Malyutka submarine Black Sea m 111 crew. Submarines of the "M" type ("baby"). "Little ones" come into operation

On February 22, 1932, the Council of Labor and Defense (STO) of the USSR issued a decree on the construction of 30 small submarines, with the first six due for delivery by July 1, and the rest by December 1, 1932. The boats were intended for the hastily formed Naval Forces of the Far East, and had to be transported, practically assembled, by rail without disturbing oncoming traffic, fitting into the existing dimensions. On March 10, 1932, the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR, based on a report by the head of the Directorate of Naval Forces (UVMS) of the Red Army V.M. Orlov, approved the project of the Malyutka submarine (VI series), developed under the leadership of engineer A.N. Asafov, with a displacement of 154 tons, with a speed of 13 knots on the surface and 7 knots underwater, armed with two 533 mm torpedo tubes without spare torpedoes and a 37 mm anti-aircraft gun.

"Little ones" come into operation

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"Little ones" come into operation

Construction of the first submarines of the XII series began at the Leningrad Sudomekh plant (since January 1, 1937, plant No. 196 of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry). The construction was carried out using the sectional method, that is, a durable hull was formed from separate sections. At the same time, no restructuring of production was required - the shipyard had all the necessary production capacities and a staff of highly qualified specialists. Delays arose mainly due to untimely deliveries of components and parts by contractors. The work was led by experienced builders I.P. Leonov, E.P. Korsak, A.A. Ponomarev, A.M. Sedin, A.V. Ugryumov and others. Design engineer V.I. Yakovlev was appointed as the responsible representative of TsKB-18.

Although the lead boat of the new series was officially considered the S.88 (M-87), the first to be laid down was the S.89 (M-88) - June 17, 1936, then, June 27, 1936 - the S.90 (M-89) and only September 10, 1936 - P.88. In the summer of the following year, the M-87 and M-88 were launched, and in the fall their sea trials began, which, in general, confirmed the specification elements. The identified shortcomings included: increased noise of the trim pump D-4, vibration of the periscope at full speed in a submerged position, in some cases - a long time for blowing out the tank of a quick dive (40 s instead of 10-15), knocking of the stern cam clutch and sparking of the muffler. We had to put up with such a drawback as strong burying of the bow during rough seas. The selection committee (chaired by captain 1st rank M.V. Loshmanov) noted that the systems and mechanisms on boats of the XII series are simple and reliable and can be mastered in the shortest possible time. On December 25, 1937, the lead submarines of the XII series - M-87 and M-88 - entered service.

Soon after this, on January 28, 1938, the commander of the 3rd submarine brigade (BPL) of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, captain 1st rank A.A. Pyshnov, sent a report to the Military Council of the fleet, in which he indicated that with this design of the wheelhouse fencing, the control of a submarine of the XII series in on the surface when seas exceed 4 points it becomes impossible due to heavy flooding. On February 17, at a meeting at TsKB-18 chaired by B.M. Malinin, a new fencing option was considered. The changes were as follows: the helmsman's platform together with the bulwark was raised by 1.2 m, and the aft part of the bridge was fenced with stationary handrails. Preliminary tests in the experimental pool carried out at the Central Research Institute-45 (currently the Central Research Institute named after Academician A.N. Krylov) by engineer Ya.E. Evgrafov showed that the new form of deckhouse fencing increases the resistance in the submerged position by only 2-3% , reducing stability by 0.5 cm. On April 20, 1938, the head of the 2nd Main Directorate of the People's Commissariat of Defense Industry (NKOP) A.M. Redkin approved the minutes of the meeting at TsKB-18. Factory No. 196 carried out modifications to the deckhouse fencing on the first five boats according to the additional order of the Navy's Criminal Code, on the rest - before the boats were presented for testing. Only on the experimental submarine S.92 the wheelhouse fencing remained unchanged.

Considering the high quality of the assembly, the plant management considered it unnecessary to test durable housings in the docking chamber. In order to test the strength of all-welded structures, on October 16, in the area of ​​the Gogland Reach, the M-91 submarine was lowered on the guineas of the Kommuna rescue vessel to a depth of 30 m. There were 8 crew members and factory specialists on board the boat. On the night of October 16-17, the descent was repeated, this time without people, to a depth of 70 m. The boat successfully passed the tests, and from that time the plant began hydraulic tests by pouring water into the compartments. It should be noted that during the war, boats of the XII series more than once demonstrated the strength of their hulls. So, for example, in 1942, M-172, due to a bilge error, “fell” to a depth of 90 m, but safely floated to the surface.

After signing the acceptance certificates, the boats were enrolled in the 26th Submarine Division (DPL) of the 3rd BPL of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet (commander-captain-lieutenant E.G. Yunakov) and were based at the port of Oranienbaum (Lomonosov). On October 15, 1938, a tragedy occurred - the M-90 (commander-captain-lieutenant Klimov), leaving the harbor, collided on the surface with the messenger ship LK-1. In the second compartment, flooded through a hole, 4 crew members were killed. The boat trimmed to the bow and buried its stem in the ground. The next day, the rescue ship Kommuna picked up the M-90 and delivered it to plant No. 196. Emergency repairs continued from October 25, 1938 to May 15, 1939.

In the summer of 1939, the leadership of the NK Navy decided to strengthen the submarine forces in the North. The M-87, M-88, M-89, M-91, M-92 and M-93, which had entered into service by this time, made the transition along the White Sea-Baltic Canal named after. I.V. Stalin and on June 21, 1939 formed the 4th division of the Northern Fleet BPL. As part of the 26th submarine submarine of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, only the M-90 remained (commander - Senior Lieutenant P.A. Sidorenko), which had the opportunity to take part in an interesting experiment.

During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939-1940. Red Banner Baltic Fleet submarines had to operate in freezing conditions. It was then that they remembered the “device for observation from a submarine from under the ice,” proposed even before the war by Senior Lieutenant A.V. Lepeshkin. On February 17, 1940, the Main Military Council of the Navy, having heard the report of the inventor, approved the design of the device and ordered the creation of a commission chaired by the commander of the 3rd UPL of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet, Captain 2nd Rank N.I. Vinogradov, to test it on the M-90 submarine. Re-equipment work was carried out at plant No. 196 under the leadership of the commander of the warhead-5 M-90 N.I. Kalushenkov. A so-called “water drill” was mounted on the periscope stand; two trusses with spikes in the upper part were installed on the deck of the superstructure to protect the boat from hitting the ice when surfacing. During tests in the spring of 1940, the “water drill,” which was a Fort Schneider winged engine turned upside down, created a stream of water that easily eroded a hole in the ice large enough for the periscope to pass through. The Main Military Council of the Navy, at a meeting on May 15, 1940, recognized, on the basis of the commission’s report, the device as successful, proposing to eliminate certain shortcomings. In particular, it was proposed to make the supports collapse to reduce the resistance to the movement of the boat in a submerged position. Unfortunately, the experience was not further developed, apparently due to the lack of navigation instruments for ice navigation.

On December 5, 1940, acceptance certificates were signed for M-102 and M-103 - the last of the 14 boats of the XII series built by plant No. 196. On average, the construction period ranged from a year to a year and a half, which, in general, corresponded to the level of the Soviet pre-war underwater shipbuilding.

In the summer of 1937, construction of submarines of the XII series began in Gorky at plant No. 112 NKOP (Krasnoe Sormovo). The production cycle was supervised by the heads of the hull and installation sections P.P. Markushev and P.N. Svetlov, N.M. Bekov, V.A. Kolotilshchikov and N.A. Tretyakov were appointed builders. Due to the lack of slipway space, the “babies” were built in series of 3 units, the first of which (M-57, M-96 and M-97) was laid down on July 26, 1937. Construction was carried out, as in Leningrad, in a sectional way, but , due to the insufficient span of the assembly shop, strong hulls and deckhouses had to be tested separately in the docking chamber and connected before launching. Boats intended for the Red Banner Baltic Fleet were first launched into the water and then installed in towed floating docks. At the beginning of October 1938 The “Baltic” boats M-96 and M-97, for the first time in the plant’s practice, were installed, according to the design of engineer A.P. Ovchinnikov, in one dock, but for a number of reasons their shipment did not take place and the submarines remained to winter in the backwater. The following year, the dock left for its intended purpose, and the boats M-57, M-58, M-59 and M-60 were loaded onto railway transporters and sent to Nikolaev. M-57, initially enrolled in the Black Sea Fleet, was then re-loaded onto a transporter and sent to the Far East, where, renamed M-49 on October 27, 1939, it became part of the Pacific Fleet.

Construction of XII series submarines

Construction number	Board number	Dates
		bookmarks	launching	signing the acceptance certificate	enlistment in the fleet
Sudomech Plant (No. 196 NKOP)
P.88	M-87, from 16.06 1939 - M-171	10.09.1936	10.07.1937	11.12.1937	12/25/1937 - KBF
					06/21/1939 - SF
					07/01/1945 - BF
P.89	M-88, from 16.06 1939 - M-172	17.06.1936	23.07.1937	11.12.1937	12/25/1937 - KBF
					06/21/1939 - SF
P.90	M-89, from 16.06 1939 -M-173	27.06.1936	09.10.1937	22.06.1938	06.22.1938 -KBF
					06/21/1939 - SF
P.91	M-90	27.06.1936	28.11.1937	21.06.1938	06.25.1938 - KBF
S-9?.	R-1, from 1947 - M-92	05 09 1936	04.08.1938	-	experimental submarine
P.105	M-91, from 16 06 1939 -M-174	29.05.1937	12.10 1937	24.10.1938	06/21/1938 - KBF
					06/21/1939 -SF
P. 106	M-92, from 16.06 1939 -M-175	29.05.1937	12.10.1937	29.09.1938	06.21.1938 - KBF21.06.1939 - SF
P. 107	M-93.c 16.06 1939 - M-176	29.05.1937	12.10.1937	11.10.1938	06/21/1938 - KBF
					06/21/1939 - SF
P.118	M-94	25.12.1938	11.09.1939	20.11.1939	12/12/1939 - KBF
P.119	M-95	25.12.1938	11.09.1939	20.11.1939	12/12/1939 - KBF
P. 120	M-98	22.06.1939	15.04.1940	1007 1940	08/01/1940 - KBF
P.121	M-99	22.061939	15.04.1940	03.07.1940	07/28/1940 - KBF
P. 136	M-102	15.05.1940	12.10.1940	05.12.1940	12/29/1940 - KBF
P. 137	M-103	31.05.1940	12.10.1940	05.12.1940	12/29/1940 - KBF
Plant "Krasnoe Sormovo" (No. 112 NKOP)
P.247	M-96	26.07 1937	20.09.1938	10.10.1939	12/12/1939 - KBF
P. 248	M-57, from 10/27/1939 -M-49	26.07.1937	25.01.1939	27.07.1939	08/03/1939 - Black Sea Fleet
					11/15/1939 - Pacific Fleet
P.249	M-97	26 07 1937	20.09 1938	10.10.1939	11/12/1939 - KBF
S-250	M-59	25.10.1937	13.06 1939	03.06.1940	06/19/1940 - Black Sea Fleet
S-251	M-58	25.10.1937	28.04.1939	20.09.1939	10/10/1939 - Black Sea Fleet
P.252	M-60	25.10 1937	28.08 1939	31.05.1940	06/19/1940 - Black Sea Fleet
P.253	M-62	20.01.1938	05.10.1939	31.07.1940	08/31/1940 - Black Sea Fleet
P.254	M-63, from 08/31-1940 -M-48	20.01.1938	05.10.1939	31.07.1940	08/31/1940 - Pacific Fleet
P. 255	M-30	20.01.1938	05.10.1939	31.07.1940	08/31/1940 - Pacific Fleet
					07/08/1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P.258	M-31	31.08? 938	20.02.1940	31.10.1940	07.11.1940 - Black Sea Fleet
P. 259	M-32	31.08.1938	20.02.1940	31.10.1940	07.11.1940 - Black Sea Fleet
					01/13/1943 - KVF
					12/30/1943 - Black Sea Fleet

Construction of XII series submarines (continued)

