Having decided to build the large and expensive 40kn destroyer leaders, the Soviet Navy sought Italian assistance in designing smaller and cheaper destroyers. They licensed the plans for the and, in modifying it for their purposes, overloaded a design that was already somewhat marginally stable.[1]
The Gnevnys had an overall length of 112.8m (370.1feet), a beam of 10.2m (33.5feet), and a draft of 4.8m (15.7feet) at deep load. The ships were significantly overweight, almost 2000NaN0 heavier than designed, displacing 1612MT at standard load and 2039MT at deep load. Their crew numbered 197 officers and sailors in peacetime and 236 in wartime.[2] The ships had a pair of geared steam turbines, each driving one propeller, rated to produce 48000shp using steam from three water-tube boilers which was intended to give them a maximum speed of .[3] The designers had been conservative in rating the turbines and many, but not all, of the ships handily exceeded their designed speed during their sea trials. Others fell considerably short of it, although specific figures for most individual ships have not survived. Variations in fuel oil capacity meant that the range of the Gnevnys varied between 1670nmi3145nmi at .[4]
As built, the Gnevny-class ships mounted four 130adj=onNaNadj=on B-13 guns in two pairs of superfiring single mounts fore and aft of the superstructure. Anti-aircraft defense was provided by a pair of 76.2sp=usNaNsp=us 34-K AA guns in single mounts and a pair of 45mm 21-K AA guns[5] as well as two 12.7mm DK or DShK machine guns. They carried six torpedo tubes in two rotating triple mounts; each tube was provided with a reload. The ships could also carry a maximum of either 60 or 95 mines and 25 depth charges. They were fitted with a set of Mars hydrophones for anti-submarine work, although they were useless at speeds over .[6] The ships were equipped with two K-1 paravanes intended to destroy mines and a pair of depth-charge throwers.[7]
Built in Nikolayev's Shipyard No. 198 (Andre Marti (South)) as yard number 320, Bystry was laid down on 17 April 1936 and launched on 5 November 1936. The ship was completed on 27 January 1939[8] and was commissioned into the Black Sea Fleet on 7 March.[9] When Operation Barbarossa, the German invasion of the Soviet Union, began on 22 June 1941, Bystry was assigned to the 2nd Destroyer Division and was awaiting a scheduled refit in Sevastopol. On 1 July, she departed for Nikolayev for further work, but struck a mine while leaving Sevastopol, killing 24 and wounding 81 crewmen. The explosion flooded the forward half of the ship as well as the boiler rooms and her bow grounded in shallow water. Bystry was refloated on 13 July and drydocked the following day for repairs. She was in very poor condition and her hull was patched to move her out of the drydock pending a final decision on whether to repair her. The ship was struck by several bombs during a German airstrike in September and sank. Her guns were removed 20 November – 15 December and used to reinforce the coastal defenses of Sevastopol. Her bow was later salvaged to repair her sister .[9] [10]