№ III, May-June

Learn from friends…. and study opponents

110 Years of Russia’s Submarine Prowess 

 

Vladimir “Vovick” Karnozov

 

This is a second part of a series on the history of submarine development. The previous article on “110 years of Russia’s Submarine Prowess” (see Vayu II/2016) covered early attempts to produce a game changer in naval warfare that led to the advent of the diesel-electric submarine. This article now focuses on the experience of Soviet designers as they strove to adopt global best practices in their work on more advanced vessels.

The collapse of the Tsarist regime, the February and October 1917 Revolutions, Civil War and Invasion by foreign powers transformed the once-grand Imperial Russian Imperial navy into a small military organization. Formally, the Red Army’s naval component was established on 29 January 2018, when the Council of Peoples Commissars issued its decree “On creation of socialist Workers and Peasants Red Navy”. (Disclaimer: During the period of 1918 – 1937, naval elements of the Red Army were called by many names in consequence. For simplicity, we will use a common term “Soviet navy” in widespread use since 1938).

Twelve Bars class boats operated out of Kronshtadt naval fortress in 1919. They were facing a mighty opponent in the form of the Royal navy that at the time was part of the Invasion forces. On August 31, Pantera detected foreign-flagged destroyers in national waters. After five hours of chase, she managed to get in position for attack while remaining undetected. A pair of torpedoes hit the HMS Vittoria. For revolutionaries, it seemed rather symbolic that such a modern and capable surface combatant belonging to the old world’s top maritime power had fallen victim to a new power of the brand new world. Pantera escaped from British ships hunting her unscathed. Having spent 11 hours 20 minutes submerged, she made it safely to the homeport. Commander Alexander Bakhtin became the first Soviet navy submariner to win the Red Banner award.

Useful kits

In the period of 1918-1924, the Soviet navy underwater component reduced from twenty to fourteen operable submarines. The ruling political party did not show signs of concern, and its leaders even spoke of naval forces as too expensive to have for a poor country. However strange this may sound today, but initially the Soviet government sanctioned completion of certain warships in a high degree of readiness at dockyards for the sake of their possible sale to Turkey! In particular, this applied to Svetlana light cruisers and AG submarines. In the end, however, these assets went to the Soviet navy and served it well through the time of peace and war.

Back in 1916, the Tsarist regime purchased kits of Holland 602GF/L – a very popular U.S. design of the time - for local assembly as AG series. Shortly after the Red Army drove anti-Revolutionary forces from the Black Sea in 1920, the Soviet government ordered to complete construction of AG-23 and AG-24 that were in a high degree of readiness at dockyards in the city of Nikolaev. Even though the dockyards’ staff dwindled to 1700, those who remained had been longing for work. They were eager to fulfill this new assignment. The Soviet government considered completion of AG boats “a task of combat significance”, making the dockyards work 24 hours a day. First pair was commissioned in 1920, and second pair in 1921-1923. Besides, AG-21, assembled in 1918 but ditched in 1919, was raised nine years later, repaired and pressed into service.

Through this program, the local shipbuilding industry restored its largely lost or eroded skills. Even though the baseline Holland 602 design originated in 1911, the kits for Russia were manufactured in 1916 incorporating some changes to reflect early combat experience of WW1. Five AG boats formed the backbone of the rebuilt Black Sea Fleet. Following the devastation of the Civil war, the fleet kept only one indigenously designed submarine. Nerpa (English: Phoca) survived only because she had been subjected to major overhaul at Nikolayev dockyards. She stayed there for six years until 1923, when the work was finished. With all expediency, the submarine was renamed into Politruk (Political Instructor).

About that time three of the twelve surviving boats in the Baltic were disassembled for parts. This enabled the industry to perform major overhaul on the remaining nine without relaunching manufacture of morally outdated instruments and mechanisms in use on Bars class. In the 1920s, most of the heritage dockyards and plants were loaded to 30-32% of their capacity due to shortage of orders and investment. Workforce of the Baltic Plant in Leningrad (as St. Petersburg was called in the Soviet times) shrunk to its lowest point of 2638 in 1922. Contracts on repair and maintenance of Bars class boats gave the industry some breathing space and helped it regain skills in submarines.

