Chapayev
Contents
Description
The Pr.68-K, Chapayev, 1950 was the lead ship of the Project 68 (Chapayev-class) light cruisers built for Soviet Navy in the 1940s, however the war delayed their construction. The Project 68 ships were to be built under the Stalin's "Big Fleet Programme" of 1936 as the backbone of Soviet light cruiser force, performing minelaying, shore bombardment, and commerce raiding. Unlike Project 26, 152 mm guns were chosen due to higher fire rate, and armour protection was also improved significantly. Chapayev was laid down on 8th October 1939 and commissioned on 16th May 1950. She served with the Northern Fleet until 1958 when she was reclassified as a training ship. Two years later, she was converted into floating barracks and sold for scrap four years later in 1964. During the towing, her hull ran aground near the village of Minkino in the Kola Bay. A Soviet and later Russian Marine Arctic Geological Exploration Expedition base was built around the partially buried hull.
Chapayev was introduced in Update 1.91 "Night Vision". Her armour protection is a significant improvement over the previous Project 26-class, as well as having guns with higher rate of fire, although at the cost of their penetration characteristics. Her anti-aircraft protection suite was also expanded, with twenty-eight 37 mm automatic V-11 cannon barrels as well as eight 100 mm dual purpose guns. Unlike Kirov, her magazines are closer to the waterline, making them more vulnerable to being hit and leading to fatal explosion. All the improvements on Chapayev came at a cost, losing the ship-launched aircraft found on Kirov, as well as torpedo tubes.
General info
Survivability and armour
The Chapayev has strong armour against any and all 155 mm shells, only constant AP fire from the likes of the USS Brooklyn will cause enough damage to put a dent in your crew count. Chapayev's deck armour is strong enough to resist 250 kg bombs, but heavier ones will cause catastrophic damage. Against larger shells, it is recommended to angle your hull 45 degrees towards the attacker to avoid penetrating hits to your ammunition and engine compartments.
The Chapayev's turrets are immune to HE and AP shells from destroyers, as well as resistant against being incapacitated from enemy secondary guns that ships like the IJN Mogami and the Kirov suffer from a lot. Against cruisers, the turrets are quite resistant to their high-explosive shells aside from the lucky shell that will hit one of the gun breeches, which will disable only one out of the three guns on the turret
One glaring weakness of the Chapayev is her tendency to quickly flood from any breach damage. This is especially true if your secondary guns' ammo racks were detonated (which they often do), as this will cause the ship to quickly lose over 70% of buoyancy in just a few seconds, effectively immobilising the ship. As such, be sure to plug any hull leaks as soon as possible to minimize the risks of the ship being overwhelmed by flood damage.
Mobility
| Mobility Characteristics | |||
|---|---|---|---|
| Game Mode | Upgrade Status | Maximum Speed (km/h) | |
| Forward | Reverse | ||
| AB | |||
| Upgraded | 71 | 37 | |
| RB/SB | |||
| Upgraded | 61 | 31 | |
The Chapayev possesses an average maximum speed with somewhat quick acceleration. While not the faster cruiser seen in the game, it is significantly faster than previous cruisers. The Chapayev is essentially a cruiser that feels like a destroyer. It has very nice responsiveness and handling, but the size limits the speed of manoeuvres.
Modifications and economy
| Seakeeping | Unsinkability | Firepower | ||||||||||||||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
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Armament
Primary armament
The Chapayev has access to the formidable 152 mm/57 B-38. It is nothing new to see potent weapons with devastating explosive power with a relatively quick firing rate, and the B-38 is no exception. They have a wide variety of different purpose ammunition, from solely anti-ship ammunition to long range anti-aircraft ammunition. The stock ammunition is HE. While this round lacks penetration power, the explosive filler in it is more than enough to decimate lightly armoured vessels in seconds. The SAPBC round is a decent jack-of-all-trades when it comes to destroying enemy vessels, with decent explosive filler as well as increased penetration compared to the HE shell. The APCBC round, an new addition compared to previous vessels, is an essential tool when fighting heavily armoured cruisers and battleships. While it has significantly reduced explosive filler compared to other rounds, it increases the combat capabilities of the Chapayev against heavily armoured cruisers. While using APCBC, aiming at critical components is crucial. Ammunition racks, engine compartments, and any other critical components are to be targeted while using these rounds as the reduced filler will not cause as much damage.
