Friends, I propose this topic. We update with photos and interesting information.
The theme of the Navy is close to me. I studied for 4 years as a schoolboy at the KYUMRP (Club of Young Sailors, Rivermen and Polar Explorers). Fate didn’t connect me with the navy, but I remember those years. And my father-in-law turned out to be a submariner quite by accident. I’ll start, and you help.

On March 9, 1906, a decree “On the classification of military vessels of the Russian Imperial Navy” was issued. It was this decree that created the submarine forces of the Baltic Sea with the first formation of submarines based in the naval base of Libau (Latvia).

Emperor Nicholas II “deigned to command the highest” to include “messenger ships” and “submarines” in the classification. The text of the decree listed 20 names of submarines built by that time.

By order of the Russian Maritime Department, submarines were declared an independent class of naval ships. They were called "hidden ships."

In the domestic submarine shipbuilding industry, non-nuclear and nuclear submarines are conventionally divided into four generations:

First generation submarines were an absolute breakthrough for their time. However, they retained the traditional diesel-electric fleet solutions for electrical power supply and general ship systems. It was on these projects that hydrodynamics was worked out.

Second generation endowed with new types of nuclear reactors and radio-electronic equipment. Also characteristic feature was the optimization of the hull shape for underwater travel, which led to an increase in standard underwater speeds to 25-30 knots (two projects even exceeded 40 knots).

Third generation has become more advanced in terms of both speed and stealth. The submarines were distinguished by their larger displacement, more advanced weapons and better habitability. For the first time, electronic warfare equipment was installed on them.

Fourth generation significantly increased the strike capabilities of submarines and increased their stealth. In addition, electronic weapons systems are being introduced that will allow our submarines to detect the enemy earlier.

Now design bureaus are developing fifth generations submarine

Using the example of various “record-breaking” projects marked with the epithet “the most,” one can trace the features of the main stages in the development of the Russian submarine fleet.

MOST COMBATIVE:
Heroic "Pikes" from the Great Patriotic War

Messages merged March 21, 2017, time of first edit March 21, 2017

The nuclear submarine missile cruiser K-410 "Smolensk" is the fifth ship of Project 949A, code "Antey", (according to NATO classification - Oscar-II) in a series of Soviet and Russian nuclear submarine missile cruisers (APRC), armed with P-700 Granit cruise missiles and designed to destroy aircraft carrier strike formations. The project is a modification of 949 “Granite”.
In 1982-1996, 11 ships out of 18 planned were built, one boat K-141 Kursk was lost, the construction of two (K-139 and K-135) was mothballed, the rest were cancelled.
The cruising submarine "Smolensk" under the name K-410 was laid down on December 9, 1986 at the Sevmashpredpriyatie plant in the city of Severodvinsk under serial number 637. Launched on January 20, 1990. On December 22, 1990 it went into operation. On March 14, 1991 it became part of the Northern Fleet. Has tail number 816 (1999). Home port Zaozersk, Russia.
Main characteristics: Surface displacement 14,700 tons, underwater 23,860 tons. The maximum length according to the water line is 154 meters, the greatest width of the hull is 18.2 meters, the average draft according to the water line is 9.2 meters. Surface speed 15 knots, underwater 32 knots. Working diving depth is 520 meters, maximum diving depth is 600 meters. Sailing autonomy is 120 days. Crew 130 people.

Power plant: 2 OK-650V nuclear reactors with a capacity of 190 MW each.

Weapons:

Torpedo and mine armament: 2x650 mm and 4x533 mm TA, 24 torpedoes.

Missile armament: P-700 Granit anti-ship missile system, 24 ZM-45 missiles.

In December 1992, she received the Navy Civil Code prize for missile firing with long-range cruise missiles.

On April 6, 1993, it was renamed “Smolensk” in connection with the establishment of patronage over the submarine by the administration of Smolensk.

In 1993, 1994, 1998 he won the Navy Civil Code prize for missile firing at a sea target.

In 1995, he performed autonomous combat service to the shores of Cuba. During the autonomy, in the Sargasso Sea area, a main power plant accident occurred; the consequences were eliminated by the crew without loss of secrecy and using safety measures within two days. All assigned combat service tasks were completed successfully.

In 1996 - autonomous combat service.

