Morzh class submarine
Encyclopedia
The Morzh class submarines were built for the Black Sea Fleet
Black Sea Fleet
The Black Sea Fleet is a large operational-strategic sub-unit of the Russian Navy, operating in the Black Sea and the Mediterranean Sea since the late 18th century. It is based in various harbors of the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov....
of the Imperial Russian Navy
Imperial Russian Navy
The Imperial Russian Navy refers to the Tsarist fleets prior to the February Revolution.-First Romanovs:Under Tsar Mikhail Feodorovich, construction of the first three-masted ship, actually built within Russia, was completed in 1636. It was built in Balakhna by Danish shipbuilders from Holstein...
shortly before World War I
World War I
World War I , which was predominantly called the World War or the Great War from its occurrence until 1939, and the First World War or World War I thereafter, was a major war centred in Europe that began on 28 July 1914 and lasted until 11 November 1918...
.
Background
The class was constructed as part of an ambitious programme of naval construction devised by the Naval General Staff in 1909. This envisaged, among other things, the constructions of six submarines for the Black Sea Fleet. The procurement was heavily cut back and delayed; in 1910, the Russian State DumaState Duma
The State Duma , common abbreviation: Госду́ма ) in the Russian Federation is the lower house of the Federal Assembly of Russia , the upper house being the Federation Council of Russia. The Duma headquarters is located in central Moscow, a few steps from Manege Square. Its members are referred to...
agreed to a portion of the naval plan to reinforce the Black Sea Fleet, including the construction of the six submarines. Three Narval class submarines
Narval class submarine (Russia)
The Narval class were a group of submarines built for the Imperial Russian Navy. They were designed by the Electric Boat Company and ordered in the 1911 programme as the "Holland 31A" design. They had advanced features including watertight bulkheads, a crash diving tank and gravitationally filled...
s were ordered along with three of the new Morzh-class boats. The Narval class was a design developed by the Holland company for Russia.
Design
The design of the Morzh class was based on the AkulaRussian submarine Akula (1908)
Akula was a submarine built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The boat was designed by Ivan Bubnov and was an amalgam of the previous Minoga and the Kasatka class submarine designs. The design was presented to the Marine technical committee in late 1905. Initially the boat was to use petrol engines...
, a vessel that was considered to be the most successful of the Russian-designed submarines built to date. The design of the new class was carried out at the Baltic Shipyard
Baltic Shipyard
The Baltic Shipyard is one of the oldest shipyards in Russia. It is located in Saint Petersburg in the south-western part of the Vasilievsky Island. It is one of the three shipyards active in Saint Petersburg...
under Ivan Grigorevich Bubnov in 1910 and was approved on 30 May 1911, with construction starting at the Nikolayev shipyards on 25 June 1911. The principal objective of the designers was to deliver a high degree of maneuverability and stability. However, aspects of the design provoked controversy, in particular the lack of internal watertight compartments. This issue caused a heated dispute between Russia's submarine engineers and submarine officers; the engineers argued that adding bulkhead
Bulkhead
Bulkhead may refer to:* Bulkhead, a compartment of a building for preventing spread of fires, see Compartmentalization * Bulkhead , a retaining wall used as a form of coastal management, akin to a seawall, or as a structural device such as a bulkhead partition* Bulkhead , a wall within the hull of...
s would greatly improve the survivability of the vessels while the submariners argued that bulkheads put the commander of the ship at risk of losing control of his crew. In the end, financial constraints required the bulkheads to be omitted.
The Morzh submarines were well-armed for the time, having a deck gun, four internal torpedo tubes and eight Dzhevetskiy torpedo-launching collars. However, the vessels had numerous shortcomings. They suffered from having only a single hull, lacking bulkheads, having a slow diving time of 3½ minutes due to poor ballast tank venting, and a diving depth of only 25 fathoms (50 m / 150 feet). An additional problem was that twin 1,140-horsepower diesel engines to power the vessels had been ordered from Germany
Germany
Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...
, but were not delivered by the time the war broke out. They had to be replaced by severely underpowered engines from the Amur River gunboats Vikhr, Vyuga and Uragan, each of which delivered only 250 horsepower. This meant that the designed 16 knot surface speed could not be attained. The designed 12 knot underwater speed also could not be attained due to a poorly designed hull shape, which was more like that of a surface vessel than a submarine. Many of these failings were replicated in the more numerous Bars class submarine
Bars class submarine (1915)
The Bars class were a group of submarines built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. A total of 24 boats were built between 1914 and 1917-Design:...
s, built to a design derived from that of the Morzh.
History
The ships were launched in September-November 1913 and were transferred to the naval base at SevastopolSevastopol
Sevastopol is a city on rights of administrative division of Ukraine, located on the Black Sea coast of the Crimea peninsula. It has a population of 342,451 . Sevastopol is the second largest port in Ukraine, after the Port of Odessa....
between December 1914 - March 1915. The Nerpa, the largest vessel in the class, was the first to go into action in March 1915, followed by the Morzh and Tyulen later that same month. All three vessels operated principally off the Bosporus
Bosporus
The Bosphorus or Bosporus , also known as the Istanbul Strait , is a strait that forms part of the boundary between Europe and Asia. It is one of the Turkish Straits, along with the Dardanelles...
against German
Kaiserliche Marine
The Imperial German Navy was the German Navy created at the time of the formation of the German Empire. It existed between 1871 and 1919, growing out of the small Prussian Navy and Norddeutsche Bundesmarine, which primarily had the mission of coastal defense. Kaiser Wilhelm II greatly expanded...
and Ottoman Turkish
Ottoman Navy
The Ottoman Navy was established in the early 14th century. During its long existence it was involved in many conflicts; refer to list of Ottoman sieges and landings and list of Admirals in the Ottoman Empire for a brief chronology.- Pre-Ottoman:...
naval forces, focusing on the chokepoint of many Turkish freighter routes.