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 1,000 m | 2,500 m | 5,000 m | 7,500 m | 10,000 m | 15,000 m | ||
| OF-35 HE | HE | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 | 50 |
| B-35 AP | APCBC | 333 | 287 | 226 | 178 | 143 | 100 |
| PB-35 SAP | SAPBC | 172 | 148 | 117 | 92 | 74 | 52 |
| ZS-35 AA | HE-TF | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 | 62 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (s) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg) |
Ricochet | |||||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||||
| OF-35 HE | HE | 950 | 55 | 0 | 0.1 | 6 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |||
| B-35 AP | APCBC | 950 | 55 | 0.03 | 7 | 1.69 | 48° | 63° | 71° | |||
| PB-35 SAP | SAPBC | 950 | 55 | 0.03 | 7 | 5.9 | 48° | 63° | 71° | |||
| ZS-35 AA | HE-TF | 950 | 54.23 | 0 | 0.1 | 10.1 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |||
Secondary armament
The Chapayev is one of the two Soviet cruisers with access to 100 mm/70 SM-5-1 cannons. While these turrets are very similar to the 130 mm/58 SM-2-1, they do have a reduced performance due to the reduced calibre. They have the exact same use as when used in the Spokoinyy, delivering large numbers of rounds to surface targets and can act as very powerful AAA. It is nothing new that this weapon system has a very high rate of fire for its calibre (~30 RPM considering it is a two cannon mount), it has half of what cannons like the 100 mm/55 MLE model 53 have (~60 RPM). However, the Chapayev has four turrets of two cannons each, meaning the total RPM of the Chapayev's 100 mm cannons is close to ~120 RPM which is substantially higher than most high-calibre weapon systems seen in other vessels. It is only surpassed by the Sverdlov as it has six turrets and not four.
This systems offers a wide variety of purposes when it comes to all types of engagements. Point blank defense, reliable long-range AAA, Swiss cheese maker of lightly armoured vessels, or just additional turrets to make minor damage to disable critical components and weapon systems of larger vessels. These guns have access to the same type of ammunition as the 130 mm seen in the Spokoinyy have with a new addition: HE, SAPBC, HE-VT* and HE-TF. The use of this gun is pretty straight forward as it is exactly as in the Spokoinyy. However, the increased number of turrets significantly increases the AA capabilities, not only because it is able to put much more rounds in the air but all of these rounds can be HE-VT*. With eight rounds per salvo, each with 815 g explosive filler and a 15 m trigger radius, flying at 995 m/s, fired every four seconds, these guns almost guarantee significant damage towards any unfortunate aircraft.
The main downside compared to the Spokoinyy is the lack of radar to assist the aiming of the weapon, but is not a big deal.
| Penetration statistics | |||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Penetration @ 0° Angle of Attack (mm) | |||||
| 100 m | 1,000 m | 2,000 m | 3,000 m | 4,000 m | 5,000 m | ||
| OF-55 HE | HE | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 | 24 |
| ZS-55 AA | HE-TF | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 | 26 |
| F-55 HE-F | HE | 73 | 63 | 54 | 46 | 40 | 34 |
| ZS-55R AA-VT | HE-VT | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 | 17 |
| Shell details | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (s) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg) |
Ricochet | |||||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||||
| OF-55 HE | HE | 1,000 | 15.6 | 0 | 0.1 | 1.94 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |||
| ZS-55 AA | HE-TF | 1,000 | 15.6 | 0 | 0.1 | 2.07 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |||
| F-55 HE-F | HE | 1,000 | 15.6 | 0.035 | 5 | 1.77 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |||
| Proximity-fused shell details | ||||||||||||
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ammunition | Type of warhead |
Velocity (m/s) |
Projectile mass (kg) |
Fuse delay (m) |
Fuse sensitivity (mm) |
Arming distance (m) |
Trigger radius (m) |
Explosive mass (TNT equivalent) (kg) |
Ricochet | |||
| 0% | 50% | 100% | ||||||||||
| ZS-55R AA-VT | HE-VT | 995 | 15.9 | 0 | 0.1 | 270 | 15 | 1.26 | 79° | 80° | 81° | |
Anti-aircraft armament
As every single Soviet ship seen already in the tree, 37 mm autocannons are nothing new. In terms of comparison to previous vessels, the Chapayev is comparable to the Spokoinyy once again. While the Spokoinyy has 16 x 45 mm autocannons, the Chapayev has 28 x 37 mm autocannons. Proportionally, the difference is not as much, but as always, the more guns the better. These cannons have no different use to the 37 mm-equipped ships seen previously, capable AAA with some anti-ship capabilities.
Usage in battles
The Chapayev has a very similar use to the previous cruisers but with a significantly increased firepower. It is a ship that can fill many roles, but is most successful at duking it out with enemy destroyers and cruisers. While it isn't recommended, this ship can find some success in close-quarters combat due to the quick reload of the main guns and a large number of secondary and AA batteries. The ship is at its happiest when it can fire at enemy ships from medium range without return fire, or when supporting a larger cruiser or battleship with its fast-firing guns.
Pros and cons
Pros:
- Twelve 152 mm guns with good accuracy and damage output
- HE shell has large filler for its calibre, capable of dealing great damage against unarmoured decks and hulls
- Has great survivability due to spread out crew compartments
- Effective anti-air defense with wide coverage
- Good mobility and very manoeuvrable once upgraded
Cons:
- Slow without engine upgrades
- Fire rate is all but amazing
- Prone to quick flooding without pump upgrade
- Little armour for ammunition magazines, its secondary ammo rack in particular can be easily detonated and cause catastrophic flood
History
The Soviet cruiser Chapayev (Чапаев) was the lead ship of her class of light cruisers built for the Soviet Navy before and after the Second World War. Initially designed as a follow-up to the previous Kirov-class cruisers, the ship was laid down and launched at the start of the Second World War before construction was halted due to the German invasion. Chapayev was completed after the war, albeit to an altered design with heavily-increased anti-aircraft armament. However, due to the advent of advanced weapons systems such as guided missiles, the ship was made obsolete extremely quickly. Chapayev was reduced to a training ship in 1960, and sold for scrap by 1963.
