Every year in October, the Russian naval special forces celebrate another anniversary of its existence in the ranks of the Russian Navy. It is believed that its history begins on October 22, 1938, when a planned exercise was held in the Pacific Fleet, during which submarine saboteurs landed through the torpedo tube of the Shch-112 diesel-electric submarine. According to the scenario, the combat swimmers went out through the torpedo tube of the submarine that delivered them to their destination, and then cut the anti-submarine network protecting the entrance to Ulysses Bay, and then secretly went ashore, where they conducted a demonstrative sabotage action. After that, the commandos returned to the submarine that was waiting for them on the ground and went to the base.
HOWEVER, to our great regret, this method of action of combat swimmers was not widely spread in our fleet at that time. And the "frog people" from the special purpose company of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet during the Great Patriotic War went on a mission, as they say, on foot. Dressed in diving suits, they simply walked along the bottom of the sea or pond, which, of course, greatly limited their capabilities. They were not even called special forces, but simply called “submarine soldiers”.
After the end of the war, the small number of special forces of the Navy was disbanded - "as unnecessary." And even when the leadership of the Ministry of Internal Affairs of the USSR in mid-1946 turned to the command of the Navy with a proposal to transfer all captured documents, educational and other literature, as well as the German specialists of underwater sabotage and anti-sabotage war who were in prisoner camps, Admiral Ivan Isakov, Chief of the Main Staff of the USSR Navy refused.
The reasoning was "ironclad". In the opinion of the future Admiral of the Fleet of the Soviet Union, firstly, the use of combat swimmers is possible only occasionally in limited cases. Secondly, their use is supposedly ineffective. Thirdly, it is quite simple to fight the enemy's swimmers-demolitionists, and therefore it will be quite easy for the enemy to detect and destroy our own underwater saboteurs. And, finally, fourthly, the latest developments in the field of hydroacoustics and radar will make it difficult for the covert delivery of combat swimmers to the area of operation and their conduct of special actions.
At the same time, the very successful experience of using submarine special forces units by the naval forces of foreign states during the Second World War was completely ignored. Let us recall that in September 1941, an armed motor ship and two tankers were blown up on the roadstead of Algeciras by Italian combat swimmers, and in December of the same year, in the harbor of the British naval base in Egyptian Alexandria, the crews of three submarine carriers of the Mayale-2 type blew up battleships “Valiant "and" Queen Elizabeth ", and also blew up the tanker" Sagon "with a displacement of about seven and a half thousand tons. Repair of the first battleship will be completed in July 1942, and the second - only in July 1943.
Revival
Only in the early 1950s, the leadership of the Ministry of Defense and the command of the Navy of the Soviet Union began to recreate special forces, otherwise the special forces of naval intelligence. So, by the directive of the chief of the General Staff of the USSR Navy dated June 24, 1953, a submarine saboteur unit was formed as part of the Black Sea Fleet, the first commander of which was Captain 1st Rank E. V. Yakovlev. In October next year, a special unit similar in purpose was created, or rather, recreated in the Baltic. Captain 1st Rank G. V. Potekhin, who had previously served as chief of staff of a detachment in the Black Sea Fleet, was appointed commander of the new combat unit. Then other fleets followed: March 1955 - Pacific (detachment commander - Captain 2nd Rank P. P. Kovalenko), November 1955 - Northern Fleet (detachment commander - Captain 1st Rank E. M. Belyak).
However, it soon became clear that recruiting capable fighters and training them appropriately was only half the battle. The personnel of the special forces groups must also be properly armed. At the same time, in the achievement of great successes by combat swimmers in the performance of special tasks, an underwater means of movement of a special design should also play an important role, which will allow the special forces to secretly and quickly approach the attack area themselves and deliver the necessary cargo to the destination. But at that time, the Soviet Navy did not have such means of propulsion. Naturally, the question of the need to design and build such arose on the agenda of both the fleet and industry.
Initially, the command of the USSR Navy tried to solve this problem on its own, that is, in fact, in an artisanal way. Thus, the Tug Design Bureau was given an assignment to design a prototype of an ultra-small submarine, the construction of which was entrusted to the Leningrad plant "Gatchinsky Metallist". Such a step by the naval command causes great bewilderment, since in those years in the Soviet Union there already existed more than one design bureau specializing in the design of underwater vehicles for various purposes.