In June 1999, he took part in the Zapad-99 exercises.

In September 2011, he arrived at JSC CS Zvezdochka to restore technical readiness.

In August 2012, the slipway stage of repairs was completed at the APRK: on August 5, 2012, a docking operation was carried out to launch the ship. The final stage of work was carried out afloat at the finishing quay.

On September 2, 2013, at the Zvezdochka dock, during pressure testing of the boat’s main ballast tank, the pressure cap of the seacock was torn off. No harm done. On December 23, after the repairs were completed, the APRK went to sea to carry out the factory sea trials program. During the repairs on the cruiser, the technical readiness of all ship systems was restored, including the mechanical part, electronic weapons, hull structures and the main power plant. The submarine's reactors were recharged and the weapons system was repaired. The service life of the submarine missile carrier has been extended by 3.5 years, after which it is planned to begin work on a deep modernization of the ship. According to a message dated December 30, he returned to his main base point Zaozersk (Murmansk region), having made the transition to his home base from the city of Severodvinsk ( Arhangelsk region), where it underwent repairs and modernization at the Zvezdochka defense shipyard.

In June 2014, in the White Sea, APRC, together with rescuers from the Ministry of Emergency Situations, took part in the rescue of the Barents boat. In September, the cruiser participated in tactical exercises of heterogeneous forces of the Northern Fleet.

The Nation's Favorite

The Third Reich knew how to create idols. One of these poster idols created by propaganda was, of course, the hero-submariner Gunther Prien. He had an ideal biography of a guy from the people who made a career thanks to the new government. At the age of 15, he hired himself as a cabin boy on a merchant ship. He achieved the captain's diploma solely thanks to his hard work and natural intelligence. During the Great Depression, Prien found himself unemployed. After the Nazis came to power, the young man voluntarily joined the resurgent Navy as an ordinary sailor and quite quickly managed to prove himself with best side. Then there were studies at a privileged school for submariners and the war in Spain, in which Prin participated as a submarine captain. In the first months of World War II, he immediately managed to achieve good results, sinking several British and French ships in the Bay of Biscay, for which he was awarded the Iron Cross 2nd class from the commander of the naval forces, Admiral Erich Raeder. And then there was a fantastically daring attack on the largest English battleship, Royal Oak, at the main British naval base at Scapa Flow.

For the accomplished feat, the Fuhrer awarded the entire crew of U-47 the Iron Cross, 2nd degree, and the commander himself was honored to receive the Knight's Cross from Hitler's hands. However, according to the recollections of people who knew him at that time, fame did not spoil Prin. In his interactions with his subordinates and acquaintances, he remained the same caring commander and charming guy. A little more more than a year the underwater ace continued to create his own legend: cheerful reports about the exploits of U-47 appeared almost weekly in film releases of Dr. Goebbels’ favorite brainchild “Die Deutsche Wochenchau”. Ordinary Germans really had something to admire: in June 1940, German boats sank 140 ships from Allied convoys in the Atlantic with a total displacement of 585,496 tons, of which about 10% were Prien and his crew! And then suddenly everything became quiet at once, as if there was no hero. For quite a long time, official sources reported nothing at all about Germany’s most famous submariner, but it was impossible to hush up the truth: on May 23, 1941, the Navy command officially acknowledged the loss of U-47. She was sunk on March 7, 1941, on the approach to Iceland by the British destroyer Wolverine. The submarine, waiting for the convoy, surfaced next to the guard destroyer and was immediately attacked by it. Having received minor damage, U-47 lay down on the ground, hoping to lie down and leave unnoticed, but due to damage to the propeller, the boat, trying to swim, created a terrible noise, upon hearing which the Wolverine hydroacoustics initiated a second attack, as a result of which the submarine was finally sunk, bombarded with depth charges . However, the most incredible rumors about Prin and his sailors continued to spread in the Reich for a long time. In particular, they said that he did not die at all, but that he had started a riot on his boat, for which he ended up either in a penal battalion on the Eastern Front, or in a concentration camp.

