Soviet Navy

Военно-морской флот СССР
Voyenno-morskoy flot SSSR
Naval Jack of the Soviet Union.svg
Naval Ensign of the Soviet Union.svg
Naval jack (top) and ensign of the Soviet Navy
Active 1917–1991
Country USSR
Navies of Russia

Flag of Russia.svg Imperial Russia

Navy (1696–1917)

Flag of the Soviet Union.svg Soviet Union

Soviet Navy (1917–1991)

Flag of Russia.svg Russian Federation

Russian Navy (1991–Present)

The Soviet Navy (Russian: Военно-морской флот СССР, Voenno-morskoj flot SSSR, literally "Naval Fleet of the USSR") was the naval part of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have been instrumental in any possible Warsaw Pact role in an all-out war with NATO when it would have to stop the naval convoys bringing reinforcements over the Atlantic to the Western European theatre. Such a conflict never occurred, but the Soviet Navy still saw considerable action during the Cold War.

The Soviet Navy was divided into four major fleets: Northern Fleet, the Pacific Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, the Baltic Fleet, and, as a separate command, the Leningrad Naval Base. The Caspian Flotilla was a semi-independent formation administratively under the Black Sea Fleet command while the Soviet Mediterranean Squadron drew its units from the Black Sea, Baltic, and Northern Fleets and the Soviet Indian Ocean Squadron drew its units dominantly from Pacific Fleet. Other components included the Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry (the Soviet equivalent of marines), and Coastal missile and artillery troops. The Soviet Navy was reformed into the Russian Navy after the Dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991.

Contents

History

Soviet Armed Forces
Coat of arms of the Soviet Union.svg
Components
General Staff
Strategic Rocket Forces
Red Army * Soviet Army
Air Defence Forces
Air Forces
Navy
Ranks of the Soviet Military
Military ranks of the Soviet Union
History of the Soviet Military
Military history of the Soviet Union
History of Russian military ranks

Early history

Aurora was unofficially the first Soviet Navy vessel, after it mutinied against Imperial Russia in 1917.

The Soviet Navy was formed in 1917 out of the remnants of the Imperial Russian Navy. The old Russian Navy was almost completely destroyed during the Revolution of 1917, the Russian civil war and the Kronstadt rebellion. During the revolution sailors deserted their ships at will, and generally neglected their duties. The officers were dispersed (some were killed in the red terror, some joined white armies and some resigned and left the Navy) and most of the sailors left the ships. Owing to stoppage of the work in the shipyards, uncompleted ships were rapidly becoming scrap iron.

The Black Sea Fleet fared no better than the Baltic. The Bolshevik revolution entirely decomposed its personnel; the ships were allowed to rot and go to ruin. Owing to mass murders of the officers, the personnel was reduced to helpless insignificance. At the end of April 1918, the German troops entered the Crimea and started to advance towards Sevastopol naval base. All of the more effective ships were moved from Sevastopol to Novorossiysk, where after an ultimatum from Germany they were sunk on Lenin's order. Ships remaining in Sevastopol were captured by the Germans and then, after November 1918, by the British. On April 1, 1919, when Red army forces captured the Crimea, the British squadron had to withdraw. Before leaving, the British damaged all the remaining battleships and sunk 13 new submarines. When the White Army captured the Crimea in 1919, it rescued and reconditioned few units. At the end of the civil war, white fleet moved to Bizerta in French Tunisia where it was interned.

Some vessels continued to serve after the October Revolution, albeit under different names. In fact, the first ship of the Soviet Navy could be considered to be the rebellious Imperial Russian cruiser Aurora, whose crew joined the Bolsheviks. Sailors of the Baltic fleet were the fighting force of bolsheviks during the October revolution.

