Soviet destroyer Tashkent

Tashkent on her builder's sea trials, 1937
History
Soviet Union
Name	Tashkent (Ташкент)
Namesake	Tashkent
Ordered	2nd Five-Year Plan
Awarded	September 1935
Builder	OTO, Livorno, Italy
Laid down	11 January 1937
Launched	28 December 1938
Completed	22 October 1939
Nickname(s)	"Blue Beauty" or "Blue Cruiser"[1]
Fate	Sunk by aircraft, 2 July 1942
General characteristics (September 1941)
Class and type	Tashkent-class destroyer leader
Displacement	2,840 long tons (2,890 t) (standard)
Length	139.7 m (458 ft 4 in) (o/a)
Beam	13.7 m (44 ft 11 in)
Draft	3.7 m (12 ft 2 in)
Installed power	2 Yarrow boilers 100,000 shp (75,000 kW)
Propulsion	2 shafts; 2 geared steam turbines
Speed	42.5 knots (78.7 km/h; 48.9 mph)
Range	5,030 nmi (9,320 km; 5,790 mi) at 20 knots (37 km/h; 23 mph)
Complement	250
Armament	3 × twin 130 mm (5.1 in) guns 1 × twin 76 mm (3 in) AA guns 6 × single 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns 6 × single 12.7 mm (0.5 in) machine guns 3 × triple 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes 76 mines 24 depth charges, 2 × depth charge throwers, 1 × rack

Tashkent (Russian: Ташкент) was the lead ship of her class of destroyer leaders (officially known as Project 20), built in Italy for the Soviet Navy just before World War II. The problems of the previous Leningrad-class destroyer leaders demonstrated that Russian design experience had atrophied in the years since the Russian Revolution of 1917, and the Soviets contracted for design assistance from Fascist Italy in the mid-1930s. Delivered without any armament in 1939, Tashkent was given a temporary gunnery outfit when she entered service with the Black Sea Fleet later that year. She had her permanent armament installed shortly before the Axis Powers invaded the Soviet Union in mid-1941.

During the Siege of Odessa the ship escorted a transport to Odessa and provided naval gunfire support before she was badly damaged by Axis bombers in August. After repairs were completed in November, Tashkent ferried reinforcements and supplies, evacuated wounded and refugees, and bombarded Axis positions during the Siege of Sevastopol in 1941–1942. The last ship to enter Sevastopol harbor in June before the city surrendered, she was crippled by Axis bombers on her return voyage to Novorossiysk and was sunk a few days later during an air strike on the harbor there. Her wreck was refloated in 1944, but it was a constructive total loss and was scrapped after the war.