First blood

The first casualty of a submarine in World War II is considered to be the British passenger liner Athenia, which was torpedoed on September 3, 1939, 200 miles from the Hebrides. As a result of the U-30 attack, 128 crew members and passengers of the liner, including many children, were killed. And yet, for the sake of objectivity, it is worth admitting that this barbaric episode was not very typical for the first months of the war. At the initial stage, many German submarine commanders tried to comply with the terms of the 1936 London Protocol on the rules of submarine warfare: first, on the surface, stop a merchant ship and put an inspection team on board for a search. If, according to the terms of the prize law (a set of international legal norms regulating the seizure by warring countries of merchant ships and cargo at sea), the sinking of a ship was allowed due to its obvious belonging to the enemy fleet, then the submarine crew waited until the sailors from the transport transferred to lifeboats and retreated to a safe distance from the doomed ship.

However, very soon the warring parties stopped playing gentlemanly: submarine commanders began to report that single ships they encountered were actively using artillery guns installed on their decks or immediately broadcast a special signal about the detection of a submarine - SSS. And the Germans themselves were less and less eager to engage in politeness with the enemy, trying to quickly end the war that had begun favorably for them.
Great success was achieved on September 17, 1939 by the boat U-29 (Captain Shuchard), which attacked the aircraft carrier Coreys with a three-torpedo salvo. For the English Admiralty, the loss of a ship of this class and 500 crew members was a big blow. So the debut of German submarines as a whole turned out to be very impressive, but it could have become even more painful for the enemy if not for the constant failures in the use of torpedoes with magnetic fuses. By the way, technical problems At the initial stage of the war, almost all its participants experienced it.

Breakthrough at Scapa Flow

If the loss of an aircraft carrier in the first month of the war was a very sensitive blow for the British, then the event that occurred on the night of October 13-14, 1939 was already a knockdown. The planning of the operation was personally led by Admiral Karl Doenitz. At first glance, the Royal Navy anchorage at Scapa Flow seemed completely inaccessible, at least from the sea. There were strong and treacherous currents here. And the approaches to the base were guarded around the clock by patrolmen, covered with special anti-submarine nets, boom barriers, and sunken ships. Nevertheless, thanks to detailed aerial photographs of the area and data received from other submarines, the Germans still managed to find one loophole.

The responsible mission was entrusted to the U-47 boat and its successful commander Gunther Prien. On the night of October 14, this boat, having passed a narrow strait, sneaked through a boom that was accidentally left open and thus ended up in the main roadstead of the enemy base. Prien made two surface torpedo attacks on two English ships at anchor. The battleship Royal Oak, a modernized 27,500-ton World War I veteran, suffered a massive explosion and sank with her 833 crew, also killing Admiral Blangrove on board. The British were taken by surprise, they decided that the base was being attacked by German bombers, and opened fire in the air, so that U-47 safely escaped retaliation. Returning to Germany, Prien was greeted as a hero and awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. His personal emblem "Bull of Scapa Flow" after his death became the emblem of the 7th Flotilla.

Loyal Leo

The successes achieved during World War II owe much to the German submarine fleet to Karl Doenitz. Himself a former submarine commander, he perfectly understood the needs of his subordinates. The admiral personally greeted each boat returning from a combat cruise, organized special sanatoriums for crews exhausted from months at sea, and attended the graduations of the submariner school. The sailors called their commander “Papa Karl” or “Lion” behind his back. In fact, Doenitz was the engine behind the revival of the Third Reich's submarine fleet. Shortly after the signing of the Anglo-German Agreement, which lifted the restrictions of the Treaty of Versailles, he was appointed by Hitler as “Führer of U-boats” and headed the 1st U-boat Flotilla. In his new position, he had to face active opposition from supporters of large ships from the Navy leadership. However, the talent of a brilliant administrator and political strategist always allowed the submariner chief to lobby the interests of his department in the highest public spheres. Dönitz was one of the few convinced National Socialists among senior naval officers. The admiral used every opportunity presented to him to publicly praise the Fuhrer.

Once, speaking to Berliners, he became so carried away that he began to assure his listeners that Hitler foresaw a great future for Germany and therefore could not be wrong:

“We are worms compared to him!”

