On March 13, 1950, the lead submarine of Project 613 was laid down: the most massive submarine of the Russian fleet
The experience of the Great Patriotic War has clearly shown what a colossal role submarines play in military operations on the seas and in the oceans. The Soviet Union entered the war with only 218 submarines in the Workers 'and Peasants' Red Fleet - almost half the size of Germany's submarine forces in 1943, during its peak: 432 boats. And the new, this time "cold" war that broke out soon after the Victory demanded a sharp increase in the number of submarines also because they constituted a significant part of the strike forces of the main geopolitical opponent of Russia - the United States.
But our country, exhausted and drained of blood by the hardest war, could quickly pump up "underwater muscles" in only one way: by taking an example from a defeated enemy. It was no secret to anyone that in the best years the German shipbuilding industry launched submarines almost one every two days. This means that it was possible and necessary to take advantage of this experience and establish its own production of submarines by the flow method. And this meant, among other things, the need to carefully study - and possibly modify to fit your needs - and the designs of German submarines.
Most likely, it was these considerations that guided the command of the Navy, when at the end of 1944 it ordered to suspend work on a new project of the Soviet medium submarine, which had the code 608, and to analyze the captured boats of the VII and XXI series. It took a year and a half: only in January 1946, the Main Command of the Soviet Navy approved a new terms of reference for the development of the boat - this is how Project 613 was born. Two years later, on August 15, 1948, the technical design of the new submarine was approved by the government, and on March 13 In 1950, the first diesel-electric submarine of Project 613 - S-80 (order 801) was laid down at the Krasnoye Sormovo plant in Gorky. A little over seven months later, on October 21, three-quarters of the finished boat was launched and put to the outfitting wall, and already on November 1, the C-80 arrived in Baku, where, after additional equipment, from December 31, 1950 to April 26, 1951, it underwent sea trials. … Finally, on July 9, the submarine made a test deep-sea dive, and on December 2, the state commission signed an acceptance certificate. By this time, another lead submarine of project 613 - S-61 was already being completed at the Black Sea shipyard in Nikolaev. It was laid down on April 11, 1950, launched on July 22, brought to mooring trials on January 12, 1951, then transferred to Sevastopol and on May 24, 1952, adopted.
In total, over the entire history of the 613 project, over seven years - from 1950 to 1957 - 215 submarines were built. This made the submarines of this series the most massive in the Soviet fleet in the entire history of its existence. However, there could be more boats: according to the original plan, they were going to be built as much as 340 units! But during the time when the construction of the first hundred boats was underway, new, more modern projects appeared, which were quickly brought to mass production, and as a result, the 613th project was limited to two hundred boats with a small one. 116 of them were built by the Gorky plant "Krasnoe Sormovo", 72 - the plant in Nikolaev, 16 - the Baltic plant named after Sergo Ordzhonikidze in Leningrad and 11 - the Plant named after the Lenin Komsomol in Komsomolsk-on-Amur.
In fact, during the years of the most active construction of Project 613 boats, the Soviet fleet received one new submarine of this type every five days! And it was possible to achieve such an unprecedented rate of production due to a significant rationalization and technologization of the construction of boats. For the first time in domestic practice, in the construction of submarines, the flow-sectional construction method, automatic welding and X-ray inspection of welded seams were widely used. In addition, the speed of construction was also affected by the fact that the developers of project 613, together with production workers, achieved the maximum unification of parts of products and materials, used aggregation with might and main (that is, the geometric and functional interchangeability of individual elements and units) when assembling mechanisms and devices and were able to practically get rid of traditional at that time manual fitting of elements during installation.
Modifications of submarines of project 613. Photo: www.deepstorm.ru
Is it any wonder after that that in the shortest possible time the Soviet fleet not only managed to build up "underwater muscles", but also got a submarine at its disposal, which enjoyed good fame among submariners. Suffice it to say that out of 215 submarines, only two were lost - the rarest result for any fleet in the world!
What were the "six hundred and thirteenth"? These were simple, one might even say, somewhat primitive submarines of the classic double-hull design, which had three shelter compartments, ten main ballast tanks, two diesel engines with a capacity of 2000 hp. each and two electric motors of 1350 hp Diesels accelerated the boat to a speed of 18.5 knots and allowed it to go on the surface up to 8500 miles. Under the electric motors, Project 613 boats could go submerged with a maximum speed of 13.1 knots, and the power reserve on batteries was 352 miles. All boats were armed with six 533 mm torpedo tubes - four bow and two stern. By the way, the torpedoes with which the "six hundred and thirteenth" were armed could also have nuclear warheads. In addition, the boats of the first series also had artillery armament: the obligatory 25-mm twin anti-aircraft machine gun 2M-8 in the front guard of the wheelhouse, and some also the universal twin gun mount SM-24-ZIF of 57 mm caliber, which was located behind the wheelhouse. But gradually they abandoned the guns and artillery guns, which made it possible to reduce the crew from 53 to 52 people (including 10 officers), and most importantly, to increase the underwater speed due to the better streamlining of the hull.
The submarines of the project 613 have earned true respect from Soviet submarines not only for their reliability and ease of handling and control, but also for their unpretentiousness. Even if these submarines were not the best in the world, and were not even the best in Russia, they made it possible to quickly restore the submarine fleet and do it without making superhuman efforts and without diverting human resources for too complex personnel training. In this sense, the "six hundred and thirteenth" were very similar to the Mosin rifle - "three-line": although it was not the best in the world, it best corresponded to the requirements and capabilities of the Russian army, due to which it held out in service for almost a century.
The same fate was in store for the submarines of the 613th project. They were in service until 1990, and the last of them were scrapped in 1991. For example, out of 54 submarines of project 613, which were part of the 14th submarine division of the Black Sea Fleet of the USSR, 18 submarines remained in service in 1990, most of which were built in 1954-56. By the way, it was the boats of Project 613 from the 14th division that were the very submarines for which the famous "object 825" was built in Balaklava (where the division's headquarters and two brigades of its composition were located) - an underground base with a passage channel, designed to shelter boats in the event of a nuclear strike, and also included an arsenal of atomic weapons and a protected division command post with a special communications center.
Moreover, it was the "six hundred and thirteenth" submarines that became the first Russian submarines to enter the international market. In 1954, working drawings and technical documentation for Project 613 submarines were transferred to China, for which the first three boats of the "Chinese" series were built in the Soviet Union, then transported in disassembled form to a Chinese shipyard in Shanghai and already launched there. In addition, 12 submarines of project 613 were transferred to Indonesia, 10 to Egypt, four flew under the flag of Albania, the same number served in the navies of the DPRK and Poland, three in Syria, two in Bulgaria, and one in Cuba. In NATO, these most famous Soviet submarines earned the code name "Whiskey" - which, oddly enough, also emphasized their massiveness and prevalence. And the head of the western sailors, unexpectedly faced with the massive presence of Russian submarines in the World Ocean, ached from these meetings no worse …
