The Soviet Navy

[Aleksandr Chekov]

Now I know there is little use for knowledge on the Soviet Navy but I thought instead of just reading stuff for my own pleasure and fun then I'd just post it... Of course I'm sure I have some mistakes in here since knowledge on the Soviet Navy is very little mostly because the Soviet Navy during WW2 had a hard time recording and writing down any information about themselves and what they did and therefore a lot of sources about battles in WW2 is from German-Finnish Sources.

The Soviet Navy

The soviet navy was formed officially in 1917 with the first famous vessel called Avrora. Which is known for having changed sides and back when the capital was still in Leningrad (back then skt. Petersburg) where it shot a dud into the winter palace as a starting shot to the revolution against the tsar. A lot of other previous Imperial Russian Navy ships changed side because at that time a lot of the ships changed side mainly to the large ammount of workers in the navy which liked the ideas of Lenin. Some ships though joined the "white" which was mainly destroyed in the Revolution.

In 1918 the Germans made an ultimatum to the Soviets requiring them to scuttle some of their fleet mainly because of the Germans fear that they would actually be attacked. The Soviet navy was then named Raboche-Krest'yansky Krasny Flot or RKKF. The remaining Soviet fleet wasn't kept in good condittion in the period between ww1 and ww2 because the majority of the Soviet budget was used on the country because of the production having mainly stopped during the october revolution the soviet economy was in a bad condition and the soviet government decided to concentrate a lot on educating it's people.

In the 1930s they started to make plans about expanding the soviet navy and modernizing it yet the navy still received little training and formation drills yet during the outbreak of the war it was rumoured to be larger then the German navy. Yet it prooved not very useful considering they couldn't get past Denmark when it had been taken over by Germany which rendered the Baltic fleet almost useless and even more so when winter came and a lot of the harbours was blocked by ice.

The Black sea fleet was more lucky and was used for combat ever since the beginning of the war and during 1941 it helped during the siege of oddessa and evacuated aprox. 86.000 soldiers and 150.000 Civilians. It also helped defeat the first assault on Sevastapol and caused great harm on German transport to Romania. During the fighting they lost destroyer Frunze and a gunboat. in 1942 they had more problems mainly concentrating on the siege of sevastapol during the winter but suffering heavy losses and in semptember they ended up evacuating to harmours in the caucasus yet the sumbarines was still active in sinking German trade ships.

yet in 1943 because of poor maintenance the Soviet navy in the Black Sea was reduced to the Battlehip Sevastapol, four cruisers a destroyer leader as well as five modern destroyers and three old and maintained 29 submarines. In 1944 majority of the surface fleet was in a to poor state to use and most offensive work was done by smaller vessels.

During 1941 after the winter war the Soviet navy was the strongest of the navies with a massive fleet power and had a great advantage of naval bases in Finland and the baltic regions and the German could do little against it. Yet in June 1941 the soviets was taken by surprise and suffered heavy losses when they decided to evacuate from the baltic states and Finland to naval bases inside the Soviet Union. This was because of the German kriegsmarine had been deploying sea mines many hours before the battle started the finnish also tried to assit but with little effect because of tough Soviet ressistance and constant machine problems from the finnish.

Yet the soviet navy withdrew to Tallinn which was surrounded just a few months later which forced the soviets to evacuate their men by sea. What they didn't know was that the Germans and Finnish had made large mine fields in the sea lanes outside Tallinn and in and around the Juminda Peninensular and during the evacuation from Tallinn out of a 160 ships 65 was lost and if the 28.000 soldiers and people being evacuated 16.000 was lost. The Baltic fleet later that year it transported around 23.000 soldiers to Leningrad, as well as a lot of sailors fought in Leningrad. During majority of '41 to '43 the

Soviet navy was mainly helping in the defence of Leningrad and doing small scale attack on trade ships and small navy bases though with mixed success. Majority of the soviet navy effort was made with submarines towards trade ships and submarines though they caused the German-Finnish trade ship to go by slower safe routes instead of fast open routes. Both the Black Sea Navy and the Baltic Sea Navy didn't start moving before 1944 where the German powers were already on retreat. Despite the majority of the Baltic Navy remained in leningrad because of the poor conditions of the Soviet Navy though the Soviet Submarines took large actions, and in 1944 when the Soviets and the Finnish people had made 'peace' the Soviet submarines could finally and unchallenged move through the German-Finnish Sea mine fields and during the German retreat from the Baltic the soviet navy helped retake the baltic islands. In 1945 the Soviet Submarines took out German ships that was evacuating its soldiers from Poland.


