Punainen Pohjanmaa class destroyers

The Punainen Pohjanmaa class destroyers, known as Project Hävittäjä-55, came along he 2nd part of Building the postwar 1949 Naval Program, which called for a total of 28,000 tons of new construction for the needs of the Cold war Baltic and Northern European geostrategical situation. The People's Navy had structured its new "light coastal defence" doctrine around large flotillas of Motor Torpedo boats, led by destroyers, intended for gunnery support and command ships. The first destroyers build were Small and akin to Soviet SKR concept, and with their 100mm/56 armament were no match of the new Swedish destroyers and theorethical support from USN or RN destroyers. As the 1949 called for a 6 new destroyers, the seccond patch of them was decided to utilize the new Tampella made 122mm/50 naval gun, that after lengthy development time was fully utilised in enclosed semi-automatic dual purpose mounting, that was capable of around 15-18 rounds per minute. The Hävittäjä 55 was designed pretty much around the new guns, to field two of them in stable seaboat and the increased size compared to the predecessors allowed much more lively ships better suited for the command ship role. Soviet Yakor firecontroll radar and Planshet-F combat data system completed the main armament that was supplemented with 1 5-tube launcher of 533mm torpedoes and three twin zif-31 57mm AA mounts. Also 2 RBU-2500 ASW RL were carried and naturally set of 24 mines could be carried. Fut-N served as main air-search radar an Pegas-2 completed the sonar set. The porpulsion was placed in unit arragment and had 2 Wärtsilä made turbines and 2 Valmet boilers of 17 000 Kw each.

Ships of the Project Hävittäjä-55 were 2,100 tons standard displacement, 112.16m long (OA), 11.5m beam and with draft of 3.5m Three ships were build: Punainen Pohjanmaa, launched 1957 by Valmet Hietalahti, Helsinki Punainen Ahvenanmaa, Launched 1957 by Valmet Aurajoki, Turku Punainen Kymenlaakso, launched 1958 by Valmet Rauma

All were completed in 1958-1959 and they recieved nominal modernisation in 1976-1978 in Leningrad, when their main radar set was changed to a Rubka-suite, Argun sonar, and the landing of the TT set to make room for a additional deck houses. A bow-chaser twin 30mm AK-230 set was fitted and the FCR for the 57mm battery uprgaded to Bars. They were also first ships outside Soviet union to recieve the Start ECM set.