Poti-class

Summary

Description

The Poti class, known as Project 204 to the Soviet Navy, represented a series of anti-submarine warfare (ASW) corvettes built during the Cold War era, and they were notable for being the first large Soviet warships to utilize gas turbine engines. The NATO reporting name for this group was "Poti class," and they were designed to depart from the traditional World War II ASW designs, evidenced by their larger size compared to predecessors like the Kronshtadt and SO1 classes. This size increment allowed the Poti class to be outfitted with more substantial armaments.

With a novel design approach, these corvettes were equipped with a propulsion system that combined diesel engines with gas turbines, providing a balance of power and efficiency. Specifically, they had two M-2 gas turbines and a pair of M503A diesel engines, culminating in a robust power output that propelled them to speeds of up to 38 knots. Their gas turbines exhausted through transom ports and provided additional thrust by powering air compressors that exhausted into thrust tubes. They had a range of 4,500 nautical miles at a steady speed of 10 knots, diminishing sharply to 520 nautical miles at their top speed.

Armament-wise, the Poti class featured a twin 57 mm gun turret for self-defense and was equipped with either twin or quad 406 mm torpedo tubes for Type 40 ASW torpedoes. They also carried RBU-2500 or RBU-6000 ASW rocket launchers on board for enhanced anti-submarine capabilities. Their electronic suite included Don 2, Strut Curve, and Muff Cobb radars along with Herkules and Hormone sonars for surface and air search as well as fire control, bolstered by electronic countermeasure systems.

Over their operational history, the Soviet Union constructed a total of 66 Poti-class corvettes between 1960 and 1968 across three shipyards: Kerch, Zelenodolsk, and Khabarovsk. They have since been decommissioned, with the last remaining Poti-class corvettes leaving the fleet by the late 1980s, replaced by the Pauk-class corvettes.

The corvettes saw exports to two operating countries. Bulgaria received six ships to replace its existing ASW corvettes, and all of them had been discarded by 2008. Romania, under the influence of the Soviet sphere post-World War II, received three Poti-class ships in 1970, despite a growing divergence from the Soviet Union that began in the early 1960s. These ships retained the older RBU-2500 rocket launchers and were equipped with twin 533 mm torpedo tubes. The eventual fate of all Poti-class corvettes was the same, with none remaining in existence beyond 2008.

Technical specifications