Construction number	Board number	Dates
		bookmarks	launching	signing the acceptance certificate	enlistment in the fleet
P. 260	M-33	31.08.1938	23.06.1940	08.12.1940	01/19/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P. 268	M-34	22.02.1939	30.06.1940	31.12.1940	01/11/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.269	M-35	22.02.1939	20.08.1940	31.01.1941	02/24/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.270	M-36	22.02.1939	28.08.1940	20.02.1941	04/29/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
					01/13/1943 - KVF
					10/16/1943 - Black Sea Fleet
P.275	M-111	25.10.1939	31.12.1940	03.07.1941	07/05/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.276	M-112	25.10.1939	31.12.1940	30.06.1941	07/05/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.277	M-113	25.10.1939	31.12.1940	02.07.1941	07/05/1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.287	M-117	20.01.1940	26.06.1941	10/30/1941 (according to other sources 10/28/1941)	08.11.1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.288	M-118	20.01.1940	30.06.1941	30.10.1941	08.11.1941 - Black Sea Fleet
P.289	M-120	20.01.1941	29.06.1941	28.10.1941	08.11.1941 - Black Sea Fleet
					10/16/1943 - KVF
					10/16/1943 - Black Sea Fleet
P.280	M-114	27.11.1939	07.05.1941	25.10.1941	11/12/1941 - Pacific Fleet
					07/08/1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P.281	M-115	25.11.1939	07.05.1941	20.09.1941	10/01/1941 - Pacific Fleet
					07/08/1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P.282	M-116	27.11.1939	07.05.1941	15.10.1941	07.11.1941 - Pacific Fleet
					07/08/1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P.290	M-121	28.05.1940	10.08.1941	10.04.1942	04/10/1942 - KVF
					06/17/1942 - Northern Fleet
P.291	M-122	28.05.1940	01.08.1941	31.10.1942	11/25/1942 (according to other sources 10/31/1942) - Northern Fleet
P. 292	M-119	28.05.1940	20.07.1941	22.10.1942	11/16/1942- SF
					06/08/1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P.301	M-104	29.10.1940	09/24/1942 (according to other sources - 10/29/1942)	10.02.1943	02/24/1943 - Northern Fleet
					06.06.1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P. 302	M-105	05.11.1940	01.10.1942	20.02.1943	03/17/1943 - Northern Fleet
					06/08/1944 - Black Sea Fleet
S.ZOZ	M-106	29.10.1940	08.10.19421	15.03.1943	04/28/1943 - Northern Fleet
P.304	M-107	30.10.1940	06.12.1942	06/26/1943 (according to other sources - 06/24/1943)	08/10/1943 - Northern Fleet
					06.06.1944 - Black Sea Fleet
P. 305	M-108	30.10.1943	13.01.1943	20.07.1943	08/24/1943 - Northern Fleet

The M-57 and M-58 were accepted by the fleet quite quickly, but the delivery of the remaining submarines was delayed due to the lack of the Krasnoye Sormovo plant’s own delivery base in Sevastopol, which is why the boats had to be transferred to Nikolaev to eliminate defects. This led to premature wear of the material part, and a number of mechanisms requiring replacement had to be delivered from Gorky. Ultimately, the M-60 took 9 months, and the M-59 took a whole year.

As a result, on April 9, 1941, the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Council of People's Commissars issued a decree according to which 1 month was allotted for acceptance tests of small submarines. Violation of the deadline in the direction of increase was regarded as sabotage.

The deadline for the transfer of M-30, M-62 and M-63 to Kronstadt coincided with the beginning of the Soviet-Finnish War and the boats remained to winter at plant No. 196. With the opening of navigation in 1940, their mooring tests were completed. After signing the acceptance certificates, the “babies” were loaded into the harbor of the Krasny Putilovets plant onto railway transporters and sent: M-30 and M-63 to the Far East, and M-62 to the Black Sea. The boats were accompanied by their builders: N.A. Tretyakov (M-30 and M-63) and V.A. Kolotilytsikov (M-62).

Having accumulated sufficient experience and mastered the production of torpedo tubes, the plant was able to reach the level of building 10-11 submarines per year in the last pre-war year. During 1940 – 1941 The Black Sea Fleet included M-31, M-32, M-33, M-34, M-35 and M-36, which became the last boats of the XII series of pre-war construction. By the beginning of the Great Patriotic War, the fleet received 28 submarines from industry, excluding the experimental R-1, 9 submarines were in the completion stage in the fleets, 8 submarines of the XII series were being built in Gorky.

If during the tests of the first boats built by plant No. 196 of the XII series, their design was considered successful, then later representatives of the Navy changed their opinion to the exact opposite, which caused a protest from the People's Commissar of the shipbuilding industry I.V. Tevosyan. On March 15, 1940, the Chairman of the Permanent Commission for the Acceptance of Ships and Vessels in Leningrad, Captain 1st Rank M.M. Dolinin, in his letter to the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, noted that, despite the increase in displacement, the boats had the same armament and a single-shaft power plant, like their predecessors. According to M.M. Dolinin, the tactical and technical elements of small submarines could be significantly improved by increasing their displacement by 30-40 tons.

The opinion of the commission chairman reflected the point of view of the Navy leadership, since back on June 23, 1939, the State Defense Committee (GKO) approved the preliminary design No. 96 of a small submarine, developed at TsKB-18 under the leadership of engineer F.F. Polushkin. Taking the XII series project as a basis, the designer proposed placing the main ballast tanks in side boules, dismantled during transportation. This solution made it possible to install a two-shaft power plant on the boat and place four torpedo tubes in the bow. On March 31, 1940, the lead boat S. 122 (from September 25 - M-200) of the XV series was laid down at plant No. 196. The laying of new boats of the XII series was not envisaged; only submarines that were being completed were subject to commissioning.

On June 22, 1941, 8 submarines of the XII series were under construction at plant No. 112, 3 of them (M-119, M-121, M-122) were ready for launching, and the rest were at the completion site with installed main mechanisms. The war made its own adjustments: by decree of the State Defense Committee, from July 1, 1941, the plant was transferred to the production of T-34 tanks. The next decree of the State Defense Committee dated July 4, 1941 ordered submarines with a high degree of readiness to be sent for completion to Baku, and the rest to be mothballed. At the end of October 1941, the M-121, hastily launched, went under its own power to Astrakhan, the M-119 wintered in Kamyshin due to freezing, and the M-120 returned to the backwaters of the plant.

Since by the autumn of 1941 the Leningrad factories were under blockade, and the Nikolaev ones were captured by the enemy, the director of factory No. 112, according to the decision of the State Defense Committee, signed on January 9, 1942 an order on the organization of a shipbuilding department, which was headed by an experienced shipbuilding engineer M.I. Lerner. Once again it was necessary to form a production base and return specialist shipbuilders from the tank assembly shops. Fortunately, the plant had a large reserve of mechanisms and materials, which was important in the context of the loss of connections with contractors. Work began with the replacement of a diesel engine with the M-119, which failed due to the fault of personnel during wintering. In April, the completion of the M-121 was completed, which in May left along the river route Volga - Sheksna - Sukhona - Northern Dvina to Molotovsk (now Severodvinsk) for sea trials in the White Sea. Following her, the M-122, completed in Baku, set off under its own power. Almost simultaneously, a repaired M-119 was delivered by rail to Molotovsk. On July 17, 1942, the State Defense Committee decided to transfer the M-119, M-121 and M-122 to the Northern Fleet. M-121 safely crossed into the Kola Bay, while the voyage of M-119 and M-122 took place in extremely difficult storm conditions. The accompanying minesweeper T-105 was washed ashore on Danilov Island, but the “babies”, having passed all the tests, arrived in the village of Rosta near Murmansk, where the delivery base of plant No. 112, headed by engineer A.M. Lepekhov, was located. In the fall of 1942, M-104, M-105, M-106 were delivered to Molotovsk by rail, and in December-January, M-107 and M-108 were delivered in the same way. These five boats, like the previous ones, were transferred to the Northern Fleet. Their completion at plant No. 402 (currently PA "Northern Machine-Building Enterprise") and testing continued until the end of the summer of 1943. On August 24, 1943, the acceptance certificate for the submarine M-108 was signed - the last of the XII series, which was included in the Navy.

Submarine XII series. Section of 40 sp. (see aft): 1 - box-shaped keel; 2 – onboard tanks; 3 – periscope shaft; 4 – periscope seal; 5 - periscope; 6 – periscope winch As is known, during the war years it was widely practiced to collect funds from the population to finance the production of weapons. The leading role in this campaign belonged to the Komsomol. Therefore, the last “babies”, with the exception of M-108, in addition to the side numbers, were given the following names by order of the People's Commissar of the Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov: M-104 - “Yaroslavsky Komsomolets”, M-105 - “Chelyabinsk Komsomolets”, M-106- "Leninsky Komsomol" and M-107 - "Novosibirsk Komsomol".

Submarines M-104, M-107, M-108, M-119, M-121, M-122 were in varying degrees of readiness at plant No. 112 (Gorky)

As part of the preparation for the celebration of the 70th anniversary of the Great Victory, EcoGrad correspondent Denis Krutikov and his comrades Martynsh Sheitars and Aleksey Kravchuk prepared a report on the expedition at the point with coordinates 57°28"N/21°17"E. 10 miles from Ventspils. On June 23, 1941, the M-78 submarine sank forever in this place. She became the first Soviet submarine to die at the hands of the enemy in World War II. The little one was really small. Its length was 44.5 m, and its width did not exceed 3.1 m. In order for two sailors in the diesel compartment to separate, one of them had to get down on all fours, and the other stepped over a friend. Accordingly, the armament was also limited - 2 bow torpedo tubes with an ammunition supply of 2 torpedoes and a 45 mm gun in front of the wheelhouse. However, it was a formidable weapon in the right hands. The video shows underwater footage of the expedition and military chronicle. Full version in the printed version of the magazine.

“Baby” M-78 – at the bottom of the harsh Baltic.

I met a warm September day in 2014 on board a boat driven by my friend and dive instructor, Alexey Kravchuk. Today the Baltic clearly spoiled us. The sun was shining brightly, there was practically no wind, and we quickly moved along the flat turquoise surface of the sea to a point with coordinates 57°28"N/21°17"E. 10 miles from Ventspils. The expanses of the Baltic Sea are not always so welcoming and peaceful. On June 23, 1941, the submarine M-78 sank forever in the above location. She became the first Soviet submarine to die at the hands of the enemy in the Great Patriotic War. M-78 "Malyutka" was launched and included in the Baltic Fleet in 1936. The boat was powered by a 685 hp diesel engine. With. or 235 hp electric motor. When on the surface, the boat developed a speed of 13 knots, and when submerged – 7 knots. The little one was really small. Its length was 44.5 m, and its width did not exceed 3.1 m. In order for two sailors in the diesel compartment to separate, one of them had to get down on all fours, and the other stepped over a friend. Accordingly, the armament was also limited - 2 bow torpedo tubes with an ammunition supply of 2 torpedoes and a 45 mm gun in front of the wheelhouse.

Submariners joked that they were floating on a tube with a cannon. The submarine could dive to 60 m. The navigation autonomy was up to 10 days. The boat's crew consisted of 17 people (3 officers, 14 foremen and ordinary sailors). There were no special sleeping places on the boat for personnel to rest. The only folding sofa was used alternately by the commander and the navigator. People could only take a nap while sitting, nestled near the mechanisms. Many positions were combined - torpedo operators were often also cooks.

In winter, the temperature inside the boat did not exceed 4-6 C, and the submariners did not take off their felt boots and sheepskin coats for a long time. Given the poor seaworthiness, with a wave of 3-4 points, the wheelhouse was heavily flooded, and the crew members on the navigation bridge had to tie themselves to the boat in a storm so as not to be washed overboard. However, such difficult service conditions became a factor in uniting the team, turning it into a strong combat crew. When fired from a torpedo tube, the boat lost significant weight. And only the clear, well-coordinated work of all personnel made it possible to fill the seams in time and keep the boat at depth, not allowing the enemy to detect and destroy it.

