Soviet Destroyer Serdity (1940)

''Serdity'' () was one of 18 s (officially known as Project 7U) built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 , ''Serdity'' was completed in 1940 to the modified Project 7U design.

Serving with the Baltic Fleet, she participated in minelaying operations after the start of the German invasion of the Soviet Union (Operation Barbarossa) in June 1941. ''Serdity'' engaged German minesweepers in the Irbe Strait on 6 July without result, and on 18 July was damaged by a friendly air attack. While anchored off Hiiumaa the following day, she was sunk by German bombers. Her survivors were taken off by other destroyers and what remained of the ship was broken up for scrap postwar.

Design

Originally built as a ''Gnevny''-class ship, ''Serdity'' 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 ''Gnevny''s, so that a ship could still move with one or two boilers disabled.

Like the ''Gnevny''s, 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. Some fell short of it, although specific figures for most individual ships have not survived. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Project 7Us varied from at .

The 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 .

Construction and World War II

''Serdity'' was laid down in Shipyard No. 189 (Sergo Ordzhonikidze) in Leningrad with the yard number 298 on 25 October 1936 as a ''Gnevny''-class destroyer with the name of ''Likhoy''. She was relaid down as a Project 7U destroyer on 15 October 1938, and launched on 21 April 1939. The ship was renamed ''Serdity'' on 25 September 1940 before acceptance by a state commission on 15 October, although she did not officially join the Baltic Fleet until 12 April 1941, when the Soviet naval jack was raised aboard her.Balakin, pp. 67–68Berezhnoy, pp. 350–351

In the days after the 22 June beginning of Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, ''Serdity'' participated in minelaying with her sister ships of the 2nd Division on 24 and 26 June. The destroyer moved north to the Kuivastu roadstead on 27 June due to the German advance, and after the departure of the remainder of the Light Forces Detachment for Tallinn she was left to defend the Gulf of Riga with her sister and the elderly destroyer . The destroyer expended 115 130 mm shells during the 6 July Battle of Irbe Strait against the German minesweeping support ship ''Minenräumschiff-11'' (the former ''Osnabrück'') and her attached minesweepers. Due to an inexperienced gunnery officer who was unable to distinguish the fall of ''Silny'''s shells from those of his own ship, all of the shells missed.

She participated in an unsuccessful attack on a group of German landing craft off the mouth of the Daugava River on 13 July.Rohwer, p. 86 Under the flag of Light Forces detachment commander '' Kontr-admiral'' Valentin Drozd, she and the destroyer covered minelaying by guard ships ''Tucha'' and ''Sneg'' on 18 July. By 14:00 of that day she returned to the Kübasaar roadstead near Saaremaa, but quickly turned back after receiving a message that a German convoy had been spotted. Due a lack of coordination with Soviet Naval Aviation, both destroyers came under friendly air attack and at 15:31 a bomb dropped by a Tupolev SB bomber exploded close to ''Serdity'', killing one and wounding three sailors and knocking out a boiler and both rangefinders in the conning tower. ''Steregushchy'', which escaped unscathed, engaged the German convoy escorts, but was only joined by ''Serdity'' at 17:24 when they had lost sight of the convoy. After escaping without serious damage from a German bombing raid on the return journey, ''Serdity'' anchored in Heltermaa roadstead off Hiiumaa by 19 July.

On that day she came under sudden attack by four Junkers Ju 88 bombers of ''Kampfgruppe 806'' while anchored. Efforts to raise steam proved futile and one of her boilers was destroyed by a bomb that penetrated the deck, knocking out power. A second bomb holed the hull and displaced fuel oil from her tanks, starting a fire that engulfed the forward superstructure and both forward boiler rooms. Although the crew flooded the aft 130 mm magazine, damage control was hindered by the lack of power. The fire spread aft and caused the explosion of ammunition and depth charges, destroying the aft section. Due to the shallow depth of the anchorage, the hull rolled to starboard and remained above the water. The destroyer remained afloat for slightly more than an hour after the air raid, and her survivors were taken off by ''Steregushchy'' and the destroyer . A total of 35 crewmembers were killed and more than 30 were wounded during the sinking. What was left of the hull was destroyed by the explosion of the forward magazines. The destroyer was officially struck from the Soviet Navy on 27 July. Postwar, the wreck was raised in pieces and towed to Tallinn for scrapping between 1949 and 1952.

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Serdity (1940)
Storozhevoy-class destroyers
1939 ships
Ships built at the Baltic Shipyard
Destroyers sunk by aircraft
Ships sunk by German aircraft
World War II shipwrecks in the Baltic Sea