Shipbucket

I can try to check it out (the weight). However the system was indeed not fitted on the real life ship part due the stability issues.

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It would be great if you can come up with figures for comparison, but don't lose sleep over it either. I'm not sure how I could position two KT-184s otherwise, except maybe by tearing out the rear of the superstructure, add blast shields before the TVD housing and pivot the launchers away from the centerline.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
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The Project 1135.7 multi-role frigates were born in the early 1990s out of an urgent requirement by the Soviet Navy for a stop-gap low-cost design to fill in the growing ranks of large multirole blue-water frigates until the project 1244 was developed satisfactorily.
The quickest solution turned out to be re-militarizing the Pr.1135.1 helicopter-carrying surveillance ship, itself based on an earlier frigate, as its production for the KGB Border Guards was drawing down. Partial input was taken from the unrealized Pr.1135.6 project from the 1980s, with an eye to keeping costs down.
Back in the early 1990s, Pr.1154 production was proceeding slowly, but the design wasn't very well-liked, and its advanced configuration made it too expensive to raise production rate as required.
This meant that:
- A downgraded version of the Pr.1154 with legacy systems was not acceptable, and
- A Pr.1135.1 derivate upgraded with the Pr.1154 systems was too expensive.
The solution came when the Indian Navy approached Soviet authorities for a new series of blue-water frigate to replace the Nilgiri class. Though the Indian industry had been working on an indigenous design, progress had been slow and difficult and an interim ship was required. The design of the new indigenous class would end up involving massive Soviet input as well.

Pr.1135.7 Pomornik/Krivak-IV
The initial configuration for Soviet service was very closely based on that of the Pr.1135.1 Nerei developed for the KGB Border Guards in the 1980s. Beyond the low cost and good sea-keeping, that design stood out by being the only frigate-sized ship available with built-in helicopter facilities. Studies showed that it would be cheaper and quicker to change the sensors and weapon systems on a helicopter-capable hull than changing the layout of a better-armed frigate like the original Pr.1135, let alone drawing up a new design from scratch.
To save on design costs, the hull and the after half of the superstructure were retained from the Pr.1135.1 were retained, with the bridge superstructure remodelled to house more extensive C&C facilities and make space on the fore deck for more Navy-proof weapon systems. Switching from the legacy AK-100 main gun to the newer and more compact A-190 helped free up space for the single-arm launcher of the Uragan/Tornado medium-range SAM system developed for the Project 956 destroyer. This specific system had been to some extent the winner by default when other shorter-ranged systems available had proven either obsolete or too expensive for the project. Tucked between the SAM launcher and the inherited RBU-6000 ASW rocket launchers were two three-tube VLS pods for the Oniks AShM, as installed in parallel on the Pr.1244.1 new-generation frigate and several generations of submarines. This helped compensate the design's lack of modern ASW weapons by making it a serious contender in surface warfare. The ASW suite was essentially the same as on the KGB version, except for a more powerful hull sonar and a new fire control system. The military payload was rounded out by a more effective CIWS suite supported by the low-altitude high-scan-rate radar already used on the Pr.1155 ASW destroyer.
The first ship was laid down in 1994 in the Zhdanov shipyard in Leningrad, with one more the next year. Two ships were laid down in parallel in Kerch, Crimea, on the heels of the Pr.1135.1 production, with the last of the Soviet ships entering service in 1998.
By that time, production of the Pr.1244.1 was back at full capacity and other projects had materialized, rendering the stop-gap frigate class unnecessary. The ships, still well regarded by their crews despite being swiftly overtaken by more advanced designs, served most of their carreer in the Pacific Ocean fleet, before being turned over to the Black Sea Fleet in the 2010s when potential opposition in the Pacific theater caught up with them as well.






Pr.1135.7E Pomornik/Krivak-IV
In the meantime, one of the last meaningful acts of the Warsaw Pact in its traditional form was the creation of the Baltic Defense Force, where part of the control of the Baltic Sea and its airspace were given over to Polish and East German forces by the Soviet staff, creating a joint tri-national air-and-sea defensive command.
So far, both the East German and Polish navies were fully focused on coastal warfare, with no units bigger than a corvette - with the exception of one Polish destroyer meant to operate as part of a Soviet-led battlegroup.
The new force needed new sea platforms to transition from a brown-water to at least a green-water force. While the East Germans conservatively stuck to modernized light frigates, the Poles agreed to exploit their high-seas expertise by acquiring several frigates to complement - and then replace - the single Pr.61MP in service since the middle 1980s. The common assessment was that replacing one destroyer with two to three single-ended frigates was advantageous in terms of survivability and coverage area.
Two frigates of a modified Pr.1135.7E design were procured with Soviet financial assistance in the late 1990s, with construction of a third being refused by the Polish Navy on cost and manning reasons. The Poles would turn around years later when time came to replace the legacy Warszawa Soviet-built destroyer serving as admiral ship of the Polish fleet. The years had made the 1960-design ship thoroughly obsolete, and despite budgetary pressure to upgrade it and a complicated political relationship with the USSR at that moment, a forward-looking decision was taken to replace the Warszawa entirely with a new-built Pr.1135.7E ship, built locally with extended flagship facilities and communications/ELINT equipment. The delivery of the first two ships was delayed
The Zhdanov shipyard later built two further ships to the initial Polish specification for the Algerian Navy, barring the restrictions on offensive weaponry.