Envisioning a new navy

Under initiative of the navy’s scientific-technical committee and its section for underwater sailing chaired by Alexander Garsoev, work commenced in 1923 on specifications to next-generation submarines. Former commander of the Imperial Russian navy Pochtovy, Minoga and Lvitsa, Garsoev headed a commission staffed by experienced professionals who formed a common vision of the future submarine force. The commission suggested main classes of boats for the future navy. A displacement of 1000-1100 tons should be fine for “big boat” and 500-600 tons for “middle boat” optimized for “on position” missions in the Baltic and Black Sea theatres.

Following discussions at various levels, in 1925 the Red Army higher command acknowledged the necessity to develop a number of next-generation submersibles, and declared “immediate need” for 27 boats to be constructed during the next five-six years. Cultivating a national school of submarine development – as opposed to simple adoption of foreign designs – was among other stated goals. It was easier said than done! Few of the nation’s design and engineering teams survived. Those that did survive were short of qualified staff and funds. Worse, they did not do much of work on contemporary designs and classes of warships since 1917.

To catch up with recent developments and practices, the Kremlin dispatched a group of engineers on a tour of foreign submarine design and production facilities. In Italy, Soviet visitors were shown fewer dockyards that had been expected. They were further disappointed by a lack of the Italian government’s and industry’s desire to cooperate on would-be joint programs. Brought back home were only few monographs (including that by acclaimed French designer Maxime Laubeuf 1864-1939) on sale in the bookshops and some graphics (such as detailed cutaway drawings of an Italian submarine) acquired through personal dealings. As part of the three-month tour at the end of 1925, the Soviet delegation also went to Germany. At the time of Weimar Republic, local companies did not produce submarines – only components.

TechBureau

November 1, 1926 is something like second birthday for “Central Design Bureau for Marine Engineering Rubin”, Russia’s oldest and most acclaimed team specializing in submarine development. The company traces its history to foundation of Commission for development of submersible vessels in December 1900. Twenty six years later (and almost 90 years from now) submarine designers resumed their work at the Baltic Plant after an eight-year brake. At start, Technical Bureau no.4 (or simply “TechBureau”) employed seven engineers and designers. In three years’ time the workforce grew to over a hundred.

TechBureau was headed by Boris Malinin (1889 - 1949), who had been involved in manufacture, maintenance and repair of Bars class during the Imperial and Soviet times. He recalled: “The period from November 1926 till June 1930 was the most intense and hard in my career as a submarine designer. We had to pursue several goals simultaneously. [First,] To develop and produce a new class of submarine whose type had been previously known to us. [Second,] To create, for immediate use, the theory of the submarine – and this was something that the Soviet Union lacked then. [Third,] To train personnel and teach them the art of submarine development”.

Malinin’s first assignment was to prepare technical documentation on a thousand-ton submarine. He opted for a double hull design of riveted structure with water-tight bulkheads running across the full – a major departure from Bubnov’s designs (“the submarine of the Russian type”). Batteries were placed in a pressurized (water tight) compartment which came equipped with a unit for burning hydrogen. First in Russian practice, the submarine was outfitted with oxygen regenerators employing chemicals. These and other design solutions extended the duration of submerged sailing from 24 hours for Bars up to 72 hours. The distance of underwater sailing rose to 150 miles, and endurance at sea to 28 days. Revised location and design of water tanks ensured shorter time to go underwater (30 sec against two-three minutes for Bars). Instead of outdated 18-inch torpedoes, the newer submarine would use brand-new “53-27” weapons from six 533-mm torpedo tubes in the forward and two in the rear sections. Artillery would comprise a 100-mm gun and a 45-mm semi-automatic antiaircraft cannon.

It is interesting to notice that the double hull first tried on Dekabrist of 1927-1930 origin remains on most of contemporary Russian submarine designs including the Project 877EKM in service with the Indian navy and the newest Project 636.3 boats on order for the Black Sea Fleet. Since then, however, the technical progress has gone much forward: working depth increased by three times and underwater speed by two times. Kilo class comes with six 533-mm torpedoes in the nose (as Dekabrist did), but can use them also for a salvo of land-attack or anti-ship missiles.

