Way of the Cross "Crosses"
The nightmare of the Soviet admirals was not the AUG, it’s just possible to fight them, having the largest submarine fleet in the world and a naval missile-carrying Aviation - a SSBN.
From the moment the “forty-one on guard of freedom” began to enter service, the scenario of a covert strike at point-blank range on Soviet territory became a reality. And by the end of the 60s, in addition, there was a problem of escorting our aircraft-carrying ships, first the Moscow and Leningrad, then the aircraft-carrying cruisers.
First there was a cruiser
On December 30, 1961, the Central Committee of the CPSU and the Council of Ministers of the USSR adopted Resolution No. 1180-510, which became the basis for the development of the 1134 missile cruiser project.
Nikita Sergeevich was very fond of missiles and did not like surface ships, so the sailors realized: if you put missiles on large units fleet, then Khrushchev will allow the construction.
First, there was an overgrown destroyer of Project 58, more precisely, as many as four destroyers, crossed into cruisers, and only then 1134 Berkut. Or rather, at first there was an idea to build everything in the hull of project 58, but, as practice has shown, the chain mail is too small, and the displacement has grown to 5 tons.
However, there were also enough other compromises - the speed was dropped to 33 knots (as practice has shown, this is even a lot), instead of the M-11 "Storm" they put the "Wave", due to the unavailability of the new air defense system, the P-35 missiles were left eight instead of 16 on their predecessors (of which 4 are in the cellar, four are on launchers).
But reality messed up here too - reloading at sea turned out to be a difficult and unrealistic thing, as a result, only four P-35s remained.
But in general, the ship came out pretty - with good strike capabilities at that time (the lead Admiral Zozulya entered service in 1967, when the air defense system did not yet guarantee the interception of even four P-35s), the normal Titan GAS, the Success target designation system -U "and good air defense.
There was also a modernization potential - at some expense, the P-35 could be replaced with more modern missiles, and the M-1 air defense system with the M-11. The helicopter was originally on the cruiser.
The service of the cruisers was generally successful:
1. "Admiral Zozulya".
Since 1967, as part of the Northern Fleet, he spent a lot of time in the Mediterranean, assisted the Egyptians, in 1977 he turned from the BOD into a cruiser, like the other three of his twin brothers, and in 1986 he was transferred to the Baltic Fleet in the hope of repair.
There was a repair, in Kronstadt the cruiser was put in order, but after the repair was completed, it was immediately written off.
It is difficult to grasp the logic in this - such ships can serve for 35 years, at least eight years a repaired cruiser (destroyer in fact) could still be in service. But there were many new projects 956 and 1155, and Soviet stocks seemed bottomless ...
2. Vladivostok.
Entered service in 1969, since 1970 - as part of the Pacific Fleet.
All story ship trips - Nigeria, Somalia, Mauritius, Yemen, Vietnam ...
And after 20 years, it's time for a major overhaul. But a new way of thinking was already raging in the country, and on April 19, 1990, the cruiser was simply written off, at the age of 21, with the opportunity to continue serving for many more years. Because already in April 1990 everything was, in principle, clear, and Russia no longer had enemies. Dismantled the cruiser in Australia, someone earned some currency.
3. "Vice-Admiral Drozd".
In service since December 1968, first the Baltic, and since 1975 - as part of the Northern Fleet.
His fate, in general, is standard - service for wear and tear, without observing repair cycles, and when the need became extreme, the USSR lived out its last year.
As a result, the cruiser was simply decommissioned on July 1, 1990 and sold to India for metal. Like his twin brothers, two things played out - improper exploitation and the collapse of the country that gave birth to him.
4. Sevastopol.
The service for this project is typical: the entry into service - the Northern Fleet. Next - the Mediterranean, trips to the Atlantic, tracking NATO nuclear submarines, a visit to Cuba. Since 1981, it was transferred to the Pacific Ocean, where until 1989 it was used for wear and tear, including taking part in collecting the wreckage of the downed South Korean Boeing.
As a result, by 1989, the ship required repair and modernization, instead of which it was decommissioned on December 15, 1989 and sold to India.
In general, these four served their service - becoming the first modern large surface ships of the fleet, they served very actively and eventually wore out in order.
Taking into account the fact that new ships were commissioned en masse, and the Cold War ended, their decommissioning was a stupid decision, but reasonable in its own way - there was no point in spending money on old people in the current circumstances. What can not be said about the next generation.
BOD
In 1966, at the Zhdanov plant in Leningrad, construction began on the second series of Berkuts with the addition of the letter “A” to the cipher.
The difference between them and their predecessors was the replacement of the P-35 with the Metel missile and torpedo system, the installation of the M-11 Storm air defense system, that is, in principle, what was planned for 1134, but for one reason or another did not have time.
By that time, the plant had already gained considerable experience, and the head BOD Kronstadt was put into operation at the end of 1969, almost simultaneously with the previous type.
A total of 10 ships were built, the last "Admiral Yumashev" was commissioned in 1977.
The series was not epoch-making, of course, but successful - good destroyers for the AUG, capable of operating independently, they performed a wide range of tasks - from the implementation of the “gunboat policy” to their direct duties to ensure anti-aircraft defense and air defense squadrons.
Four ships even had time to modernize, replacing the Metel with the Rastrub-B, increasing their efficiency.
