The history of the creation of Project 68 cruisers is inextricably linked both with the evolution of domestic naval thought and with the growth of the industrial capabilities of the young USSR. To understand how their appearance and tactical and technical characteristics were formed, it is necessary to make at least a brief excursion into the history of Russian military shipbuilding.
The first Soviet shipbuilding programs, adopted in 1926, 1929 and 1933, were formed under the influence of the theory of a small naval war, which fully corresponded to the economic and shipbuilding capabilities of the Land of Soviets. The ships laid down before the revolution were being completed, the battleships that were part of the RKKF were being modernized. However, new construction was supposed to be limited by leaders, destroyers, submarines and other types of light ships, which, in cooperation with land-based aviation, were supposed to smash enemy fleets that had invaded the coastal waters of the USSR. It was assumed that light forces, capable of quickly concentrating in the right place and at the right time due to their high speed, would be able, in cooperation with aviation and ground artillery, to deliver a combined strike, i.e. simultaneously attack a squadron of enemy heavy ships with heterogeneous forces and thereby achieve success.
To prevent its own light forces from getting bogged down in the enemy's destroyers and light cruisers, the fleet needed a number of light cruisers capable of paving the way for their torpedo ships through the cover of the enemy squadron. Such cruisers had to be very fast to interact with the 37-40-node leaders of the Leningrad (Project 1) and Wrathful (Project 7) types and have sufficient firepower to quickly disable enemy light cruisers. The light cruisers of Project 26 and 26-bis, considered by the author in the previous series of articles, have become just such ships.
However, back in 1931 I. V. Stalin at a meeting of the Defense Commission under the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR said:
“We need to start building a large fleet with small ships. It is possible that in five years we will build battleships."
And, apparently, since then (or even earlier), he never parted with the dream of an ocean-going fleet. That is why in the spring of 1936 in the USSR the first program of "large sea shipbuilding" was developed, which included plans to create a powerful linear fleet. It must be said that this program was created in an atmosphere of strict (and not entirely clear) secrecy: experts-theoreticians of naval development (such as M. A. Petrov) and the command of the fleets were not involved in its creation. In essence, all their participation in the development was reduced to a short meeting held by I. V. Stalin with the leadership of the UVMS and the commanders, at which Stalin asked questions:
“What ships and with what weapons should we build? What kind of enemy will these ships most likely have to face in a combat situation?"
The answers of the commanders, of course, turned out to be completely different, otherwise it would be difficult to expect: if the commander of the Pacific Fleet proposed to focus on large ships (which were needed in his theater), then the commander of the Black Sea Fleet wanted to build many torpedo boats together with cruisers and destroyers. Stalin's reaction was quite predictable: "You yourself do not yet know what you need."
But it should be noted that if the sailors did not know what ships they needed, they were eager to find out: by the beginning of 1936, projects were being worked out (of course, at the very early stages - pre-sketch / draft design) of three large artillery ships. Then it was assumed that the RKKF would need two types of battleships: for closed and open sea theaters, therefore, projects of battleships of 55,000 tons (project 23 "for the Pacific Fleet") and 35,000 tons (project 21 "for the KBF") of standard displacement were considered, and also a heavy cruiser (project 22). It is interesting that the latter was supposed to have ultimatum, but still "cruising" characteristics - 18-19 thousand tons, 254-mm main artillery and 130-mm universal guns, but the construction of small battleships in France ("Dunkirk") and in Germany ("Scharnhorst") led our sailors astray. A heavy cruiser with 254-mm artillery would represent the top of the cruising "food pyramid" without turning into a battleship, but that is why it could not withstand the "Dunkirk" or "Scharnhorst", which was extremely frustrating for the UVMS leadership. As a result, the development task was almost immediately corrected: the displacement of the cruiser was allowed to be increased to 22,000 tons and the installation of 250-mm, 280-mm and 305-mm artillery of the main caliber on it was allowed to be worked out. Forced to orient the projected ships to confront even small, but battleships, both design teams, TsKBS-1 and KB-4, which carried out preliminary studies of the heavy cruiser, reached 29,000 and 26,000 tons of standard displacement, respectively. Within these limits of the scales, the teams obtained fairly high-speed (33 knots), moderately protected (up to 250 mm armored belts and up to 127 mm armored deck) ships with nine 305-mm guns in three towers. But they, of course, have already ceased to be heavy cruisers, representing small battleships or, perhaps, battlecruisers.
