The two sister ships deployed in the Baltic Sea, Leningrad and Minsk, bombarded Finnish coast defense positions during the Winter War of 1939–1940.
During Operation Barbarossa they provided fire support during the German siege of Tallinn and escorted the convoys when it was evacuated at the end of August 1941.
Kharkov participated in most of the battles on the Black Sea coast, but was sunk by Stukas in October 1943 as she returned from a bombardment mission.
Baku began the war in the Pacific, but was transferred to the Soviet Northern Fleet via the Northern Sea Route between 15 July and 14 October 1942, where she spent the rest of the war escorting Arctic convoys and attempting to intercept German convoys to their ports on the Arctic Ocean.
Most underwent a lengthy modernization in the early 1950s before being relegated to roles as training or target ships in the late 1950s.
[3] The ships pitched heavily at the bow, even after the addition of ballast forward, so much so that it interfered with firing the guns in bad weather.
[4] As a result of experience in the First World War, these ships were designed to use five of the new 130 mm (5.1 in) 50-caliber B-13 guns then under development in single mounts.
Determining the solution proved to be a long and difficult process and the first guns weren't delivered until 1936, three years after the Project 1 ships were launched.
These had been adapted from the 45 mm anti-tank gun M1937 (53-K) and consequently lacked time-fuzed ammunition, which meant that only a direct hit would detonate the rounds.
[7] Photographic evidence shows that some ships received Lend-Lease, water-cooled 0.5 in (12.7 mm) Browning M2 AA machine guns.
Although no sonar was initially fitted, just the Arktur hydrophone system that was useless at speeds above three knots, they carried 20 B-1 and 32 Model 1931 depth charges.
Additional problems were caused by the large numbers of defective parts, some items reaching a 90% rejection rate.
Between 16 and 19 June, the Romanian minelayers Amiral Murgescu, Regele Carol I and Aurora laid a barrage of 1,000 mines near the port of Constanţa, (although other causes have been suggested: shells from the Romanian destroyer Regina Maria and the German 28 cm (11 in) coast defense battery Tirpitz,[20] or an accidental friendly fire torpedo attack by the Soviet submarine Shch-206.)
Between February and July 1942 she bombarded German troops on multiple times and brought in reinforcements and supplies for Sevastopol, evacuating wounded and refugees as she returned to port.
She bombarded Axis positions near Feodosiya on 2–3 August and provided fire support for the defenders of Novorossiysk on 1–4 September.
On the night of 4 February 1943 the Soviets made a series of amphibious landings to the west of Novorossiysk, behind German lines.
[24] During the night of 5–6 October 1943 Kharkov and the destroyers Besposhchadny and Sposobny bombarded Yalta, Alushta and Feodosiya and were spotted on their return voyage and attacked by Stukas of III./StG 3.
This incident prompted Stalin to issue an order forbidding the use of ships destroyer-sized and larger without his express permission.
[citation needed] Baku began the war in the Pacific, but was transferred to the Soviet Northern Fleet via the Northern Sea Route between 15 July and 14 October 1942, where she spent the rest of the war escorting Arctic convoys, attempting to intercept German convoys en route to their ports on the Arctic Ocean and providing gunfire support for Soviet operations.
[19] Tbilisi had little to do until the Soviet invasion of Manchuria when she transported elements of the 358th Naval Rifle Battalion to the Korean port of Rason on 12 August 1945.
Minsk wasn't modernized, but rather redesignated as a training ship in 1951 and assigned to the Dzerzhinsky Higher Naval Engineering College.