However, despite the shortcomings, thanks to its simplicity and reliability, the Malyutka project was the most widespread - 152 boats of series VI, VI-BIS, XII, XV with various upgrades were produced. On Project M submarines, for the first time, the hull began to be made electrically welded. Due to its size, the boat could be transported by rail almost unassembled, which made it possible to quickly supply the fleet with warships from the Baltic to the Pacific Ocean. It is worth noting that the legendary captain A.I. Marinesko served on the Malyutka. Under his command, the submarine M-96 successfully fought in the Baltic Sea, passing minefields that were not known 39 times. Marinesko himself was awarded the Order of Lenin for his service on this boat and transferred as captain to the S-13, on which he managed to sink the notorious Wilhelm Gustloff.

In total, the “Malyutok” has a total of 61 sunk ships. The total displacement of sunk ships is 135,512 GRT. The Malyutkas also damaged 8 vessels with a total displacement of 20,131 GRT. and 10 enemy warships were destroyed. This amounted to 16.9% of all ships sunk by USSR submarines and 12.4% of damaged enemy ships. But let’s return to our heroine M-78. The boat received its baptism of fire during the Soviet-Finnish war, making 3 trips and carrying out patrol service in the Gulf of Finland. On January 6, 1940, while on combat duty, the boat, when surfacing, severely damaged the periscope when it hit an ice floe, and spent a long time undergoing emergency repairs. The M-78 met the first day of the Great Patriotic War in Libau (now Liepaja) under the command of Senior Lieutenant D. L. Shevchenko.

This naval base was located very close to the border. By the evening of June 22, units of the 291st Wehrmacht Infantry Division under General Kurt Herzog reached the approaches to Libau. The situation was tense, and it is worth noting that the leadership of the Libava naval base received mutually exclusive orders in the first days. From the fleet command - leave the base and defend the base. By this time there were 15 submarines in Liepaja. On the afternoon of June 22, following the first order, four boats (L-3, M-79, M-81 and M-83) went to sea to carry out close patrol on the approaches to the naval base. It is worth noting the feat of the crew of the M-83 boat under the leadership of Senior Lieutenant P. M. Shalaev. Having lost contact and received damage to the periscope, the boat returned to the base in Liepaja, where it entered the battle using a deck gun. When the shells ran out, the sailors blew up the boat and continued to defend the city on land.

"Baby" M-83

But not all ships were in combat-ready condition at the time of the offensive. The French boats Ronis and Spidola, which the USSR inherited from the Latvian Navy, built in the 1920s, were unsuitable for sailing and were used as charging stations. The M-71, M-80, S-1 boats and the Lenin destroyer were being repaired at the docks of the Tosmare plant. All these ships, ammunition and fuel depots were blown up on the orders of the commander of the destroyer "Lenin", Lieutenant Commander Yu.M. Afanasyeva. The force of the explosions was very great - about 7 thousand sea mines, depth charges and torpedoes were stored in warehouses. This act can be explained either by a complete lack of communication between the base command and its facilities, or by the fact that Afanasyev acted on the basis of a verbal order from the command. The sailors of the destroyed ships joined the ranks of the defenders of Libau, but Lieutenant Commander Afanasyev was no longer among them. The commander was arrested and probably immediately shot as an alarmist. Now it is quite difficult to judge the true reasons for what happened.

Submarine S-3 under the command of Captain-Lieutenant N.A. Kostromicheva, which was also being repaired, was not blown up and went to sea without any security. Due to a malfunction of the diving system, the boat could only follow in the surface position. On board the S-3 were 38 sailors and the crew of the exploded S-1 boat and about 20 workers of the Tosmare plant. During the crossing, on the morning of June 24, the boat was attacked by two German torpedo boats. After an unequal one and a half hour artillery battle, the S-3 heroically died with almost all the people on board. On June 22, also following the order of the head of the base, the remaining five boats moved to Vindava and Ust-Dvinsk: S-9, Kalev, Lembit, M-77 and M-78. "Malyutki" headed for Ust-Dvinsk on the night of June 22-23, 1941, on the surface and without security escort. The boats were moving at a short distance from each other. Early in the morning, when the boats were opposite Vindava (Ventspils), the M-77 urgently plunged into the water, as German planes appeared in the sky. The M-78 most likely continued to move on the surface. At 6.36, a strong explosion was heard on the M-77 and it was assumed that the M-78 had hit a mine. The last ship to leave Liepaja was the steamship Vieniba with wounded and civilians on board. The crew raised a white flag with a red cross over the side, hoping that this would save the ship from German attacks. But Luftwaffe planes bombed the ship and fired machine guns. Hoping to save people, the captain tried to throw the ship ashore, but before reaching the shallows, the ship sank.

The Germans fired machine guns at those who survived on the boats, as a result of which only 15 people survived. On June 29, having suppressed the resistance of the defenders, German troops broke into Liepaja. As for the M-78, for a long time the true cause of the death of the boat was unknown, until the report of the commander of the German submarine U-144 von Mittelstadt became public, where he indicated the exact coordinates, time and type of the boat he destroyed as a result of a torpedo attack. A detailed comparison and analysis of all available data confirms that it was the Malyutka M-78. Attempts to search for this submarine have generated no less mysteries. In 2000, the pages of many print and online publications reported that in the Baltic Sea, 9 miles from Ventspils at a depth of 60 meters, the Swedish research vessel "Altair" had found a Soviet military submarine M-78, called "Malyutka", etc. , and so on. However, this turned out to be not entirely true. Firstly, 9 miles from Ventspils there is no depth of 60 meters, as far as I know. Secondly, that cigar-shaped object at a depth of 60 meters, which Altair discovered on its sonars and mistook for a submarine, turned out to be a sailboat lying on board. Later my friends Alexey Kravchuk and Martins Šeiters dived on it. Only a few years later, Ventspils diver Denis Lapin, having carefully studied archival data and information about trawl hooks, discovered the legendary submarine actually almost 9 miles from Ventspils, but at a depth of 36 meters. In the fall of 2013, Aleksey Kravchuk, Mārtiņš Šeiters and Edgars Zakis dived in order to take video and photos of the object. In 2014, Alexey decided to repeat the expedition, and I was lucky enough to be part of it.

As a result of all the events described above, I found myself on board his boat on a warm September morning with full technical equipment. We reached the drop site exactly on schedule. Alexey looked at the echo sounder and ordered to throw off the reel with the running end. Out of curiosity, I looked at the echo sounder screen - the boat was displayed as a slight elevation above the ground. If you didn’t know for sure that it was a submarine, then you could mistake it for a sand hill or boulder. Alexey helped me get ready and fell overboard. From the boat, Martins handed me a bulky box with a video camera, asking me to take a few shots under water. Having fastened the box, I began to descend along the running end. At 5 meters I checked the life support systems and turned on the flashlight. Then I began a rapid descent into the depths, equalizing the pressure in my ears and inflating the dry suit that was squeezing me. Soon enough I came across the boat and stabilized. The number on the device was 35 m, and the water temperature was 4 C. In the Baltic it is always like this - either light, transparent and cold, or warm, but dark and muddy. Visibility was excellent, and I saw a fairly large section of the submarine's hull.

Photo by Edgars Zakis

Drawing by Roman Kartashov

The boat looked like a huge snake, dozing in the depths, half buried in the sand and covered with a blanket of fishing nets. There really was enough light today. In addition to good natural lighting, the boat was illuminated by Maxim, who was sailing nearby, holding his video equipment with two powerful spotlights. Taking advantage of this, I turned on my camera and took some pictures of the subject. Having soon come across Martins and taking a few shots with him, I returned the box to the owner, glad to get rid of the extra load. Now nothing stopped me from carefully studying the submarine.

I started my inspection from the bow. The boat was lying on board. The outer shell of the boat - a light hull - was practically destroyed by the elements and industrial fishing nets. The strong hull was quite well preserved. I found the anchor hawse where Denis Lapin and Maxim Yagnyuk installed a memorial plaque in memory of the dead sailors. Having illuminated the hawse with the beam of a flashlight, I cleaned the sign of silt. The rising darkness hid the inscription, and I moved further towards the wheelhouse. The hull of the boat was abundantly covered with pieces of nets, one of which had a live cod entangled in it. After spending a few minutes, I managed to free the fish from the nets and swam further. Soon I reached a hull fracture that was filled with sand. Near the fault, I discovered a fairly large mechanism covered in nets and silt. Upon closer examination, it turned out to be the carriage of a deck gun. I didn’t find the gun itself, nor did I find anything resembling a wheelhouse. But the full scale of the disaster was revealed to my eyes. The torpedo apparently hit the center of the boat in the wheelhouse area. The boat broke apart and immediately sank to the bottom. The rear half of the boat was turned in such a way that it lay on the ground at an angle to the bow, practically burying its propellers in the crack at the wheelhouse site. Having examined the site of the explosion, I walked a couple more times along the entire submarine, carefully illuminating all the cavities in the hull with a flashlight.

Photo by Etgar Zakis

The bottom time came to an end, and my friend and I began to rise to the surface and undergo decompression. Once in the boat, I looked at the sky and thought how wonderful it was that the sun was shining peacefully overhead, and not the explosions of shells were heard in the air, but the whistles of hard workers - dry cargo ships. Later I learned that the submarine U-144 that destroyed the Malyutka was overtaken by retribution on August 10, 1941. She was sunk by two torpedoes fired from the Shch-307 submarine under the command of N.I. Petrova. Ironically, it was the first enemy ship sunk by Soviet submariners in the Great Patriotic War. This is how it is - the harsh Baltic.

Denis Krutikov

It so happened that the most numerous type of submarines of the Soviet fleet during the Second World War were boats with the peaceful and very childish name “Malyutka”. It was not by chance that these boats received their designation. At that time, these were the smallest Soviet submarines. M-type submarines took an active part in the Great Patriotic War. Despite the fact that they were originally intended for close-in defense of naval bases and coasts, they were capable of conducting successful combat operations even off the enemy’s coast and in enemy harbors.

In the early 1930s, the USSR government set the task of creating and strengthening the Pacific Fleet. The submarines "Pike" and "Leninets" in service at that time, which were built at factories and shipyards located in the European part of the country, could only be transported by rail in disassembled form, but their reassembly at the shipyards of the Far East was difficult and required a lot of time. In this regard, it was decided to develop small-sized submarines that could be transported by rail without disassembling. The project of a small submarine of the VI series, called "Malyutka", was approved on March 20, 1932 by the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR. The development of the new submarine project was carried out by Technical Bureau No. 4, headed by Alexey Nikolaevich Asafov. The basis for the design was the submarine of the “Lamprey” project by I. G. Bubnov with a displacement of 120 tons.

The new series of submarines were inexpensive and could be built relatively quickly. The small size of the submarines made it possible to transport them by rail in assembled form, which opened up wide possibilities for maneuvering along internal routes between maritime theaters of combat operations that were distant from each other. Finally, for the first time in the world practice of submarine construction, it was planned to make the hull of the boats all-welded. The combination of all these considerations predetermined the adoption and practical implementation of the project of the boat of the VI series “Malyutka” - the first small submarine built in the USSR, which was lucky enough to become the ancestor of several series of similar warships of the Soviet fleet. In total, 153 M-type submarines were built in the Soviet Union, of which 78 boats before the war, 22 during the war and 53 boats of the improved XV series after the end of the Great Patriotic War.

Submarine "Malyutka" VI series
The first M-type boats built were the VI and VI bis series. Construction of the first of the listed series began in the fall of 1932. In a fairly short period of time - by 1935, the Soviet fleet was able to receive 30 submarines of this type, built in Nikolaev (20 were built at the A. Marti Plant, 10 at the 61 Communards Plant). As they were completed, the submarines were sent to the Far East by rail. A total of 28 Series VI submarines were introduced into the recreated Pacific Fleet. Two more boats became part of the Black Sea Fleet, where they were used to train submariners.

Small submarines of the “Malyutka” type were single-hulled (the diameter of the durable hull was 3110 mm). The internal volume of the submarine was divided by three light bulkheads that could withstand a pressure of only one atmosphere. The battery of the boats consisted of one group (56 elements), which was located in the central post. The battery pit was covered with collapsible wooden panels. The submarine's power plant was single-shaft. The main propulsion motor of the Malyutka was used for both full and economic propulsion of the submarine. The steering device had manual and electric (with the exception of the bow horizontal rudders) drives.

