Soviet destroyer Boyky (1936)

Boyky was one of 29 s (officially known as Project 7) built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Completed in 1939, she was assigned to the Black Sea Fleet.

Design and description
Having decided to build the large and expensive 40 kn destroyer leaders, the Soviet Navy sought Italian assistance in designing smaller and cheaper destroyers. They licensed the plans for the and, in modifying it for their purposes, overloaded a design that was already somewhat marginally stable.

The Gnevnys had an overall length of 112.8 m, a beam of 10.2 m, and a draft of 4.8 m at deep load. The ships were significantly overweight, almost 200 MT heavier than designed, displacing 1612 MT at standard load and 2039 MT at deep load. Their crew numbered 197 officers and sailors in peacetime and 236 in wartime. The ships had a pair of geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller, rated to produce 48000 shp using steam from three water-tube boilers which was intended to give them a maximum speed of 37 kn. The designers had been conservative in rating the turbines and many, but not all, of the ships handily exceeded their designed speed during their sea trials. Others fell considerably short of it. Boyky reached 34 kn during trials in 1944. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Gnevnys varied between 1670 to 3145 nmi at 19 kn. Boyky herself demonstrated a range of 1350 nmi at 16 kn.

As built, the Gnevny-class ships mounted four 130 mm B-13 guns in two pairs of superfiring single mounts fore and aft of the superstructure. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a pair of 76.2 mm 34-K AA guns in single mounts and a pair of 45 mm 21-K AA guns as well as two 12.7 mm DK or DShK machine guns. They carried six 533 mm torpedo tubes in two rotating triple mounts; each tube was provided with a reload. The ships could also carry a maximum of either 60 or 95 mines and 25 depth charges. They were fitted with a set of Mars hydrophones for anti-submarine work, although they were useless at speeds over 3 kn. The ships were equipped with two K-1 paravanes intended to destroy mines and a pair of depth-charge throwers.

Construction and service
Built in Nikolayev's Shipyard No. 198 (Andre Marti (South)) as yard number 321, Boyky was laid down on 17 April 1936. The ship was completed on 9 March 1939 and was commissioned into the Black Sea Fleet on 17 May.