Pr.1135.7I (Talwar class)
Following the Indian decision to go along with the development and procurment of a customized variant of Pr.1135.7, joint studies soon started pushing the original low-cost design to accomodate more stringent requirements. Far from being an interim type like for the Soviets, the Indians envisioned their ships as a stepping stone to a home-grown and fully modernized navy. A fully multi-national design in the tradition of the earlier Type 16 Godavari frigate was planned, with substantial Western input in signature reduction and combat data management. The diplomatic tensions building up around the Pakistani nuclear program and its tacit acceptance by most Western powers, the ensuing threat of economic sanctions as well as the ongoing - and not entirely unrelated, according to some Indian politicians - economic crisis soon laid waste to all hopes of importing major new technologies. Soviet designers and equipment manufacturers were only too happy to help fill the void, the USSR even granting fairly extensive production licenses for several critical sensor and weapon systems.

Indian and Soviet sailors and naval engineers sat down together to build up a new warship on top of the Pr.1135.1 hull and structure. An Indian requirement for medium-range, low-cost air defense led to the replacement of the Kinzhal SR-SAM with the longer-ranged Uragan/Tornado developed for the Pr.956 destroyer. The Soviet requirement for surface warfare led to integration of the Oniks supersonic AShM in the same cold-launch VLS triple cells installed on the Pr.1244 frigate. The Oniks was not cleared for export at that point, and the Indian Navy had just adopted the Moskit AShM for their major combatants anyway. Since installing heavy AShM launchers on the Pr.1135.1 hull was impossible without major reworks, a compromise solution was found in the UKSK universal VLS launcher then in development. New anti-ship cruise missiles were supposed to be integrated within the new launcher/weapon system, and though the planned long-range air-defense capability would never be added to the UKSK, this option was moot for a 4000-ton frigate that already packed a significant AAW punch.
This change would add to the main surface-warfare role of the ship a significant enhancement in ASW, with a side order of land attack. It would also push the completion of the Indian ships back by several years, until the VLS system and the associated missiles were all operational. This turned out to suit both sides, the general agreement being that the Soviet requirement was more urgent, and that the Soviet Navy was in a better position to test and debug the design on the first ships.
After the first Soviet ships were launched, the two Indian ships built in the USSR were laid down in parallel with the pair of Polish ships. They were, however, only delivered in December 1999 after validation and acceptance of the UKSK VLS and weapons system.
Indian plans for further local production varied between three and six ships over time, before settling on only two when the more advanced Project 17 turned out to show more promise at a similar cost. The locally produced ships were also finished to a slightly different standard, using more indigenous sub-systems and further signature-reduction measures, some of which were later retrofitted to Soviet ships.

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Excellent additions, nice to see some Krivak variants.
One of my recurring ideas was a modern Krivak based off the Pr.1135.6 for the Soviet Navy. These look far more accomplished than my kitbash efforts.

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Once again CL, You have bowlled me over with FANTASTIC Warsaw Pact (and Indian!) designs

Jolly Well Done my old Fruit Bat.... Jolly WELL DONE indeed

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Yeah these are really cool. Nice work!

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Great work!
Just one nit-pick, though (and very small one, as it's an AU) - I really doubt if these ships would be named Gdynia, Gdańsk and Warszawa.
First two names belong to the sequence used previously on Pr.621S - a class "one step below" (in real life they were used on Pr.205 Osa missile boats), so unlikely to be continued on these (perhaps more likely would be if the Pr.621S's were given the names of major ports, given that choice of Elbląg, Hel and Szczecin looks bit random in this context). And in reality I wouldn't be surprised if the "city/port" sequence was "transferred" to some different category of ships (like landing ships).
As for the Warszawa - well, it's perhaps most probable of those three if used for the "missile frigate", but still have reservations. Both real-life post-war ORP Warszawa's (1970-1986 Pr.56AE and 1986-2003 Pr.61MP) were named so against the tradition of giving the destroyers names related to dangerous atmospheric phenomena when each of them was only vessel of this category/size in the Polish Navy (technically speaking until 1974 there were two active-duty destroyers in our fleet, but already since 1969 ORP Błyskawica was permamently moored at Świnoujście as stationary AA platform).
IMHO, had all of this scenario happened in real life, then probably the Pr.1135.7's would get "destroyer" names, both classes of Pr.621's would get "torpedo boat names" (Kurp, Mazur, Kujawiak, Ślązak etc. etc.) and Pr.660's (or any possible equivalents present in this AU) would inherit the "port" names from Pr.205's (unlike the "destroyer" names they actually got for lack of better candidates).
But as I mentioned, it's Your AU and Your choices, and it's a fantastic series anyway.

