This week the St. Petersburg’s shipyard JSC Severnaya Verf , Russia,  will deliver another Steregushchiy (Guardian) class Project 20380 corvette Soobrazitelny to the Russian Defense Ministry. Designed by Almaz Design Bureau, Severnaya Verf  has a capacity to build up to three of these ships annually. It is currently building two other corvettes of the same class for the Russian Navy which has expressed a need for a fleet of 20 vessels. The Komsomolsk Shipyard on the Pacific coast is also constructing one ship of this class with a commissioning date planned for 2012.

Caption: The Project 20380 corvette Steregushchiy moored in the Neva River in St. Petersburg.
Image credit: Wikipaedia

This week the St. Petersburg’s shipyard JSC Severnaya Verf , Russia,  will deliver another Steregushchiy (Guardian) class Project 20380 corvette Soobrazitelny to the Russian Defense Ministry. Designed by Almaz Design Bureau, Severnaya Verf  has a capacity to build up to three of these ships annually. It is currently building two other corvettes of the same class for the Russian Navy which has expressed a need for a fleet of 20 vessels. The Komsomolsk Shipyard on the Pacific coast is also constructing one ship of this class with a commissioning date planned for 2012.

The lead ship of the original Project 20380 class was launched in 2006.  Soobrazitelny is a later version of the original Project 20380 class and is sometimes referred to as the Project 20385, which incorporates a number of design changes and improved weapon systems.

The ship has a full displacement of 2,200 tons and a LOA of 343 ft (105 m), beam of 36 ft ( 11.1 m) and 12 ft (3.7 m) draft. These are large dimensions for a corvette and it is classified by NATO as a frigate.

The propulsion system is a CODAD arrangement with four Kolomna 16D49 diesels, each rated at 5,916 hp (4.4 MW) at 1,000 rpm. This provides a maximum speed of 26 kn and range of 3,800 nm at 14 kn.

An export version, known as Project 20382 Tigr has been offered to a number of countries with the Algerian Navy expressing an interest for 2 ships and the Indonesian Navy four.

Caption: The Kolomna 16D49 is a four stroke V16 cylinder diesel engine
with 260 x 260 mm bore and stroke,  rated at 4.4 MW at 1,000 rpm .
Image credit: Kolomna  Zavod