Failure again
After the collapse of Nazi Germany, a fairly large number of various types of captured weapons, military and special equipment fell into the hands of the Soviet military and engineers. So, for example, the advancing Soviet troops captured several small submarines of the "Seehund" type. According to the estimates of the Americans, the Soviet Union took as trophies 18 finished and 38 unfinished small submarines, and domestic documents and experts and amateurs of naval history who studied this issue, in particular, shipbuilding engineer A. B. Alikin and historian-researcher of the history of naval special forces of various countries of the world AM Chikin, claim that only two "babies" and technical documentation for this model of naval equipment were taken out of the occupation zone in the USSR. But more plausible is the figure voiced to the author by the American researcher and enthusiast of the history of the creation and combat use of small submarines of the "Seehund" type Peter Whiteall: according to his data, gleaned from American and captured German archives, the Red Army captured and removed for careful study in the USSR six unfinished midget submarines of the "Seehund" type, which were in varying degrees of readiness.
The task of researching and testing trophy "Seehund" was entrusted to the Leningrad plant No. 196 ("Sudomekh"), now the company "Admiralty Shipyards" (St. Petersburg). In those years, the plant carried out the construction of series 15 submarines for the Soviet Navy.
On November 2, 1947, a mini-submarine of the "Seehund" type, already adapted to the needs of the USSR Navy, was launched, and by November 5, its mooring tests were successfully completed. After that, sea trials immediately began, which lasted until November 20, 1947.
However, due to the fact that there was a sharp cold snap and freeze-up, further tests were suspended, the mini-submarine was raised to the wall of the plant, partially dismantled and mothballed for the winter. In the spring of next year, the plant carried out pre-launching work, and then carried out mooring tests of the Soviet "seal". The swimming range, sinking speed, autonomy, duration of continuous stay under water, according to A. B. Alikin, were not determined during the tests.
Then the mini-submarine was transferred for trial operation to the scuba diving detachment located in Kronstadt. The detachment's personnel, as far as can be judged from the scarce data available from domestic sources, quite intensively used the Seehund - mainly to study the capabilities of ultra-small submarines as one of the means of warfare at sea in modern conditions.
Naturally, the leaders of the created special forces also showed interest in such a "outlandish" weapon for our fleet. However, the leadership of the special forces also took measures to create their own funds. So, for example, according to the recollections of naval officers serving in the special forces, the experimental plant then located in Zhukovsky near Moscow carried out for them, according to the TTZ issued, the design of an ultra-small submarine intended for reconnaissance and sabotage operations:
“We had complete creative freedom and complete freedom to attract anyone,” recalls one of them. - Well, for example, the 12th plant-institute located in Zhukovsky made an ultra-small submarine for us. And when they began to disperse us, they made us a miniature submarine for sabotage purposes, 30 tons, according to our TTZ. They even made a mock-up of it, that is, a boat prepared for testing. We asked the command - give us the required leave, so that at least we could experience this "ultra-small". The boat can then be destroyed, but the documents on its tests will be preserved and will still come in handy someday. However, we were not allowed, and later I learned that not only the boat was destroyed, but even the project itself - the documentation - was burned and destroyed."
Brothers "tritons"
In part, the problem of equipping the special forces with the necessary underwater equipment was solved after, by order of the main headquarters of the USSR Navy, employees of the torpedo weapons department of the Leningrad Shipbuilding Institute under the leadership of its head professor A. I. "And single-seat towing vehicles" Proteus-1 "(mounted on the chest) and" Proteus-2 "(mounted on the back). The latter, however, for a number of reasons did not take root in the Soviet Navy.
Everything fell into place only in 1966, when by order of the First Deputy Minister of the USSR Shipbuilding Industry M. V.) "Volna", and the construction of these devices was entrusted to the Novo-Admiralty plant located in Leningrad.
Ultimately, in 1967, the revision and testing of the prototype of the six-seat SMPL "Triton-2 M" were carried out, according to the results of which the design of the prototype of the ultra-small submarine, the transporter of light divers of the "Triton-2" type and the new apparatus of the "Triton-1" type, was started. M ", designed for two people.
BI Gavrilov was appointed the main supervisor of the Triton-1 M project, who was later replaced by Yu. I. Kolesnikov. Work on both programs was carried out by a group of specialists from the Central Design Bureau "Volna" under the leadership of Chief Designer Ya. E. Evgrafov. Looking ahead, we note that since April 6, 1970, B. V.
The draft design of the SMPL "Triton-1 M" was developed in 1968 and in the same year V. S. Spiridonov was appointed deputy chief designer. At the same time, work was underway with contractors on the creation of various technical means for new devices. So, according to the tactical and technical assignments issued by the Volna bureau, the contractors in the shortest possible time developed technical projects of several types of equipment and systems for this "baby".