The role of the main ballast tanks, which were necessary to extinguish the buoyancy reserve of M-type submarines during diving and to restore it during ascent, was assigned to two end tanks located outside the durable hull of the boat and one side tank inside the hull. The kingstons of the tanks opened outward using manual drives. It took the submarine 11 minutes to surface. The working depth of the boats was 50 meters, the maximum depth was 60 meters.

45-mm 21-K cannon on the Malyutka boat
The armament of the M-type submarines included two bow single-tube 533-mm torpedo tubes placed horizontally in the bow compartment (without spare torpedoes) and one 45-mm universal semi-automatic gun 21-K; the gun on the boat had 195 shells. The cannon was installed in the fence in front of the strong cabin. Loading of torpedoes on board the submarine was carried out through the open front covers of the torpedo tubes (with the rear covers closed). They were “sucked in” along with the water using a bilge pump - the so-called “wet” loading of torpedoes on board the boat.

The Malyutka boats of the first series had a number of serious shortcomings that reduced their combat value. In general, when on the surface, series VI boats developed a speed of no more than 11 knots (with 13 knots according to the technical specifications), and the underwater speed was also lower. When a torpedo salvo was fired, the submarine floated to the surface, showing the upper part of the wheelhouse. The immersion time from a cruising position was about two minutes, which was significantly longer than that of the large boats of the earlier Dekabrist project. The seaworthiness of the boats was also considered insufficient.

Some shortcomings were easily eliminated. For example, the hulls of the first boats were made riveted, despite the fact that the project manager Asafov insisted on using electric welding. As a result, a specially created commission made changes to the project during construction, including the decision to use electric welding when creating the building was recognized as the only correct one. Changes were also made to the system for filling ballast tanks, and the outline of the stern of the submarine was changed. The latest submarines of the VI series were built taking into account the proposals of the commission, which made it possible to increase the speed of the boat to design values, as well as to improve other characteristics of the boats.

Almost simultaneously with the start of construction of the M-type boats of the VI series, work began on modernizing the submarine. This is how the VI-bis series project was born; these boats were distinguished by improved hull contours, an additional quick-dive tank, a new propeller, electrically controlled bow horizontal rudders and a number of other improvements. All changes made it possible to significantly increase the combat capabilities of submarines. The underwater speed increased to 7.16 knots, and the surface speed to 13 knots. Navigation autonomy reached 10 days. The boat's crew consisted of 17 people, including three officers. The transition time from cruising to submerged position has been reduced to 80 seconds. When submerged at economic speed (2.5 knots), the boats could travel no more than 55 miles, that is, they could operate for less than 10 hours, which significantly reduced their combat capabilities. At the same time, the rather limited displacement for the VI-bis series - 161/201 tons (surface/underwater) did not allow the designers to significantly improve the combat qualities of the boats.

Despite this, the VI-bis series also became quite numerous, with 20 submarines built. Six of them went to the Pacific Ocean, 12 became part of the Baltic Fleet, and two ended up in the Black Sea. The Pacific and Black Sea boats of this series survived the war, but the Baltic “Malyutki” suffered serious losses. Two boats were lost, three were blown up by personnel. By the end of the Great Patriotic War, only two such Malyutkas remained in the Baltic Fleet - five submarines of this series were mothballed at the beginning of the war, and after its completion they were dismantled for metal.

During the war years, not a single “Baby” of the first two series was successful. Of all, only the Black Sea M-55 managed to use the weapon twice, but both times to no avail. The 50 built boats of the VI and VI-bis series were unable to prove themselves by sinking enemy ships. It is obvious that their performance characteristics in the conditions in which the Soviet submarine fleet almost immediately found themselves did not allow them to successfully solve the assigned combat missions. It is also important to note that 34 of them were in the Pacific Ocean and did not take any part in hostilities until 1945. It turned out that the main advantage of the Malyutka submarines of the VI and VI-bis series was not their combat capabilities in combating enemy surface ships, but the ability to transport them by rail. At the same time, the boats also performed other tasks during the war: they conducted reconnaissance, delivered small landings and cargo, and the M-51 submarine of the Black Sea Fleet took part in the Kerch-Feodosia operation in December 1941. The boat provided navigation and hydrographic support for the landing area in Feodosia captured by the enemy, and also served as a floating lighthouse, located 50 cables away from Feodosia.

Submarine "Malyutka" series VI-bis
Taking into account the obvious limited combat value of the Malyutka submarines of the first series, it was decided to thoroughly revise the project, primarily in the direction of increasing their displacement. By increasing the displacement by only 50 tons and the length of the boats by 4.5 meters, it was possible to significantly improve the submarine and, as a result, radically increase the combat capabilities of the new Malyutok series. The “plump” boats were laid down as “M” type submarines of the XII series. Their surface displacement was 210 tons, underwater up to 260 tons. The immersion depth remained unchanged. The maximum surface speed increased to 14 knots, and the underwater speed increased to 8 knots. The surface cruising range has increased to 1,000 miles at maximum speed and to 3,000 miles at economic speed. In a submerged position, the new boat could travel at a maximum speed of 9 miles (that is, it could go at this speed for only an hour), and with economic speed - up to 110 miles. This was already quite a serious significance; in a submerged position, the “Malyutka” of the XII series could conduct combat operations for more than a day.

But the main armament of the submarines remained unchanged - two 533-mm torpedo tubes with two torpedoes (only one full salvo) and a 45-mm semi-automatic 21-K cannon. But the dive time was significantly reduced: from the cruising position - to 35-40 seconds (more than two times faster than the Dekabrist), and from the positional position - to 15 seconds. The main means of detecting the enemy at the initial stage of the war for the Malyutki was a conventional periscope, but starting in 1942, the boats began to receive the Mars-8 noise direction-finding stations, which were quite modern at that time.

In total, the USSR laid down 46 submarines of the M type, series XII: 28 entered service before the start of the Great Patriotic War and 18 during the war. 16 boats of this project ended up in the Black Sea, 14 in the North, 9 in the Baltic and 6 in the Far East. During the war, submarines of this series made fairly large-scale regroupings between theaters of combat. So in 1944, four “Malyutkas” from the Pacific Ocean went to the Black Sea; the boats arrived at their destination after the end of the war. The 4 submarines that survived in the North were also sent here. During the Great Patriotic War, 26 M-class submarines of the XII series were lost - 60 percent of their original number. 9 boats perished in the North, 8 in the Black Sea, 7 in the Baltic, and two more Malyutkas perished in the Pacific Ocean.

Submarine "Malyutka" XII series
Unlike their predecessors, the XII series submarines have proven to be quite successful and competitive even in comparison with older warships in their class. The northern “Baby” ships were guaranteed to sink 4 enemy transports and 3 warships, and another transport ship was damaged. The Black Sea "Malyutki" chalked up 7 enemy transports, three more transports and one warship were damaged. Another transport was sunk by 45 mm cannon fire. In the Baltic, the “Malyutkas” did not manage to sink a single ship (with confirmation of losses on the German side). Obviously, the performance characteristics of the boats did not allow them to successfully overcome the deep-echelon anti-submarine defense created by the Germans in this theater of operations. In total, the “Malyutki” accounted for 61 sunk ships, with a total displacement of 135,512 GRT. In addition, the Malyutkas damaged 8 ships with a total displacement of 20,131 GRT. However, according to reliable data, which would be confirmed by both sides, the Little Ones of the XII series accounted for 15 sunk and five damaged enemy transports and warships. This is quite a worthy result, if we take into account the fact in what conditions and circumstances the Soviet submariners had to operate.

Separately, we can highlight the fact that the Malyutka submarines took part in transporting goods to besieged Sevastopol. The boat could carry little on board - 7 tons of fuel or 9 tons of cargo, as well as up to 10 people with weapons. But even such transitions were of great importance for a city besieged by the enemy. In total, the “Malyutki” from the Black Sea Fleet completed 12 transport trips to besieged Sevastopol.

Submarine "Malyutka" XV series
In addition to the Malyutka submarines of the XII series, two M-type submarines of the XV series managed to take part in the hostilities. Both are already at the final stage of the Great Patriotic War. These submarines represented a deep modernization of the XII series ships. The displacement of the XV series boats was increased to 300 tons (surface) and 350 tons (underwater). This made it possible to increase the boats' armament to four torpedo tubes, and the torpedo ammunition doubled accordingly. Other tactical and technical data of submarines have changed slightly. Both boats commissioned during the war fought in the North. The result of their combat activities was the reliable sinking of one warship. This series of submarines is marked by one interesting fact. The M-200 boat, which had the proper name “Revenge” (a very rare thing for all ships of this type), was built with funds raised by the wives of dead Soviet submariners.

Performance characteristics of the submarine Type “M” VI series:

• Displacement: 157 tons (surface), 197 tons (submerged).
• Dimensions: length – 36.9 m, width – 3.13 m, draft – 2.58 m.
• Immersion depth – 50 m (working), 60 m (maximum).
• The power plant is diesel-electric.
• Power plant power: diesel – 685 hp, electric motor – 235 hp.
• Design speed - 6.4 knots (underwater), 11.1 knots (surface).
• Cruising range - 690 miles (surface), up to 48 miles (underwater).
• Autonomy – 7 days.
• Crew – 17 people.
• Armament: two bow 533-mm torpedo tubes without spare torpedoes, 45-mm 21-K cannon (195 rounds of ammunition).

Yuferev Sergey

small Soviet submarine M-55 in Sevastopol

In September 1941, the Soviet-German front steadily shifted east. The fully occupied Baltic republics and Belarus were in the midst of a battle for Ukraine. Germany tried with all its might to implement the Barbarossa plan, but it increasingly had to be adjusted.

The Wehrmacht sharply slowed down the pace of its advance on land, and the Kriegsmarine has still not established control on the sea fairways in the waters of the USSR. The situation at sea changed daily, naval battles, air attacks, artillery cannonades, landings. The battles took place in the Black Sea, the Baltic and in the waters of the North Sea.

Early in the morning of September 26, 1941, the submarine M-171 set out on a combat mission from the Northern Naval Fleet's base at Polyarny. Two days later, she received a mission reporting enemy transport vessels in the Petsamo Bay area of ​​the Bering Sea. Walking through the narrow throat of the bay was a risky step, but the commander decided to do so. After all, his boat could literally slip through the eye of a needle. The submariners were not mistaken - the Germans did not notice the smallest submarine of the Soviet fleet. Soon the little one sank two enemy ships with two torpedoes.

The entire history of the creation of submarines has always been associated with an increase in power, ammunition, range and the corresponding size of submarines, but, carried away by scale, shipbuilders forgot about tasks that required precisely small dimensions. When sending submarines on long voyages, Soviet naval commanders did not think about grottoes and narrow straits, about movements in skerries or at shallow depths.

Small submarines went into battle from the very first days of the war and were not very successful. On August 16, 1941, M-174 broke through to the enemy base of Liinakhamari. According to the submariners, the torpedo was fired right at the pier.

The port of Liinakhamari was the main base for the export of nickel. Moreover, being on the front line of occupied Norway, he was deployed to fight the allies following the USSR. It is not surprising that Liinakhamari became a target of the Soviet Navy.

The harbor was turned into a powerful fortified area. It was difficult to break through here, and the Germans considered it impossible. The defense system of Liinakhamari and the bay consisted of 4 coastal batteries of 150 mm and 210 mm guns and 20 batteries of 88 mm anti-aircraft air defense guns, equipped for firing at ground and sea targets.

On August 11, 1941, a small submarine slipped through Petsamo in Liinakhamari - later a fleet admiral. She sank an enemy transport right in the roadstead. Egorov himself explained his success by the design features of the submarine. The width of the winding bay along which he approached the Germans was only 1 to 1.5 km. The enemy laid mines in the center of the fairway, not realizing that the Russians had the opportunity to bypass the warheads and actually slip right next to the rocks themselves.

The Malyutka submarines had a width of only 3.1 m and a length of 44.5 m. Accordingly, the submarine’s armament was limited, only 2 torpedoes and a 45 mm gun in front of the wheelhouse. Soviet submariners joked that they were floating on a tube with a cannon.

