Soviet-Soyuz class
 Aerial photo of a German Soviet reconnaissance aircraft from June 1, 1942 in Leningrad
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The Sovetsky Soyuz class ( Russian тип "Советский Союз" , also Project 23 , проект 23) was a class of battleships of the Soviet Navy that were not completed.
prehistory
After the Russian Civil War , the newly formed Soviet fleet consisted of three remaining Gangut-class battleships in the Baltic Sea. In addition, there were still the unfinished battlecruisers of the Borodino class on the Baltic Sea shipyards and on the Black Sea the unfinished Demokratieija (ex- Imperator Nikolai I ), a modified ship of the Imperatriza Marija class . All other large ships still in existence were obsolete standard ships of the line from the pre-Dreadnought period . The unfinished capital ships were gradually scrapped until 1931 due to the economic situation, lack of resources, changed tactical concepts and general technical progress.
In addition, there was a dispute over the direction of the new navy between younger, "progressive" officers, who favored a fleet of small units, such as speedboats , in the sense of the Jeune École, and supporters of large combat shipbuilding, most of whom were former tsarist officers. All of these factors inhibited any initiative regarding heavy units until 1932.
Project developments
The economic consolidation of the Soviet Union in the 1930s and the consolidation of the political system by Stalin put an end to this dispute. Stalin saw it as necessary to "create an adequate fleet" according to the size of the country. He was supported and encouraged in this by the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy, Vladimir Orlov . Within the navy and the responsible shipbuilding headquarters, however, it was agreed that due to the 15-year break in capital shipbuilding, the connection to technical developments could only be overcome with the help of foreign countries. This primarily concerned the procurement of plan constructions and material samples.
Support from abroad
Already in 1932 close contacts with fascist Italy had been established: the USSR ordered two guard ships from Ansaldo in Genoa and in 1935 from Odero-Terni-Orlando in Livorno the flotilla leader Tashkent . In addition, technical know-how regarding modern turbine and boiler systems was acquired. At the same time, the Ansaldowerft was asked to work out a battleship design that corresponded to Soviet ideas. The project was named UP 41 (UP = Ufficio Progretto, i.e. office project). Both externally and internally it was more similar to the battleship Littorio of the Littorio class that was being built at Ansaldo for the Regia Marina . The UP 41 should have a maximum of 50 000 ts displacement at 252 meters long, 35.5 meters wide and 10 meters depth. It was designed for the high speed of 32 knots at 180,000 wPS and with 9 × 40.6-cm guns in three triple turrets as main artillery, 12 × 18-cm guns in four triple turrets as middle artillery and an anti-aircraft component of 24 × 10-cm flak as well as 48 × 4.5-cm flak armed. The defensive protective devices were based on the Italian models. The project was completed on July 14, 1936 - but it was broken up in 1937 when Italy joined the Anti-Comintern Pact .
This year they turned to Škoda in the ČSR as well as the USA and Schneider-Creusot in France for support in the development of guns . Negotiations with the USA and Schneider-Creusot were broken off after a short time, and the establishment of a joint design office with Škoda came to an end in early 1939 with the German occupation of the rest of Czech Republic . However, at the end of 1937 there were again negotiations with the renowned American shipbuilding firm Gibbs & Cox regarding the construction of battleship designs. Gibbs & Cox finally presented a final Design D in March 1939 , which had dimensions similar to the UP 41 . In contrast, the armor was weakened and the armament was reinforced to 10 × 40.6-cm guns (in two triple turrets aft and a quadruple turret in front) and 20 × 12.7-cm anti-aircraft guns. However, the US administration was reluctant to make definitive handover decisions, since the planned ship significantly exceeded the size specifications for new battleships of the London Fleet Agreement of 1936 - the USA was contractually bound to this, however, and meticulously planned its own ships for the contractually fixed displacement of 45,000 tons down.
Own designs
Independent of the efforts to obtain ship designs and guns from abroad, several Soviet design offices had been working on their own designs since 1935.
This turned out to be less of a problem for the announced 40.6-cm gun, since the documentation of the 40.6-cm L / 45 1914, which was a cooperation between the Obuchow works and the British Vickers group from 1914 to Originated in 1917, could fall back. This gun, of which a sample was available, was originally intended to be scaffolded on the successor ships of the Borodino class - but these ships were never ordered. Based on the experience with it, this gun was further developed with Italian help into the 40.6 cm L / 50 B 1937 gun. In the Leningrad metalworks from the time of the tsars there were also experiences with triplet towers and their complex mechanics.
