Soviet destroyer Gnevny (1936)

Gnevny was the lead ship of her class (officially known as Project 7) of 30 destroyers built for the Soviet Navy shortly before the German invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941.

Design and description
Having decided on the specifications of the large 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 two 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. Gnevny reached 39.4 kn from 53000 shp during her trials. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Gnevnys varied between 1670 to 3145 nmi at 19 kn. Gnevny herself demonstrated a range of 2720 nmi at that speed.

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.

Construction and service
Built in Leningrad's A.A. Zhdanov Shipyard No. 190 with the serial number 501, Gnevny was laid down on 8 December 1935, launched on 13 July 1936, and entered service with the Baltic Fleet on 23 December 1938. She bombarded Finnish fortifications on Utö in the Åland Islands on 14 December 1939 during the Winter War. On 23 June 1941, a day after Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began, Gnevny was tasked with covering minelaying operations at the mouth of the Gulf of Finland along with the rest of the 1st Division of the Baltic Fleet's Light Forces Detachment – the light cruiser SOVIET CRUISER Maxim Gorky and her sister destroyers SOVIET DESTROYER Gordy and SOVIET DESTROYER Steregushchy. She ran into a German minefield 16 to 18 nautical miles northwest of Tahkuna lighthouse and had her bow blown off by a mine. After being abandoned by her crew, the accompanying ships unsuccessfully attempted to sink her with gunfire. Two days later, the abandoned hulk was spotted by three German Junkers Ju 88 bombers, who bombed and sunk her. The destroyer was removed from the navy list on 27 July.