Design and development
The Chapayev class, or Project 68, was designed as a follow up to the previous Kirov class of light cruisers. The ships were designed with a new main armament of twelve 6-inch guns, compared to the nine 7-inch guns of the Kirov class. The ship was also significantly larger, displacing almost 5,000 tons more than the preceding Kirovs. Initially, it was planned that a total of 17 ships would be built, but only seven ships had been started when the Germans invaded. The Chapayev was the first of these ships, launched in 1941 just before the invasion. Two of the seven hulls were destroyed on their slipways by the German forces, but the remaining five vessels were completed after the war in 1950.
Chapayev displaced 14,000 tons full load and had a complement of 840. Her main armament consisted of twelve 6-inch (152 mm) guns in four triple mounts, similar to the comparable British and American cruiser classes. Being completed after the war, she also carried an extremely heavy anti-aircraft armament of eight 100 mm dual-purpose guns in double mounts, and 28 x 37 mm anti aircraft guns. She also had six beam torpedo tubes, which were removed later on. Chapayev had been built with a seaplane catapult and hangar, but these were swiftly removed before her completion as there was no need for them in the postwar naval environment.
Operational History
After her completion, Chapayev entered service with the Russian 4th Fleet. In July of 1951, she was transferred to the Black sea fleet. The advent of the Chapayevs and Sverdlovs was a huge shock for the United Kingdom, and resulted in the development of the Blackburn Buccaneer as an effective anti-ship aircraft designed to counter them. However, due to the advent of the guided missile, Chapayev soon became obsolete. She was withdrawn from the fleet in April of 1958 and used as a training ship between 1958 and 1963. In October of 1963, she was sold and scrapped by early 1964.
Devblog
In July 1937, the USSR formally joined the 1936 London Naval Agreement. Having agreed to the restrictions imposed by the treaty, Soviet shipbuilders began developing a new light cruiser design around the treaty limitations. However, it quickly became clear that it wasn't possible to match the new design against both treaty limitations and naval needs, despite the already applying weight saving measures. As a result, the decision was made to disregard the treaty restrictions in March 1938, with the design already being approved by the following year.
Initially, 26 ships of the Project 68 cruisers were planned for construction. However, initial construction difficulties resulted in only 7 ships being laid down, of which 4 were later launched. The subsequent German invasion in June 1941 led to all work on ships of the Project 68 class to be suspended.
Following the end of WWII, Soviet shipbuilders quickly realized that, due to the appearance of new technologies and tactics, vessels such as the Project 68 ships were no longer suitable for modern naval combat. Thus, the decision was made to restart their construction under a modernized design. The lead ship of this class was the Soviet light cruiser Chapayev.
Chapayev was laid down in October 1939 and launched in April 1941. Having its construction suspended during the war, it was only restarted in the late 1940s, with the ship finally seeing completion and entering service with the Soviet Navy in May 1950. Chapayev served until 1958, before being assigned to support roles leading up to its retirement. In the early 1960s, the ship was ultimately decommissioned from service and was subsequently broken up for scrap in 1964.
Media
- Skins
See also
- Related development
External links
References
- Naval Encyclopedia. (2020, November 04). Chapayev class cruisers were among the last Soviet conventional cruisers. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.naval-encyclopedia.com/coldwar/ussr/chapayev-class-cruisers/
- Pike, J. (2000). Military. Retrieved January 20, 2021, from https://www.globalsecurity.org/military/world/russia/68.htm
| Baltic Shipyard (Балтийский завод) | |
|---|---|
| Light Cruisers | |
| Svetlana-class | Krasny Krym* |
| Project 26/26bis | Kirov · Maxim Gorky |
| Project 68 | Chapayev |
| Project 68bis | Sverdlov |
| Battlecruisers | |
| Izmail-class | Izmail |
| Battleships | |
| Sevastopol-class | Marat · Parizhskaya Kommuna |
| *Laid down at the Russian-Baltic shipyard in Tallinn | |
| USSR light cruisers | |
|---|---|
| Imperial Russia | |
| Svetlana-class | Krasny Krym* · Krasny Kavkaz* |
| * Laid down by Imperial Russian Navy; Finished and renamed by the USSR | |
| Project | Soviet Union |
| Pr.26 | Kirov · Voroshilov · Maxim Gorky |
| Pr.68 | Chapayev · Zheleznyakov |
| Pr.68-bis | Sverdlov · Mikhail Kutuzov |
| Pr.68-bis-ZiF | Shcherbakov |
| Lend-Lease | USA |
| Omaha-class | Murmansk |
| Trophies | Italy |
| Condottieri-class | Kerch |