The Soviet Navy, established as the "Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet" (Russian: Рабоче-Крестьянский Красный флот, Raboche-Krest'yansky Krasny Flot or RKKF) by 1918 Decree of the Soviet government, existed in a less than service-ready state during the interwar years. The greater part of the old ships was sold by the Soviet government to Germany for breaking-up. In the Baltic, there remained only 3 much neglected battleships, 2 cruisers, some ten destroyers and a few submarines. Despite this state of affairs, the Baltic Fleet remained a significant naval formation, and the Black Sea Fleet also provided a basis for expansion. There also existed some 30 minor waterways combat flotillas. As the country's attentions were largely directed internally, the Navy did not see much in the way of funding or training. A telling indicator of the perceived threat of the Navy was that the Soviets were not invited to participate in the Washington Naval Treaty, which served to limit the size and capabilities of the most powerful navies.

However, in the 1930s, as the industrialization of the Soviet Union proceeded, plans were made to expand the Soviet Navy into one of the most powerful in the world.

Approved by the Labour and Defence Council in 1926, a Naval Shipbuilding Program included plans to construct twelve submarines and the first six were to become known as the Dekabrist class.[1]

Since November 4, 1926, the Technical Bureau No.4 under the leadership of B.M. Malinin was managing the submarine construction works at the Baltic Shipyard. The name Technical Bureau No.4 was given to the former Submarine Department and is still a secret department.[1] In subsequent years, 133 submarines were built to the designs developed under Malinin's leadership.

Additional plans included the formation of the Pacific Fleet in 1932 and the Northern Fleet in 1933. This force was to be built around a core of powerful Sovetsky Soyuz class battleships. This building program was in its initial stages by the time the German invasion in 1941 forced its suspension.

The Winter War in 1939–1940 saw some minor action on the Baltic Sea, limited mainly to artillery duels between Finnish forts and Soviet cruisers and battleships.

The Second World War

After the beginning of the Second World War, many sailors and naval guns were sent to help the Red Army and these reassigned naval forces took part in every major action on the Eastern Front. Soviet naval personnel played especially significant land roles in the battles for Odessa, Sevastopol, Stalingrad, Novorossiysk, Tuapse, and Leningrad.

The composition of the Soviet fleets in 1941 included: [2]

In various stages of completion were another 219 vessels including 3 battleships, 2 heavy and 7 light cruisers, 45 destroyers, and 91 submarines.

The above also included some pre-WWI ships (Novik-class destroyers, some Cruisers, all Battleships), some modern ships built in Soviet Union and Europe (like the Italian-built destroyer Tashkent[3] or partially completed German cruiser Lützow). During the war, many of the vessels on the slips in Leningrad and Nikolayev were destroyed (mainly by aircraft and mines), but the Soviet Navy also received captured Romanian destroyers and lend-lease small craft from the U.S., as well as an old RN battleship HMS Royal Sovereign named Arkhangelsk and US navy cruiser Milwaukee named Murmansk given in exchange for the Soviet part of the captured Italian navy.

In the Baltic Sea, after Tallinn's capture, surface ships were blockaded in Leningrad - Kronstadt by minefields, where they took part in anti-aircraft defense of the city and bombardment of German positions. One example of Soviet resourcefulness was the battleship Marat, an aging pre-WWI ship sunk at anchor in Kronstadt's harbor by German Stukas in 1941. For the rest of the war, the non-submerged part of the ship remained in use as a grounded battery. Submarines, although suffering heavy losses due to German-Finnish antisubmarine actions, played a major role in the war at sea by disrupting Axis navigation in the Baltic.

In the Black Sea, many ships were damaged by minefields and Axis aviation, but they helped defend naval bases and supply them under siege, as well as later evacuating them. Heavy naval guns and courageous sailors helped defend naval cities long after they were besieged by Axis armies.

In the Arctic, Soviet Northern Fleet destroyers (Novik-class, Type 7, Type 7U) and smaller craft participated in the anti-aircraft and anti-submarine defense of Allied convoys conducting lend-lease cargo shipping.

In the Pacific, the Soviet Union was not at war with Japan before 1945, so some destroyers were transferred to the Northern Fleet.

As post war spoils, the Soviets received several Italian warships and much German naval engineering and architectural documentation.

Soviet navy enlisted personnel stand at attention (1982).

Cold War

A Whiskey Twin Cylinder class guided missile submarine, an important platform for launching anti-shipping strikes.

