 Opytny in Leningrad
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Soviet Union | |
| Name | Sergo Ordzhonikidze |
| Namesake | Sergo Ordzhonikidze |
| Ordered | 2nd Five-Year Plan |
| Builder | Shipyard No. 190 (Zhdanov), Leningrad |
| Yard number | 500 |
| Laid down | 26 June 1935 |
| Launched | 8 December 1935 |
| Commissioned | 11 September 1941 |
| Out of service | March 1944 |
| Renamed | Opytny (Russian: Опытный, lit. 'Experimental'), 25 September 1940 |
| Stricken | 10 February 1953 |
| Nickname(s) | Golden Fish or Golden 500 |
| Fate | Scrapped, 1953 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Type | Destroyer |
| Displacement | 1,707 long tons (1,734 t) (normal) |
| Length | 113.5 m (372 ft 5 in) (o/a) |
| Beam | 10.2 m (33 ft 6 in) |
| Draft | 4.6 m (15 ft 1 in) (deep load) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 shafts; 2 geared steam turbines |
| Speed | 35 knots (65 km/h; 40 mph) |
| Range | 1,370 nmi (2,540 km; 1,580 mi) at 18 knots (33 km/h; 21 mph) |
| Complement | 262 |
| Armament |
|
Opytny (Russian: Опытный, lit. 'Experimental') was the only member of her class of destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the 1930s. The Soviet designation for her class was Project 45. She was originally named Sergo Ordzhonikidze and was the first Soviet destroyer to be indigenously designed.[1] Renamed Opytny in 1940, the ship was intended as a prototype for future Soviet destroyers.
Plagued with severe problems with her boilers, the ship was not suited for fleet operations, but the Axis invasion of the Soviet Union in June 1941 (Operation Barbarossa) forced the Navy to accept Opytny several months later. Assigned to the Baltic Fleet in August, the ship was limited to service as a floating battery to provide naval gunfire support for the Red Army during the Siege of Leningrad with frequent periods in reserve or under repair. Opytny was no longer useful after the end of the siege and she was taken out of service in March 1944. A proposal to turn her into a training ship was rejected after the end of World War II and the ship was scrapped in 1953.
- ^ Budzbon, p. 331