Series I

In February 1927, the Soviet government allocated funds for construction of six such boats. Their hulls were to be built using high-quality steel sheets originally stocked for Svetlana class cruisers. This ensured the working depth of 75 meters compared to 45-50 meters for Bars and AG.

The lead vessel of the Series I, Dekabrist, was laid down at the Baltic Plant on March 5, 1927. A contemporary design from a national team, she, nonetheless, incorporated a few foreign items. Diesels were imported from Germany under a customs label “Equipment for locomotives”. Long-service customs officials should not have been worried. Back in 1904, they saw Fulton submarine being imported from U.S. under cover description of “Steam boiler”. Even though these M.A.N. engines had as much to do with railways as Fulton had with steam machinery, they gave the Soviet submarine industry a head start.

Sea trials began in May and soon revealed that Dekabrist was unstable (listing) when submerging and surfacing. In July 1930, Malinin was arrested on the charge of high treason, and imprisoned into “special design bureau” that used forced labor. There, he worked with former colleagues who had been arrested beforehand. Later in the year causes for listing were traced down. Technical problem proved to be minor and was quickly resolved through installation of redesigned valves interconnecting main water tanks and additional bulkheads in them. Dekabrist went into commission in November 1930.

Three sister ships were built at the Baltic Plant and three at the Nikolayev dockyards. The latter’s experience with the AG series proved helpful: engineers and workers with the skills necessary were in place and eager to work. Through this project, the heritage manufacturers renewed relationships with vendors and suppliers in the home country and abroad. Thus, in the early 1930s the Soviet Union came to possess workable shipbuilding industry able to produce contemporary submarines designs.

Shortly after completion of the White Sea – Baltic Canal (Belomorkanal) in 1933, the Soviet navy used this 140-miles-long waterway to ferry some warships to the White Sea so as to re-establish the Northern Fleet. When in transit, Dekabrist sister-ship Narodovolets was “thoroughly inspected” by Josef Stalin. Strongly-built, Series I boats ventured well into the expanses of the White and Barents Seas and became first Soviet submarines to sail under Arctic ice fields. In the 1930s Dekabrist set something of a record by covering over 10,000 miles including 1,200 under water in the course of one calendar year.

Four boats took part in WW2 and proved their merits in three operational theatres, sinking or damaged over a dozen of enemy vessels. Narodovolets (D-II) stayed in active service for over quarter a century and then served a crew training station till 1985, when it was decided to turn her into war memorial in St. Petersburg, which opened in 1994. Recalling the restoration work done on D-II, Rubin general director Igor Vilnit says: “This was an assignment of major significance for employees of the design house as it enabled them to come through the pages of history, refresh and enrich their knowledge of heritage of their company and its vendors, and learn from the experience of previous generations of Russian shipwrights”.

Nice catch!

TechBureau managed to do well on their first design, but there were many things to improve on those that followed. This mostly applied to various onboard systems and mechanisms. Some good samples came, literally and figuratively, from the bottom of the sea. A fishing net caught hold of something that at closer look appeared to be a sunken submarine. HMS L-55 was lost on a combat mission in the Koporye Bay – south to the Gulf of Finland - when the Royal navy crossed with the Russian revolutionary seamen.

Commissioned in December 1918, she spent few months in service before being dispatched to the Baltic. On 4 June 1919, L-55 attempted a torpedo attack on Russian destroyers, but missed. Worse, her conning tower emerged above the sea level, and become target for Azard and Gavriil four-inch cannons. A huge explosion made the gunners proud of their firing accuracy, but later it was found that the submarine had hit a mine.

After nine years in water (June 1919 – August 1928), L-55 was raised. She still represented a relatively modern design. Most of her mechanisms were found in good shape. After extensive repairs, the submarine went into commission in October 1931. Head of the Revolutionary Military Council, Marshal Kliment Voroshilov visited L-55 on several occasions. He praised the salvage party: “Thanks to your energy, skills and revolutionary enthusiasm, we got our hands on documents proving the facts of the foreign Invasion and, at the same time, a technically advanced warship belonging to one of the most capable types in the British navy.”

