Kronshtadt class submarine chaser

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A mixture of Soviet transferred and Chinese license assembled Kronshtadt class submarine chaser entered the Chinese service in the late 1950’s. (The first Chinese built unit entered service in 1957 and was designed as Type 6604 submarine chaser). Despite their obsolescence, these boats remained active well into the mid 1990’s. Although no longer capable venturing into open ocean like they used to do, these unit remain on the People's Liberation Army Navy’s list of its reserve fleet, actively used as weaponry training boats for naval militia in various military maritime districts in China. The second mission of this class is to take Chinese kids enrolled in military / naval summer camps and junior military / naval academies for short trip cruises for patriotic education and public relations missions. However, due to the age of these units, they are increasingly being used in its secondary missions in recent years and according to domestic Chinese media sources, even in this limited capacity of the secondary mission, the cruises are only consisted of short tours within the harbors. Two boats of this class, # 271 & # 274 participated in the Sino-South Vietnamese naval clashed in the Paracel Islands on January 19, 1974, with # 274 heavily damaged. However, # 274 was able to make it back to the Yongxing Island for emergency repair after the battle, and returned to Hainan Islands the next day.

• Displacement: 300 t
• Length: 52.1 m
• Beam: 6.5 m
• Draft: 2.2 m
• Speed: 18 kt
• Range: 2,500 nm @ 14 kt
• Propulsion: 3 diesel engines @ 3,300 hp with 3 shafts (20 tons of fuels total)
• Complement: 50
• Armament:
  • Guns: 1 Soviet (or Chinese built) 90K dual purposes 85 mm gun, 2 Soviet (Bu-11) or Chinese Type 61 37mm guns (II x 1) and 6 Soviet or Chinese Type 14.5 mm heavy machine guns (II x 3)
  • ASW: 2 RBU-1200 rocket launchers (in some) and 2 BMB-1 ASW mortars, and 2 depth charge rails, 20 mines.
• Radar: 1 Ball End search radar
• Sonar: 1 Soviet hull mounted high frequency active sonar