Кеңес Одағының "Ленинград" классы крейсері: "Баку" тарихы

Soviet Navy's Leningrad class cruiser

Baku (Баку) was one of six destroyer leaders built for the Soviet Navy during the 1930s, one of the three Project 38 variants. Completed in late 1939, the ship was assigned to the Pacific Fleet. About a year after the German invasion of Russia in June 1941, she was ordered to join the Northern Fleet, sailing through the Arctic Ocean. Together with several other destroyers, Baku left the Soviet Far East in July 1942 and arrived off Murmansk three months later where she began escorting convoys, mostly in the White and Barents Seas. The ship was badly damaged in a storm that sank another Soviet destroyer in November and was under repair for several months. Baku spent most of the rest of the war on convoy escort duties, although she did bombard several German occupied towns during the Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive of October 1944. The ship and her crew were awarded the Order of the Red Banner in early 1945 for their performance during the war. After the war, she was refitted and rejoined the Northern Fleet in 1946. For the next several years she exercised during the warm months and was put in reserve during winter. The following year she starred in a movie about a fictional destroyer during the war. Baku began a lengthy overhaul in 1948 that lasted until 1954. Upon its completion she was used for experimental work and was formally reclassified as an experimental ship two years later. Baku was converted into a target ship in 1958, but was hulked as a depot ship a few weeks later. She became an accommodation ship in 1959 and was finally struck from the Navy List in 1963 and scrapped the following year.

Impressed by the French large destroyer (contre torpilleur) designs such as the of the early 1930s, the Soviets designed their own version. The Leningrads had an overall length of and were long at the waterline. The ships had a beam of , and a draft of at deep load. Built in two batches, the second batch (Project 38) displaced at standard load and at deep load. Their crew numbered 250 officers and sailors in peacetime and 311 in wartime. The ships had three geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller, designed to produce using steam from three three drum boilers which was intended to give them a maximum speed of The Leningrads carried enough fuel oil to give them a range of at
As built, the Leningrad class ships mounted five B 13 guns in two pairs of superfiring single mounts fore and aft of the superstructure and another mount between the bridge and the forward funnel. The guns were protected by gun shields. Anti aircraft defense was provided by a pair of 34 K AA guns in single mounts on the aft superstructure and a pair of 21 K AA guns mounted on either side of the bridge as well as six DShK machine guns. They carried eight torpedo tubes in two rotating quadruple mounts fore and aft of the rear funnel; each tube was provided with a reload. The ships could also carry a maximum of either 68 or 115 mines and 52 depth charges. They were fitted with a set of Arktur hydrophones for anti submarine detection. and was initially fitted with a Type 286M surface search radar, but this was replaced by a Type 284 gunnery radar and an American SF 1 radar by 1945. railed to the station of Pokrovka near Khabarovsk, and shipped by barge down the Amur to the new Shipyard No. 199 at Komsomolsk on Amur, Siberia, for assembly under the supervision of experienced shipbuilder Konstantin Terletsky [ru] and shipyard chief engineer Pavel Goynkis [ru]. The ship was again laid down on 10 March 1936, with its construction accelerated by Goynkis' usage of a horizontal slipway for construction and the installation of machinery. Launched and renamed Ordzhonikidze on 25 July 1938 in honor of the Soviet politician, the still incomplete destroyer leader was ordered towed to Vladivostok for completion at Shipyard No. 202 (Dalzavod) to build her faster. After Operation Barbarossa began in June 1941, Baku, commanded by Kapitan 3 ranga (Captain 3rd Rank) Boris Belyayev (admiral) [ru] from 1940, laid minefields and escorted transports, receiving a LFTI degaussing system in early October.

As a result of the weakness of the Northern Fleet and the importance of the Arctic convoys of World War II, Stavka decided to transfer several modern ships from the Pacific to the Northern Fleet in May 1942; this was ordered by People's Commissar of the Navy Nikolay Kuznetsov on 18 June. Along with Baku, three Gnevny class destroyers – Soviet destroyer Razumny, Soviet destroyer Razyaryonny, and Soviet destroyer Revnostny – were planned to be transferred to the Northern Fleet as the Expedition of Special Purpose (EON) 18, the first time that Soviet warships would use the Northern Sea Route to steam from east to west. The expedition was accompanied by three icebreakers, three oil tankers, and two transports for material supplies, and was prepared in great secrecy, using the pretense of a relocation to Kamchatka. To strengthen her hull against ice, Baku was drydocked at Dalzavod in June, where wooden beams lined with sheet iron were attached to her sides; the sheet iron was thick where the beams were placed vertically and on the stern. Other changes included the movement of the degaussing coils to the interior of the hull, the installation of an additional fire extinguisher for the boiler rooms, the replacement of her regular propellers with special reinforced propellers for ice travel, and the replacement of the 45 mm 21 K anti aircraft guns with 37 mm 70 K weapons. Under these conditions, the expedition passed through the East Siberian Sea to the Laptev Sea. They stopped at Tiksi on 17 September for a day to replenish supplies and conduct minor repairs, with Baku taking Razyaryonny in tow due to a bent propeller on the latter. Preceded by a fresh icebreaker, the ships left the port on the next day. In response to the Kriegsmarines Operation Wunderland, they had their guns fully manned while passing through the Vilkitsky Strait. The ships anchored at Dikson on 24 September, where minor malfunctions were fixed aboard Baku although Razyaryonnys propeller could not be repaired. The expedition resumed on 9 October, meeting a fierce storm in the Kara Sea. It met ships from the Northern Fleet in the Yugorsky Shar Strait on the next day, and the expedition, whose destroyer Razumny had by now caught up, with four icebreakers and 22 transports, entered Kola Bay at Vaenga on 14 October; Belyayev was awarded the Order of the Patriotic War, 1st class, for his leadership. After the engagement, both ships escorted four transports into Kola Bay on 2–3 February. The ship remained on local convoy duty in June–November 1944, interrupted by a brief time escorting Convoy JW 59 shortly before it reached Murmansk on 24–25 August and a bombardment of the Norwegian towns of Vardö and Vadsö on 26 October, during the Petsamo–Kirkenes Offensive. From 6 to 8 December she participated in an anti submarine operation under the flag of squadron commander Kontr admiral (Rear Admiral) Vitaly Fokin together with the destroyers Gremyashchiy, Razumny, Derzky, Zhivuchny, and Doblestny to prevent German submarines from attacking westbound Convoy RA 62 along with other Allied escorts. Baku resumed escorting local convoys in January 1945. On 6 March she and her crew were awarded the Order of the Red Banner for their "exemplary performance of combat missions" and the "courage and heroism" of the crew. As the war wound down, she was no longer needed for escort duty and was put into Rosta for a refit on 29 April; due to the lack of facilities there the shipyard could only conduct a medium level refit.

Following the completion of her refit, Baku reentered service on 17 April 1946. For the next several years, she participated in training with the rest of the fleet during the two summer months, which included shallow water torpedo firing. The ship was laid up during the winter months, and portrayed the title Northern Fleet destroyer in the 1947 war film Story of the "Furious" (Povest o 'Neistovom'''). She participated in exercises in August of that year. On 29 October 1948 the ship began a major refit at Shipyard No. 402 in Molotovsk, which was lengthened by the technical modernization conducted by the then inexperienced shipyard workers. While refitting, Baku'' was reclassified as a destroyer on 12 January 1949 and was assigned to the 178th Destroyer Brigade.