Project 6 bis submarine "Malyutka"

The decision to create small-displacement submarines was made in the early 30s. On March 20, 1932, the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR approved the project of designer Alexei Nikolaevich Asafov. Five months later, on August 29, the lead submarine was laid down at the Nikolaev shipyard. Already in 1933, intensive testing of small submarines began. Engineers identified a number of shortcomings and in August of the same year a decision was made to build 20 small submarines according to an improved design.

Submarines of Project 6bis received electric control of the bow horizontal rudders, a fast diving system, a new propeller and a modified stern shape. However, these submarines left much to be desired. First of all, the submariners were not satisfied with the speed of the submarines, capacity and navigation equipment.

The improved "Malyutki" series 12 became the most successful design development of small-sized submarines and were mass-produced. The new submarines were 4.5 m longer than the previous series, more powerful batteries, diesel and electric engines, increased underwater speed to 15 km/h, surface speed to 26 km/h. The submarines received modern navigation equipment for that time, and also had large ship reserves; the underwater displacement increased by 50 tons. This also made it possible to increase the ability to land and receive groups of paratroopers and reconnaissance troops from the coast. The cruising range reached 625 km on the surface and 200 km underwater. The submarine could dive to 60 m and had a cruising endurance of 10 days. The robust hull of the new small-sized submarines was divided by bulkheads into 6 compartments: torpedo, bow, central, battery, diesel and electric motor. To receive the main ballast, 3 side and 2 end tanks were intended in the absence of deck tanks.

M-type submarine

For a long time, the Germans could not determine what kind of underwater enemy they were dealing with. But small submarines also left their mark on the service of Soviet submariners. The crew of the M-type submarines consisted of only 21 people, but even two could not pass each other in the passages. The combat watch on the “Malyutki” was carried out for 4 hours and in two shifts. Many positions were combined. So torpedo operators were often cooks. To save energy, food on small boats was prepared at night, when the diesel engines charged the batteries while on the surface. It was difficult to serve in a small team and cramped confined space. There were 10 sleeping places, so the issue of cohesion and selection of the team was in the first place for the commander. Colleagues were supposed to become friends during their naval service.

The coherence of the crew became a decisive condition for the successful operation of the boat. The small-sized Soviets were able to demonstrate all their best qualities during that very September campaign in Petsamo, when two torpedoes found two targets. But the successful attack was only the beginning of a test for the submarine and crew. Having fired two torpedoes, the submarine almost discovered itself; the boatswain had difficulty keeping it under water with the help of horizontal rudders.

On the return course, the M-171 suddenly lost control and fell into an anti-submarine metal net that the Germans had installed at the entrance to the bay. The commander realized that he had landed in underwater chain mail and gave the command to reverse. On the submarine, at first the trim on the bow grew slowly, and then more, and there was a threat of fire. The commander, seeing everything perfectly, continued to move in reverse. With great difficulty, the submarine freed itself from the nets, but the question became how to break through. It was necessary to hurry, and the commander gathered the crew to hear everyone's opinion. It was unanimously decided to go underwater right along the upper edge of the nets. As a result, hitting it only with its keel, the submarine escaped from the trap. When the enemy realized this, it was useless to pursue the submarine, the commander changed course, and the submarine confidently broke away from the chase.

The sailors were in high spirits, because any opponent of the Malyutka was much larger, much more powerful, so every victory of these submarines was especially valued. Upon entering the base, each boat fired a gun. The Northern Fleet adopted such a ritual, which became a tradition. The submarine that sank the enemy ship entered the harbor and announced that it was returning victorious with cannon shots according to the number of ships sunk.

In May 1942, another small submarine made another equally daring maneuver in the waters of the Arctic. While on a free hunt, submariners discovered a German convoy near the Varangerfjord. Two transport ships were guarded by eight patrolmen, which already implied the importance of the cargo. Unfortunately, by this time the Soviet submariners had almost run out of batteries; the charge remained for 1 hour of work under water. The commander could have refused the attack, but that was not the case with Soviet naval officers. The submariners decided to dive under the guards and surface between them and the transport ships. “Malyutka” surfaced only 400 meters from the nearest enemy patrol ship. The sailors still managed to notice that the Germans on the bridge were looking for something on the horizon, not paying attention to the sea on the other side. The salvo and combat count of small boats was replenished with another sunk enemy ship.

Thanks to its design, the Malyutka boat managed to go under water faster than the Germans recovered from the torpedo explosions. Subsequent pursuit did not bring any results to the enemy. The submariners managed to retreat to the shores where the Soviet batteries were located, and under their fire the enemy was forced to retreat.

In the Soviet fleet, a fantastic diving record was set on M-type boats. He did it - the legendary submariner hid the boat under water in just 19.5 seconds, while according to the standards, 35 seconds were allotted for this. By the way, on the eve of the Great Patriotic War, the M-95 Marinesko submarine was recognized as the best in the Baltic Fleet. The small submarine confirmed this title already on July 22, 1941, when it sent an enemy ship with a displacement of 7 thousand tons to the bottom. A year later, in August 1942, the entire fleet started talking about Marinesko again, this time his “Malyutka” sank a German transport. For this campaign, the officers were awarded the Order of Lenin. But when he left to study at the Naval Academy, the M-96 boat was lost. Marinesko worried for a long time, believing that with him the crew could have survived. It’s very painful to lose 20 comrades at once.

In the Baltic Fleet, M-type boats had a hard time. The Wehrmacht quickly captured most of the Soviet ports. The range of the submarines was severely limited, so they suffered significant losses. Of the 9 Baltic “Malyutki”, only two survived. The first submarine died here on the second day of the war. Not far from Riga, the M-78 was fatally torpedoed by the German submarine U-144. In Liepaja, the sailors themselves had to blow up the M-71 and M-80, which were there for repairs.

small submarine M-174

In 1944, in the north, the port of Liinapamari, as well as the entire Petsamo region, became part of the Murmansk region of the USSR. “Little” boats with a short range of action could not successfully hunt remote enemy communications. It was decided to send them from the north to the Black Sea, and transported them by rail. This unique method of redeploying submarines became one of the reasons for their active construction in the USSR.

In the 1930s, tense relations with Japan required a sharp strengthening of the young Soviet Pacific Fleet. Tokyo had serious naval forces. Moscow in the Far East had no way to respond to a potential attack at sea. There was also no time to organize the production of modern ships and submarines at remote shipyards. And then they decided to deliver the submarines ready-made by land transport across the entire country. Therefore, many parameters of the “Malyutka” type were also limited by the railway’s capabilities for transporting large-sized cargo. The experience of redeployment along steel highways came in handy during the Great Patriotic War. Having completed a land combat campaign from Murmansk, the small submarines joined the Malyutkas in the Black Sea. Here such submarines have already gained fame as masters of close combat. The most effective boat in the southern maritime theater was the M-111. She chalked up the transport Theadorich, Hainburg, two anti-submarine ships and two self-propelled ferries. The boat spent about 250 days under water, made 37 combat and four transport trips, more than all other “Baby” ships.

In November 1942, the M-111 boat, leaving the German escort ships, met with the U-18 submarine. The German shuttle attacked the M-111 submarine with all its torpedoes, but missed; the Soviet little one, unfortunately, had nothing to respond with.

The U-18 boat belonged to the class of small German submarines. In the Black Sea, “Malyutki” faced an opponent of their weight category for the first time. The enemy transferred the 30th flotilla here with its base at Constanta.

Before the arrival of the North Sea small-sized submarines, the 30th flotilla operated quite successfully, even off the Caucasus coast. However, northern reinforcements allowed the Black Sea people to establish total control over the water area. Because of possible attacks, German transports could not go to sea, and German submarines, like Soviet ones, eventually had to destroy their own submarines. So U-18, U-20 and U-23 were sunk by their crews on September 10, 1944 off the coast of Turkey. The remaining three submarines of the flotilla sank as a result of the bombing of Constanta. Only Soviet small-sized boats remained in the Black Sea. In early May 1945, 14 small Soviet M-type submarines set out on combat missions. On May 9, they were ordered to return to their permanent bases, since their service in the war had ended.

The name of A.N. Asafov is associated with another page in the history of domestic submarine shipbuilding, which is directly related to strengthening the Far Eastern borders of our country.

The first formations of the Naval Forces of the Far East, created in 1932, were a brigade of minesweepers (1st naval brigade) and a brigade of Pike-class submarines (2nd naval brigade, commander K.O. Osipov). Together with the then limited number of surface ships, aircraft and coastal artillery, the submarines laid the foundation for the Pacific Fleet.
Transportation by rail to the Far East of medium-sized submarines of the Shch type, and then of underwater minelayers of the L type, built in the European part of our country, was possible only in sections. Their entry into service was delayed because the assembly of these sections in the shipyards of the Far East required considerable time. Meanwhile, the international situation dictated the need to further strengthen the young Pacific Fleet. Historical experience has shown that this problem can be solved in a shorter time by delivering assembled surface ships and submarines to the Far East.

Russia has priority in transporting submarines with a displacement of more than 100 tons by rail over a distance of about 10 thousand km. During the Russo-Japanese War, the first 4 submarines of the "Kasatka" type arrived in Vladivostok from St. Petersburg in December 1904, having a displacement of 140 t. In the summer of next year, the number of submarines delivered to the Pacific Ocean was increased to 13.
The Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet government decided to quickly design and build submarines of such small displacement that would allow them to be transported in finished form by rail without stopping oncoming train traffic. Given the great disunity of the adjacent territories of the USSR naval theaters, this made it possible to carry out any maneuver by submarine forces, using not only the water, but also the land transport system.
The railways accepted for transportation only those cargoes that, after being installed on the platform, fit into the normal dimensions approved by the government. This guaranteed the free passage of loaded rolling stock along all railway tracks of the USSR without the risk of damage to both station buildings, bridges, tunnels, and the transported cargo. By special order of the People's Commissariat of Railways, "oversized" cargo could also be accepted, the transportation of which was associated with limiting oncoming traffic, reducing speed or reducing the list of permitted routes. However, in any case, the railway gauge set strict limits on the cross-section of the transported submarine in the midsection area and its length.

The time for the design and construction of the required submarines, the preliminary design of which was developed by NTKM, was limited to the limit. A.N. Asafov, who at that time was the chief engineer of Technical Bureau No. 4, decided to take as a basis the design of the small submarine "Lamprey" with a displacement of about 120 tons, built by I.G. Bubnov in 1906 - 1909. She took part during the Civil War in the inter-theatre submarine maneuver from the Baltic Sea to the Caspian Sea, carried out on the instructions of V.I. Lenin. Transportation of 4 small submarines from Petrograd to Saratov was carried out using special railway platforms manufactured at the Izhora plant in Petrograd.

On March 20, 1932, the Revolutionary Military Council of the USSR approved the project of a small submarine of series VI, called “Malyutka”. It was single-hull (the diameter of the durable hull is 3110 mm, the diameter of the strong cabin made of low-magnetic steel is 1000 mm, its height is 1700 mm. The fence of the cabin and bridge is made of duralumin. A box-shaped welded keel is attached to the lower part of the hull, which also serves as a drainage line. In Water was discharged from the main ballast tanks and submarine compartments.
Inside, the volume of the durable hull was divided by three light bulkheads, designed for a pressure of one atm, into 4 compartments - torpedo, central post, diesel and electric motor.
The role of the main ballast tanks, designed to extinguish the buoyancy reserve of the "M" type submarine (25%) during immersion and to restore it during ascent, was performed by 2 end tanks outside the pressure hull and one side tank inside it. The kingstons of the tanks opened outward using manual drives. It took 11 minutes for the submarine to surface.
In addition, there were deck tanks (like the "D" type submarine), a buoyancy tank at the bow (like the "Shch" type submarine) and an anti-float tank (to prevent the submarine's bow from rising after the release of torpedoes).
The battery consisted of one group (56 elements) and was located in the central post. The battery pit was covered with collapsible wooden panels.
The power plant was single-shaft. The main propulsion motor was used for both full and economic propulsion. In this case, half the battery voltage was supplied to the main propulsion motor (from the output neutral wire of the midpoint).
The steering device had electric (except for the bow horizontal rudders) and manual drives.
The submarine was equipped with a Hall anchor weighing 150 kg and two lifting eyes mounted on the hull.
The armament of the Malyutka-class submarine consisted of two bow torpedo tubes placed horizontally in the bow compartment (without spare torpedoes), and a 45-mm gun installed in the fence in front of the strong deckhouse. Loading of torpedoes was carried out through the open front covers of the torpedo tubes (with the rear covers closed). The torpedoes were “sucked in” along with water using a bilge pump (the so-called “wet” loading of torpedoes.
The construction of the submarine for this project was entrusted to the Nikolaev plant.