The more ridiculous is what happened next - they were all decommissioned in 1991-1993, the youngest of them at the time of decommissioning was 15 years old.
Again, you can understand the reasons - the ships that they were supposed to escort were actively decommissioned, the United States turned into a friend and partner, and 1134A needed repairs.
Such is the unpretentious cannibalistic logic, as a result of which we first get rid of the old, then we kill the new in the trash, write it off, and then we suddenly realize that we don’t have destroyers, and there’s no one to send into the ocean either. More precisely, there is just someone to send with a PR campaign, but the constant presence ...
Meanwhile, the ships were reliable, worked out by industry and quite maintainable. As proved by their younger brothers - series 1134B.
Almost like centenarians
When we stood on the aircraft-carrying ships in Sevastopol on Ugolnaya, our gaze involuntarily lingered on the powerful and architecturally perfect ships of the Nikolaev and Slava types standing opposite, on the North side ...
Containers of launchers for anti-submarine and anti-ship missiles, raised obliquely, emphasized the swift silhouette of these ships, and it seemed that, even when they were at the quay wall, they were ready to immediately engage in battle...
Containers of launchers for anti-submarine and anti-ship missiles, raised obliquely, emphasized the swift silhouette of these ships, and it seemed that, even when they were at the quay wall, they were ready to immediately engage in battle...
In 1965, the design of the Black Sea Berkutov series with gas turbine units began.
They received a new GAS "Titan-2", towed by the GAS "Vega", capable of searching for submarines under a layer of temperature jump. The share of weapons and protection equipment in the standard displacement has grown to 19,4 percent.
In a word, we got a new ship, and the final ship of the Tallinn series, even during construction, was armed with the Rastrub-B, which, unlike the Blizzard, was capable of firing at surface ships.
A very successful series of seven units (the lead "Nikolaev" entered service in 1971, the final "Tallinn" - in 1979) with an unusual fate.
No, it all started, like the project 1134A, in the sense - intensive combat service, wear and tear instead of repair, because there is no money, and there are no enemies either. But even the madness of politicians has its limits, and some 90B survived Tsushima in the early 1134s.
The first of these was the Azov, which back in 1977 was re-equipped with the S-300 Fort to test the complex.
As a result, the less worn-out BOD served in the fleet right up to 1998, having still managed to take part in the Georgian-Abkhaz conflict and be a bone of contention between Russia and Ukraine.
But, having survived the first wave of the collapse of the fleet, the ship did not survive the second - it was decommissioned in 1998, when the remnants of the fleet were already cut.
The second lucky ship was the Kerch.
The BOD was lucky - in 1984 its crew ditched the ship's power plant, after which Kerch began a three-year repair with modernization. They didn’t cut a completely combat-ready ship with their wild shortage on the Black Sea, without risking being left without a fleet at all, and Kerch continued active service.
And in 2005, they found money for repairs, and the ship served for a long time.
In 2014, it was put under repair, because there are no others of this class on the Black Sea and are not expected, there were even plans to make it the flagship of the fleet instead of the Moskva RKR during its repair. But on November 4, 2014, there was a serious fire at the BOD and the repair was canceled.
In 2017, there were plans to create a museum, but in the end, in 2020, the last Berkut was handed over for disassembly for metal.
BOD "Ochakov" became the martyr of the series.
Commissioned in 1973, it was put in for repairs in 1990. But the repair did not really begin - the USSR collapsed.
And in 1993, a fire broke out at the BOD. It would seem that he had a place in the cutting, but the fleet was divided, and he lived until 1997. And then just stood in anticipation of repair, the one that never started.
They wrote it off in 2011, but still they didn’t take it apart, but put it on the sludge.
However, in the end it was necessary to fight the BOD, or rather, to serve the country in the end:
... on the night of March 6, 2014, the Russian side sank the old large anti-submarine ship "Ochakov" of project 1134B, decommissioned from the Black Sea Fleet, on the fairway at the entrance to Lake Donuzlav in Crimea, blocking the exit to the sea for the ships of the Southern Naval Base of the Naval Forces of Ukraine .
They raised the ship six months later and handed it over for disassembly to the metal, in fact, it’s tempting to say perhaps - “he’s exhausted himself”.
If you don’t get smart, anti-submarine destroyers are needed by states with geopolitical ambitions and powerful fleets, for states with ambitions at the level of the Russian Federation of the 90s, and the USSR of 1989-1991, such ships are useless.
Technically, they could serve for a long time, and the money for repairs and modernization, if desired, would have been found even in that era, but politically, the country was getting rid of superpower, the admirals tried to save newer ships, sacrificing what had already served.
And 21 Gorkovsky destroyers, which were nicknamed "Crosses" in the West, fell into these millstones.
The Black Sea "Crosses" were relatively lucky, they were saved by the division of the fleet and the enslaving Russian-Ukrainian agreement, which made it difficult to replace ships.
The rest were sacrificed easily and simply, trying to save the latest ships and vessels.
Were they helpful?
Of course, "Kerch", which quietly went to military service in 2014, is an example of this.
Did Russia need them in the 90s?
No.
The entire Navy of the USSR could exist only within the framework of a superpower, it died - its fleet also died.
But the ships, of course, are beautiful and functional, worth billions, but sold for a penny, gone to no one knows where, however, like the whole country that died in 1991.
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