Originally, the Central Design Office No. 1 and the Design Department of the Baltic Shipyard (at that time administratively referred to as Plant No. 189 and officially as Ordzhonikidze Shipyard) worked out competing designs. The first projects were based outwardly on the British Nelson class , but were primarily a response to the latest large ships in the European area, such as the Germany class and the Dunkerque class . Various project drafts finally led to Project 21 at the end of 1936 , the immediate preliminary stage to the later Project 23 . Two reasons, however, should have a strong inhibiting effect on the further course of things: On the one hand, almost all the executives involved in the selection of the types and the creation of the ships fell victim to the Stalinist Chistka , on the other hand, neither the Soviet turbine construction nor the armor plate production was noticed the amount of time. The problems with the powerful turbines were circumvented by the delivery of a sample system including technical documentation by the Swiss mechanical engineering group Brown, Boveri & Cie. Armored plate production, on the other hand, had to be modernized considerably in order to be able to manufacture the maximum 495 mm thick plates.
interpretation
The initial configuration, Project 21 , which was supplemented by details of the UP-41 draft, originally envisaged ships over 260 m long and 38.9 m wide with a displacement of approx. 42,000 t, which after completion could be up to 60,000 t should displace. A turbo-electric drive on four shafts was planned , for which each ship should receive eight steam boilers and corresponding turbines. This drive should have 164,000 hp and enable a top speed of 30.0 kn. During the planning phase, however, this was changed to a three-shaft system with only steam turbine drive using six high-performance oil boilers and three turbines. The main armament of the ships were nine 40.6 cm L / 50 rapid fire guns in three triplet turrets. The middle artillery consisted of twelve 15.2 cm caliber guns. The anti-tank guns were supplemented by an anti-aircraft component consisting of eight, later twelve, anti-aircraft guns of 10.0 cm and corresponding light cannons of 3.7 cm guns.
The ships themselves were designed as a forward decker with a slight deck jump in the foredeck and were mainly intended to be riveted. The underwater protection consisted of the Italian Pugliese system and was supposed to guarantee a protective width of 8.15 m - so the hull would theoretically have withstood torpedoes with explosive charges of approx. 700 kg TNT. Nothing is known about the immune zones of armor against gunfire and aerial bombs . The quality of the armor material used cannot be assessed due to unknown manufacturing processes such as the metallurgical composition.
| Surname | Keel laying | Shipyard | Degree d. Finished | cancellation |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sovetsky Soyuz | August 28, 1938 | Shipyard No. 189 , Leningrad | 21.2% | 1949 |
| Sovetskaya Ukraine | July 17, 1939 | Shipyard No. 198, Nikolayev | 18% | 1944 |
| Sovetskaya Belorussia | December 21, 1939 | Shipyard No. 402 , Molotovsk | 2.57% | 1940 |
| Sovetskaya Rossiya | July 22, 1940 | Shipyard No. 402, Molotovsk | 0.07% | 1947 |
Final fate
The construction of four ships has started. Work on the Soviet Soyuz , which was under construction in Leningrad, was stopped again in the autumn of 1940. After the outbreak of the German-Soviet War , the construction of the Sovetskaya Ukraina also ended . The two unfinished hulls were dismantled between 1948 and 1951 after the Second World War . The other two ships were still in the early stages and the material provision - so that they were cannibalized during the war. Two other ships, construction numbers 5 and 6, have neither been awarded nor were construction preparations made.
literature
- Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970 . Manfred Pawlak, Herrsching 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 , p. 415, 426 f . (Licensed edition by JF Lehmanns Verlag Munich).
- Breyer, Siegfried: Battleships and battle cruisers 1921–1997 . Bernard & Graefe, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-7637-6225-6 .
Web links
Individual evidence
- ↑ See Breyer, Battleships 1921–1997, p. 354
- ↑ Breyer, Battleship 1921–1997, p. 354
- ↑ See Breyer, Battleship 1921–1997, p. 355
- ↑ See Breyer, Battleship 1921–1997, pp. 357–358
- ^ Norman Friedman: Naval Weapons of World War One. Barnsley 2011, ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7 , p. 249
- ↑ http://www.navweaps.com/Weapons/WNRussian_16-50_m1937.htm
- ↑ Other sources agree on the administrative number 189, but give the name differently with "Marti-Werft"