A special government commission headed by Deputy People's Commissar for Military and Naval Affairs, Head of the Political Directorate of the Red Army Ya.B. Gamarnik took strict control over all work on the construction and subsequent transportation of finished submarines to the Far East. For this purpose, the Nikolaev Shipyard built 18 120-ton railway transporters, each of which included two platform bogies.

The lead submarine of the "Malyutka" type (later "M-2") was laid down on August 29, 1932. The entire VI series consisted of 30 units. By the end of the year (October 2 and 3), 2 more submarines were laid down (later M-3 and M-1). Construction proceeded at a rapid pace in accordance with the strict calendar deadlines established by Labor and Defense. But despite the fact that A.N. Asafov proposed using electric welding in the construction of “M” type submarines, their hulls were still made riveted.
The first of the M-type submarines was M-3 (March 16, 1933), followed by M-2 and M-1 (April 8 and 9, 1933). The tests that began revealed that their speed was lower than the design speed (about 5 knots instead of the planned 7 knots), and the dive time (80 seconds) was longer than that of the submarines of the previous series. In addition, the M-type submarines had insufficient seaworthiness, and after a torpedo shot it was almost impossible to keep them under water and they unmasked themselves.

There were already about two dozen almost finished "M" type submarines afloat when a commission was created under the chairmanship of the head of the VIS V.M. Orlov to improve their combat qualities. Major industry and naval specialists took part in it, including P.F. Papkovich, Yu.A. Shimansky, electric welding specialist V.P. Vologdin, designer A.N. Asafov and his deputy V.F. Popov. The commission carefully examined the lead submarine of series VI.

It was found that one of the reasons for the decrease in the surface speed of the submarine was one unaccounted for circumstance. The resistance of water to the movement of a high-speed ship depends on the ratio between its length and the length of the waves generated. At the same time, the wavelength depends on the speed of movement.
If these values ​​are equal or multiples of each other, the stern wave system is superimposed on the bow system so that the height of the waves increases, therefore, the resistance of the water to the movement of the ship also increases.

Another reason for the decrease in underwater speed was the rough roughness of the hull of the "M" type submarine due to the use of riveting transverse seams on the outer connecting strips with large-diameter semicircular rivet heads. The commission supported A.N. Asafov’s proposal to replace the riveting of the submarine’s durable hull with electric welding. The underwater speed was also affected by the unfortunate shape of the stern, which ended in a sharp ledge immediately behind the muffler located behind the wheelhouse. It was decided to give the rear part smooth contours with a special fairing. It was also discovered that while moving, jets of water rushing through the scuppers struck with great force the parts of the submarine's bow superstructure, which created additional resistance to its movement. It was necessary to install reflective shields inside the superstructure behind each scupper. This had some impact on the surface and even more so on the underwater speed of the Malyutka-class submarine. They reached 13 knots and 7 knots.

To improve the seaworthiness of the VI series submarine, it was necessary to recommend that personnel not use the buoyancy tank. After lifting the Malyutka submarine onto the slipway, it turned out that the kingstons of the main ballast tanks, instead of the usual gratings, only had drillings in the outer plating. The flow area of ​​all drillings was smaller than the flow area of ​​the kingston itself. Therefore, the resistance of such a grid had a significant impact on the rate of water flow through the kingston and sharply increased the time of filling the tanks. The holes in the casing were widened in accordance with the shape of the Kingston intake pipe and covered with a rare grille made of thick wire. As a result, the tank filling time was reduced by approximately 1.5 times. It was also possible to establish that in order to prevent the surfacing of the bow end of a submarine during torpedo firing, it is sufficient to open the filling port of the anti-ascent tank at the preliminary command “apparatus”, without waiting for the executive command “Pli”.
The first application of electric welding of "M" type submarine hulls was very imperfect: the plant simply replaced the rivet seams with welded ones, retaining the butt strips and recuts along the grooves. Under such conditions, no noticeable decrease in water resistance could be expected. Nevertheless, the M-type submarines were the world's first all-welded combat submarines.

TACTICAL AND TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF THE "MALYUTKA" TYPE PLUS "SERIES VI"

Displacement 157 t / 197 t
Length 36.9 m
Maximum width 3.13 m
Surface draft 2.58 m
Number and power of main diesel engines 1 x 685 hp.
Number and power of main electric motors 1 x 235 hp.
Full surface speed 13.0 kt
Full underwater speed 7 knots
Cruising range at full speed 400 miles (5.84 kts)
Cruising range economic surface speed 1065 miles (10 kts)
Cruising range at economic underwater speed 55 miles (2.5 kts)
Autonomy 7 days


Armament: 2 bow torpedo tubes.
Ammunition - 2 torpedoes.

The enemies of the Soviet state tried to disrupt the implementation of the Underwater Construction Program. During the fire, which was the result of sabotage, several submarines that were under construction were damaged, with degrees of readiness: one - at 95%, the second - at 75%, the third - at 15%. A group of saboteurs, led by two engineers - German subjects, was neutralized.
However, the most damaged submarine, the construction of which began on June 14, 1933, had to be laid down anew on February 1, 1934 (later the submarine "M-27").
In total, 30 Malyutka-class submarines of the VI series were accepted into the USSR Navy from industry, of which 28 were delivered to the Far East.

They were transported in batches, usually of 3 units. The first echelon was sent from Nikolaev on December 1, 1933, the last on November 30, 1934. Before transportation, a strong conning tower with fencing, a periscope, torpedo and artillery weapons, a battery, and an anchor device were removed from the submarine, which significantly reduced the weight of the submarine being transported.
The acceptance certificate for the last of the "M" type submarines of series VI was approved on December 31, 1934. Two submarines remained, by government decision, in the Black Sea for training submariners. They received the letter-numeric names "M-51" and "M-52".
The construction of the "M" type submarine of the VI series made it possible to form another submarine brigade (commander A.I. Selting) in the Black Sea for the Naval Forces of the Far East. In terms of surface displacement, M-type submarines occupied an intermediate position between torpedo boats and submarine hunters. “But for all their miniature size, these were real warships,” noted one of the veterans of the Soviet submarine fleet, Hero of the Soviet Union G.N. Kholostyakov.

On August 13, 1933, the USSR Government decided to lay down next year 20 submarines of type "M" series VI-bis with a displacement of 161 tons / 201 tons. The Deputy People's Commissar of Defense participated in resolving issues related to improving their tactical and technical elements. chief of armaments of the Red Army M.N. Tukhachevsky, chief of the Navy V.M. Orlov, his deputy I.M. Ludri.
The VI-bis series submarines had a quick-diving tank, an electric drive to control the bow horizontal rudders, a more optimal propeller with better hydrodynamic characteristics, and slightly modified contours of the aft end. The speed of these submarines on the surface increased to 13.2 knots, while submerged - to 7.16 knots, endurance - up to 10 days, cruising range at full surface speed - up to 545 miles.

By November 1936, the M-type submarines of the VI bis series became part of the Navy. On the eve of the Great Patriotic War, there were 12 units at the Baltic Fleet, 2 units at the Black Sea Fleet, and 6 units at the Pacific Fleet.

As a result of decisive and timely measures taken by the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks and the Soviet Government, by 1938 the Pacific Fleet had 4 submarine brigades (commanders captain 1st rank M.P. Skriganov, captains 2nd rank K.M. Kuznetsov, I.D. Kulishov, G.N. Kholostyakov). One of the leaders of the Navy, Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov, who commanded the Pacific Fleet in 1937 - 1939, emphasized: “... our advantage in submarines in the Pacific Ocean had a sobering effect on the Japanese militarists... It is known that Japanese circles have long sharpened their teeth on our Primorye. And yet they did not dare to attack him. The power of our submarine fleet played a significant role in this. Therefore, the leading role in our fleet belonged to submariners."
Malyutka-class submarines served well to strengthen the combat capability of submarine forces and increase the level of professional training of personnel; in practice they demonstrated the strength and reliability of the design.
In December 1933, one of the first submarines of the "M" type, series VI, which still had only serial number 244 (later "M-6"), under the command of V.A. Mazin, carried out transitions in ice conditions from Sevastopol to Odessa and then beyond icebreakers from Odessa to Nikolaev. On December 18 of the same year, another submarine of the “M” type (later “M-8”) left Nikolaev through ice 25 cm thick with the help of icebreakers.

On January 5, 1934, she returned along the ice fairway to Nikolaev. The submarine hulls had no damage.
There are examples when the strength of welded submarines of type "M" was confirmed by "abnormal" cases. In 1934, the submarine "M-6" jumped onto the bank. For several hours, the waves brutally beat her hull against the rocks, dents formed in the bow and cracks appeared. After removing the submarine from the stones, it was possible to weld the crack and straighten out the dents without changing the removable hull sheets.
Two submarines had a chance to test the strength of their stems: the submarine "M-7" when it hit the hull of the mother ship, the submarine "M-13" - into the quay wall. At the same time, their nasal ends were somewhat deformed, but the hulls had no cracks or sheet breaks.
In the Pacific Ocean, the submarine "M-4" (commander V.A. Dolgov) and the submarine "M-6" (commander V.A. Mazin) in the winter of 1934 - 1935. made excursions from the base under the ice for training purposes.

The following winter, the M-17 submarine, commanded by M.I. Kupriyanov, completed its first trip to full autonomy (10 days). Then the submarine "M-16" (commander I.I. Baykov, leader of the submarine group), "M-17" (commander M.I. Kupriyanov) and "M-18" (commander G.I. Gavrilin) ​​made a group voyage ).
“There was a turning point in the combat training of the Malyutoks, they began to be used more confidently and boldly,” M.I. Kupriyanov later recalled. “They concluded that for a 10-day voyage, additional fuel should be taken into one main ballast tank. And on submarines under construction They began to specially adapt part of the ballast tanks to receive fuel."
During the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939 - 1940. 11 M-type submarines of the VI-bis KBF series were actively operating on enemy communications. In the most difficult conditions of the autumn-winter period, with 40-degree frosts and a force 9 storm, they searched for enemy ships. Their hulls were frozen over, antennas were torn due to icing, and railings were broken.
The submarine "M-72" (commanded by Senior Lieutenant N.N. Kulygin) had to return to base in broken ice. She was able to enter Paldiski (Baltic port) only with the help of an icebreaker. Due to the pressure of the ice, the submarine "M-72" had dents in the wheelhouse fence, the sealing of its torpedo tubes was broken, and the stem was twisted to the side.
The submarine "M-74" (commander senior lieutenant D.M. Sazonov) returned from the cruise with a mutilated stem.

On January 4, 1940, the submarine "M-77" (commander Lt. A.E. Chemodanov) fell into broken ice near Kalbodengrund in the fog. And when visibility improved somewhat, it was attacked by a Finnish plane. It turned out to be impossible to repel his attack - the 45-mm gun and machine gun were not ready for immediate action due to the severe frost. The enemy fired at the submarine squeezed by the ice with a machine gun, and then dropped, but not accurately, a bomb. It took the submariners 22 minutes to warm up the gun, open fire on the plane and drive it away.
Winter 1939 - 1940 was a severe test of the combat effectiveness of the M-type submarine. Not a single one of them was lost during the Soviet-Finnish war.

On December 28, 1940, the first sub-ice voyage in history was carried out. It was attended by submarines of type "M" series VI of the Pacific Fleet: submarine "M-2" (commander senior lieutenant B.M. Mikhailov), "M-19" (commander senior lieutenant V.I. Avdashev) and "M -20" (commander senior lieutenant E.N. Alekseev) This complex task was led by the division commander, captain-lieutenant L.M. Sushkin, who was on the submarine "M-24" (submarine commander senior lieutenant A.G. Yaylo).
“I would like to note the particularly difficult service on the “M” type submarines - “baby ones,” said Admiral N.G. Kuznetsov. “They were clearly not created for the Pacific open spaces with the storms and cyclones there. And they had to serve on an equal basis with other boats ..."