In February 1946, the military branch assumed a new name of the Soviet Navy (Russian: Советский Военно-Морской Флот, Sovyetsky Voyenno-Morskoy Flot)[4] After the war, the Soviets concluded that they needed to be able to compete with the West at all costs. They embarked upon a program to match the West. The Soviet shipbuilding program kept yards busy constructing submarines based upon World War II German Kriegsmarine designs, and were launched with great frequency in the immediate post-war years. Afterwards, through a combination of indigenous research and technology obtained through espionage from Nazi Germany and the Western nations, the Soviets gradually improved their submarine designs, though they initially and typically lagged a generation behind NATO countries.

The Soviets quickly caught up with their Western counterparts. The Soviets were quick to equip their surface fleet with missiles of various sorts. In fact, it became a hallmark of Soviet design to place very large missiles onto relatively small, and fast, missile boats. By contrast, in the West, such a move would never have been considered tactically feasible. Nevertheless the Soviet Navy also possessed several very large guided missile cruisers with awesome firepower, such as those of the Kirov class and the Slava class cruisers. By the 1970s, Soviet submarine technology was in many ways ahead of Western technology, and several of their submarine types were considered superior to their American rivals.[5]

Carriers and aviation

Kiev, a helicopter carrier and the rest of her class constituted an important component of the Soviet anti-submarine warfare system.

Even though the Soviet Union's wartime naval Commander-in-Chief Admiral Kuznetsov actively promoted the building of aircraft carriers after the war, Party ideology branded carriers as "instruments of capitalist imperial aggression" and for this reason they were unacceptable for the USSR. However, the Soviet Navy had to confront western submarines and, therefore, there was a requirement to make provision for carrying anti-submarine helicopters aboard larger surface combatants.

In 1968 and 1969 the Soviet Moskva class helicopter carriers appeared, followed by the first of four aircraft carriers of the Kiev class in 1973. Both of these classes were capable of operating ASW helicopters and the Kiev class operated V/STOL aircraft (eg. the Yak-38 'Forger'), and were designed to operate for fleet defense primarily within range of land-based Soviet Naval Aviation aircraft.

In the 1970s the Soviets undertook Project OREL with the stated purpose of creating a carrier capable of carrying fixed wing fighter aircraft in defense of the deployed fleet. However, the project was canceled while still on the drawing board when strategic priorities shifted once more.

In the 1980s the Soviet Navy acquired its first true aircraft carrier, Tbilisi (subsequently renamed Admiral Kuznetsov).[6] The Kuznetsov carries Sukhoi Su-33 'Flanker-D', MiG-29, and Ka-27 fighter and helicopters aircraft. A distinctive feature of Soviet carriers has been their offensive missile armament (as well as a long-range AAW suite), reflecting a fleet defense operational concept rather than on distant deployment shore strike missions common to Western carrier operations. A second hull (pre-commissioning name Varyag) was under construction when the Soviet Union disintegrated. Construction stopped and it was sold incomplete to China by Ukraine.

Sailors of Soviet Baltic Fleet in the early 1970s.

Following the launch of the second Kuznetsov class hull, the Soviet Navy barely began the construction of an improved carrier design, Ulyanovsk which was to have been slightly larger than the Kuznetsov class and nuclear-powered. Construction was terminated and the portion laid down on the building ways was scrapped.

In part to fill the role of aircraft carriers, the Soviet Navy deployed large numbers of strategic bombers in a maritime role, as part of Aviatsiya Voenno-Morskogo Flota (AV-MF, or Naval Aviation). Strategic bombers such as the Tupolev Tu-16 'Badger' and Tu-22M 'Backfire' were deployed with high-speed anti-shipping missiles. The primary role of these aircraft was the interception of NATO supply convoys traveling the sea lines of communication between Europe and North America, and thus countering Operation REFORGER.

Submarines

Due to the USSR's geographic position, inherited from Imperial Russia, submarines were considered the capital ships of the Navy. It was submarines that could manage to penetrate various attempts at blockade, either in the constrained waters of the Baltic and Black Seas or in the remote reaches of the USSR's western Arctic. Surface ships clearly were much easier to spot and attack. As an interesting point, the USSR entered WW-II with more submarines than Germany but geography and the speed of the German attack precluded it from effectively using its more numerous fleet to advantage.