The program of "large marine shipbuilding" made its own adjustments to these views: although it was developed by V. M. Orlov and his deputy I. M. Ludry, but of course, the last word belonged to Joseph Vissarionovich. It is likely that it was the secrecy of its development that led to a number of frankly strange decisions in terms of the number and types of ships planned for construction and their distribution among theaters. In total, it was planned to build 24 battleships, including 8 type "A" and 16 type "B", 20 light cruisers, 17 leaders, 128 destroyers, 90 large, 164 medium and 90 small submarines. At the same time, at the time of the formation of the program of "large marine shipbuilding" I. V. Stalin considered it highly desirable for the USSR to enter the system of international treaties, so it was decided to abandon the further development of a 55,000-ton battleship, limiting itself to 35,000-ton ships that fit the Washington standard and became the A-type battleships of the new program.
Accordingly, the heavy cruisers were "reclassified" as "Type B battleships". On the one hand, such an approach seemed to be in line with the wishes of the UVMS, who were working on the simultaneous construction of battleships of two types. But it should be borne in mind that the "small" battleship UVMS with its 35,000 tons of displacement and 406-mm artillery of the main caliber should have become no weaker than any battleship in the world, and the "large" ship for the Pacific Ocean was created as the world's strongest battleship … Now, instead, it was planned to create only 8 full-fledged battleships and as many as 16 ships of the "B" type, which, having a 26,000 displacement and 305-mm main caliber, "hovered" somewhere in the middle between a full-fledged battleship and a heavy cruiser. What tasks could they solve? Namorsi V. M. Orlov in the same 1936 wrote the following about them:
"The ship should be able to destroy all sorts of cruisers for many years, including ships of the Deutschland class (pocket battleships. - Author's note)."
A little later, he also put forward a requirement for them to fight Scharnhorst-class battleships and Congo-class battlecruisers at favorable heading angles and distances. Nevertheless, in this form, the "battleship" part of the program raises many questions. In total, in the world (if we do not take into account the exotic Spanish or Latin American dreadnoughts), there were only 12 relatively medium-sized battleships with which a type B battleship could fight, and without much hope of success: 2 Dunkirk, 4 Julio Cesare ", 2" Scharnhorst "and 4" Congo ". Why was it necessary to build 16 own "twelve-inch" ships "in response"? It was supposed to have only 4 full-fledged battleships of type "A" in the Black and Baltic Seas - this would hardly be enough to withstand the fleet of any first-class maritime power. For example, at the time of the commissioning of the Black Sea four battleships of the "A" type, the Italian fleet, which, as it was believed then, could well enter the Black Sea for unfriendly purposes, could have a much larger number of ships of this class. If initially the UVMS intended the most powerful type of ships for the Pacific Ocean (a battleship of 55,000 tons), now there should have been no full-fledged battleships at all - only 6 ships of the "B" type.
Thus, the implementation of the "large marine shipbuilding" program, although it was supposed to provide the country of the Soviets with a mighty navy of 533 warships in 1 million 307 thousand tons of aggregate standard displacement, did not ensure its dominance on any of the four sea theaters. And this, in turn, meant that if the theory of "small war" comes to an end, then it is too early to abandon the tactics of a combined strike. Even after the implementation of the 1936 shipbuilding program, the possibility of the appearance of enemy squadrons, obviously superior to our fleet in the number of heavy ships, could not be ruled out. In this case, the classic battle automatically led to defeat, and it remained to rely on the same "strike by light forces in the coastal areas."
As a result, it turned out a little strange: on the one hand, even after the adoption of the "large sea shipbuilding" program, the cruisers of projects 26 and 26-bis did not outlive themselves at all, because a tactical niche for their use remained. But, on the other hand, since it was now planned to create full-fledged squadrons at all four theaters (even for the Northern Fleet it was planned to build 2 battleships of the "B" type), it became necessary to create a new type of light cruiser for service with the squadron. And all these considerations found themselves in the 1936 shipbuilding program: out of 20 light cruisers intended for construction, 15 were to be built according to Project 26, and the remaining 5 were to be built according to a new project for "escorting a squadron", which received number 28.
