Soobrazitelny () was one of 18 s (officially known as Project 7U) built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 , Soobrazitelny was completed in 1941 to the modified Project 7U design.
Assigned to the Black Sea Fleet, Soobrazitelny entered service a few weeks before Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began in June 1941. She participated in the Raid on Constanța and provided fire support to the defenders during the Siege of Odessa, in addition to service on escort duty through the remainder of the year. During the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula in early 1942, Soobrazitelny escorted transports and provided fire support for the landings, then herself was used as to transport troops in the last phase of the Siege of Sevastopol. After being repaired in mid-1942, she continued to conduct shore bombardments and participated in several raids on the Romanian coast at the end of the year. Soobrazitelny received the title of Guards in early 1943 and was repaired mid-year, seeing no action for the rest of the war. Postwar, she spent several years under refit and was converted into a rescue ship designated SS-16 in the late 1950s. Reduced to a target ship, she was scrapped in the mid-1960s despite an attempt to have her preserved as a museum ship, the last survivor of her class.
Design and description
Originally built as a Gnevny-class ship, Soobrazitelny and her sister ships were completed to the modified Project 7U design after Joseph Stalin, General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, ordered that the latter be built with their propulsion machinery arranged into separate units so that a single hit could not completely immobilize the ship.Rohwer & Monakov, p. 52; Balakin, p. 8
Like the Gnevnys, the Project 7U destroyers had an overall length of and a beam of , but they had a reduced draft of at deep load. The ships were slightly overweight, displacing at standard load and at deep load. The crew complement of the Storozhevoy class numbered 207 in peacetime, but this increased to 271 in wartime, as more personnel were needed to operate additional equipment.Balakin, pp. 30, 44; Yakubov & Worth, p. 101 Each ship had a pair of geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller, rated to produce using steam from four water-tube boilers, which the designers expected would exceed the speed of the Project 7s because there was additional steam available. Soobrazitelny herself only reached during her sea trials in 1943. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Project 7Us varied from at , that lower figure demonstrated by Soobrazitelny.Yakubov & Worth, pp. 101, 106–107
The Project 7U-class ships mounted four B-13 guns in two pairs of superfiring single mounts fore and aft of the superstructure, protected by gun shields. Anti-aircraft (AA) defense was provided by a pair of 34-K AA guns in single mounts and three 21-K AA guns in single mounts,Hill, p. 42 as well as four DK or DShK machine guns. They carried six torpedo tubes in two rotating triple mounts amidships. The ships could also carry a maximum of 58 to 96 mines and 30 depth charges. They were fitted with a set of Mars hydrophones for anti-submarine work, although these were useless at speeds over .Yakubov & Worth, pp. 101, 105–106
Modifications By 1943, as a result of a need for increased AA armament due to air attacks, the 45 mm guns aboard Soobrazitelny had been replaced by seven single 70-K AA guns, and two twin-gun mounts for 12.7 mm M2 Browning machine guns had also been added. After her 1947 refit, an additional 37 mm gun was added together with four more twin Browning machine gun mounts, replacing the 76 mm guns and DShKs.Balakin, pp. 21, 26
Due to the threat of nuclear attack in the early 1950s, Soobrazitelny and several of her sisters were rebuilt as Project 32 rescue and decontamination ships due to their obsolescence as the Soviet Naval Command considered it necessary to have ships capable of rendering assistance to ships attacked by nuclear or other weapons of mass destruction. In the event of war, the rebuilt ships were to conduct nuclear, biological, and chemical reconnaissance in areas that such weapons were used, tow damaged ships as large as light cruisers out of the contaminated zone, assist ship crews in pumping and firefighting and treating wounded, and carry out decontamination of ship interiors. They were also capable of assisting the crews of sunken submarines.Balakin, pp. 181–183
To create space for the additional equipment, the torpedo tubes were removed and the original gun armament replaced by two double ZiF-31BS guns. The bridge was widened and a windshield installed, and the mast converted into a tripod mounting antennas for the Lin-M guidance radar, Stvor navigational radar, and Nikhrom identification friend or foe system. Special equipment included a dosimetry unit, chemical-control station, automatic toxic-substances signaling device, foam-extinguishing system, water-protection system for flushing fallout overboard, and two decontamination stations. Two pumps were installed in the former magazines, and winches, cable hangers, compressed air cylinders, and decompression chambers were fitted on the deck and superstructure.