In some respects, including speed and reactor technology Soviet submarines achieved some unique successes but for most of the Soviet era lagged their western counterparts in overall capability. In addition to their relatively high speeds and deep operating depths they were difficult ASW targets to attempt to destroy because of their multiple compartments, large reserve buoyancy, and especially their double-hull design.[7]

Their primary shortcomings were insufficient noise damping (American boats were quieter) and sonar technology. It is in the area of acoustics as well as production methods the Soviets had sought the West's submarine-related technology. It is in acoustics that the long-active Walker spy ring may have made a major contribution to Soviet knowledge.[7]

The Soviets possessed numerous purpose-built guided missile submarines, such as the Oscar class, as well as many ballistic missile submarines and attack submarines. The Soviet navy's Typhoon class boats are the world's largest submarines. The Soviet attack submarine force was, like the rest of the navy, geared towards the interception of NATO convoys, but also targeted American aircraft carrier battle groups.

Over the years, Soviet submarines suffered a number of accidents, most notably on several nuclear boats. The most famous incidents include the Yankee class K-219, and the Mike Class Komsomolets, both lost to fire; and the far more menacing nuclear reactor leak on the Hotel class K-19 narrowly averted by her captain. Inadequate nuclear safety, poor damage control and quality control issues during construction (particularly on earlier submarines) were typical causes for accidents. On several occasions there were alleged collisions with American submarines. This however has not been confirmed officially by the United States Navy, which maintains a policy of secrecy regarding nuclear incidents.

Because of its view that "quantity had a quality of its own" viewpoint and the insistence of Fleet Admiral Gorshkov, the Soviet Navy continued to operate many first-generation missile submarines, built in the early 1960s, until the end of the Cold War in 1991.

Transition and the future

After the dissolution of the USSR and the end of the Cold War, the Soviet Navy, like other branches of Armed Forces, eventually lost some of its units to former Soviet Republics, and was left bereft of funding. The Black Sea Fleet, in particular, spent several years in limbo before an agreement was reached in 1997 ceding some of its ships to Ukraine.

Heads of the Soviet Naval Forces

Commanders of Naval Forces ("KoMorSi")
Commander-in-Chief's Assistant for Naval Affairs (since August 27, 1921)
Chiefs of Naval Forces of U.S.S.R. ("NaMorSi") (since January 1, 1924)
People's Commissars for U.S.S.R. Navy ("NarKom VMF") (since 1938)
Commanders-in-Chief of the Soviet Navy ("GlavKom VMF") (since 1943)

See also

References

  1. ↑ 1.0 1.1 Periods of Activities (1926–1941), Online (Accessed 5/24/2008), SOE CDB ME "Rubin", Russia, Saint-Petersburg
  2. ↑ Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1922-1946
  3. ↑ http://flot.sevastopol.info/ship/lider/tashkent.htm reference
  4. ↑ Красный Флот (Советский Военно-Морской Флот)1943-1955 гг
  5. ↑ J.E. Moore, 'The Modern Soviet Navy', in: Soviet War Power, ed. R. Bonds (Corgi 1982)
  6. ↑ "The Self-Designing High-Reliability Organization: Aircraft Carrier Flight Operations at Sea." Rochlin, G. I.; La Porte, T. R.; Roberts, K. H. Footnote 39. Naval War College Review. Autumn, 1987, Vol. LI, No. 3.
  7. ↑ 7.0 7.1 Norman Polmar, Guide to the Soviet Navy, Fourth Edition (1986), United States Naval Institute, Annapolis Maryland, ISBN 0-87021-240-0
  8. ↑ Military ranks were abolished in 1918—1935.
  9. ↑ It is a naval rank since 1935.
  10. ↑ Fleet Flag-officer 2nd Rank since January 1938, Admiral (June, 1940), Admiral of the Fleet (February, 1944), Rear Admiral (1948), Admiral of the Fleet (1953), Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union (March, 1955), Vice-Admiral (February, 1956), Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union (1988, posthumous).

Bibliography

External links