In the naval ranges of the Baltic Fleet, the crews of the Steregushchiy and Soobrazitelny corvettes practiced tasks of searching, detecting and destroying a mock enemy submarine as part of a planned tactical exercise. During the exercise, the crews of Baltic Fleet Steregushchiy-Class carried out a set of measures to classify and track the underwater target using the sonar stations of the ships. In addition, their crews organized interaction and communication between the ships conducted joint maneuvers, as well as intra-ship training on NBC protection as well as damage control.
The Steregushchiy class (Vigilant), Russian designation Project 20380, is the newest class of corvettes being built for the Russian Navy. Designed by the Almaz Central Marine Design Bureau, subsequent vessels were built to an improved design (Project 20381), incorporating the Poliment-Redut SAM system. The ship full displacement and dimensions are large for a corvette, thus it is designated as a frigate by NATO. The Steregushchiy class has been further developed into the Gremyashchiy class (Project 20385) and Project 20386 subclasses. The export variant is known as Project 20382 Tigr. The ships of the Steregushchiy class are multipurpose corvettes, designed to replace the Grisha class.
The Steregushchiy-class corvettes have a steel hull and composite material superstructure, with a bulbous bow and nine watertight subdivisions. They have a combined bridge and command centre, and space and weight provision for eight SS-N-25 missiles. Stealth technology was widely used during construction of the ships, designers considerably reduced the ship’s radar signature thanks to hull architecture and fire-resistant radar-absorbent fiberglass applied in tophamper’s design. The Kashtan CIWS on the first ship was replaced in subsequent vessels by 12 Redut VLS cells containing 9M96E medium-range SAMs of the S-400 system. SS-N-27 (Kalibr type missiles) will be fitted to a larger domestic version, Project 20385.
Steregushchiy (Vigilant) is the lead ship of the latest class of corvettes of the Russian Navy, the Steregushchy class. The ship was built by the Severnaya Verf shipyard in St.Petersburg and was laid down in December 2001, launched in May 2006 and joined the Russian Navy on 14 November 2007. Soobrazitelny (Smart/Astute) is the second ship of the Steregushchy-class corvette (officially known as Project 20380) built for the Russian Navy in the early 21st century. In total, the Russian Navy have publicly announced that they expect to buy at least 20 of these ships, for all four major fleets.