Construction and career Soobrazitelny was laid down in Shipyard No. 200 (named after 61 Communards) in Nikolayev as yard number 1078 on 15 October 1936 as a Gnevny-class destroyer with the name Prozorlivny. She was relaid down as a Project 7U destroyer on 3 March 1939 and launched on 26 August. The ship was renamed Soobrazitelny on 25 September 1940 and moved to Sevastopol for acceptance trials in late 1940. Senior Lieutenant Sergey Vorkov became captain in November; he would hold the position for the next four years and be promoted to captain 2nd rank before leaving her. The destroyer was accepted by the navy on 10 May 1941 and became part of the Black Sea Fleet on 7 June when the Soviet naval jack was hoisted aboard her.Rohwer & Monakov, pp. 234–235Berezhnoy, pp. 354–355 She was assigned to the 3rd Destroyer Division of the Black Sea Fleet Light Forces Detachment together with her completed sisters.Khorkov, p. 24 Within a few weeks, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, Operation Barbarossa, began.Balakin, p. 112
Raid on Constanța and Siege of Odessa Soobrazitelny'''s first combat operation was the Raid on Constanța, which aimed to disrupt Axis supply lines. She was initially planned to bombard the port together with her sister and the destroyer leader , but both Project 7U destroyers instead formed part of the support group with the cruiser . After leaving Sevastopol on the night of 25/26 June, the ships of the support group lost sight of each other in the darkness and only at dawn did Soobrazitelny catch up with Voroshilov. She escorted the damaged Kharkov back to Sevastopol, fending off an attacks by two lone bombers and depth charging what was erroneously thought to be a submarine, which was claimed as sunk.
During July, Soobrazitelny was mostly occupied with escort service. She escorted the transports Dnepr and Chapayev from Feodosia to Sevastopol on 29 August, fending off an attack by two German aircraft off Cape Ai-todor with her guns, although Dnepr was slightly damaged by near misses from bombs. The destroyer steamed to Odessa with Dnepr, arriving in the harbor of the besieged port, under fire from Romanian artillery, on the night of 30/31 August. Over the next three days, Soobrazitelny conducted thirteen bombardments in support of the defenders.Rohwer, p. 97 She was forced to maneuver and put up smoke screens to avoid Romanian artillery fire, and was attacked by aircraft several times, including a near miss from a Ju 87 dive bomber on 2 September. Having expended 364 130 mm, 80 76 mm, and 327 45 mm shells in Odessa, the ship departed the port for Feodosia on the night of 2/3 September, having been commended by the military council of the Odessa Defense Region for the effectiveness of her fire.Balakin, p. 113
While escorting three transports from Feodosia to Sevastopol between 6 and 7 September, Soobrazitelny had to be towed on the final leg of the route to avoid acoustic mines, which had recently damaged the destroyer . Between 16 and 21 September, the ship helped to escort transports conveying the 157th Rifle Division from Sevastopol to Odessa.Rohwer, p. 100 While escorting ships from Sevastopol to Tendra on 23 September, she was sent to assist the damaged destroyer back to Sevastopol. Soobrazitelny towed Besposhchadny on the next day after the cable from a rescue ship snapped, arriving at Sevastopol on 25 September. In November, she and her sister transported 500 soldiers from the Taman Peninsula to Sevastopol at high speed in foggy conditions. Between 15 November and 1 December, the ship bombarded German positions on six days.Rohwer, pp. 115–116 Together with Sposobny and the destroyer leader , Soobrazitelny departed Batumi on 26 November to escort three tankers and the icebreaker Anastas Mikoyan to the Bosporus en route to the Soviet Far East. On the next day, she suffered minor damage in a storm and returned to Tuapse on 29 November, low on fuel.Balakin, p. 114
Battle of the Kerch Peninsula and Siege of Sevastopol For the Kerch–Feodosia Landing Operation, Soobrazitelny escorted three transports from Tuapse to Feodosia. On the last day of the year, Captain 1st rank Nikolay Basisty, commanding the naval forces in the operation, hoisted his flag aboard the ship. Clear skies later that day allowed for German air attacks, which Soobrazitelny put up AA fire against on five occasions. In two separate bombardments that day, she fired a total of 122 shells against a German airfield and a suspected troop concentration on the Kerch-Feodosia road. Five bombardments were conducted on New Year's Day 1942 in worsening weather conditions that covered her deck with ice. She continued to provide fire support to the landings and was targeted twice without result by German bombers on 3 January, when she was forced to return to Novorossiysk due to a lack of fuel; Basisty transferred his flag to the destroyer . In support of the landings, the ship expended 283 130 mm, 144 76 mm, and 146 45 mm shells. During 1941, she had made 43 sorties and escorted 44 transports, covering in 1,108 running hours.Balakin, pp. 115–116 Soobrazitelny escorted a transport from Novorossiysk to Feodosia and returned with another between 6 and 9 January. During these sorties, she expended 67 76 mm and 100 45 mm shells against unsuccessful German air attacks. On 15 January she supported the landing at Sudak by transporting 241 soldiers of the 226th Mountain Rifle Regiment of the 63rd Mountain Rifle Division to the bridgehead at Novy Svet Bay. Returning to Novorossiysk on 16 January, she went back to Feodosia to shell advancing German troops a day later. The ship made further sorties to the Kerch Peninsula on 19 and 23 January, bombarding targets near Feodosia and covering another landing at Sudak. The quick action of her captain in taking her out of Novorossiysk harbor during a storm on 22 January allowed her to avoid the damage suffered by other ships there, and Soobrazitelny underwent preventative maintenance in February. After the completion of the latter, she sortied on 21 February, but was forced to return to the base after she was damaged in a storm, including the loss of her mainmast.