Hi Eswube, thanks for the constructive feedback!
You make some very good points here, let's see if I can make sense of it all:
- Port cities: You got me there, I didn't push the analysis far enough to categorize among city names, my bad. Started doing that for the GDR and the UK, but my total absence of command on the Polish language made that fairly difficult for Poland. I had a list of city names used on previous ships and left it at that, so in that sense the cities selected were random indeed. Of the names given to Pr.205, Pr.771 and Pr.767 classes, do you know more precisely which class got which category and why?
- Warszawa: Whichever tradition we select for the frigates, I figure it makes sense to keep the name of the capital for the fleet flagship. Otherwise I'll just use any meteorological name that's not taken.
- Other cities: Again, I'll have to sort my city names in categories. I have nothing against shifting that category to e.g. landing ships, even though there are other possibilities (see below).
- Meteorological names: Of the post-war destroyers, Grom was/is already affected to a Pr.151 missile corvette, even though it is a prestige destroyer name from way back. In this timeline, would you have the Polish Navy reserve these names for future major combatants already from the early 1990s, considering that plans for the frigates might not have coalesced yet at that time? It makes sense compared to IRL where the destroyer class was deleted altogether, but would the decision have been taken without hindsight?
- Rivers: There is still that category left over for landing ships, as a lot had been given to 1960s Pr.770 ships that would pay off in the 1990s.
- Officers: This category emerged post-1990 IRL on the O.H. Perry class, albeit with pre-republican figures. Do you think there could have been politically acceptable candidates in this timeline? Would it have been too contentious in general?

Seen from another angle, here are the major ships in my Polish OOB, let's see if we can figure out better naming categories for them:
- 5-6 Pr.151 missile corvettes: meteorological names, maybe downgrade to less historical names in the category (e.g. Grom -> Fala) or move to port cities as Pr.205 class pays off
- 3 Pr.621S ASW corvettes: city names so far, maybe exchange with Pr.621R?
- 3 Pr.621R missile corvettes: local peoples names as on ORP Kaszub, maybe move to port cities like for Pr.151?
- 2 Pr.1135.7 frigates: city names so far, find more specific cities, or move to destroyers' meteorological names?
- 1 Pr.1135.7 flagship frigate: capital city, maybe move to destroyer's meteorological name?
- 3 Pr.950 small diesel submarines: bird names from former Pr.613 submarines
- 1990s large minesweeper class: recycle animal names from Pr.254M
- 2000s coastal minesweeper class: recycle city names from Pr.205 or bird names from Pr.206F?
- 2010s multirole corvette class: recycle trade names from Pr.1241, or left-over city/meteorological names?

Thanks anyway for taking the time to go over this topic, I appreciate the opportunity of digging deeper into the local background and making my AU that little bit more realistic. I'd rather post completed designs than brainstorm them live, but that doesn't mean that I have all the answers.

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@Citizen Lambda
-Port cities and Rivers - Szczecin is a major civilian port, Hel was during the Cold War an almost military-only facility (though in the 1980s it was "opened a bit" to civilian use, incl. tourism - in 1987 or 1988 I was (with my parents, of course) on a recreational ferry trip from Gdynia to Hel) and Elbląg was a moderately busy port in the past (very past past, that is ), but due to its location in river mouth (which needs much maintenance to keep it navigable) it's importance is relatively minor as the draft of the ships entering it can't be more than 1,5m.
Pr.205's got the names of basically all Polish ports of any significance, ranging from major ones (Gdańsk, Szczecin, Gdynia) to quite minor ones (Dziwnów, Darłowo).
Pr.770's were named after the rivers that Polish People's Army crossed during their combat operations in liberation of Poland 1944-1945, except for Oka which was the river in the area of the Soviet Union where first units were formed in 1943.
Pr.771's (except for ORP Brda, which continued the 770's sequence) were named after important battles of the Polish People's Army, People's Guard/People's Army (i.e. pro-communist guerillas), ORP Narwik commemorated battle of Narvik and ORP Cedynia and ORP Głogów were named after the major battles against Germany in the medieval era.
Pr.776 (ORP Grunwald) was also named after a major battle (indeed the biggest of them and one of the biggest battles of the whole medieval Europe) against Teutonic Knights (Germans too).
Pr.767's were named after various inland cities of Poland of historical (and general) significance. Lublin was in 1944 a seat of the first "communist" temporary government, Gniezno was Poland's first capital, Kraków was capital of Poland from 11th to 18th century (although from 16th century the de facto capital was - and is - Warszawa), Poznań shared the fuction of capital with Gniezno in certain periods and Toruń (my hometown btw.) was - despite being located 200km from the sea - a major seagoing port in the medieval era (thanks to small size of the contemporary ships and fairly large depth of Wisła at that time) and member of Hansa, and in the inter-war period it was a seat of the naval academy.
(bit more on the names of 770/771/776 here: http://www.shipbucket.com/forums/viewto ... =12&t=3794 )
-ORP Warszawa - previous (pre-missile destroyer) ORP Warszawa was a riverine monitor, so nothing inherently "flagship-esque" about it in Polish naval tradition.
-Meteorological names - they were applied to Pr.151/660's because in real life there were no better candidates in sight, but in this AU You have indeed better candidates in form of Pr.1135's.
-Officers - they were used for naming O.H.P's because they were american ships and Kościuszko and Pułaski were heroes of the American War of Independence, so these two names were to emphasize the historical "brotherhood of arms" between Poland and USA. Otherwise naming a major warship after some historical person had no precedent post-war (I think closest thing was ORP Piast named after a semi-legendary founder of the first Polish royal dynasty, but that's an auxiliary vessel, and there were some ships of the Riverine Flotilla before the war, but that's also a bit different thing).

