The extremely fast G5 torpedo boat
was ultimately derived from a series of designs by a team under the
leadership of the noted aircraft designer A. l. Tupolev. Nearly 300
were built, with 73 being lost during the war, and dozens remained
in commission after 1945.
The Soviet navy was small compared with other
Allied navies. It had three battleships and some 50 destroyers, as
well as a large submarine force of more than 200 boats. Coastal
craft were important, and the Soviet fleet had about 300 torpedo
boats. Generally speaking, however, Soviet naval forces did not
play a major role in the war.
SUBMARINES
Numerically, at the outbreak of World War II,
the Soviet Union had the world’s largest submarine fleet. But the
boats were poorly commanded and inadequately crewed, most of the
best officers having been purged by Joseph Stalin in 1937. The
Soviet submarine fleet was also poorly armed, the Soviet navy never
having developed a reliable torpedo. For this reason, the submarine
fleet was used almost exclusively for defensive purposes. It is
believed that the Soviet fleet lost one submarine for every enemy
ship sunk. K Class. This was the most important class of Soviet
submarine. It displaced 2,095 tons submerged and could cruise at 18
knots surfaced and nine knots underwater. Armament consisted of six
bow torpedo tubes and four stern torpedo tubes. These submarines
had good endurance but were never deployed far from home because
they were almost exclusively confined to defensive duty.
COASTAL CRAFT
The only truly distinctive vessels of the
Soviet navy in World War II were the coastal craft, of which the
most important and innovative was the G5 torpedo boat. Designed by
famed aircraft designer A. N. Tupolev, the G5s were built in a
quantity of nearly 300, of which 73 were lost in action. They
displaced 16 tons and were 62.66 feet in length, with a beam of
11.15 feet and a draft of 3.28 feet. Two gasoline engines developed
2,000 bhp for a very fast top speed of 48 knots. The boats were
armed with two 21-inch torpedoes and a pair of half-inch machine
guns. The complement was seven officers and men.
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