Accelerating Grisha III
The Grisha-class small anti-submarine ship (Project 1124 Albatros malyy protivolodochnyy korabl or MPK in Soviet terms) was designed in the mid-1960s to search for and destroy enemy submarines found in Soviet coastal areas.
In 1991 the Russian Navy operated over 70 Grishas but that number had dwindled to 28 by 2004. This was due in large part to the difficulty in replacing the ship's turbines (which I think may have been built in Ukraine).
The first series of Grishas was built from 1968-74, but successive improvements to the design led to four discrete versions, three for the Soviet Navy and one sub-class for the KGB's coastal patrols. The Grishas pack a heavy anti-submarine armament (anti-submrine rocket launchers, torpedo tubes for heavy wire-guided torpedoes and depth charges) into a relatively small hull. Combined with a respectable anti-aircraft armament (SA-N-4 surface-to-air missiles, the twin 57mm gun aft and the AK-630 30mm automatic cannon), this makes the Grishas much more effective than the profusion of older escort vessels that were retired in the late 1980s.
Grishas were 71.6m in length, had a beam of 9.8m and a draught of 3.7m. With a diesel engine powering each of the two outboard propeller shafts, the ships could reach 22 knots. Add the gas turbine on the centre shaft, in a CODAG arrangement, and they could make 35 knots. However, all that machinery must have made them very cramped for their 60-strong crews. They were limited in range to about 7,400 km and only operated in coastal waters.
The Grisha III variants (Project 1124M) began appearing in the late 1970s and 34 were built by the mid-1980s when construction of this variant ended.
The vessel seen above was operating in the Baltic off Liepaya, which was then in the Soviet Union but is now in Latvia. It was attempting to shepherd us away from a torpedo-firing exercise being conducted by other Soviet ships which we were watching.
This is a rework of an earlier image in my stream.
Accelerating Grisha III
The Grisha-class small anti-submarine ship (Project 1124 Albatros malyy protivolodochnyy korabl or MPK in Soviet terms) was designed in the mid-1960s to search for and destroy enemy submarines found in Soviet coastal areas.
In 1991 the Russian Navy operated over 70 Grishas but that number had dwindled to 28 by 2004. This was due in large part to the difficulty in replacing the ship's turbines (which I think may have been built in Ukraine).
The first series of Grishas was built from 1968-74, but successive improvements to the design led to four discrete versions, three for the Soviet Navy and one sub-class for the KGB's coastal patrols. The Grishas pack a heavy anti-submarine armament (anti-submrine rocket launchers, torpedo tubes for heavy wire-guided torpedoes and depth charges) into a relatively small hull. Combined with a respectable anti-aircraft armament (SA-N-4 surface-to-air missiles, the twin 57mm gun aft and the AK-630 30mm automatic cannon), this makes the Grishas much more effective than the profusion of older escort vessels that were retired in the late 1980s.
Grishas were 71.6m in length, had a beam of 9.8m and a draught of 3.7m. With a diesel engine powering each of the two outboard propeller shafts, the ships could reach 22 knots. Add the gas turbine on the centre shaft, in a CODAG arrangement, and they could make 35 knots. However, all that machinery must have made them very cramped for their 60-strong crews. They were limited in range to about 7,400 km and only operated in coastal waters.
The Grisha III variants (Project 1124M) began appearing in the late 1970s and 34 were built by the mid-1980s when construction of this variant ended.
The vessel seen above was operating in the Baltic off Liepaya, which was then in the Soviet Union but is now in Latvia. It was attempting to shepherd us away from a torpedo-firing exercise being conducted by other Soviet ships which we were watching.
This is a rework of an earlier image in my stream.