Quote:
Originally Posted by Raellus
Thanks so much, Ursus. I really appreciate you going to all that trouble.
I went through my copy of Encyclopedia of Warships (Robert Jackson, 2006) last night and found references to the following vessels also being part of the Black Sea Fleet during the late Cold War period.
2 Sverdlov class gun cruisers: Admiral Ushakov,
1 Kynda class rocket cruister: Admiral Golovko
2 Slava class guided missile cruisers: Marshal Ustinov*, Admiral Lobov**
X Mirka I & II class FFLs (apparently all of them served in the Black Sea)
2 Alligator Class landing ships
For submarines, I found a Tango prototype, a Whiskey 'Twin Cylinder', and a Kilo fitted with pumpjet propulsion. I doubt that's it. I'll have to poke around some more on Wikipedia and see what else I can dig up.
*According to Wikipedia, the Marshal Ustinov is part of the Northern Fleet and the Moskva is part of the Black Sea Fleet, but that is current operational status.
**This vessel was ceded to Ukraine upon dissolution of the USSR (where it is known as the Ukrayina)- I'm assuming that the Soviets would have held on to it had the USSR not dissolved.
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The Marshal Ustinov was pretty certainly not part of the Black Sea Fleet as the local shipyard there had built Dzerzhinsky, Admiral Nakhimov, Mikhail Kutuzov and started Admiral Kornilov (never finished). The three Sverdlovs of the Black Sea Fleet had mixed service lives. Kutuzov was - officially - only decommissioned in 2000, but I don't know in what state. Certainly she had no battle value by then. Dzerzhinsky was decommissioned in 1989. That's about as long as I could imagine for a gun cruiser. Actually, it's 25 year to much...
There could have been a couple of Mirka-class frigates in the Black Sea by then, but I have nearly not info on that class. Also, it's funny they would be classed as frigates. At under 1,200 tons fully loaded, it's hardly in the ball park of even contemporary frigates. But hey, they got a radar, a HMS, a dipper, torpedoes, RBUs and four (!) 76 mm guns. So I guess they count. Mirkas were exclusively built in Kaliningrad, though. So, I don't know if any made the transfer.
The other cruisers were the Admiral Golovko (Kynda), the flagship fleet of the Black Sea Fleet back then. Then the Moskva (Slava), which is still in service today. The main force in the Black Sea Fleet were three of the seven Kara-class guided-missile cruisers, Nikolayev, Ochakov, Kerch and Azov. The other three went to the Pacific fleet. The Karas were essentially enlarged Kresta II-class cruisers and at 8,000-10,000 tons they packed quite a punch.
Submarines: I have no clue as my data is sparse there. But they built Tangos in that lake and I know of some Kilos. So my bet is on those plus Foxtrots and Whiskeys, because there were 250+ Whiskeys built by the USSR and I'll be damned if none made it to the Black Sea.