L-55 was given “experimental” status with the Soviet navy. Many of her systems and mechanisms were of British origin, including Vickers diesels (which, however, were replaced by more reliable Soviet 42BM6 diesels in 1934). Four-inch artillery shells and 21-inch torpedoes were intact, and provided the Soviets with some vital samples for reverse engineering. Torpedoes especially proved very helpful, since local makers had been having troubles with indigenous designs.

Displacing 960/1150 tons, L-55 was close in size to Dekabrist with 935/1354. Malinin himself took part in restoration and reverse engineering efforts in order to learn more about the British ways of submarine making. Among other things, the Soviets adopted low-powered [50-hp] electric motors for economic sailing and low-noise “creeping” towards targets onto submarine designs of their own. Rubin Yearbook 2009 reflects this in the following observation: “When developing new designs, Malinin and his team used every chance to learn from experience of their colleagues in foreign countries, and think it over for better results”.

Minelayers

The rescued British submarine served the Soviets under the same designation. In part, this was for simplicity of documentation, and in part for the fact that she was… able to lay mines. Other “L” boats of the Soviet navy were derivatives of Dekabrist with reshaped (smaller) outer hull and mine release pipes at the rear in lieu of torpedo tubes. The lead vessel, Leninets (a follower of Lenin) was laid down in September 1929. According to Soviet naval command, “The main task for Leninets submarine is to protect sea entrance to the red city of Leningrad from enemies”.

In the early 1930s, the Kremlin gave orders to erect a new shipbuilding plant (no. 199) in Komsomolsk-upon-Amur. It was meant to undertake final assembly of submarines for the soon-to-be-reborn Pacific Fleet using sections manufactured by heritage enterprises in the European part of the country. The place was well away from the ocean coastline so that the plant could not be destroyed by the mighty Imperial Japanese navy in a case of war. It was located on the banks of the river Amur running its waters into the Pacific. Thus, it provided the way to ferry newly built submarines to naval bases of the Pacific Fleet.

In 1935 submarine sections began to arrive by rail. Three years later L-11 and L-12 went into commission. Since the project in Komsomolsk lagged behind the original schedule, the Soviet government decided to make use of dockyards in Vladivostok. Plant no. 202 assembled 11 L-class boats in 1936-1939.

The production run totaled 24 (Series II/bis, XI, XIII/bis), with last hulls completed during WW2. They served with all four Fleets – Baltic, Black Sea, Artic and Pacific – and proved their merits on mining missions and in torpedo attacks (including those performed by L-12 and L-19 against the Japanese shipping in August 1945). L-3 was the top scoring Soviet submarine in the Baltic by the number of enemy ships destroyed by both mines and torpedoes (which is 25 by Soviet and 10 by German records).

In the course of 1939-1940 events, Estonia became part of the Soviet Union, and provided its navy with Kalev and Lembit submersible minelayers (665/853 tons) built in the U.K. in 1935-1936. These were derivatives of the Royal navy S-class, very popular and successful British boats with production run of 62 in 1930-1945. Kalev and Lembit were very active during WW2, setting up mine fields and torpedoing German shipping. Latvia, too, made its contribution to the growing Soviet navy. But French-built submarines Ronis and Spidola (390/514 tons, 1925-1927) were not as interesting for the Soviet engineers. Besides, their service was short: both boats were blown up in June 1941 to prevent their capture by Wermacht approaching the naval base they were in under repairs.

Submarine for mass production

Speaking on the occasion of laying down the head vessel of Series III in February 1930, chief of naval forces of Workers and Peasants Red Army (the Soviet navy commander) Romuald Muklevich said: “She gives us an opportunity to start a new era in our shipbuilding. With her help, we should gain the necessary skills and prepare the professional cadre for streamlined production”.

Commissioned in 1933, Schuka (as the vessel was called) opened line of a «medium» submarine. At 572/672 tons, Schuka was notably smaller than Dekabrist and Leninets. Her design incorporated best engineering solutions previously tried on indigenous Series I/II boats, Holland 602GF/L and L-55.