In the first war years, when the actions of his submariners were extremely successful, Doenitz enjoyed Hitler's complete confidence. And soon it came finest hour. This takeoff was preceded by very tragic events for the German fleet. By the middle of the war, the pride of the German fleet - heavy ships of the Tirpitz and Scharnhost type - were actually neutralized by the enemy. The situation required a radical change in the guidelines in the war at sea: the “battleship party” was to be replaced by a new team professing the philosophy of large-scale underwater warfare. Following the resignation of Erich Raeder on January 30, 1943, Dönitz was appointed his successor as Commander-in-Chief of the German Navy with the rank of Grand Admiral. And two months later, German submariners achieved record results by sending 120 Allied ships with a total tonnage of 623,000 tons to the bottom during March, for which their chief was awarded the Knight's Cross with Oak Leaves. However, the period of great victories was coming to an end.

Already in May 1943, Doenitz was forced to withdraw his boats from the Atlantic, fearing that he would soon have nothing to command. (By the end of this month, the Grand Admiral could draw terrible results for himself: 41 boats and more than 1,000 submariners were lost, among whom was Doenitz’s youngest son, Peter.) This decision infuriated Hitler, and he demanded that Doenitz cancel the order , while declaring: “There can be no question of ending the participation of submarines in the war. The Atlantic is my first line of defense in the west." By the fall of 1943, for every Allied ship sunk, the Germans had to pay with one of their own boats. In the last months of the war, the admiral was forced to send his people to almost certain death. And yet he remained faithful to his Fuhrer to the very end. Before committing suicide, Hitler appointed Doenitz as his successor. May 23, 1945 new chapter The state was captured by the Allies. At the Nuremberg trials, the organizer of the German submarine fleet managed to avoid responsibility on charges of giving orders, according to which his subordinates shot sailors who escaped from torpedoed ships. The admiral received his ten-year sentence for carrying out Hitler’s order, according to which captured crews of English torpedo boats were handed over to the SS for execution. After his release from West Berlin Spandau prison in October 1956, Doenitz began writing his memoirs. The admiral died in December 1980 at the age of 90. According to the testimony of people who knew him closely, he always kept with him a folder with letters from officers of the Allied navies, in which former opponents expressed their respect for him.

Drown everyone!

“It is prohibited to make any attempts to rescue the crews of sunken ships and vessels, transfer them to lifeboats, return overturned boats to their normal position, or supply the victims with provisions and water. Rescue contradicts the very first rule of warfare at sea, which requires the destruction of enemy ships and their crews,” the commanders of German submarines received this order from Doenitz on September 17, 1942. Later, the Grand Admiral motivated this decision by the fact that any generosity shown to the enemy costs his people too dearly. He referred to the Laconia incident, which occurred five days before the order was issued, that is, on September 12. Having sunk this English transport, the commander of the German submarine U-156 raised the Red Cross flag on his bridge and began rescuing the sailors in the water. From the board of U-156, on an international wave, a message was broadcast several times that the German submarine was conducting rescue operations and guaranteeing complete safety to any ship ready to take on board sailors from the sunken steamer. Nevertheless, after some time, U-156 attacked the American Liberator.
Then air attacks began to follow one after another. The boat miraculously escaped destruction. Hot on the heels of this incident, the German submarine command developed extremely strict instructions, the essence of which can be expressed in a laconic order: “Do not take prisoners!” However, it cannot be argued that it was after this incident that the Germans were forced to “take off their white gloves” - cruelty and even atrocities have long become common occurrences in this war.

Since January 1942, German submarines began to be supplied with fuel and supplies from special cargo underwater tankers, the so-called “cash cows,” which, among other things, housed a repair crew and a naval hospital. This made it possible to transfer active fighting to the very coast of the USA. The Americans turned out to be completely unprepared for the fact that the war would come to their shores: for almost six months, Hitler’s underwater aces hunted with impunity for single ships in coastal zone, shooting at brightly lit cities and factories with artillery guns at night. Here’s what one American intellectual, whose house overlooked the ocean, wrote about this: “The view of the boundless sea space, which used to inspire life and creativity so much, now makes me sad and terrified. Fear permeates me especially strongly at night, when it is impossible to think about anything else except about these calculating Germans, choosing where to send a shell or torpedo ... "

Only by the summer of 1942, the US Air Force and Navy managed to jointly organize reliable defense of their coast: now dozens of aircraft, ships, airships and private speed boats were constantly monitoring the enemy. The US 10th Fleet organized special "killer groups", each of which included a small aircraft carrier equipped with attack aircraft and several destroyers. Patrolling by long-range aircraft equipped with radars capable of detecting the antennas and snorkels of submarines, as well as the use of new destroyers and ship-borne Hedgehog bombers with powerful depth charges, changed the balance of forces.

