Abstract
Russia had more than its fair share of submarine innovators in the nineteenth century, and in 1903 the first plausible design entered service. This was the 135-ton1 Del’fin, in whose design Bubnov, Krylov and the torpedo specialist M.N. Beklemishev2 participated. This was designed in 1900 and the Nevskii Works was to have built it. But the Naval Technical Committee (MTK), at Bubnov’s prompting, decided to give the contract to the Baltic Works, where Bubnov had been employed as a designer up to 1899, and where he was appointed chief submarine designer in 1901.
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Notes and References
For these early submarines the submerged displacement is given.
Beklemishev was a submarine rather than a Bubnov adherent. He had visited Holland’s submarine works in the USA in 1901, and at different times also visited Britain, Italy and Germany.
Livshits (1965), 360, and Sudostroeniye, 8, 1990, 66–71.
Livshits (1965), 358.
These ‘pre-U-boats’ are described in N.N. Afonin, ‘Podvodnyie lodki tipa “Karp”’, Sudostroeniye, 7, 1990, 78–82.
Livshits (1965), 158–9.
Minutes of the meeting of 5 April 1911, in Livshits (1965), 165–6.
Grigorovich, VIET, 1, 1990, 108–9.
Livshits (1965), 159.
Submarine tactics were based on three modes: surface, submerged and ‘positional’. The latter meant half-submerged with main tanks filled, with just the conning tower above the surface. From this position a rapid total submergence could be obtained by opening the valves of the deck-tanks.
Livshits (1965), 357.
Trusov (1963), 203. The implication is that domestic mice were used, no doubt because they were cheap. At a subsequent period, when it was decided to use animals to test the effect inside a submarine of under-waterexplosions, the researchers used not monkeys, but a goat.
E.P. Ignatiev, ‘Podvodnyie lodki “Minoga” i “Akula”’, Sudostroeniye, 10, 1990, 51–4, and 11, 1990, 63–6.
Stvolinskii (1984), 41–7.
Sudostroeniye, 2, 1991, 72.
E.P. Ignatiev, ‘Podvodnyie lodki tipa “Narval”’, Sudostroeniye, 4, 1991, 60–3.
V.G. Andrienko, ‘Malye podvodnyie lodki Khollanda tipa “27-V”’, Sudostroeniye, 1, 1991, 74–7.
V. G. Andrienko, ‘Podvodnaya lodka “Svyatoi Georgii”’, Sudostroeniye, 8, 1991, 53–6.
V.Yu. Gribovskii, ‘Podvodnyie lodki tipa “Bars”’, in Sudostroeniye, 4, 1991, 63–70.
See Livshits (1965), 314–39, for the evidence presented to this commission.
Bubnov remained professor at the naval academy and for some time continued to direct the navy’s experimental tank. In 1914–16 he was also consultant for the Baltic Works. After the March 1917 revolution he left Noblessner. Although he had designed submarines for the latter in 1915–16, he was not pleased when Noblessner decided in 1914 to build Holland types.
Trusov (1963), 230.
Livshits (1965), 244.
The early months of the war showed submarine commanders the need for guns. Both existing and future submarines were accordingly provided with 37mm, 47mm, 57mm or Japanese 76mm guns.
Trusov (1963), 279–80. According to an unsigned article,’ strazh morskikh rubezhei’, in Tekhnika i vooruzheniye, 1966, 6, 12–17, the invention was by Lt. N. Gudim in 1915.
This class of submarine is described in V.Yu. Gribovskii, ‘Podvodnyie lodki tipa “Lebed”’, Sudostroeniye, 7, 47–51.
Details of the AG series are in L.A. Kuznetsov, ‘Podvodnyie lodki tipa “AG”,’ Sudostroeniye, 7, 1991, 52–7.
Sudostroeniye, 7, 1991, 52.
Sudostroeniye, 11, 1991, 53–4.
Details of these three classes are in V.Yu. Gribovskii, ‘Zavershaya seriyu podvodnykh lodok’ Sudostroeniye, 1991, 11, 52–5. In fairness to Bubnov, it might be added that he was not alone in his objection to heavy bulkheads. When the British L-55 was salvaged in Soviet times, it was discovered that her bulkheads were designed only to withstand surface water-pressure. British submarines normally operated in deep water, where a sinking submarine would be crushed. In shallow Baltic waters a sunken submarine could settle on the bottom intact, so strong watertight compartmentation had some value.
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© 1994 J.N. Westwood
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Westwood, J.N. (1994). Submarine Construction. In: Russian Naval Construction, 1905–45. Studies in Soviet History and Society. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12458-9_4
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-349-12458-9_4
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