Battleship "The Soviet Union" - the main strike force of the fleet

At the end of the 1930s, a program for the construction of the "Great Naval and Oceanic Fleet" was created, and the creation of linear Soviet ships intended for combat operations in the course of an enemy attack began. One of the very first models of these powerful ships was called the "Soviet Union".

Then the battleship "Soviet Union" was regarded as the main force of the Navy. Thanks to industrialization and technological progress, by the beginning of 1937 the preparation of Project No. 23, a battleship for the Pacific Fleet, had been completed. However, further development and planned laying of the first ships in Leningrad at that time did not take place.

The period of construction of such a powerful machine as the battleship "Soviet Union" coincided with the hard years of repression. Almost the entire design team responsible for the project was arrested: the group headed by B. Chilikin, the head of the design bureau V. Brzezinski, the project manager V. Rimsky-Korsakov, the developer of the ship power plants A. Speransky. They were replaced by other designers.

The final project "Battleship" Soviet Union "" instead of the planned date on October 15, 1937 was approved only in the summer of 1939. Under the plan, the cost of the first four ships at that time cost 1.2 billion rubles.

When choosing weapons for battleships such as the "Soviet Union" were considered different options. Initially, it was planned that the military ships of Project No. 23 would be the largest and most powerful in the world. The project provided for a full displacement of the ship to 65 thousand tons, the longest - 741 meters with a width of 36.4 meters, a draft of 10 meters. The presence of a powerful artillery armament consisting of 9 guns caliber 406 mm, 12 - caliber 152 mm, 8 - caliber 100 mm. The small-caliber antiaircraft artillery was represented by artillery automatic guns (antiaircraft guns) caliber 37 mm (40 pcs.) And machine guns caliber 12.7 mm, as well as catapults and seaplanes KOR-1.

A special place was given to the armor of the ship. Armored protection was a complex construction of armor plates of different thicknesses. Attention was paid to the quality of their connection. Various variants were offered: in checkerboard order, on rivets in 3 rows, using welding, on dowels.

The power plant consisted of six boilers with powerful capacity, each with 173 t / h steam. The electric power system consists of four turbogenerators and four diesel generators with a total capacity of 7800 kW.

According to the original plan, due to high technical characteristics, and well thought out anti-mine protection and armor, Project No. 23 battleships had to surpass all other battleships of the Second World War. From the moment of the laying of the work on their construction, intensive experiments were conducted, experiments and tests were conducted.

The beginning of the war was the end for the further development of the project "Battleship" the Soviet Union. " In the war years, the ships were partially dismantled, and upon its completion, further improvements were deemed inexpedient. All work was suspended according to the order of the State Defense Committee. All the ships at that time were dismantled.