The development of a technical design for a two-seater ultra-small submarine was completed in December 1969, and on April 4, 1970, the following year, it was finally approved by a joint decision of the Ministry of Shipbuilding Industry (SME) and the USSR Navy. This made it possible for the design team of the TsPB Volna to start developing working drawings and technical documentation for the Triton-1 M already in 1970, and in the third quarter of the same year, all working documentation for the SMPL was transferred to the Novo-Admiralteyskiy Zavod, and in the same year the workers of the plant started building the first small submarines of the Triton-1 M type.
Construction
In 1971-1972 at the Novo-Admiralty plant in Leningrad, the first two vehicles of the Triton-1 M type were built - prototypes designed to carry out comprehensive tests and study all the features of the construction and operation of a new type of submarines. Mooring tests of these two SMPLs were completed in July 1972, after which both "newts" were transferred to the Black Sea, where tests were continued at the naval base of the Gidropribor enterprise.
Then both prototypes were sent by the leadership of the Leningrad Admiralty Association, which included the Novo-Admiralty Plant, for factory sea trials, which ended on January 10, 1973. During the tests, previously and newly identified shortcomings were eliminated, as well as various work was carried out to eliminate the remarks presented to the SMPL by representatives of the military acceptance.
From January 11 to January 28 of the same year, both SMPLs were prepared for state tests, which took place from February 1 to June 9, 1973, with a break from April 4 to April 29, in order to eliminate the identified comments. On June 10, both "newts" were put for inspection of mechanisms and painting, after which on June 30, 1973, a control exit to the sea was performed. On the same day, members of the State Acceptance Commission, chaired by Captain 1st Rank N. A. Myshkin, signed acceptance certificates for both apparatus, which were transferred to the USSR Navy.
In his article devoted to the midget submarines of the Triton family, V. A. Chemodanov wrote that the acceptance certificates for the first two SMPLs of the Triton-1 M type stated: the devices and habitability correspond to the project, and the results obtained during the tests meet the requirements of the current technical conditions, methods and standards. " According to him, members of the state commission issued several proposals: “on the need to improve camouflage at night; by the magnetic field - given that the values of the components of the magnetic field are at the level of the resulting magnetic fields of modern submarines, measurements of the magnetic field at a stop and on the move on prototypes of carriers can be omitted; install one magnetic compass in the center plane of the cabin, since when two compasses are installed on the sides, their operation is affected by the switched on equipment."
After the designers of the Volna design bureau had adjusted the working drawings and documentation, taking into account the results of state tests of prototypes, everything was transferred to the Leningrad Admiralty Association, which began the serial construction of the Triton-1 M submarine.
In connection with the merger in 1974 of the Central Design Bureau "Volna" and the Special Design Bureau No. 143 (SKB-143) into the Union Design and Installation Bureau of Mechanical Engineering (SPMBM) "Malachite", all work on adjusting the technical documentation and technical support for the construction and testing of the small submarine "Triton -1 M ", as well as the small submarine" Triton-2 ", were already conducted by the employees of the new bureau. It is interesting that later the abbreviation SPMBM "Malachite" was already deciphered as the St. Petersburg Maritime Bureau of Mechanical Engineering.
In total, the Novo-Admiralteyskiy Zavod and the Leningrad Admiralty Association built and handed over to the USSR Navy 32 ultra-small submarines - carriers of light divers of the Triton-1 M type, the main builders of which were V. Ya. Babiy, DT Logvinenko, NN Chumichev, and the responsible deliverers - P. A. Kotlyar, B. I. Dobroziy and N. N. Aristov. The main observer from the Navy is B. I. Gavrilov.
"Triton-1 M" is an ultra-small submarine - a carrier of light divers of the so-called "wet" type. This means that it does not have a strong hull for the crew and that the combat swimmers included in individual breathing apparatus are in the SMPL cabin that is permeable to seawater. Strong, impermeable volumes (small compartments) available on the SMPL are intended only for the control panel installed on it (located in the submarine's cockpit), the battery pit (located directly behind the cabin, includes an STs-300 battery with a power of 69 kW) and an electric motor compartment, which is located in the aft end of the "Triton-1 M".
The SMPL hull was made of an aluminum-magnesium alloy, and a propeller placed in a nozzle, driven by a P32 M propeller electric motor with a rated power of 3.4 kW, was used as a propeller. The device is controlled by the propulsion and steering complex DRK-1 and the automatic steering system "Saur" (KM69-1).
