Baltic Fleet expects to get new corvette by 2011

19.05.2010 Baltic Fleet (BF) plans to get new-gen corvette Soobrazitelny till 2011; mooring and sea trials will start in the nearest future, informed Tuesday RIA Novosti referring to BF official.

"Mooring and sea trials of corvette Soobrazitelny will start soon. We assume that the ship will be delivered to Baltic Fleet by 2011. Ships of this class have crucially new performance and combat characteristics. They're multifunctional, compact, low-observable, and have high level of automation and control integration", said the BF representative.

Severnaya Verf shipyard (St. Petersburg) launched first serial corvette of Project 20380 Soobrazitelny as early as late March 2010, added the official.

Specifying the ship's characteristics, the Navy spokesman mentioned displacement (2,000 tons), length (over 100 meters), max speed (up to 27 knots), and operating range (4,000 nautical miles).

"In particular, the corvette's armament includes 100-mm multipurpose artillery systems, and air defense gun/missile systems. The ship is designed for littoral zone operations, antisurface and antisubmarine warfare, and artillery support of landing operations", said the interviewee.

According to him, other two corvettes of the project – Boiky and Stoiky – are also at Severnaya Verf shipyard in different stages of completeness. The lead ship Stereguschiy was commissioned into Baltic Fleet in Oct 2008.

Baltic Fleet comprises over 50 surface ships and submarines of various classes and purposes; most of them were built late 20 century.