The design of the
Kirovs was derived from the
Italian light cruisers, modified to suit their more powerful armament. The two Project 26bis2 ships were slightly larger than the earlier Project 26 and 26bis ships and were fitted with a different
anti-aircraft armament.
Kalinin was
long at the waterline, and
long overall. She had a
beam of and had a
draught between . The ship displaced at
standard load and at
full load. Her crew numbered 812 officers and men during wartime. The
Kirov-class ships were powered by two sets of TV-7 geared
steam turbines, each driving a single
propeller shaft using steam provided by six
Yarrow-Normand boilers. The turbines were designed to produce which was intended to give the ships a speed of . On her
sea trials,
Kalinin only reached from . Without overload power, she was only capable of in 1945. The
Kirovs carried enough
fuel oil to give them an endurance of at .
Armament, protection and sensors The
main battery of the
Kirov class consisted of nine
B-1-P guns in three triple-
gun turrets, a
superfiring pair forward of the
superstructure and one aft. Unlike her earlier
half-sisters built in European Russia, her
secondary armament initially consisted of eight single
34-K anti-aircraft (AA) guns mounted on each side of the rear
funnel because the
B-34 guns originally intended to be used had run into production problems. The 34-K guns were a stop-gap until the Army
52-K AA gun could be mated with the mount of the 34-K and put into production as the 90-K. They replaced the 34-K guns in May 1943. Light AA guns initially consisted of six semi-automatic
21-K AA guns, ten fully automatic
70-K AA guns, and six DShK| machine guns, but were significantly increased during the war. By 1945
Kalinin had exchanged her 21-K guns for nine additional 70-K guns, of which four were mounted on turret roofs and the others in the superstructure. By 1957 her light anti-aircraft armament consisted of only nine powered twin-gun 37 mm V-11 mounts. Six 39-Yu
torpedo tubes were fitted in two triple mountings, one on each
broadside. The cruiser could mount rails to carry between 100 and 164
mines and racks for fifty
depth charges, but by 1945, she could carry 100–106 mines and she had been fitted with two or four throwers for her 66 depth charges. The Project 26bis and the Project 26bis2 cruisers shared the same armor configuration: the
waterline belt, turret, and
barbette armor were all thick. The
deck was protected by armor plates, while those of the
conning tower were thick. Initially built without a
sonar,
Kalinin received the
Lend-Lease ASDIC-132 system, which the Soviets called Drakon-132, as well as the experimental
Soviet Mars-72 system by 1945. As built she lacked any
radars, but by 1944 she was equipped with British and American Lend-Lease radars as well as Soviet-designed systems. A British
Type 291 and an American
SG radar were used for air search. A pair of Soviet Yupiter-1 radars were used for main-battery fire control while anti-aircraft fire control was provided by two British
Type 282 radars. ==Service==