Slavnyy at Speed
This is the Soviet Navy Mod Kashin destroyer Slavnyy, taken in the first week of July 1985 off the port of Liepaya in what was then the Soviet Union and today is Latvia.
We had been monitoring a Soviet Navy torpedo-firing exercise that consisted of a couple of Potis firing torpedoes at a Hotel-class SSB (images available elsewhere in the Warsaw Pact album).
The Grisha III that had been reasonably close-in shepherding us away from the exercise presumably felt under pressure and called for assistance. Slavnyy (Glorious in English) raced down from somewhere to the north to provide support, although she never actually came within a mile of us.
Kashin-class units were guided-missile destroyers built for the Soviet Navy in the 1960s and early 1970s. Their Soviet designation was Project 61. The modified variants were either Project 61M or 61MP.
In Soviet parlance they were officially classified as "guard ships" (storozhevoi korabl - SKR), then "large ASW ships" (BPK) or "large missile ships" (BRK), but in the rest of world they are commonly regarded as missile destroyers due to their size and armament. They were the first Soviet purpose-built anti-air warfare ships and the first to carry an ASW helicopter.
The design specification was approved in 1957; the first ship was laid down in 1959 and commissioned in 1962. Much new equipment was developed for these ships, including surface-to-air missiles, radars and gas turbine engines. The gas turbines were arranged in two separate spaces and could be removed via the funnels for servicing. These were also the first Soviet warships designed from the beginning to be closed down for nuclear fall-out and had an operations room deep inside the ship rather than a large bridge.
Six of the class, including Slavnyy, were modernised in the 1970s as Project 61M or 61MP (Mod Kashin), by being fitted with four SS-N-2C Styx anti-ship missiles (two can be seen, pointing aft, abaft the after funnel), new towed-array sonar, a raised helipad and four close-range AK-630 Gatling guns. Two RBU-1000 ASW rocket launchers were initally mounted aft, but later removed, presumably because of topweight problems.
Taken aboard HMS Boxer, using a Canon AE-1 and a Tamron 500mm mirror lense, hand-held. Scanned from a B&W negative, this is a sharper version of an image posted a number of years ago...
Slavnyy at Speed
This is the Soviet Navy Mod Kashin destroyer Slavnyy, taken in the first week of July 1985 off the port of Liepaya in what was then the Soviet Union and today is Latvia.
We had been monitoring a Soviet Navy torpedo-firing exercise that consisted of a couple of Potis firing torpedoes at a Hotel-class SSB (images available elsewhere in the Warsaw Pact album).
The Grisha III that had been reasonably close-in shepherding us away from the exercise presumably felt under pressure and called for assistance. Slavnyy (Glorious in English) raced down from somewhere to the north to provide support, although she never actually came within a mile of us.
Kashin-class units were guided-missile destroyers built for the Soviet Navy in the 1960s and early 1970s. Their Soviet designation was Project 61. The modified variants were either Project 61M or 61MP.
In Soviet parlance they were officially classified as "guard ships" (storozhevoi korabl - SKR), then "large ASW ships" (BPK) or "large missile ships" (BRK), but in the rest of world they are commonly regarded as missile destroyers due to their size and armament. They were the first Soviet purpose-built anti-air warfare ships and the first to carry an ASW helicopter.
The design specification was approved in 1957; the first ship was laid down in 1959 and commissioned in 1962. Much new equipment was developed for these ships, including surface-to-air missiles, radars and gas turbine engines. The gas turbines were arranged in two separate spaces and could be removed via the funnels for servicing. These were also the first Soviet warships designed from the beginning to be closed down for nuclear fall-out and had an operations room deep inside the ship rather than a large bridge.
Six of the class, including Slavnyy, were modernised in the 1970s as Project 61M or 61MP (Mod Kashin), by being fitted with four SS-N-2C Styx anti-ship missiles (two can be seen, pointing aft, abaft the after funnel), new towed-array sonar, a raised helipad and four close-range AK-630 Gatling guns. Two RBU-1000 ASW rocket launchers were initally mounted aft, but later removed, presumably because of topweight problems.
Taken aboard HMS Boxer, using a Canon AE-1 and a Tamron 500mm mirror lense, hand-held. Scanned from a B&W negative, this is a sharper version of an image posted a number of years ago...