It looks like 2019 will be a big year for the Baltic Fleet. First, Russia found money for the repair of the destroyer Nastoichivy, and then news came that the frigate Neustrashimy will also return to operational status. So with a little luck, all the big ships in the Baltic Fleet will soon be operational. That includes the destroyer Nastoichivy and the frigates Neustrashimy and Yaroslav Mudry. Neustrashimy has been under repair since 2014. The plan is to begin sea trials in August and to return the ship to the Navy in November. That reports bmpd with a reference to the internal newspaper of the Yantar shipyard.
The Neustrashimy-class is an anti-submarine warfare frigate (project 11540) and it is a successor to the legendary Krivak-class (project 1135). The ship is 130 meters long and has a displacement of about 4000 tons. It is equipped with a gas turbine propulsion system which gives a speed around 30 knots.
Originally, the USSR planned to build five of these ships, but only two have been completed. The story of the Neustrashimy-class clearly illustrates what the collapse of the Soviet Union meant for the navy. Construction of Neustrashimy began in 1987, and the ship entered service in 1990. Construction of the second ship, Yaroslav Mudry, began only a year later, in 1988, but it wasn’t ready for service until 2009. That is an 18 years longer production time compared to the first in class! A third ship, Tuman, was under construction since 1993, and in 2016 it was decided to cancel the ship and utilize the parts.
So all the ships of this class belong to the Baltic Fleet. From April to October 2018, Yaroslav Mudry completed a longer international deployment. It apparently participated in the anti-piracy operation in the Gulf of Aden and took part in Russia’s military maneuvers in the Mediterranean. Russia doesn’t have too many frigate-sized warships, so it seems like a fair guess that we will see Neustrashimy complete a similar journey in the coming years.
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