Shipbucket

And here is part II of the series, where the Sovremenniy/Sarych class makes the fuzzy transition into the Project 956A variant.
Content (and even existence) of the 956A variant is disputed, as some sources just consider all ships are part of Project 956, with unnamed variants.
Nevertheless, some major and minor changes are apparent as the series progresses.
As opposed to the early ships shown in the previous post, all ships in the late series share three characteristics that tell them apart and may or may not mark them as Project 956A ships:
1) A remodeled bridge with simplified windows
2) A new, simpler and sturdier latticed mainmast over the helicopter hangar
3) The phased-array Fregat-M2 main air-search radar as standard

Shown below are three ships representing the evolution of the series:
- Okrylenniy (yard n° 868), 8th ship in the series, was the first ship to sport the new distinctive mainmast. The structure was significantly simplified from the initial version, with fewer beams and thicker struts.
- Bespokoyniy (yard n° 875), 15th ship built, carries new missile launcher boxes for the upgraded Moskit-M AShM. The boxes themselves appear to be of a simpler, possibly composite structure, and the missiles are longer and heavier to achieve longer range. She is still in service in the Baltic fleet.
- Nastoychiviy (yard n° 876), formerly Moskovskiy Komsomolets, 16th and second-to-last ship to actually enter service, wasn't finished when the Soviet Union fell apart. As such, she is one of the most modern ships of the class and among the few to still serve in the Russian navy (in this case, the Baltic Fleet). She was outfitted with the Pritsep communication system, visible by the small dish antennas on the higher superstructure amidships. Around 2005 she was refitted with a pair of Glonass satellite antennas visible in bulbs above the bridge.

Wonderful work

Now they look perfect (both here and in previous page).

Excellent additions.

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Hood's Worklist
English Electric Canberra FD
Interwar RN Capital Ships
Super-Darings
Never-Were British Aircraft

Great work.

Thanks everyone!
I hope the new color schemes do them justice.

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Soviet Century/Cold War 2020 Alternate Universe: Soviet and other Cold War designs 1990-2020.
My Worklist

thats a good looking compositions

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Shipbucket mainsite, aka "The Archive"
New AU project "Aravala"

An early start on part 3 of the series, with the Pr.956E export version, here the Chinese DDG-136 Hangzhou.
This ship is mostly identical to the Russian ships of the late Pr.956A series, and in fact started life as the Vazhniy (Yard n° 878), and was laid down as early as November 1988 by the Zhdanov shipyard in then Leningrad, with its sistership Vdumchiviy following five months later as the last Pr.956 hull laid down in the Soviet Union. Without funding from the new Russian Navy, both ships languished in the stocks for most of the 90s (Vazhniy was officially launched in 1995 but not finished until 1999), until in 1996 the Chinese government bought both ships as part of a multi-year shopping spree of modern Russian weaponry and technology. These two ships were at the time the most potent surface combatants of the People's Liberation Army Navy, which was still struggling to develop a satisfactory indigenous destroyer design.



The two ships completed and sold under Project 956E would be followed in the next decade with another pair of destroyers, this time newly built under a slightly modified Project 956EM design.
More on these ships in a further post. All four "Chinese Sovremenniys" are still in service, but could undergo a major modernization effort before the end of the 2010s.

Another excellent drawing.

Outstanding job!

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Nobody expects the Imperial Inquisition!