Soviet destroyer Svobodny (1940)

An unidentified Storozhevoy-class destroyer in the Black Sea
History
Soviet Union
Name	Svobodny (Свободный (Free))
Ordered	2nd Five-Year Plan
Builder	Shipyard No. 200 (named after 61 Communards), Nikolayev Shipyard No. 201 (Sergo Ordzhonikidze), Sevastopol
Yard number	246
Laid down	1938
Launched	25 February 1939
Commissioned	2 January 1942
Fate	Sunk by aircraft, 10 June 1942 Wreck salvaged and scrapped, 1953
General characteristics (Storozhevoy, 1941)
Class and type	Storozhevoy-class destroyer
Displacement	1,727 t (1,700 long tons) (standard) 2,279 t (2,243 long tons) (full load)
Length	112.5 m (369 ft 1 in) (o/a)
Beam	10.2 m (33 ft 6 in)
Draft	3.98 m (13 ft 1 in)
Installed power	4 water-tube boilers 54,000 shp (40,000 kW) (trials)
Propulsion	2 shafts, 2 steam turbine sets
Speed	40.3 knots (74.6 km/h; 46.4 mph) (trials)
Endurance	1,380–2,700 nmi (2,560–5,000 km; 1,590–3,110 mi) at 19 knots (35 km/h; 22 mph)
Complement	207 (271 wartime)
Sensors and processing systems	Mars hydrophones
Armament	4 × single 130 mm (5.1 in) guns 2 × single 76.2 mm (3 in) AA guns 3 × single 45 mm (1.8 in) AA guns 4 × single 12.7 mm (0.50 in) DK or DShK machine guns 2 × triple 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes 58–96 mines 30 depth charges

Svobodny (Russian: Свободный, lit. 'Free') was one of 18 Storozhevoy-class destroyers (officially known as Project 7U) built for the Soviet Navy during the late 1930s. Although she began construction as a Project 7 Gnevny-class destroyer, Svobodny was completed in early 1942 to the modified Project 7U design.

Still incomplete when Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began in June 1941, she had to be moved twice to prevent her capture by the Germans. Once completed, the destroyer began to transport supplies and troops into besieged Sevastopol and to provide naval gunfire support for the defenders of the city and Soviet troops in the Battle of the Kerch Peninsula. While moored there in early June, Svobodny sank after being struck by German bombs with the loss of 67 crewmen. Her wreck was refloated and scrapped in 1953.