The three submarines had an eventful war in the Black Sea
Black Sea
The Black Sea is bounded by Europe, Anatolia and the Caucasus and is ultimately connected to the Atlantic Ocean via the Mediterranean and the Aegean seas and various straits. The Bosphorus strait connects it to the Sea of Marmara, and the strait of the Dardanelles connects that sea to the Aegean...
, sinking 16 merchant ships between them. The Morzh narrowly missed the Turkish flagship battlecruiser Yavuz
SMS Goeben
SMS Goeben was the second of two Moltke-class battlecruisers of the Imperial German Navy, launched in 1911 and named after the German Franco-Prussian War veteran General August Karl von Goeben...
in November 1915 but suffered damage in a Turkish air attack in May 1916. She was sunk with all hands in May 1917 on her 24th patrol, most likely as a result of striking a mine or coming under aerial attack. After 24 patrols the Nerpa went into refit in 1917 in Nikolayev but had to be laid up due to a shortage of essential parts and did not rejoin the war effort. The most successful of the three submarines was the Tyulen, which made a large number of successful attacks against enemy forces, including the capture of the armed merchantman Rodosto in October 1916.
The Tyulen and Nerpa survived the war but had very different fates. The Tyulen was captured by German troops at Sevastopol in May 1918 and transferred to British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
control in November 1918. It was passed on to White Russian
White movement
The White movement and its military arm the White Army - known as the White Guard or the Whites - was a loose confederation of Anti-Communist forces.The movement comprised one of the politico-military Russian forces who fought...
forces under the command of General Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel
Baron Pyotr Nikolayevich Wrangel or Vrangel was an officer in the Imperial Russian army and later commanding general of the anti-Bolshevik White Army in Southern Russia in the later stages of the Russian Civil War.-Life:Wrangel was born in Mukuliai, Kovno Governorate in the Russian Empire...
, who opposed the Bolshevik
Bolshevik
The Bolsheviks, originally also Bolshevists , derived from bol'shinstvo, "majority") were a faction of the Marxist Russian Social Democratic Labour Party which split apart from the Menshevik faction at the Second Party Congress in 1903....
s during the Russian Civil War
Russian Civil War
The Russian Civil War was a multi-party war that occurred within the former Russian Empire after the Russian provisional government collapsed to the Soviets, under the domination of the Bolshevik party. Soviet forces first assumed power in Petrograd The Russian Civil War (1917–1923) was a...
. Following a Bolshevik advance, the vessel fled to Bizerte
Bizerte
Bizerte or Benzert , is the capital city of Bizerte Governorate in Tunisia and the northernmost city in Africa. It has a population of 230,879 .-History:...
in French-ruled Tunisia
Tunisia
Tunisia , officially the Tunisian RepublicThe long name of Tunisia in other languages used in the country is: , is the northernmost country in Africa. It is a Maghreb country and is bordered by Algeria to the west, Libya to the southeast, and the Mediterranean Sea to the north and east. Its area...
in 1920, where it was interned. The ship was sold in 1924 and scrapped in 1930.
The Nerpa remained in the shipyard at Nikolayev until 3 June 1922, when it was recommissioned by the Soviet Navy
Soviet Navy
The Soviet Navy was the naval arm of the Soviet Armed Forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have played an instrumental role in a Warsaw Pact war with NATO, where it would have attempted to prevent naval convoys from bringing reinforcements across the Atlantic Ocean...
under the new name Politruk ("political instructor") and in 1923 it was given the designation of No. 11. The vessel was decommissioned on 3 December 1930 and was sold for scrap in February 1931.
Ships
| Ship | Laid down | Launched | Fate |
|---|---|---|---|
| Morzh (Морж - Walrus) | 25 June 1911 | 28 September 1913 | Sunk (by mines?) in the Black Sea, May 1917 |
| Nerpa (Нерпа - Baikal seal) | 25 June 1911 | 28 September 1913 | Recommissioned by the Soviet Navy in 1922 as the Politruk. Decommissioned in 1930 and scrapped in 1931. |
| Tyulen (Тюлень - Seal) | 25 June 1911 | 1 November 1913 | Captured by the Germans in 1918, transferred to the White Russians in 1919. Fled to Bizerte in 1920 with Wrangel's fleet Wrangel's fleet Wrangel's Fleet, the last remnant of the Black Sea Fleet of the Imperial Russian Navy, existed from 1920 until 1924. This squadron was a "White" unit during the Russian Civil War... and was interned there. Sold in 1924 and scrapped in 1930. |
Sources
- Budzbon, Przemysław; Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal. Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1906-1921. Conway, 1985. ISBN 0851772455
- Polmar, Norman; Noot, Jurrien. Submarines of the Russian and Soviet Navies, 1718-1990. Naval Institute Press, 1991. ISBN 0870215701
See also
- Bars class submarineBars class submarine (1915)The Bars class were a group of submarines built for the Imperial Russian Navy during World War I. A total of 24 boats were built between 1914 and 1917-Design:...