Baltic Sea Fleet (1941):

• 2 Battleships -
  • 2 Gangut Class Battleships
• 2 Cruisers -
  • 2 Kirov Class Cruisers
• 2 Destroyer Leaders -
  • 2 Leningrad Class Destroyers
• 17 Modern Destroyers -
  • 3 Gnevny Class,
  • 13 Soobrazitel'nyi class,
  • 1 Opytny Class,
• 6 Old Destroyers -
  • 6 Novik Class
• 78 Submarines -
  • 6(4) Leninets class,
  • 3(1) Dekabrist' Class,
  • 24 Shchuka class,
  • 3 Pravda Class,
  • 13 Srednyaya Class,
  • 2 Kalev Class,
  • 2 onis Class,
  • 3 Pravda Class,
  • 22 Maluytka Class
• 39 Mine Vessels
  
• 60 Torpedo Boats - 60 G-5

Black Sea Fleet (1941):

• 1 Battleship -
  • 1 Gangut Class
• 5 cruisers -
  • 2 Kirov Class,
  • 1 Admiral Nakhimov-Class light cruiser,
  • 2 Svetlana Class
• 3 Destroyer Leaders -
  • 2 Leningrad Class,
  • 1 Tashkent Class
• 11 Modern Destroyers -
  • 6 Gnevny Class,
  • 5 Soobrazitel'nyi class
• 4 Old Destroyers -
  • 4 Novik Class
• 67 Submarines -
  • 6 Leninets class,
  • 3 Dekabrist' Class,
  • 16 Shchuka class,
  • 32 Maluytka Class,
  • 5 American Holland Class,
  • 5 Srednyaya Class
• 18 Mine Vessels
  
• 92 Torpedo Boats -
  • 92 G-5

Pacific Fleet:

• 96 Submarines -
  • 13 Leninets class,
  • 39(38) Shchuka class,
  • 12 Leninets Class,
  • 30 Maluytka Class,
  • 2 Srednyaya Class
• 135 Motor Torpedo Boats -
  • 135 G-5 Class
• 12 Modern Destroyers -
  • 12 Gnevny Class
• 2 Old Destroyer -
  • 2 Orfey Class Destroyer

Northern Fleet:

• 58 Submarines -
  • 14(6) Shchuka class,
  • 21 Srednyaya Class,
  • 3 Leninets Class,
  • 6 Katyusha Class,
  • 1 Dekabrist' Class,
  • 4 V(?) Class,
  • 9 Maluytka Class
• 6 Modern Destroyers -
  • 6 Gnevny Class
• 3 Old Destroyers -
  • 3 Orfey Class

Additional vessels:

• 1 battleship/cruiser: Revenge class (HMS Royal Sovereign (1944) Renamed Arkhangelsk returned to british service '49)
  
• 1 Light Cruiser: Omaha Class (USS Milwaukee (1944) renamed Murmansk)
  
• 1 Heavy Cruiser : Admiral Hipper Class (named Petropavlovsk 1941-1942 Renamed Tallinn 1942-1960)
  
• 4 Submarines : 4 Royal Navy S-Class (HMS Sunfish, HMS Unbroken, HMS Ursula and HMS Unison (1944) renamed (?))

And in production were another 219 vessels including:

• 3 battleships
  
• 9 Cruisers:
  • 2 heavy,
  • 7 light cruisers
• 45 destroyers
  
• 91 submarines.

Summary -Soviet navy 1941 some modern and some old *

• 3 battleships,
• 7 cruisers -
  • 4 Kirov Class,
  • 1 Admiral Nakhimov Class,
  • 2 Svetlana Class
• 4 Destroyer Leaders -
  • 4 Leningrad Class
• 46 Modern Destroyers -
  • 27 Gnevny Class,
  • 18 Soobrazitel'nyi Class,
  • 1 Opytny Class
  • 15 old Destroyers -
  • 10 Novik Class,
  • 5 Orfrey Class
• 299 submarines,
  
  • 6 Dekabrist' class,
  • 28 Leninets class,
  • 96 Shchuka class
  • 3 Pravda class,
  • 41 Srednyaya Class,
  • 93 Malyutka Class,
  • 2 Kalev Class,
  • 2 Onis Class,
  • 3 Pravda,
  • 5 American Holland Class
• 128 torpedo boats,
  
• 287 Motor mine Vessels,
  • 287 G-5 Class
  
  

* This is only verified ships not counting river ships.
(#) Are numbers which is different throughout material.