Russian destroyer Zabiyaka
Profile view of Zabiyaka in 1915–1917 | |
| History | |
|---|---|
| Russian Empire | |
| Name | Zabiyaka |
| Builder | Metal Works, Petrograd |
| Laid down | November 1913 |
| Launched | 23 October 1914 |
| Commissioned | 9 November 1915 |
| Fate | Joined the Bolsheviks, October 1917 |
| Soviet Union | |
| Acquired | November 1917 |
| Renamed |
|
| Reclassified | As training ship, 6 March 1951 |
| Stricken | 17 August 1951 |
| Fate | Sunk in a nuclear test, 21 September 1955 |
| General characteristics (as built) | |
| Class & type | Orfey-class destroyer |
| Displacement | 1,260 t (1,240 long tons) |
| Length | 98 m (321 ft 6 in) |
| Beam | 9.34 m (30 ft 8 in) |
| Draught | 2.93 m (9 ft 7 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion | 2 shafts, 2 steam turbines |
| Speed | 31 knots (57 km/h; 36 mph) |
| Range | 1,680 nmi (3,110 km; 1,930 mi) at 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph) |
| Complement | 150 |
| Armament |
|
Zabiyaka (Russian: Забияка, lit. 'bully') was one of eight Orfey-class destroyers built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. Completed in 1915, she served with the Baltic Fleet and made two raids into the Baltic Sea to attack German shipping or lay minefields before the end of the year. The ship struck a mine at the beginning of 1916 and was under repair until August. Newly repaired, Zabiyaka's stern struck some rocks that badly damaged her and she spent the next 12 months under repair. The ship participated in the Battle of Kassar Wiek during the defense of the West Estonian Archipelago in October 1917 when the Germans invaded them (Operation Albion).
Her crew joined the Bolshevik Red Fleet during the October Revolution of 1917. The ship had to be towed from Helsinki, Grand Duchy of Finland, to Kronstadt in early 1918 during the "Ice Cruise". The destroyer was renamed Uritsky (Урицкий) in 1922 and spent much of the 1920s either in reserve or under repair. She was transferred to the Northern Fleet in 1933 and was still in the Arctic when the Axis powers invaded the Soviet Union in 1941 (Operation Barbarossa). The ship provided naval gunfire support in defense of Soviet forces during Operation Platinum Fox in mid-1941. Uritsky spent most of the war as a convoy escort, although she did rescue survivors from a sunken Soviet destroyer in 1942. The ship was disarmed, renamed Reut and converted into a training ship in 1951. Later that year she was stricken from the navy list in anticipation of her expenditure as a target for nuclear tests, although that did not happen until 1955.