Thus, the UVMS management demanded, and the designers began to design a new cruiser, not because Project 26 turned out to be something bad: in fact, the creation of a new type of ship, which later became a light cruiser of Project 68-K "Chapaev", began long before how cruisers of the Kirov or Maxim Gorky types could demonstrate at least some flaws. But the Kirov-class cruisers were created within the framework of the "small naval war" paradigm and were not very suitable for escorting the squadron. Of course, there is never a lot of speed, but for operations with their own heavy ships, the 36 knots of Project 26 still looked redundant. But additional speed nodes always come at the expense of some other elements, in the case of Project 26 - the rejection of the second command and rangefinder point, and so on. The task of quickly eliminating light cruisers was no longer posed. Of course, it is nice to be able to quickly disassemble an enemy light cruiser into frames and other hull parts, but the main enemy of the escort cruiser was the leaders and destroyers, and they needed faster-firing artillery than 180-mm cannons. In addition, the protection should have been strengthened: while the "cruiser-raider" of Project 26, with a concentrated or combined strike, had every opportunity to determine the distance of the battle and its course angle to the enemy, the light cruiser-defender should still be located between the attackers and their target, leaving the choice of the battle distance / heading angles to the enemy. Moreover, it should be assumed that if the attack of the enemy's light forces is also led by light cruisers, they will try to bind ours in battle, in this case it is important not to be distracted, but to destroy enemy destroyers, not being too afraid of 152-mm shells. And, in addition, it is possible for enemy leaders and destroyers to break through to "pistol" distances, from which their artillery, which has already grown to 138 mm (from the French), acquires significant armor penetration.
In addition to defense and artillery, fuel supplies also required changes. The cruisers of the project 26 were created for operations in the limited waters of the Black and Baltic Seas and were not supposed to go far from the shores of the Pacific Ocean, and therefore had a limited cruising range: according to the project, within 3,000 nautical miles with a full (not maximum) fuel supply (that in fact it would turn out to be somewhat higher, in 1936, of course, they could not have known). At the same time, it was planned to provide a cruising range of 6,000-8,000 miles for the newest A-type battleships, and, of course, Project 26 cruisers could not accompany such ships.
Consequently, the domestic fleet needed a light cruiser of a different concept and a different project. This is how the history of the creation of cruisers of the "Chapaev" type began, but before proceeding to its description, one should nevertheless fully understand the question of how it happened that the cruiser's data almost completely "squeezed out" the ships of the "Kirov" and "Maxim Gorky" type. from shipbuilding programs.
So, on June 26, 1936, the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR adopted a resolution on the construction of the "Big Sea and Ocean Fleet". But already in the next year, 1937, this program underwent significant adjustments. In the summer of 1937, People's Commissar of Internal Affairs N. I. Yezhov announced:
"… the military-fascist conspiracy has branches in the leadership of the Naval Forces."
As a result, the "purge" of the ranks of the navy began, and the creators of the "large sea shipbuilding" program, namorsi V. M. Orlov and his deputy I. M. Ludri were repressed. We will not, of course, try to pass a verdict on the purges of 1937-38, this is a topic for a separate large study, we will limit ourselves to stating that the shipbuilding program of 1936, created by the "pests", simply had to undergo revision. And so it happened: in August 1937, the USSR government issued a decree on the revision of the shipbuilding program.
Without assessing the repressions, we must admit that the shipbuilding program only benefited from the revision initiated by them. The number of battleships was reduced from 24 to 20, but now they were full-fledged battleships: the design of the A-type battleship showed that the combination of 406-mm artillery and protection against a 406-mm projectile at a speed of about 30 knots could not fit into either 35 or in 45 thousand tons. At the beginning of 1937 it became known that Germany and Japan would later lay ships with a displacement of 50-52 thousand tons. In response, the government allowed to increase the standard displacement of the A-type battleship to 55-57 thousand tons. At the same time, the B-type battleship in the design process has already exceeded 32 thousand tons, but still did not meet any customer requirements. nor the views of the designers, so this project was declared sabotage. As a result, the UVMS leadership decided to build Type A ships with 406-mm artillery and a displacement of 57 thousand tonnes.tons for the Pacific Ocean and battleships of the "B" type with the same protection, but with 356-mm cannons and significantly smaller dimensions for other theaters. Theoretically (without taking into account the country's economic capabilities), this approach was much preferable to battleships of 35 and 26 thousand tons of the previous program. Moreover, it very quickly became clear that battleship "B" in its size seeks to approach the battleship of type "A", while not possessing its effectiveness, which is why at the beginning of 1938 the battleships of type "B" were finally abandoned in favor of the strongest ship type "A", which was to be built for all maritime theaters.
