Kresta here is a NATO codename for Soviet Project 1134 (codename Berkut) class, the lead ship - Admiral Zozulia. No one of the 4+10 ships of this class was named Kresta and it’s actually an impossible name in Russian, because it’s a mistaken cut-off from a Russian gulf name “Zaliv Kresta”, in which “Kresta” is the genitive form of “Krest” (Cross). The Soviets would never call their ship neither in genitive nor in the name of their mortal historical enemies’ main religious symbol. It would also a bit of mistake to call the class Berkut, because it’s an industrial codename, no one of the ships was named Berkut.
Petya is also a NATO codename - this one is for Project 159 (SKR) coastal guard (patrol) ships. Here, SKR abbreviation means “missile coastal guard ship” in Russian. The class sometimes mistakenly named SKR-1 (which is an enumerated name of the lead experimental ship). It is generally possible for the Soviets to name a ship Petya, yet not a combat ship (even just a corvette), because Petya is a diminutive form of Piotr (Peter) personal name. Soviet official naming nomenclatures had zero tolerance on ironical, diminutive or adopted from the enemy. Sometimes a civilian vessel could get a diminutive name, and even for a civilian vessel it was a rare exception from the general norm.
This brigade names are off also. Absolutely non-combat names, and Giena is just non-starter as a Soviet ship name at all, even for a civilian ship, because in Russian it’s a namesake for being vile and despicable, and Soviets would never name their ship in this deeply anti-social manner. Aist is a proper name for some small civilian vessel and unlikely for a corvette. Pingvin (Penguin) is very unlikely for any kind of government ship, because it’s primary connotation in Soviet culture was ironic and diminutive (because of one of the most exemplary Soviet poetic verses - Maxim Gorky’s Stormy Pestrel).
Pyotr Velikiy
It’s a Russian (Imperial) name, not Soviet. The real Soviet-laid ship was renamed as Pyotr Velikiy well after the Russian Federation exit from the Soviet Union and it was an ideological overturn by itself. Her original name was Kuibyshev, then Yuri Andropov (before Eltsin’s rename decree).
Ambarnaya is very unlikely name for a combat ship in Russian at all. A bit more possible for a patrol vessel or something else kinda small and insignificent, more likely for a small civilian vessel, yet the common problem in Russian with this name is just grammar: while it’s currently a town name, it’s one of the towns grown lately from villages, and the name remains grammatically adjective, which is a bit awkward as naming norm itself, acceptable for a village, twice an awkward for a ship name, and nearly impossibly awkward for a combat ship.
Yenot (Raccoon) is also an unlikely for a combat ship, even a light one. Its connotations in Russian are - something small, harmless, funny and foreign, which are all rather nonstarters for a combat ship in Soviet culture.
Oh thats good to know. I tried to use Projekt naming for support vessels of various types but since my number memory isn’t the best I lost track of what type was what, which is why I opted for NATO codenames.
I ran out of historical names for certain combat ship classes so I just didn’t put much thought in for the rest of them, I keep the historical names for Udaloys, Sovremenny’s and such in reserve for their respective classes.
Any ideas what to replace the names with? Frigates are mostly for keeping guard on jump-points and occasional escort duties which is why there’s now a whole lot of them and will only keep increasing in numbers in the near future.
Here’s quite a good list, though some of the names are actually post-Soviet Russian:
As far as I can see from the thread, you didn’t use “Hard Weather” names, most of destroyer names and most of Admirals (which are proper for any kind of combat ship starting from a frigate).
After exhausting real historic names, I usually use campaign-historic, that is: naming after my dead most seniour and most decorated commanders.
Towns are entirely proper for a patrol ship, and the list S810_Jr provided is very good in this regard - no grammatically awkward names, and a proper part of names are non-Russian, looks properly Soviet-international.
This is a great book on the Soviet Navy if you can get hold of it. I bought my copy new in the 1990s and use it as the main reference for any Soviet-related Aurora campaigns.
Oh goody, I have to order that. I’ve been using combination of A.I’s, own sources and google-know-how so far. One of my favourite sites is this: https://naval-encyclopedia.com/
You can find a whole lot about invidual ships, their sensor systems and what was refitted, where and when.
The book above doesn’t just provide the ship information. It discusses how Soviet doctrine evolved over time and how the various weapons and other systems were used to implement that doctrine. Here is a screenshot I found online of the contents page (I am away from home for a few weeks). It uses NATO names for some of the content pages, but all the original Soviet designations are included in the actual text. It is 224 pages in total.
A book right up my alley. Doctrines and strategic situations always reflect in the ship designs and fleets which I’ve always found immensely interesting to read about.
Rename Blestyashche to Blestyashchiy.
Other changes are entirely proper.
Generally, some grammatical rules.
First, combat ship in Russian is (grammatically) a masculine gender object, female names are rare for them (a bit more common for smaller and civillian ships, yet still a minority even for them), and this rule was especially strict in Soviet era, when the Imperial tradition of European-like combat ship names from the Greek and Roman pantheons died, and the Soviet social norm dictated quite a strict gender-specific roles despite the overall female emancipation propaganda. There were no female senior military officers in USSR, and female combat roles were restricted to snipers, combat medics and AD crews, and light night bomber pilots, with some extremely rare and unimportant exceptions (so no female war heroes ship names either, to the end of USSR).
So, generally, when chosing a name from some not-a-combat-ships list, you need to check the ending for grammatical gender. It has to be masculine.
In the case of Blestyashche it’s not even a noun, it’s an adverb form. Blestyashchee would be a noun, yet it’s a noun in neutral gender, wich is (paradoxically) even more improper for a ship name then a female - ships in Russian are grammatically animated objects.
All fixes implemented, thank you for help, much appreciated.
Ship design thread also updated, character limits are causing little bit of trouble, probably have to make a separate thread for any additional ships in the future.
