Kalinin () was one of six s (officially known as Project 26) built for the Soviet Navy in the Russian Far East from components shipped from European Russia during World War II. The ship was one of the last pair constructed, known as the Project 26bis2 subclass. Completed at the end of 1942 and assigned to the Pacific Fleet, she saw no action during the Soviet–Japanese War in 1945 and served into the Cold War. Sometimes serving as a flagship, her post-war career was uneventful until she was disarmed and converted into a floating barracks in 1960. She was scrapped in the early 1960s.
Description
The design of the Kirovs was derived from the Italian light cruisers, modified to suit their more powerful armament. The two Project 26bis2 ships were slightly larger than the earlier Project 26 and 26bis ships and were fitted with a different anti-aircraft armament. Kalinin was long at the waterline, and long overall. She had a beam of and had a draught between . The ship displaced at standard load and at full load. Her crew numbered 812 officers and men during wartime.
The Kirov-class ships were powered by two sets of TV-7 geared steam turbines, each driving a single propeller shaft using steam provided by six Yarrow-Normand boilers. The turbines were designed to produce which was intended to give the ships a speed of . On her sea trials, Kalinin only reached from . Without overload power, she was only capable of in 1945. The Kirovs carried enough fuel oil to give them an endurance of at .
Armament, protection and sensors
The main battery of the Kirov class consisted of nine B-1-P guns in three triple-gun turrets, a superfiring pair forward of the superstructure and one aft. Unlike her earlier half-sisters built in European Russia, her secondary armament initially consisted of eight single 34-K anti-aircraft (AA) guns mounted on each side of the rear funnel because the B-34 guns originally intended to be used had run into production problems. The 34-K guns were a stop-gap until the Army 52-K AA gun could be mated with the mount of the 34-K and put into production as the 90-K. They replaced the 34-K guns in May 1943. Light AA guns initially consisted of six semi-automatic 21-K AA guns, ten fully automatic 70-K AA guns, and six machine guns, but were significantly increased during the war. By 1945 Kalinin had exchanged her 21-K guns for nine additional 70-K guns, of which four were mounted on turret roofs and the others in the superstructure. By 1957 her light anti-aircraft armament consisted of only nine powered twin-gun 37 mm V-11 mounts. Six 39-Yu torpedo tubes were fitted in two triple mountings, one on each broadside. The cruiser could mount rails to carry between 100 and 164 mines and racks for fifty depth charges, but by 1945, she could carry 100–106 mines and she had been fitted with two or four throwers for her 66 depth charges.
The Project 26bis and the Project 26bis2 cruisers shared the same armor configuration: the waterline belt, turret, and barbette armor were all thick. The deck was protected by armor plates, while those of the conning tower were thick.
Initially built without a sonar, Kalinin received the Lend-Lease ASDIC-132 system, which the Soviets called Drakon-132, as well as the experimental Soviet Mars-72 system by 1945. As built she lacked any radars, but by 1944 she was equipped with British and American Lend-Lease radars as well as Soviet-designed systems. A British Type 291 and an American SG radar were used for air search. A pair of Soviet Yupiter-1 radars were used for main-battery fire control while anti-aircraft fire control was provided by two British Type 282 radars. She was planned to be equipped with a single ZK-2b catapult on the centerline between her funnels with capacity for two Beriev KOR-2 seaplanes, but was completed without the catapult, which could not be shipped from besieged Leningrad in time. In place of the catapult, six 70-K guns were added. The catapult was later installed, with Kalinin conducting sea trials with the catapult and the KOR-2 in 1945. The catapult was removed in October 1947 as radar had superseded the use of aircraft to correct the ship's gunfire.