But the changes were not limited to battleships alone: it was proposed to include ships of new classes in the shipbuilding program, which were not in the old one, namely: 2 aircraft carriers and 10 heavy cruisers. Accordingly, the updated program had two fundamental differences that put the final end to the further construction of cruisers of the 26 and 26-bis project:
1. The developers of this program believed that its implementation would allow the RKKF to have parity with potential adversaries at every maritime theater. Thus, a situation was no longer predicted in which the task of confronting enemy formations of heavy ships would be assigned exclusively to the light forces of the fleet. Accordingly, the tactical niche of Project 26 and 26-bis cruisers should have disappeared.
2. The program provided for the construction of not only "classic" light, but also ultimatum-powerful heavy cruisers, which were to become the strongest in their class. Their displacement was planned at the level of 18-19 thousand tons (according to initial estimates), the main caliber was 254-mm artillery, the booking was supposed to protect against 203-mm shells, and all this was supposed to develop a speed of 34 knots. The capabilities of heavy and light cruisers completely covered the entire range of tasks that could be assigned to a cruiser-class ship, and there was no need for an additional type of ships.
Thus, the RKKF was supposed to receive classic light and very powerful heavy cruisers in sufficient quantities, and the need for an "intermediate" ship, which were the cruisers of Project 26, disappeared. According to the new program, it was supposed to build only 6 of them (actually laid down ships of projects 26 and 26-bis), and at this their construction should have been stopped. However, the question of resuming the construction of cruisers of the "Maxim Gorky" class was supposed to return once again, after the tests of the first ship of the series, but this did not happen.
Subsequently, the heavy cruisers evolved into Project 69 Kronstadt, which is suspiciously similar to the "wrecking" battleship of the "B" type, but this is a completely different story. As for the light cruisers "escort squadron", the history of their creation began at the end of August 1936, when V. M. Orlov formulated tasks for this type of ships:
1. Intelligence and patrol.
2. Combat with light enemy forces accompanied by a squadron.
3. Support for attacks by own destroyers, submarines and torpedo boats.
4. Operations on enemy sea lanes and raiding operations on its coast and ports.
5. Mine-laying active minefields in enemy waters.
The UVMS leadership demanded to "pack" the new ship (according to the documents as "Project 28") in a standard displacement of 7,500 tons, i.e. slightly more than the "permitted" displacement of the cruiser "Kirov", which was planned for that at the level of 7170 tons. At the same time, the sailors "ordered" an absolutely enchanting cruising range - 9-10 thousand nautical miles. The preliminary design of the ship was to be carried out (in parallel) by the designers of TsKBS-1 and the Leningrad Design Institute.
The new ship was designed on the basis of the cruisers of the project 26. The length of the Kirov's hull was increased by 10 meters, the width by a meter, while the theoretical drawing practically repeated that of the cruiser of the project 26. We slightly increased the armor of the sides, traverses and barbets - from 50 to 75 mm, and the forehead of the tower - even up to 100 mm, but the vertical armor of the conning tower was reduced from 150 to 100 mm, and the 50-mm armored deck was left as it is. Of course, the main innovations affected the main caliber: 180-mm cannons gave way to six-inch guns, instead of three three-gun MK-3-180 turrets, it was planned to install four three-gun turrets, thereby bringing the number of barrels to twelve. At the same time, the long-range anti-aircraft caliber remained in its "original" form - six single-gun 100-mm B-34 mounts, located in the same way as on the Kirov cruiser. But according to the project, the new ship was finally supposed to receive rapid-fire anti-aircraft guns, albeit in a very moderate amount: two "nests" (46-K) with quad 37-mm mountings, and only 8 barrels. Of interest is their placement: on the bow and stern superstructure, so that both "nests" could shoot on either side, and one at the bow or stern of the ship. The number of machine-gun installations remained the same as on the Kirov - four, but they had to be paired, which is why the total number of 12.7-mm barrels in comparison with the project 26 doubled, from four to eight. As for the torpedo and aircraft armament, it remained unchanged: two 533-mm three-pipe torpedo tubes and two KOR-2 aircraft.
