Four of those ships assigned to the Baltic Fleet were lost during the war, including two during the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn in late 1941.

The preliminary designs had to be revised for steam propulsion, a task greatly complicated by the break in Soviet ship construction between 1917 and 1924 when no ships, naval or commercial, had been built and many experienced naval architects had either fled the country, found new jobs, or were politically suspect and not allowed to work.

"[2] These were rejected and the original two-shaft turbine power plant was selected with an output of 7,500 shp (5,600 kW) to reach a speed of 29 knots (54 km/h; 33 mph).

[4] The Uragans proved to be heavier than designed and had only a meter (3 ft 4 in) of freeboard aft, which made their main deck almost permanently wet in any kind of sea.

In their intended role they "were complete failures – they were too slow for use as torpedo boats and of no value as ASW vessels because of their lack of depth-charge handling equipment and underwater detection devices".

Maximum speeds reached during sea trials were considerably higher, but could not be sustained for very long and were not representative of the ship's performance in service.

[8] The main armament of the Uragan-class guard ships consisted of a pair of Tsarist-era 60-caliber 102-millimeter (4 in) Pattern 1911 guns, one mount forward and aft of the superstructure.

Each gun had a magazine with a capacity of two hundred rounds underneath it, although only the one on the forecastle had a hoist; the ammunition for the rear mount had to be hand-carried.

The first Series I ships were initially completed without any anti-aircraft armament, but a pair of 7.62-millimeter (0.3 in) Maxim machine guns were fitted shortly afterwards.

[8] A total of eighteen Uragan-class guard ships were planned, but Soviet shipbuilding capacity was inadequate to begin them all at once.

No slipways were available at the Zhandov Yard until three were finished in May 1928, having only begun construction at the end of 1927, and the assembly of the hulls of the first three Series I ships began shortly afterwards.

[11] The hull of Uragan was completed within ten weeks after the keel was laid, although the other ships were built a more normal pace.

Even this new design wasn't entirely satisfactory as it proved to be impossible to force its output above the specified limits, but it was approved for use in the Uragans when an improved model would have taken at least another year put into production.

She proved to be heavier than estimated and had only a 1 metre (3 ft 3 in) of freeboard aft, which made her main deck very wet in almost any kind of moderate sea.

This was primarily because her boilers had been designed only deliver enough steam for her turbines, leaving nothing was in reserve to power her steam-driven auxiliary machinery.

Most ships in European waters received two single mounts for the fully automatic 37 mm AA gun before Operation Barbarossa, one on each side of the bridge.

As part of the effort to pressure the Baltic states into accepting Soviet troops they staged an incident in Narva Bay by sinking the oil tanker Metallist on 26 September 1939.

During the Winter War Burya, Vikhr, Sneg and Purga provided fire support as the Soviets conducted landings on the small Finnish-held islands in the Gulf of Finland.

Her sisters were quite active early in the campaign providing fire support for Soviet troops defending the Zapadnaya Litsa River and the Rybachy Peninsula.

[21] Sneg and Tucha accompanied a force of seven destroyers in a failed attempt to intercept a German convoy off the Daugava River estuary on 13 July 1941.

Burya, Sneg and Tsiklon were assigned to the rear guard during the Soviet evacuation of Tallinn and laid mines in the harbor approaches before departing: their mines (barrage 26-A) sank the Finnish coastal defence ship Ilmarinen, during Operation Nordwind, scoring one of the best successes of the Soviet Navy against an enemy major warship.

Burya ran into an Axis minefield when attempting to bombard Finnish positions on Suursaari Island and was sunk on 24 August 1942.

On 18 December 1942, Shtorm, supported by the destroyer Nezamozhnik, shelled the Axis naval base at Feodosiya, where they hit and sank a German tugboat.