The production run came to 86, comprising Series III (4), V (12), V-bis (13), V-bis-2 (14), X (32) and X-bis (11+2). Both heritage and newly-erected dockyards across the country made their contribution. In particular, the class was selected for production at Red Sormovo Plant no. 112 in Gorky (now Nizhy Novgorod), which commenced submarine construction activity with laying down Sh-304 in 1930. The plant completed six such boats over the entire decade.

The plant no. 202 in Vladivostok was at heart of the shipbuilding campaign aimed at rebuilding the Pacific Fleet. First train loaded with submarine sections made in the European part of the country departed for Far East in June 1932. Under high secrecy regime, first hull was launched on 9water at night of 29 April 1933 (Moscow did not want Tokyo to learn early of its submarine construction program). Sch-11 and Sch-12 hoisted red flags at the Golden Horn bay on 23 September 1933. The submarine was back, protecting the nation’s naval fortress in the Pacific. (Vladivostok had been under protection of the Imperial Russian navy’s first submarine squadron from 1905 to 1916). Incidentally, the same plant built INS Chakra, a Project 971I fast-attack submarine in Indian navy service since 2013.

In 1936 Sch-117 covered 3000 miles of Pacific waters in 40 days thus demonstrating twice the endurance set in specification to Schuka. By 1940 the Soviet navy crews had mastered their boats well enough, and the command began sending them on patrols into Chinese and Japanese waters. Sch-423 spent 73 days, including 56 in transit, to cover 7227 miles (including 682 in icing conditions) between Polyarny and Vladivostok. Thus, she became the first submarine to have ferried from the North European part of Russia to her Pacific coast via the Northern Sea Route.

Schuka was simple, reliable platform for mass production. This ensured her success at the time when the Soviet military strategists were putting premium on quantity. Sch-class submarines proved rugged workhorses in WW2, but suffered high losses: 31 out of 44 such boats taking part in the hostilities were lost. Sch-class became the most popular of Boris Malinin designs that he conceived as the head of TechBureau.

Tribute to Malinin

M9alinin’s boats were summoned to act against shipping to and from Finland during the Winter War 1939-1940, with Leninets (L-1) setting mines, and Sch-class boats using torpedoes and artillery. They claimed several steamers and coastal protection vessels, and thus opened combat scores of Soviet -designed and built submarines. When the Fascist Germany invaded Soviet Union on 22 June 1941, the navy had 213 submarines including 100 built to designs by Boris Malinin. By comparison, in 1926, when the shipwright was appointed head of TechBureau, the navy had only 14 operable boats. From Day 1 of the Great Patriotic War, the underwater component was repelling aggression in the Baltic and Black sea theatres. On 23 June 1941 D-III of Series I departed Polyarny on a first combat mission in the Arctic waters.

Sch-307 opened scores of the Soviet submarines against their foreign opponents with Unterseeboote on 10 August 1941 by torpedoing Kriegsmarine U-144. During the war, the industry completed seven Sch and five L class vessels launched in 1940-1941. These include L-20, L-21 and L-22 launched in Leningrad, and completed in 1942-1943 at the Plant no. 402 in Molotovsk (today’s Severodvinsk), now known as Sevmash – Russia’s largest center of underwater shipbuilding on the White Sea coast. Ultimately, a total of 116 submarines were commissioned in 1930-1946 to designs conceived by Boris Malinin.

Contrary to a common belief (“Soviets did everything in-house”), the local shipbuilders were using every opportunity to improve their end-products through clever use of foreign expertize even at the time their country was politically and economically isolated. In plain words, the gist of the Soviet shipwrights’ experience in the 1920s-1930s is this: to their predecessors’ idea of learning from foreign collaborators to improve the product of your own, they added: “study your opponent!”

As this article shows, Malinin was eager to learn from his colleagues in other countries despite the fact they did not always want it. He took part in HMS L-55 restoration and reverse 9engineering effort, and made use of original German components and copies of German, Italian and British system specimens on “home-grown” submarines. This was being done in understanding that local designs are only good when they are at the level of best ones available everywhere else. The current generation of Russian shipwrights tries to keep their forebears’ spirit of learning, innovation and flexibility in today’s practice.