The power plant was supposed to completely duplicate the turbines and boilers intended for serial ships of Project 26: the lead Kirov received a power plant made in Italy, but other ships of this type were its modernized version mastered by domestic production. With all of the above "innovations", the standard displacement of the cruiser was supposed to reach 9,000 tons, while the speed was hoped to keep at the level of 36 knots, but the cruising range, of course, turned out to be significantly lower than in the terms of reference: instead of 9-10 thousand miles, only 5, 4 thousand miles.
In general, it can be stated that the designers could not "put" the cruiser of Project 28 in the original TK, and from this its further fate was in question. It is not known what decision the UVMS leadership would have made, but just then the year 1937 began … The next stage in the creation of light cruisers of the "Chapaev" type began after V. M. Orlov was removed from his post and arrested, and the program of "large sea shipbuilding" presented by him was revised to identify "sabotage" elements in it. Of course, the cruiser of project 28 did not escape this fate: on August 11, 1937, at a meeting of the Defense Committee (KO) under the Council of People's Commissars (SNK) of the USSR, it was instructed to work out the type of promising light cruiser with a different composition of weapons, including nine 180 -mm, twelve, nine and six 152-mm guns, as well as consider the feasibility of further building light cruisers of the 26-bis project instead of designing something new. Moreover, only two days were given to revise the TK of a light cruiser!
They did not meet the "two days", but on October 1, 1937, the Defense Committee adopted a resolution on the design of a new ship, which had a number of significant differences from the cruiser of Project 28. The number of main battery towers was reduced from four to three, so the cruiser was to receive nine 152 mm guns. Six single-gun 100-mm guns were replaced with four twin turrets. The total number of barrels of 37-mm machine guns increased from 8 to 12. The speed was allowed to be reduced to 35 knots, but the armor belt had to be increased from 75 to 100 mm. The range was somewhat reduced: now the cruiser was required to pass only 4, 5 thousand miles with a maximum supply of fuel, but there was a small nuance. Usually, the range was set for full speed and for economic speed - and with that, and with another, everything is clear. If the full speed in this case represents the maximum speed of the ship that it could maintain for a long time, then the economic move was the speed at which the fuel consumption per mile traveled was minimal. However, the range of 4, 5 thousand miles was determined for a certain "cruising course" (often this is understood as the economic speed, but, apparently, not in this case). The economic speed for our cruisers was determined as 17-18 knots, but the cruising speed for the new ship was, for some reason, 20 knots. The standard displacement was set within the same limits as before: 8000-8300 tons.
At the same time, the Defense Committee determined the following procedure for work on the cruiser: until October 5 of this year, the leadership of the Red Army's naval forces was obliged to submit a tactical and technical assignment for the ship, on October 10, 1938, a preliminary design was expected, so that on August 31, 1938 it would be possible to lay new cruisers of this type. At the same time, a decision was made (presumably due to the danger of disruption of work on the cruisers of the new project. - Approx. Auth.) To bookmark two cruisers of the 26-bis project in 1938 (the future "Kalinin" and "Kaganovich").
Of course, the defense committee did not take the characteristics of the new cruiser from the ceiling, but according to the proposals of the sailors. But it is still surprising that the Defense Committee approved (at least partially) the performance characteristics of the ship, for which there was no tactical and technical assignment!
However, already on October 29, 1938, it was approved. The new head of the MS of the RKKA M. V. Viktorov set the following requirements for the new ship:
1. Actions in the squadron for the withdrawal of light forces into the attack.
2. Support for ship patrol and reconnaissance.
3. Protection of the squadron from attacks of light enemy forces.
As you can see, the tasks of the new cruiser (soon its project was assigned the number 68) were significantly reduced in comparison with the original TTT (tactical and technical requirements), on the basis of which the previous project 28 was developed. Interestingly, the ships of project 68 were no longer intended to operate on communications enemy: now the leadership of the MS of the Red Army saw in them a specialized cruiser for service with the squadron, and nothing more.
