343 
more competitive than the next best Soviet containerships—the 17- 
knot Aleksandr’ Fadeyev class with a container capacity of 358—they 
still fall well short of modern Western containerships. 
Three classes of large ro/ro containerships—the 20,000 dwt 
Soviet-built Kapitan Smirnov (Atlantika) class, the 21,000 dwt Finnish- 
built Magnitogorsk class, and the 17,500 dwt Polish-built Skulptor 
Konenkov class—are under construction. The Kapitan Smirnov, featur- 
ing a unique 50,000-horsepower gas turbine powerplant, has a design 
speed of at least 25 knots and a container capacity of more than 
1,000. The Magnitogorsk is a 22-knotter capable of carrying 1,100 
containers while the Skulptor Konenkov is a 21-knotter with an 800- 
“container capacity. All of these ships should be fully competitive 
with their non-Communist :counterparts—West European ships cur- 
rently carrying wheeled and containerized cargo on the North Atlantic 
and between Australia and Europe. 
Additional classes planned or already delivered in 1975 include 
smaller French-built 4,200 dwt ro/ro/containerships of the Akademik 
Tupolev class, and Soviet-built 4,800 dwt ro/ro ships of the Ivan Sku- 
ridin class. 
As of mid-1975 the U.S.S.R., which had no ro/ro ships in 
mid-1974, was offering ro/ro service on at least four lines—three 
between Soviet Baltic ports and Europe and one between Soviet and 
Bulgarian ports on the Black Sea. All of these services are largely 
in Soviet trade and are not competing with western companies. 
1976-80 FIVE YEAR PLAN 
The processes of modernization observable in the pattern of 
deliveries to the Soviet merchant fleet in 1975 will continue on a 
modest scale into the 1976-80 Five Year plan. Planned deliveries 
will raise the average sizes of both tankers and dry bulk carriers, 
and capabilities for the expenditious handling of liner cargoes will 
improve as the Soviets add their first truly competitive containerships, 
ro/ros, and barge carriers. Under the Plan, fleet capacity will increase 
by 22 percent from 15.1 million dwt at the end of 1975 to 18.4 
million dwt at the end of 1980. Reflecting both new acquisitions 
and improvements in productivity, fleet performance is expected to 
increase by 32 percent during the same period from 394 to 520 
billion ton-miles. The 1980 goal for tons carried—which reached 200 
million in 1975—is 250 million tons. 
Planned fleet growth envisages losses and retirements of ships total- 
ing 1.6 million dwt and—as in the 1971-75 Plan—deliveries of new 
ships totaling close to 5 million dwt. Tankers account for 54 percent 
of the planned tonnage and combination in carriers and dry cargo 
ships the remainder (see table 7). More than half of the tanker ton- 
nage will consist of vessels in the 100,000 to 150,000-dwt range; 
the rest will be made up of ships 40,000-dwt and under. 
The heaviest deliveries of dry cargo ships will consist of dry bulk 
carriers—690,000 dwt, general purpose freighters—380,000 dwt, and 
timber carriers—290,000 dwt. The bulk tonnage will be made up 
largely of ships in the 50,000 to 150,000 dwt range. 
