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Saturday 21 July 2018

Badly damaged ... but still useful: Konstruktor and Marat

Konstruktor was built in Finland (Helsingfors) for the Imperial Russian Navy and was a member of the General Kondratenko-class of destroyers. She was originally named the Sibirskiy Strelok.


In Soviet Navy service she was re-named Konstruktor and used as training/test ship. When the German-led Axis forces invaded Russia, she was rearmed and used as a patrol boat. As a result of bomb damage her bows were blown off and she sank. Her hull was raised, and a new much shorter bow section was fitted to her.



She returned to service as a gunboat and remained in service until the end of the war.

Marat was originally built in St Petersburg as the battleship Petropavlovsk for the Imperial Russian Navy and was one of four sister ships of the Gangut-class dreadnoughts.


After the Russian Revolution, the ship was re-named Marat and she became one of the heavy units of the Soviet Navy's Baltic Fleet. She was reconstructed from 1928 to 1931, ...


... and took part in the Winter War against Finland. Her anti-aircraft armament was enhanced, and at the time of the German-led Axis invasion of Russia she was operating in support of the Soviet Army along the Baltic Sea coast. In July 1941 she was hit by two large bombs whilst in harbour, one of which was dropped by the famous Luftwaffe 'Ace' Oberleutnant Hans-Ulrich Rudel of III./StG 2. These bombs detonated her forward magazine, destroying most of the forward part of the ship.


She was subsequently re-floated and moved so that she could act as a floating battery in support of the defenders of Leningrad. She was re-named Petropavlovsk in May 1943, and after the war there were plans to re-build her using parts from her sister ship Poltava/Frunze. This came to nothing, and she was scrapped in the 1950s.

2 comments:

  1. Replies
    1. Geordie an Exiled FoG,

      Despite appearances, she did great service in her damaged state. and shows that at desperate times, even badly damaged ships can still ‘do their bit’.

      All the best,

      Bob

      Delete

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