342 
SOVIET SHIPPING IN THE LAST YEAR OF THE 1971-75 PLAN 
Despite a speeding up of deliveries that may have pushed 1975 
additions above 1964’s record of 1.3 million tons, the U.S.S.R. did 
not come close to the Five Year Plan goal of a 16.3 million dwt 
fleet by the end of 1975. Deliveries during the first 2 years of the 
plan were at only half the projected pace. This shortfall has been 
paralleled by failures in meeting the 1975 performance goals of 496 
billion ton-miles and 205 million tons of cargo carried. 
Although all plan goals were not fulfilled, progress was made 
during 1975 in alleviating some of the more obvious qualitative defi- 
ciencies of the fleet. The delivery of additional Soviet-built Krym- 
class tankers of 150,000 dwt and additional Polish-built Marshal Bu- 
dyennyy-class combination oil/dry bulk carriers pushed up the average 
size of Soviet oil carriers. With the worldwide surplus of tankers 
growing, the U.S.S.R. is, however, considering shelving plans to build 
a still larger tanker of 330,000 dwt. This supership, conceived during 
the tanker boom that preceded the Arab oil embargo in 1973 and 
too large to use Soviet ports in the foreseeable future, was intended 
strictly as a hard currency earner to be chartered out to foreign 
shippers. 
Acquisition of 105,000 dwt combination carriers and Soviet- 
built dry bulk carriers of 50,000 dwt has boosted the size of the 
U.S.S.R.’s small bulk carrier fleet and the ships in it. 
Plans for the upgrading of ships in the liner service in 1975 
and after indicate that the U.S.S.R. has decided to concentrate more 
on ro/ro vessels with container carrying capabilities than on full con- 
tainerships. Ro/ro ships offer expeditious handling and carriage of 
wheeled vehicles and general cargo in trailers, can accommodate con- 
tainers and palletized cargo, and are especially well adapted for the 
fast delivery of military vehicles. Although the ability of such ships 
to compete in terms of cost and port turnaround time with the latest 
pure containerships in the movement of containerized cargo has not 
been convincingly demonstrated, modern Soviet ro/ros will be fully 
competitive with their western equivalents. 
Anticipated acquisitions for liner use include only one important | 
class of modern containerships and a wide variety of ro/ro classes. 
Classes in those two categories are listed in table 6. The new con- 
tainerships belong to the 13,000 dwt East German-built Khudozhnik 
Saryan (Mercur) class. With speeds of more than 20 knots and capac- 
ity for 774 20-foot containers, they are the first Soviet full container- 
ships suitable for trans-Pacific and trans-Atlantic service. While much 
TABLE 6.—New classes of containerships and Ro/ros introduced or anticipated in 1975 and after 
Container 
Class Type Builder DWT capacity Knots 
Khudozhnik Saryan-____ | Full container East Germany 13,300 774 20.5 
(Mercur) tert 
Magnitogorsk__________ \Ro/ro-container Finland 21,000 1,100: +" 228 
Kapitan Smirnov_______ Ro/ro-container U.S.S.R. 20,000 1,000 + 25.0 
Skulptor Konenkov ____ |Ro/ro-container Poland 12,500 800 21.0 
Akademik Tupolev ____,|Ro/ro-container France 4,200 235 16.9 
Ivan Skuridin (Neva) _ | Ro/ro U.S.S.R. 4,800 242 17.0 