My own idea for naming ships in Your AU would be as follows:
-Pr.1135 - meteorological names (all of them, though if You insist on Warszawa then ok; mind that Błyskawica is still formally "taken" by the museum ship and couldn't be repeated, which leaves: Wicher, Burza, Grom, Orkan, Huragan and Piorun - though Huragan was only "planned" for one of two unbuilt 1939 Grom follow-ons, Orkan was also planned for additional Grom and actually used during WW2 on a ship of British origin and Piorun was used during WW2 on another ex-RN ship).
-submarines - in the past they were named either after birds of prey (Orzeł, Sęp, Sokół, Jastrząb, Bielik, Kondor) or land animals of rather predatory or otherwise dangerous habits (Wilk, Ryś, Żbik, Dzik), so both groups are ok, though the "bird" one is indeed more prominent.
-ASW corvettes I'd name in the "local people" names, as follow on to Pr.620 (historically these names were first used for ex-German torpedo boats in the 1920s)
-One thing I want to point Your attention to, is that You left unused a whole category of names, which I would describe as "character names", which were used on smaller combatants post-war (mostly submarine chasers and MTB's): Błyskawiczny, Bezwzględny, Bitny, Bystry, Czujny, Dziarski, Dzielny, Groźny, Karny, Niedościgły, Nieuchwytny, Nieugięty, Odporny, Odważny, Śmiały, Sprawiedliwy, Sprawny, Szybki, Wytrwały, Zawzięty, Zręczny, Zwinny, Zwrotny - I'd suggest You use these for the small missile ships - Pr.621R and Pr.151 (btw. 6 of them would make more tactically-sound number with 2 groups of 3). These names form several distinct groups which might be helpful in using them for two separate classes (although weren't given in some specific way) - Błyskawiczny, Niedościgły, Nieuchwytny, Szybki, Zwinny and Zwrotny refer to one being fast or agile; Bezwzględny and Groźny refer to being "dangerous" (Ruthless and Terrible, respectively); Bitny, Dziarski, Dzielny, Karny, Nieugięty, Odporny, Odważny, Śmiały, Wytrwały and Zawzięty refer to courage, persistence and other positive soldierly qualities; Bystry and Czujny refer to vigilance; Sprawiedliwy, Sprawny and Zręczny refer to general positive traits (Just, Capable, Crafty respectively).
-large minesweepers - Pr.254K and Pr.254M's indeed leave a handy group of animal names.
-coastal minesweepers - Pr.206F bird names seem also to be a good choice.
-multirole corvette - "trade names" of Pr.1241 were rather unusual and without precedent, but can be indeed recycled.

Thanks once again Eswube, this post has cleared up much. I'll make sure to pick apart your Polish phibs thread in due time
One surprise is the abundance of "character" names. I had listed a bare third of those as affected to the Pr.912M patrol boats, so I assume the others are older.
Based on all this information, I'll modify my Polish ships as follows:
- Rename Pr.620S to peoples names
- Rename Pr.620R to meteo names (less significant ones)
- Rename Pr.1135.7E to meteo names (legacy destroyer ones)
- Rename Pr.151 to character names (maybe more on this later)
- Reserve city names for future landing ship class
- Reserve remaining character names for future missile boat class
- Reserve animal names for future minehunter class

If I get around to updating the drawings and B-sides in the near future I will overwrite the posted versions, otherwise the change will have to wait until a future batch upgrade.

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