In 1942, German submarines began to appear in polar waters off the coast of the USSR. With their active participation, the Murmansk convoy PQ-17 was destroyed. Of his 36 transports, 23 were lost, while 16 were sunk by submarines. And on April 30, 1942, the submarine U-456 hit the English cruiser Edinburgh with two torpedoes, sailing from Murmansk to England with several tons of Russian gold to pay for supplies under Lend-Lease. The cargo lay at the bottom for 40 years and was lifted only in the 80s.

The first thing that submariners who had just gone to sea encountered was terrible cramped conditions. This especially affected the crews of series VII submarines, which, being already cramped in design, were also packed to capacity with everything necessary for long-distance voyages. The crew's sleeping places and all free corners were used to store boxes of provisions, so the crew had to rest and eat wherever they could. To take additional tons of fuel, it was pumped into tanks designed for fresh water(drinking and hygienic), thus sharply reducing her diet.

For the same reason, German submariners never rescued their victims desperately floundering in the middle of the ocean.
After all, there was simply nowhere to place them - except perhaps to shove them into the vacant torpedo tube. Hence the reputation of inhuman monsters that stuck with submariners.
The feeling of mercy was dulled by constant fear for one’s own life. During the campaign we had to constantly be wary of minefields or enemy aircraft. But the most terrible thing was the enemy destroyers and anti-submarine ships, or rather, their depth charges, the close explosion of which could destroy the hull of the boat. In this case, one could only hope for a quick death. It was much more terrible to receive heavy injuries and fall irrevocably into the abyss, listening in horror to how the compressed hull of the boat was cracking, ready to break through with streams of water under pressure of several tens of atmospheres. Or worse, to lie aground forever and slowly suffocate, realizing at the same time that there will be no help...

Wolf Hunt

By the end of 1944, the Germans had already completely lost the Battle of the Atlantic. Even the newest boats of the XXI series, equipped with a snorkel - a device that allows you to not surface for a significant period of time to recharge batteries, remove exhaust gases and replenish oxygen reserves, could no longer change anything (the snorkel was also used on submarines of earlier series, but not very successfully). The Germans only managed to make two such boats, with a speed of 18 knots and diving to a depth of 260 m, and while they were on combat duty, World War II ended.

Countless Allied aircraft, equipped with radar, were constantly on duty in the Bay of Biscay, which became a veritable graveyard for German submarines leaving their French bases. Shelters made of reinforced concrete, having become vulnerable after the British developed the 5-ton concrete-piercing Tallboy aerial bombs, turned into traps for submarines, from which only a few managed to escape. In the ocean, submarine crews were often pursued for days by air and sea hunters. Now the “Dönitz wolves” were getting less and less a chance to attack well-protected convoys and were increasingly concerned about the problem of their own survival under the maddening pulses of search sonars, methodically “probing” the water column. Often, the Anglo-American destroyers did not have enough victims, and they attacked any discovered submarine with a pack of hounds, literally bombarding it with depth charges. Such, for example, was the fate of U-546, which was simultaneously bombed by eight American destroyers! Until recently, the formidable German submarine fleet was not saved by either advanced radars or enhanced armor, nor did new homing acoustic torpedoes or anti-aircraft weapons help. The situation was further aggravated by the fact that the enemy had long been able to read German codes. But until the very end of the war, the German command was completely confident that the codes of the Enigma encryption machine were impossible to crack! Nevertheless, the British, having received the first sample of this machine from the Poles in 1939, by the middle of the war created an effective system for deciphering enemy messages under the code name “Ultra,” using, among other things, the world’s first electronic computer, “Colossus.” And the British received the most important “gift” on May 8, 1941, when they captured the German submarine U-111 - they got into their hands not only a working machine, but also the entire set of hidden communications documents. From that time on, for German submariners, going on the air for the purpose of transmitting data was often tantamount to a death sentence. Apparently, Doenitz guessed about this at the end of the war, since he once wrote in his diary lines full of helpless despair: “The enemy holds a trump card, covers all areas with the help of long-range aviation and uses detection methods for which we are not ready. The enemy knows all our secrets, but we know nothing about their secrets!”

