Soviet destroyer Storozhevoy

Soviet lead ship of Storozhevoy class
the World War II era Soviet destroyer

Storozhevoy (Сторожевой) was the lead ship of her class (officially known as Project 7U) of 18 destroyers built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 , Storozhevoy was completed in 1940 to the modified Project 7U design. Serving with the Baltic Fleet, her bow was blown off by a German torpedo a few days after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) in June 1941. Although her crew suffered heavy losses, the aft part of the ship remained afloat and was towed to Soviet naval bases, ultimately being repaired during the Siege of Leningrad by the fitting of a bow from an unfinished Project 30 destroyer from late 1942 to early 1943. Returning to service in September of the latter year, Storozhevoy bombarded Axis positions during the final months of the siege. Postwar, she continued to serve in the Baltic and was briefly converted to a training ship before being scrapped in the late 1950s.

Originally built as a Gnevny class ship, Strashny 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 boilers arranged en echelon, instead of linked as in the Gnevnys, so that a ship could still move with one or two boilers disabled. 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. 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. Storozhevoy herself reached during her sea trials in 1941. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Project 7Us varied from at , that upper figure demonstrated by Storozhevoy. The Project 7U class ships mounted four B 13 guns in two pairs of superfiring single mounts fore and aft of the superstructure. Anti aircraft defense was provided by a pair of 34 K AA guns in single mounts and three 21 K AA guns, 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 .

The new bow fitted onto Storozhevoy included the twin 130 mm BL 2M turret of the Project 30 ships, with a supply of 744 rounds. Her 45 mm anti aircraft guns were replaced with six newer (70 K) AA guns, while the remainder of her armament remained the same. A British Type 291 search radar was also installed, and the new bow increased her overall hull length by a meter and her draft to The new bow and additional modifications changed her standard displacement to and at deep load. During her sea trials in 1944, she reached a maximum speed of and had a range of at After the war, all of her AA guns were replaced by eight water cooled V 11M versions of the 70 K gun in twin mounts.

Storozhevoy was laid down in Shipyard No. 190 (Zhdanov) in Leningrad with the yard number 517 on 26 August 1936 as a Gnevny class destroyer. She was relaid down as the first Project 7U destroyer during January 1938, and launched on 2 October of that year. Although she was officially accepted on 6 October 1940, she did not officially join the Baltic Fleet until 12 April 1941, when the Soviet naval jack was raised aboard her. With the 2nd Destroyer Division of the fleet's Light Forces Detachment, she was transferred from Riga to Ust Dvinsk, Latvia, on 14 June 1941, a week before the beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union. During the first days after Operation Barbarossa began, Storozhevoy was tasked with laying defensive minefields, conducting her first such operation on 24 June in the Irbe Strait. To lay additional mines there, she departed Ust Dvinsk again on the night of 26 June alongside her sisters Soviet destroyer Stoyky and Soviet destroyer Serdity as well as the old Izyaslav class destroyer Soviet destroyer Engels. 75 mines were stacked on her deck. After reaching the strait, she was attacked off the Mikhailovsky shoals by five German E boats On 24 May her aft funnel was hit by a German artillery shell, causing damage to her turbines among other machinery. Transferred to Shipyard No. 190 on 15 July 1942 as a new bow could not be manufactured due to the siege, she was fitted with the bow of the unfinished Project 30 destroyer Organizovanny. After the completion of the repairs on 1 May 1943, at Liepāja.