Project 1077 Fort

[Hood]

Project 1077 Fort, 1972


Project 1077 Fort, 1977


Project 1077 Fort 'Arsenal Ship', 1980s

During the 1970s the USSR formulated its 1981-1990 shipbuilding programme. The experience of exercises like Okean-70 had shown the need for more command facilities afloat and special fleet command ships were proposed, one for each fleet (four in all). In 1972 the Sverenoye (Northern) PKB was assigned what became Project 1077. The ship would serve as a squadron radar picket ship and command ship but in size and armament was of cruiser capability

The first design had a standard displacement of 10,000 tons, 186m long, 20m beam and a speed of 30 knots with gas turbine propulsion. A helicopter hangar in the hull would accommodate four Kamov Ka-25RLD helicopters (this project would result in the Ka-31). Self-defence armament was the M-22 Uragan SAM missile complex, an Osa-M SAM complex, one 100mm AK-100, four 30mm AK-630 and two RBU-6000.

In 1977 a more advanced version was submitted; 12,910 tons, 202m long, 22m beam, larger hangar for six Ka-31 and the armament was modernised with Fort (96x missiles) and Kinzhal (64x missiles) SAM complexes, a twin 130mm AK-130 and two 533mm five-tube torpedo launchers. Air-search radars were MR-600 Voskhod and MR-360 Podkat with the air/surface search radars being MR-500 Kliver and Fregat-M.

Insufficient space on the building slips saw the class postponed to after 1985 and then cancelled in favour of moving the command functions to other vessels and the Ka-31 fleet was assigned to the new aircraft-carrying cruisers. But that was not the end of the story, Project 1077 was revived as a platform for the Skorost medium-range ballistic missile, to create a ship analogous to the Western 'arsenal ship'. Project 1080 illustrated elsewhere on the forum was a similar competing design. Skorost is a sketchy weapon today, it is possible that it was based on the second and third stages of the Topol-M missile. Around 80% of the ship was unchanged but although the missile seems to have tested around 1987, the fall of the Soviet Union finally ended all chances of the Project 1077 being built.

Drawing Notes
I have no underwater hull sources, so rather than making them up I decided to leave them off.
The Skorost IRBM is almost unknown today, my missile is basically a Topol-M with minor changes and can only be considered speculative.
The Kamov Ka-31 is completely redrawn based on Citizen Lamba's excellent Ka-27.

[Gollevainen]

Cool stuff, great to see these ships come to light in proper shipbucket style!

[eswube]

Fantastic work Hood!

[Charguizard]

Very menacing looking ships, love the cluttered look distinct of soviet ships. I do wonder how the last ship's torpedoes rotate with a pillar outside.

[erik_t]

These are fine drawings. Circa 2019 a Shipbucket drawing down to the waterline looks weird and incomplete, but I appreciate the motivation to only draw what we know, rather than making stuff up.

[Hood]

Many thanks for all the kind words, I have always loved the looks of the Project 1077 designs and have re-caught my dormant Eastern-bloc bug at the moment.

Very menacing looking ships, love the cluttered look distinct of soviet ships. I do wonder how the last ship's torpedoes rotate with a pillar outside.

The torpedoes would have sufficient angle to fire on arcs ahead of abeam, so would still be useful. A limited arc I will agree and I did scratch my head at that.
The caveat with these is that I have seen other drawings with slightly different layouts with different boat and torpedo tube locations. As with all never-weres its a case of weighing up the options. I suspect had these built some changes would have been neccessary, for example the ECM and ESM fit would likely have been updated had these been built in the late 1980s. I'm also surprise at the restraint the designers had not to sneak some anti-ship missiles aboard like the majority of other cruisers.

[erik_t]

I don't think unguided heavyweight torpedoes were ever envisioned in this era, so the limited train of the tubes would not pose any operational limitation. The top view of the ostensibly-unobstructed tubes on an Udaloy suggests they can't train past 45deg anyway, being blocked by the shape of the deckhouses.

For whatever it's worth, trainable Mk 32s in the West fire their lightweight ASW torpedoes at about (perhaps exactly) 45 deg off the bow. Here's a photo of a practice firing on DDG 89. You could pull up a Shipbucket drawing to see whether the RHIB is forward or aft of the tubes on a Burke, or you could just note we see the wake in the background

[odysseus1980]

I am sure that Pr.1077 would had Stallion system:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPK-6_V ... PK-7_Veter

or this

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/RPK-2_Vyuga

[Hood]

That is the other think I pondered, the Atrinaflot description did not mention any specific guided ASW system other than it had 533mm torpedo tubes and RBU mortars. It seems very likely SS-N-15 would have been fitted had these been built.
I was thinking of doing a 1990s 'what-if' version.

[odysseus1980]

In a Soviet 'what if' scenario I would personally had the 1972 variant (as Fort I) and 1977 variant (as Fort II). Total number built would be 4-7 units.

Perhaps the real life Kara class give some idea for electronics on board:

https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kara-class_cruiser