According to official German statistics, out of 40 thousand German submariners, about 32 thousand people died. That is, many more than every second!
After Germany's surrender, most of the submarines captured by the Allies were sunk during Operation Mortal Fire.

Submarine aircraft carriers of the Imperial Japanese Navy

The Japanese Navy during World War II had large submarines capable of transporting up to several light seaplanes (similar submarines were also built in France).
The planes were stored folded in a special hangar inside the submarine. The takeoff was carried out in the surface position of the boat, after the aircraft was taken out of the hangar and assembled. On the deck in the bow of the submarine there were special catapult skids for a short launch, from which the plane rose into the sky. After completing the flight, the plane splashed down and was removed back to the boat hangar.

In September 1942, a Yokosuka E14Y aircraft, taking off from the boat I-25, raided Oregon, USA, dropping two 76-kg incendiary bombs, which were expected to cause extensive fires in forest areas, but , did not occur and the effect was negligible. But the attack had a great psychological effect, since the method of attack was not known.
This was the only time the continental US was bombed during the entire war.

The I-400 class (伊四〇〇型潜水艦), also known as the Sentoku or STO class, were a series of Japanese diesel-electric submarines during World War II. Designed in 1942-1943 to serve as ultra-long-range submarine aircraft carriers for operations anywhere in the world, including off the US coast. Submarines of the I-400 type were the largest among those built during World War II and remained so until the advent of nuclear submarines.

Initially it was planned to build 18 submarines of this type, but in 1943 this number was reduced to 9 ships, of which only six were started and only three were completed in 1944-1945.
Due to their late construction, submarines of the I-400 type were never used in combat. After Japan's surrender, all three submarines were transferred to the United States, and were sunk by them in 1946.
The history of the I-400 type began shortly after the attack on Pearl Harbor, when, at the direction of Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto, development of the concept of a submarine aircraft carrier for attacking the US coast began. Japanese shipbuilders already had experience of deploying one reconnaissance seaplane on several classes of submarines, but the I-400 had to be equipped with a large number of heavier aircraft to carry out its tasks.

On January 13, 1942, Yamamoto sent the I-400 project to the naval command. It formulated the requirements for the type: the submarine had to have a cruising range of 40,000 nautical miles (74,000 km) and carry on board more than two aircraft capable of carrying an aircraft torpedo or an 800-kg aircraft bomb.
The first design of submarines of the I-400 type was presented in March 1942 and, after modifications, was finally approved on May 17 of the same year. On January 18, 1943, construction of the lead ship of the series, I-400, began at the Kure shipyards. The original construction plan, adopted in June 1942, called for the construction of 18 boats of this type, but after Yamamoto's death in April 1943, this number was halved.
By 1943, Japan was beginning to experience serious difficulties with the supply of materials, and plans to build the I-400 type were increasingly reduced, first to six boats, and then to three.

The data presented in the table is largely conditional, in the sense that they cannot be perceived as absolute numbers. This is due, first of all, to the fact that it is quite difficult to accurately calculate the number of submarines of foreign states that participated in the hostilities.
There are still discrepancies in the number of targets sunk. However, the given values ​​​​give a general idea of ​​the order of the numbers and their relationship to each other.
This means that we can draw some conclusions.
Firstly, Soviet submariners have the smallest number of sunk targets for each submarine participating in combat operations (the effectiveness of submarine operations is often assessed by sunk tonnage. However, this indicator largely depends on the quality of potential targets, and in this sense, for the Soviet fleet it was completely not acceptable. Indeed, but in the North the bulk of the enemy’s transports were small and medium-tonnage ships, and in the Black Sea such targets could be counted on one hand.
For this reason, in the future we will mainly talk simply about sunken targets, only highlighting among them warships). The next in this indicator is the United States, but there the real figure will be significantly higher than indicated, since in fact only about 50% of the total number of submarines in the theater of operations participated in combat operations on communications, the rest performed various special tasks.

Secondly, the percentage of lost submarines from the number of those participating in hostilities in the Soviet Union is almost twice as high as in other victorious countries (Great Britain - 28%, USA - 21%).

