 2 units, ex-Soviet boats were donated by the USSR in 1979. New hull numbers were 451 and 452. Both were delivered with the torpedo tubes removed. Discarded in the late 1980s.


 * Congo: 1 unit, delivered in 1979. The boat was ex-Soviet and had the torpedo tubes removed prior to transfer. It was non-operational by the late 1980s.


 * Egypt: 6 boats (In service), 7 units: Hull numbers 751, 752, 753, 755, 757, 759, 761; transferred from the USSR in 1967-1968. 752 was deleted after the Yom Kippur War. In 1987, 751 and 753 were refurbished by Ismailia Shipyard in Egypt; with Thompson-CSF DR875 ESM added. The other four had their torpedo tubes replaced by a BM-21 multiple-launcher shore bombardment rocket system on either side of the bridge, and a SA-N-5 “Grail” shoulder-launched SAM added in a tub aft. In the late 1990s, the six were downgraded to gun-only harbour patrol boats, with torpedoes, MLRS, and SAMs deleted. They will likely be scrapped soon.


 * East Germany: 18 boats, The East German boats were delivered without the depth charge racks. The pennant numbers were changed regularly. Three of the class were always allocated to a training role and carried a “S” number. Assigned to the 6th Flotilla, the ships were based at Dranske. The first was delivered in October 1968, the last in October 1971. East Germany’s Volksmarine used the type heavily, and kept them in service alongside their intended replacements, the Osa I class missile boats. They began to decommission in 1984 and the last four were withdrawn in early 1990, eight months before East Germany itself collapsed.


 * Guinea: 3 units, delivered in 1978 and 1979. The torpedo tubes were deleted prior to transfer. All were discarded by 1993.


 * Guinea-Bissau: 1 unit, ex-Soviet boat was donated by the USSR in December 1978, with the torpedo tubes and DC racks deleted. It was non-operational shortly after transfer and possibly never was fully operational.


 * Vietnam: 16 units, transferred from the USSR between 1973 and 1980. They began to decommission around 2000 and by July 2006, there were only four left in service. The surviving units have a quad SA-N-5 short-range SAM installed.


 * Yugoslavia: 14 units; four built in USSR and the remainder under license at Tito Shipyard in Yugoslavia. Two were captured by Croatia in 1991, and one of them was sunk as a target by the Croatian Navy in 1994. Another 12 were decommissioned in 1993.

A simplified version, Project 206E, known to NATO as the Mol class, was built for export. One boat was retained by the Soviets to train foreign crews.


 * Ethiopia: 2 boats
 * Iraq: 2 boats
 * Somalia: 4 boats
 * Sri Lanka: 4 boats