During the Great Patriotic War, the submarine "M-51" of series VI of the Black Sea Fleet took part in the Kerch-Feodosia operation in December 1941. Together with the submarine "Shch-201" (commanded by captain-lieutenant A.I. Strizhak), the submarine "M-51" under the command of captain-lieutenant V.M. Prokofiev provided navigation and hydrographic support for the landing of troops in Feodosia captured by the enemy. The submarine "Shch-201", having placed luminous buoys with red and white lights on the fairway, then used a searchlight beam to orient the ships with landing troops approaching the Feodosia Gulf. The submarine "M-51" was located closer to Feodosia, 50 cables from it.
Based on its searchlight beam with a green filter, shining in a given sector, the cruisers "Red Caucasus" and "Red Crimea", the destroyers "Zheleznyakov", "Shaumyan" and "Nezamozhnik" and the transport ships that participated in the landing, at dawn on December 29, determined entrance to the Feodosia port. The landing was successful.

During the war, Malyutka-class submarines sank 61 ships with a total displacement of 135,512 GRT, damaged 8 ships with a total displacement of 20,131 GRT, sank 10 warships and auxiliary vessels, and damaged 2 ships. This accounted for 16.9% of all ships sunk by USSR submarines and 12.4% of damaged enemy ships
Pacific submarines of the "M" type took part in the war with Japan in 1945, in particular in the Yuzhno-Sakhalin operation. Submarines "M-1" (commander senior lieutenant P.P. Nosenkov) and "M-5" (commander lieutenant commander P.P. Pivovarov) series VI delivered fuel and engine oil for surface ships to the port of Otomari (Korsakov) . The southern part of Sakhalin Island was returned to the USSR.
Without the Malyutok, nuclear submarines would not have appeared.

NEW SMALL "M" PLAYER SERIES XII

PETER IVANOVYCH SERDIUK

The history of the Malyutka-class submarine begins in 1932, when designer A.N. Asafov proposed building submarines that could be transported by rail to the Far East. This is how the submarines of series VI, then series VI bis, appeared, but they had a number of serious shortcomings.

In 1935, the designers created the famous XII series submarines. Its chief designer was...
Yellowed newsprint - a clipping from the newspaper "Leningradskaya Pravda" for April 4, 1957. It contains a note "Depth - 600 meters" - about the first Soviet hydrostat - an apparatus for exploring the depths of the sea, commissioned by ichthyologists, designed at the Leningrad Institute "Giprorybflot" .

The note appeared after a conversation with the chief designer of the hydrostat, engineer Pyotr Ivanovich Serdyuk. This device was already being built at the Baltic Shipyard. Designed for diving up to 600 meters, the hydrostat was shaped like a radio tube enlarged hundreds of times. An observer inside this steel “lamp” could observe deep-sea fish for a long time, photograph them in the light of a powerful spotlight and flashbulbs, and could film all stages of the trawl’s operation with a movie camera. In general, science, with the help of a hydrostat, had to illuminate dozens of problems that required solutions in those years.
While willingly talking about the hydrostat, the chief designer of the device, Pyotr Ivanovich Serdyuk, avoided my questions about himself, about his past, about what he did before joining Giprorybflot. The answer to these questions was found 20 years later among the documents of the TsVVM handwritten collection, when P.I. Serdyuk was no longer alive. It turned out that the conversation with the chief designer was the most successful - the XII series of the famous Soviet "M" type submarines. In 1957, just 12 years after the end of the war, Pyotr Ivanovich did not find the opportunity to say this.

Pyotr Ivanovich Serdyuk lived relatively short, but left a noticeable mark on the annals of Soviet shipbuilding in general and underwater shipbuilding in particular. Serdyuk belonged to a generation that was forged in the fire of the Civil War. The logic of life led such people into the ranks of fighters against interventionists and counter-revolution.
Pyotr Serdyuk began his working life early. While still in real school, as he wrote in his biography, he “supported himself with lessons.” During the First World War he was drafted and entered the Naval Engineering School. During the Civil War, Serdyuk participated in the armament and repair of ships in the Volga military flotilla. In 1924 he graduated from the shipbuilding department.
First in the Black Sea, and then in the Baltic, Serdyuk was the senior supervisor of the design and construction of the submarine. And then he became a designer himself.
His first submarine was approved, but it did not go into series production, but the second - “Malyutka”, which received the official name “series XII” and the unofficial name “serduchka”, was put into mass production. By the beginning of the war there were 28 such submarines. Throughout its practical life engineer Pyotr Ivanovich Serdyuk was prepared to design submarines, and the success of the XII series submarines, their excellent combat qualities - all this was natural.
... A fierce storm that broke out suddenly - this happened in the fall of 1941 - forced the commander of the S-102 submarine to send a radiogram to headquarters asking for permission to take shelter from the giant waves near the Rybachy Peninsula. The Northern Fleet Commander, Admiral A.G. Golovko, responded truly brilliantly. He radioed: "Baby" are at sea." The displacement of the "C" type submarine was more than three times greater than the displacement of the "M" type submarine. With his answer, the commander seemed to confirm the excellent qualities of the XII series submarine.
And their combat capabilities were also considerable. Among the submarines of the XII series there were 2 Red Banner submarines, 4 submarines became Guards submarines, and one - "M-172", commanded by Hero of the Soviet Union I.I. Fisanovich, had the Order of the Red Banner and was called Guards.

Notes from an eyewitness to the first dive of the first M-type submarine have been preserved:
“In the afternoon, testing of the immersion system began. Spectators watched as the boat alternately plunged the bow and stern into the water. Finally, as the trim was completed, when the deck had already disappeared under the water, and behind it the wheelhouse fence, the shiny copper handrails, and then nothing was left on the surface. The working class became convinced that with their own hands they really managed to build a submarine, which here, before their eyes, sank with people who are now there, under the water, signing acts confirming this fact. This caused a surge of joy. There was a loud "hurray" in honor of the working class - the owner of the country." From the characteristics stored in the manuscript collection of the Central Military Research Institute: "Engineer P.I. Serdyuk worked in the shipbuilding industry, was distinguished by design initiative and invested a lot of energy and energy in the construction of the Navy forces with very real achievements for the fleet. A. Redkin."
"Naval engineer P.I. Serdyuk, being one of the few engineers who specialized in the design and construction of submarines, took an active and intimate part in the construction of the Soviet submarine fleet from its very beginning. Comrade Serdyuk was the first senior industrial inspector on submarines being built after the Great October Revolution.
He worked in this position for 5 years, then, under his leadership, projects of some types of submarines were completed, of which a series was built in large numbers; these submarines successfully conducted combat operations during the Great Patriotic War in all active fleets. Engineer Serdyuk resolved the technical problems of the submarine fleet with the search for the most optimal design solutions and devoted a lot of strength and energy to the construction of the navy. "Engineer Rear Admiral M. Rudnitsky."

Above were statements by Soviet shipbuilding veteran N.S. Isserlis about some submarine designers. A party member since 1928, N.S. Isserlis graduated from the water department of the Moscow Institute of Transport Engineers. In 1928 he came to Malinin. Worked in a group of diesel engineers. I knew many prominent designers closely and, in particular, P.I. Serdyuk: “I remember well what P.I. Serdyuk looked like.
He was of average height and strong build. He was distinguished by his even attitude towards people. He had extraordinary engineering knowledge, never flaunted it, and always found a reason, without hurting his pride, to help a friend in his work, especially in the calculations of any devices. Peter Ivanovich left the brightest memory."

Retired captain 1st rank Alexander Vladimirovich Buk recalled how the M-type submarine was transported (his notes are stored in the Central Military Museum): “At the end of October 1933, at our native plant, we were preparing for the long journey to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. We carried out some preventive dismantling in order to somewhat smooth out the contours of the hull, which was to be hidden in a giant case made of burlap.In an effort to prevent possible deformations of the mains, the sailors disconnected the pipelines at the flanges.
All the rudders and their guards, the conning tower fence were removed from the axles, the banquet around it was cut off, and the bolts securing the gas pipes were loosened. Under the submarine's hulls, underwater "towels" were placed, since after the ampoule batteries were unloaded, the submarine lost positive stability and could remain on the water with the help of taps on the "towels". When the dismantling was completed, all the parts were loaded into the cars, having previously attached tags with the name of the submarine. A 250-ton crane lifted the boat out of the water and placed it on a conveyor. It was a special structure designed for a long-term stay of a submarine on it without any hull deflections. On the steel beams of the conveyors lay wooden5 “pillows” that exactly coincided with the contours of the hulls. The bow and stern were attached to the longitudinal beams of the conveyor with steel “towels”. The train was oversized, so it moved slowly. A few weeks later, the submarines safely reached the shores of the Pacific Ocean.

The tactical and technical elements of the Malyutka-class submarines of the VI and VI-bis series made it possible to use them for professional training of personal crew in peacetime, but limited the possibilities of active combat use. It was necessary to create a small torpedo submarine, also available for transportation in assembled form by rail, but more seaworthy, with higher surface and underwater speeds, with a cruising range increased by 1.5 - 2 times (especially economic speed), i.e. capable of operating at a greater distance from its bases.

An increase in surface speed could be achieved primarily by significantly lengthening the hull of a small submarine. However, it was necessary to verify the possibility of transporting such a submarine in assembled form along the country's railways.
For this purpose, the plaza (a specially equipped floor for drawing a life-size theoretical drawing of the ship) depicted the successive positions of the elongated submarine as it moved on a conveyor through curves of the smallest radius and tunnels. As a result, it became possible to increase the length of the submarine by 20%, the largest diameter by 10%, which increased the displacement of the submarine by 40%. Nevertheless, even while maintaining the same engines that were installed on the M-type submarines of the VI and VI-bis series, the design speed of the new version of the small submarine increased on the surface from 13 knots to 14 knots, and in the submerged position - from 7 to 7, 8 knots This option was developed by designer S.A. Bazilevsky and was called the “MB project” (“Baby Bazilevsky”). However, a significant drawback of the project was the large displacement of the center of the submarine's size forward from the midsection.
There was a need for such a shift to the bow and all internal equipment of the submarine. As a result, for example, one row of batteries in the bow group ended up under the aft sections of the torpedo tubes, which made their maintenance difficult.
A more successful option, accepted for implementation, was proposed by NIVK employee P.I. Serdyuk (project M-IV). He was appointed chief designer of the new M-type submarine of the XII series.

Submarines of the XII series, which were still often called “Baby”, were single-hull, all-welded and single-shaft. The limited volume of their durable hull was divided by strong bulkheads into 6 compartments: the first - torpedo, second - bow battery, third - central air, fourth - stern battery, fifth - diesel, sixth - electric motor.
To receive the main ballast, 3 side and 2 end tanks were intended. There were no deck tanks. The submarine's buoyancy reserve was 25%. Kingstons and tank ventilation valves had both remote pneumatic and manual drives.
It took 47 seconds for the submarine to dive. The main ballast was purged using a diesel engine. The installation of a higher power 38-K-8 diesel engine made it possible to increase the speed to 14 knots.
The battery consisted of two groups of 56 ML-2 elements. The battery pits were covered with dismountable metal shields.
The submarine's secrecy has increased. In an underwater position, it was possible to observe through the periscope not only from the central post, as in the M-type submarine, but also from the control room.
The head submarines of the "M" type, series XII, were laid down:
For the Red Banner Baltic Fleet on September 10, 1936 ("M-87" after being transferred to the Northern Fleet became known as "M-171"), for the Black Sea Fleet - on July 26, 1937 ("M-57" after being transported to the Pacific Fleet received the name "M- 49").

The first submarine entered service with the Red Banner Baltic Fleet on December 25, 1937, the second submarine entered service with the Black Sea Fleet on August 3, 1939.
Small submarines of the "M" type, series XII, had undeniable advantages over the "M" type submarines of the VI and VI-bis series. Their surface and underwater speeds have increased, their cruising range at full speed in the surface and submerged positions has increased by 1.5 times, their economic speed in the surface position has increased by three times, and in the submerged position by two times.