As for the performance characteristics of the cruiser itself, they practically did not differ from those determined by the defense committee: all the same 3 * 3-152-mm guns, and so on. The only innovation was only some clarifications on anti-aircraft artillery. So, initially, 100-mm guns were planned to be installed in BZ-14 installations, similar to those intended for battleships of Project 23, but then it was decided that they were too heavy and would unnecessarily increase the displacement of the cruiser, which made the decision to design lightweight 100-mm installations. The composition of anti-aircraft guns was determined: twelve barrels were supposed to be placed in six paired installations. The standard displacement remained at the level of 8000-8300 tons, the armor of the sides and the deck was 100 and 50 mm, respectively, but this provided for very powerful artillery protection: towers up to 175 mm, and their barbets - 150 mm. It must be said that the sources available to the author do not indicate exactly when the decision on such a strong protection of artillery was made, so it cannot be ruled out that such protection was included in the decision of the Defense Committee before the appearance of Viktorov's TTZ.
The design of the new cruiser was entrusted to the chief designer of the ships of the project 26 and 26 bis A. I. Maslov (TsKB-17), obviously, this was the best choice of all. In March 1938, the preliminary design was ready, but with two deviations from the original TTT. And if a reduction in the cruising range (4,500 miles not at cruising (20 knots), but at an economic rate (17 knots)) was acceptable, then an increase in the standard displacement to 9,450 tons against the maximum permitted 8,300 tons was not.
During the preliminary design of the light cruiser, the People's Commissariat of the Navy was created, which was to be responsible, among other things, for the plans for the construction of the USSR naval forces. It was there that the draft design of the new cruiser was sent for approval, but the deputy commissar of the Navy I. S. Isakov considered that the project requires revision. The main complaint was that the Project 68 cruiser turned out to be larger than its foreign "colleagues", but at the same time it was inferior to them in armament. Therefore, Isakov proposed two possible options for finalizing the project:
1. Installation of the fourth 152-mm turret, it was proposed to compensate for the weight by reducing the thickness of the armoring of the barbets and the conning tower (from 150 to 120 mm) and the front plates of the main caliber towers (from 175 to 140 mm), and to reduce the economic travel range to 3,500 miles.
2. Leave the main caliber 3 * 3-152-mm, but at the expense of other load items, find a weight saving of 1500 tons. Leave the power plant unchanged - thereby achieving an increase in speed.
A month and a half later, TsKB-17 presented a revised cruiser design. The 4th tower of the main caliber was added, the thickness of the barbets was reduced to 120 mm, the speed was reduced by half a knot (to 34.5 knots), and the standard displacement increased to 10,000 tons. Such a ship by I. S. Isakov quite satisfied, his only requirement was to return the 150-mm thickness of the barbet. In this form, Project 68 was presented to the Defense Committee of the Council of People's Commissars of the USSR. The latter, at a meeting on June 29, 1938, approved project 68 without changes, and at the same time already put the final point in the plans for the construction of cruisers of the "Maxim Gorky" class:
“Allow NKOP to lay down two light cruisers of Project 26-bis at the Amur shipyard in the city of Komsomolsk-on-Amur, after which the construction of ships of this type should be stopped”.
Noteworthy is the fact that this decision was made even before the end of the tests of the lead ship of Project 26 - the light cruiser "Kirov". A fact that once again indicates that the termination of the construction of the cruisers of the 26 and 26-bis project occurred due to a change in the concept of building the fleet, and not at all due to the identification of certain shortcomings that were revealed during testing and / or operation.
At the beginning of December 1938, TsKB-17 presented a technical project 68: the displacement increased again (up to 10 624 tons), the speed was supposed to be 33.5 knots. This was the result of a more accurate calculation of weights: at the stage of preliminary design, the weight characteristics of many units supplied by contractors were not known, and, in addition, in a number of cases, the designers also clarified their own calculations.
The Naval Shipbuilding Directorate, having considered the submitted project, issued the following verdict:
“The technical design of the KRL was developed on the basis of the draft design and the approved assignment quite fully and satisfactorily, it can be approved for the release of working documentation on it in order to ensure the construction of ships for this project. The slightly larger displacement compared to the radar of foreign fleets is mainly due to the high requirements for it in terms of the quality of artillery weapons and armor.
In addition, the project contains a number of qualities that cannot be measured by conventional indicators, such as the number and caliber of guns, armor thickness, travel speed, etc. (requirements for cellars, artillery firing angles, chemical protection, communications, saturation with electrical equipment, etc.). This allows us to conclude that the KRL pr. 69 will undoubtedly be stronger than all the KRLs of foreign fleets armed with 152-mm artillery, and will be able to successfully fight also with lightly armored heavy cruisers of the "Washington" type."
How grounded was it? Let's try to figure it out in the next article.
