Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship
| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Operators: |
 Soviet Navy
|
| Preceded by: | Imperator Nikolai I |
| Succeeded by: | None |
| Cost: | 1,180,000,000 rubles |
| Built: | 1938–41 |
| Planned: | 15 (4 laid down before cancellation) |
| Cancelled: | 4 |
| General characteristics after 1941 modifications | |
| Type: | Battleship |
| Displacement: | |
| Length: | 269.4 m (883 ft 10 in) |
| Beam: | 38.9 m (127 ft 7 in) |
| Draft: | 10.4 m (34 ft 1 in) |
| Installed power: | |
| Propulsion: | 3 shafts, Brown Boveri steam turbines |
| Speed: | 28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph) |
| Endurance: | 7,680 nmi (14,220 km; 8,840 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph) |
| Armament: |
|
| Armor: |
|
| Aircraft carried: | 4 KOR-2 flying boats |
| Aviation facilities: | 2 aircraft catapults |
The Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleships (Project 23, Russian: Советский Союз, "Soviet Union"), also known as "Stalin's Republics", were a class of battleships begun by the Soviet Union in the late 1930s but never brought into service. They were designed in response to the battleships being built by Germany. Only four hulls of the fifteen originally planned had been laid down by 1940, when the decision was made to cut the program to only three ships to divert resources to an expanded army rearmament program.
These ships would have rivaled the Imperial Japanese Yamato class and America's planned Montana class in size if any had been completed, although with significantly weaker firepower: nine 406-millimeter (16.0 in) guns compared to the nine 460-millimeter (18.1 in) guns of the Japanese ships and a dozen 16-inch (406.4 mm) on the Montanas. However, they would have been superior to their German rivals, the Bismarck class, at least on paper. The failure of the Soviet armor plate industry to build cemented armor plates thicker than 230 millimeters (9.1 in) would have negated any advantages from the Sovetsky Soyuz class's thicker armor in combat.
Construction of the first four ships was plagued with difficulties as the Soviet shipbuilding and related industries were not prepared to build such large ships. One battleship, Sovetskaya Belorussiya, was cancelled on 19 October 1940 after serious construction flaws were found. Construction of the other three ships was suspended shortly after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and never resumed. All three of the surviving hulls were scrapped in the late 1940s.
Design work began in 1935 on new battleships in response to the existing and planned German battleships, and the Soviets made extensive efforts in Italy and the United States to purchase either drawings or the ships themselves in the late 1930s. The Italian firm of Gio. Ansaldo & C. proposed a ship of 42,000 long tons (43,000 t) standard displacement with nine 16-inch (406 mm) guns, in size and appearance similar to the Italian battleship Littorio then under construction by the company. The U.S. firm of Gibbs & Cox provided four designs; one for a conventional battleship, and three hybrid designs which combined battleship main armament with a raised flight deck on the central superstructure capable of operating up to 30 aircraft. While these projects proved useful to the Soviets, they decided to proceed with their own designs.
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