TACTICAL AND TECHNICAL ELEMENTS OF TYPE "M" PLUS XII SERIES

Displacement 206 t / 258 t
Length 44.5 m
Maximum width 3.3 m
Surface draft 2.85 m
Number and power of main diesel engines 1 x 800 hp.
Number and power of main electric motors 1 x 400 hp.
Full surface speed 14 knots
Full underwater speed 7.8 knots
Cruising range at full speed 650 miles (8.0 kts)
Cruising range at surface economic speed 3380 miles (8.6 kts)
Cruising range underwater economic speed 108 miles (2.9 kt)
Autonomy 10 days
Working immersion depth 50 m
Maximum immersion depth 60 m
Armament: 2 bow TA, total number of torpedoes - 2
One 45 mm gun (195 rounds)

Before the Great Patriotic War, the USSR Navy commissioned 28 M-type submarines of the XII series, which were distributed among the fleets: Red Banner Baltic Fleet - 9 submarines, Black Sea Fleet - 10 submarines, Northern Fleet - 6 submarines, Pacific Fleet - 3 submarines. Another 17 submarines of this type were under construction. All of them entered service with the Navy during the war.
6 "M" type submarines of the XII SF series, transferred from the Baltic, took part in the Soviet-Finnish war of 1939 - 1940. They had to operate in the Arctic in the most difficult autumn-winter stormy conditions, when with a wave of 5-6 points the roll reached 52 degrees. The command of the Northern Fleet submarine brigade hastened to draw the following conclusion: “and” the use of “M” type submarines in the Barents Sea is subject to review.” But practice has shown that such a conclusion was premature.
Hero of the Soviet Union I.A. Kolyshkin objectively and comprehensively assessed the capabilities of the M-type submarine of the XII series of the Great Patriotic War: “How did these “babies” prove themselves, the combat capabilities of which some people doubted before the war? Well, skeptics were put to shame.

In the hands of excellent crews and smart, brave commanders, these submarines turned out to be capable of even more than expected. After all, they were designed as ships for short-range cover of their shores and bases, and not with polar weather in mind. But from the very first campaigns, the “babies” began to conduct active combat operations off the enemy’s coast and deftly penetrate into his harbors.”
The first, at the beginning of August 1941, entered the harbor of Linnahamari (Devkina Zavod), located in the Petsamovuono fjord (Pechenga Bay), for the purpose of reconnaissance of the submarine "M-174", commanded by Lieutenant Commander N.E. Egorov. Linnahamari harbor was the outport of Petsamo (Pechenga) - the final point of enemy sea communication along the coast of Scandinavia. Nickel ore, molybdenum, and cellulose were exported from Petsamo. Persamovuono Fjord was protected by coastal artillery batteries and was monitored by signal and observation posts.

On August 21, 1941, the submarine "M-172" entered Linnakhamari under the command of Lieutenant Commander I.I. Fisanovich. Having sunk the ship standing at the pier with torpedoes, the commander then took the submarine out of the fjord, navigating underwater only with the help of hydroacoustic equipment.

In September, the submarine "M-171" under the command of Art. Lieutenant V.G. Starikov and secondly the submarine "M-174". The enemy has strengthened anti-submarine defenses.
In October 1941, the submarine "M-171", having again penetrated the port, came across an anti-submarine network at the exit from it. The submarine was discovered. Coastal batteries fired at her with depth charges, and PLO ships bombarded her with depth charges. Only 40 minutes later the submarine managed to escape from the steel net in which it was entangled with its bow horizontal rudders. But it turned out to be impossible to break through the fence. The crew made a unanimous decision: the M-171 submarine will surface and engage in artillery combat with the enemy, using a 45-mm gun. If it is not possible to escape from the trap, then the submarine must be blown up... But the time has come for the tide, the amplitude of which in northern latitudes is significant. The water level above the anti-submarine network increased, which the commander of our submarine took advantage of. “M-171! Imperceptibly crawled over the luff of the net and came out of the fjord.
The Northern Fleet command appreciated the courageous and decisive actions of the personnel of small submarines of the XII series. Along with the positive assessment of the M-type submarines of the XII series, the sailors noted the difficulties of serving on them: “The “babies” go to sea for a short time - for a few days, for a week. While the “Shch” or “K” type submarines make one trip, the “babies” "they manage to make two or even three exits. But even a short voyage of this submarine greatly exhausts the crew. The sea treats the "baby" unceremoniously, throwing it like a chip. The submarine is cramped, the living conditions are difficult. And there are only enough people for a two-shift watch. This means that during the search, people have a 12-hour working day. To this should be added alarms, attacks, bombings, when everyone is on their feet, everyone is at their combat posts. But, having returned to the base, the “little ones” do not stagnate for long, if there is no need for repairs." Submariners learned from combat experience the main disadvantages of the M-type submarines of the XII series. The commander of the submarine "M-90" of the Baltic Fleet G.M. Egorov, later admiral of the fleet, Hero of the Soviet Union, said: "..." little ones "required great skill from the crews. They had only one engine. This meant that if due to poor maintenance will fail, for example a diesel engine - good luck. The ship will be stuck motionless in the middle of the sea, because there were no reserve funds on it...”
The fleet needed small transportable submarines with a twin-shaft engine and more powerful weapons. Work on projects of similar submarines has been carried out since 1939. One of the projects (M-IV) by designer Ya.E. Evgrafov provided for the installation of 4 torpedo tubes inside a durable hull, another project (M-II) by designer F.F. Polushkin - two devices inside a durable body and two in the superstructure. In June 1939, a new version (M-VII) by F.F. Polushkin with four torpedo tubes inside a durable hull was considered. The preliminary design of this particular small submarine (from August 1939, series XV) was approved by the Defense Committee on July 23, 1939. In December of the same year, the project was submitted for approval to the Central Committee of the All-Union Communist Party of Bolsheviks. F.F. Polushkin proposed moving the main water ballast outside the submarine’s durable hull, placing it in external onboard tanks in the form of removable boules (similar to the submarine “Shch”). In this regard, the submarine became one and a half hull, and the displacement increased to 281 tons, the buoyancy reserve was 23.6%.

As a result, a significant volume was freed up inside the durable case with the same 6 compartments separated by flat bulkheads. This made it possible to supply 2 diesel engines with a power of 600 hp each. at 600 rpm. As a result, the total power of the main surface diesel engines of the twin-shaft submarine increased by 1.5 times, the surface speed increased by 1.8 knots, and the cruising range at economic speed on the surface increased by more than 1,000 miles. Two propulsion electric motors with a power of 230 hp each. made it possible to maintain, despite the increased displacement, the same underwater speed. It became possible to place 4 torpedo tubes in the bow compartment, equipped with drives for setting the depth of the torpedo (PUN) and its Aubrey gyroscopic device (PUPO).

All ship systems and devices of the XV series submarines were designed anew, their placement was made more rationally. As a result, the submarine’s survivability and combat effectiveness significantly increased, and the living conditions for personnel improved. The navigation autonomy has increased 1.5 times - up to 15 days.
At the same time, the M-type submarines of the XV series remained transportable by rail. It was only necessary to remove the side boules, which were then welded onto the submarine hulls. To transport submarines, special 240-ton railway transporters (each of 4 platform trucks) were built.
The lead submarine of the "M" type, series XV, was laid down on March 31, 1940. A total of 15 submarines of the "M" type, series XV, were under construction, of which only 4 submarines entered service with the USSR Navy during the war.
The submarine "M-90" of series XII (then commanded by Senior Lieutenant P.A. Sidorenko) became the first diesel submarine specially equipped for ice navigation. Winter 1939 - 1940 on the submarine "M-90" the KBF was factory mounted on

During testing, the hydraulic drill made holes in the ice cover without much difficulty, which allowed the commander to raise the periscope to view the horizon. On the upper deck of the submarine, in the stern and bow parts of the superstructure, 2 metal trusses with spikes were installed in the upper part to protect the hull from damage when surfacing from under the ice.
The Main Supreme Council of the Navy, having examined the test results on May 15, 1940, recognized the device for swimming submarines under ice as successful, pointing out certain easily removable shortcomings.
Another "M" type submarine of series XII - "M-171" SF - was re-equipped during the war years according to the MZ - XII design by designer S.A. Egorov. Having retained its torpedo and artillery armament, the submarine was able to accept 18 PLT mines into on-board ballast tanks with mines mounted on the hull. For training purposes, "M-171" set 87 minutes. It was the smallest underwater minelayer in the history of Soviet submarine shipbuilding. For its creation, S.A. Egorov was awarded the State Prize of the 3rd degree.

During the Great Patriotic War, small submarines were distinguished by high combat activity. It is known that only in 1941 - 1942. 6 submarines of the "M" type, series XII SF, made 82 combat cruises, including 29 cruises by the submarine "M-171", 18 cruises by the submarine "M-172", 17 cruises by the submarine "M-174", 16 cruises - Submarine "M-176", 13 cruises - submarine "M-173".
The submarine "M-35" of the Black Sea Fleet completed 33 combat missions during the war.

In total, the small submarines of the XII and XV series have 61 sunken ships with a total displacement of 135,512 GRT and 8 damaged ships with a total displacement of 20,131 GRT. These same submarines destroyed 1 enemy warship.

In the Black Sea, the submarine "M-35" under the command of Lieutenant Commander V.M. Prokofiev sent to the bottom the self-propelled barge CNP -1293 (1270 GRT), the tanker "Ossag" (2790 GRT) and the military transport "KT" (834 GRT) .
The submarine "M-36" (commanded by captain-lieutenant V.N. Komarov) sank the tanker "Ankara" (4768 GRT).
The submarine "M-111" (commander captain 3rd rank Y.K. Iosseliani) sank the transport "Theodoric" (5600 grt), 2 sea self-propelled ferries MFP, lighters "Duearya - I" (505 grt), "Hainburg" (300 grt ) and several other ships. The same submarine, under the command of Lieutenant Commander M.I. Khomyakov, sank KFK-84 (105 GRT) on April 22, 1944, and on May 4, with one torpedo salvo, destroyed the submarine ships "UJ-2313" and "UJ-2314" (also types KFK).
The commander of the submarine "M-35", captain-lieutenant M.V. Greshilov, on October 26, 1941, boldly entered the battle north of Constanta, using a 45-mm gun, with a convoy of three tugs and 6 armed barges of the "Zibel" type. Two barges washed ashore. One of them was broken by a storm, the enemy managed to refloat the other.

The submarines of the Northern Fleet operated most successfully. Torpedoes from the submarine "M-105" (commander captain 3rd rank V.N. Khrulev) destroyed the submarine ship "UJ-1214" and several transports.
The submarine "M-107" (commanded by senior lieutenant V.P. Kofanov) sank the submarine ship "UJ-1217" ("Star XXII").
A number of large transports were sent to the bottom of the submarine "M-171", commanded by Captain 3rd Rank V.G. Starikov (including "Curitiba", 4969 GRT) and the submarine "M-173" under the command of Lieutenant Commander V.A. Terekhin (including Utlandshoern, 2642 GRT, and Blankensee, 3236 GRT).
The submarine "M-174" (commanded by captain-lieutenant N.E. Egorov) has the transport "Emsjörn" (4301 GRT), and the submarine "M-122" (commanded by captain-lieutenant P.V. Shipin) has the transport " Johannisberg" (4533 brt), the submarine "M-176" (commander-lieutenant commander I.L. Bondarevich) has 6 transports, including the transport "Michael" (2722 brt).
At the end of the war, M-type submarines of the XV series joined the fighting in the North. Two enemy transports were sunk by the submarine "M-200" ("Revenge") under the command of Lieutenant Commander V.L. Gladkov.
The submarine "M-201" under the command of captain 3rd rank N.I. Balin sent a transport and 2 warships to the bottom, including the patrol ship "V-6112".

The combat activities of small submarines were highly praised. The submarines "M-171" and "M-174" of the Northern Fleet were among the first to become guards submarines. The submarines "M-35" and "M-62" of the Black Sea Fleet were also awarded the Guards rank. The submarines "M-111" and "M-117" of the Black Sea Fleet were awarded the Order of the Red Banner, and the submarine "M-172" of the Northern Fleet became a Red Banner Guards ship.
It is very significant that it was the small submarine of the XII series - "M-171" SF - from August 1942 until the end of the war that held the Challenge Red Banner of the Komsomol Central Committee, established for the best submarine of the USSR Navy.