The delivery of an ultra-small submarine of the Triton-1 M type to the operation site can be carried out on board surface ships of vessels of various displacement, as well as by submarines. The transportation of this SMPL can be carried out by any means of transport - road, rail and even aviation.
In the base, SMPLs of the "Triton-1 M" type were stored on keelblocks or on a transport trolley (platform). The submarine can be launched into the water using a conventional cargo crane with a lifting capacity of at least 2 tons.
The operation of small submarines of the "Triton-1 M" type was carried out in the domestic fleet until the end of the 1980s, after which they were mostly decommissioned and, at best, ended up in museums, like the "Triton-1 M" presented here from the collection of the Saratov Museum Great Patriotic War.
In conclusion, we add that the Yugoslav, and now already Croatian, shipbuilding company "Brodosplit" in the 1980s began production of a two-seater ultra-small submarine - a carrier of light divers of the R-2 M type, which, in terms of its layout, dimensions and TTE, to a large extent similar to the domestic "Triton-1 M". The foreign version has a normal surface displacement of 1.4 tons, a length of 4.9 meters, develops an underwater speed of 4 knots and has a cruising range of up to 18 miles.
It seems that one of the "almost close" relatives includes the Polish single-seat ultra-small submarine - the carrier of divers "Blotniak" (translated from Polish - "Lun"), created in 1978 by Polish specialists together with the Higher Naval School in Gdynia and produced in the territory of the research center of torpedo weapons of the Polish Navy, also located in Gdynia (Polish sailors call this center "Formosa"). The only surviving copy of this SMPL is located on the territory of the Naval Museum (Gdynia) and was restored by a group of military divers "Lun" from the city of Gdynia. The name "Lun" was given to the small submarine in question according to the traditions of the Polish naval forces, in which all combat units of the submarine fleet were named after the names of various birds of prey.
At the first stage, two prototypes of the future "Lunya" were created, a distinctive feature of which was the location of its driver not sitting, as in the Soviet "Triton-1 M" or the Yugoslav R-2 M, but lying on his stomach.
The Lunya equipment included: two underwater searchlights, a hydroacoustic complex consisting of active and passive stations, an automatic depth control system, two compressed air cylinders (located behind the driver's seat), etc. transported to the area of combat use by submarines (in tow) or surface ships (SMPL was lowered into the water using a crane). In exceptional cases, the submarine could be "brought" into the water using a transport trolley and even, as it was supposed, "brought down" from the side of a transport helicopter from a height of about 5 meters.
In the new millennium
The submarine "Triton-1 M" is still in operation - for example, the Northern Fleet has several such devices. However, since they were created quite a long time ago and no longer meet the requirements for submarines of this class in terms of a number of indicators, the Malakhit SPMBM developed a modernized version of the SMPL, which retained its designation Triton-1 M.
“We specially carried out a new development during the year - we changed almost all the component equipment - both the propulsion system, and the control system, and navigation and hydroacoustic equipment,” says Evgeny Masloboev, deputy chief designer for this area of SPMBM “Malakhit”. - Of course, there is no need to talk loudly about some kind of navigation or hydroacoustic complexes, since these are highly specialized systems, for example, hydroacoustic stations of a certain purpose. Their task is only to ensure navigation or safety of navigation."
The modernized submarine "Triton-1 M" is still designed for two people and has an autonomy of sailing for 6 hours, and a speed of up to 6 knots. The immersion depth of this mini-submarine is about 40 meters and is determined not by the strength of the compartments of the submarine itself, but by the possibility of the respiratory system used by divers and ensuring their vital activity during transportation.
The modernized "Triton" is well distinguishable in appearance - the hull contours are made more "licked", smoother, which allows it to develop a higher speed with less energy consumption. The rechargeable battery as a source of energy in the modernized versions has been preserved, but now the developers are considering not only silver-zinc or acid batteries, but also lithium ones. With the latter, the submarine's performance could be even better.
As for the weapons carried on the Triton-1 M submarine, they still remain individual - for divers: each diver has a so-called special diving bag, which is packed and sealed on the shore, after which it is placed by the divers under their seats. on SMPL. When exiting the submarine - this is usually done on the ground (the submarine is placed on the ground and anchored underwater) - this bag is taken by the fighters. The guaranteed shelf life on the ground of the SMPL "Triton-1 M", in accordance with the design documentation, is 10 days. After completing the combat mission, the divers, at the signal of a special sonar beacon installed on the SMPL, return to the point and go home - either to the carrier, underwater or surface. Ascent of SMPL is carried out using high pressure air stored in special durable cylinders. This system is non-volatile: just open the valve and fill the tank with air.