Thirdly, in terms of the number of targets sunk for every submarine lost, we surpass only Japan, and are close to Italy. Other countries are several times superior to the USSR in this indicator. As for Japan, at the end of the war there was a real beating of its fleet, including its submarine fleet, so comparing it with the victorious country is not at all correct.

When considering the effectiveness of Soviet submarines, one cannot help but touch upon one more aspect of the problem. Namely, the relationship between this efficiency and the funds that were invested in the submarines and the hopes that were placed on them. It is very difficult to estimate in rubles the damage caused to the enemy; on the other hand, the real labor and material costs of creating any product in the USSR, as a rule, did not reflect its formal cost. However, this issue can be considered indirectly. In the pre-war years, industry transferred 4 cruisers, 35 destroyers and leaders, 22 patrol ships and more than 200 (!) submarines to the Navy. And in monetary terms, the construction of submarines was clearly a priority. Before the third five-year plan, the lion's share of allocations for military shipbuilding went to the creation of submarines, and only with the laying down of battleships and cruisers in 1939, the picture began to change. Such funding dynamics fully reflect the views on the use of naval forces that existed in those years. Until the very end of the thirties, submarines and heavy aircraft were considered the main striking force of the fleet. In the third five-year plan, priority began to be given to large surface ships, but by the beginning of the war, it was submarines that remained the most massive class of ships and, if the main focus was not placed on them, then huge hopes were pinned.

To summarize a short quick analysis, we must admit that, firstly, the effectiveness of Soviet submarines during the Second World War was one of the lowest among the warring states, and even more so such as Great Britain, the USA, and Germany.

Secondly, Soviet submarines clearly did not live up to the hopes and investments placed on them. As one example from a number of similar ones, we can consider the contribution of submarines to the disruption of the evacuation of Nazi troops from Crimea on April 9-May 12, 1944. In total, during this period, 11 submarines in 20 combat campaigns damaged one (!) transport.
According to commanders' reports, several targets were allegedly sunk, but there was no confirmation of this. Yes, this is not very important. After all, in April and twenty days of May the enemy conducted 251 convoys! And these are many hundreds of targets and with very weak anti-submarine protection. A similar picture emerged in the Baltic in the last months of the war with the mass evacuation of troops and civilians from the Courland Peninsula and from the Danzig Bay area. In the presence of hundreds of targets, including large-tonnage ones, often with completely conditional anti-submarine protection, in April-May 1945, 11 submarines in 11 combat campaigns sank only one transport, a mother ship and a floating battery.

The most likely reason for the low efficiency of domestic submarines may lie in their very quality. However, in the domestic literature this factor is immediately dismissed. You can find a lot of statements that Soviet submarines, especially the “S” and “K” types, were the best in the world. Indeed, if we compare the most general performance characteristics of domestic and foreign submarines, then such statements seem quite justified. The Soviet submarine of the "K" type is superior to its foreign classmates in speed, in surface cruising range it is second only to the German submarine and has the most powerful weapons.

But even when analyzing the most common elements There is a noticeable lag in the swimming range in the submerged position, in the depth of immersion and in the speed of immersion. If we start to understand further, it turns out that the quality of submarines is greatly influenced by elements that are not recorded in our reference books and are usually subject to comparison (by the way, we also, as a rule, do not indicate the depth of immersion and the speed of immersion), and others directly related to new technologies. These include noise, shock resistance of instruments and mechanisms, the ability to detect and attack the enemy in conditions of poor visibility and at night, stealth and accuracy in the use of torpedo weapons, and a number of others.

Unfortunately, at the beginning of the war, domestic submarines did not have modern electronic detection equipment, torpedo firing machines, bubble-free firing devices, depth stabilizers, radio direction finders, shock absorbers for devices and mechanisms, but they were distinguished by the great noise of the mechanisms and devices.

The issue of communication with a submerged submarine was not resolved. Almost the only source of information about the surface situation of the submerged submarine was a periscope with very poor optics. The Mars-type noise direction finders in service made it possible to determine by ear the direction to the noise source with an accuracy of plus or minus 2 degrees.
The operating range of the equipment with good hydrology did not exceed 40 kb.
The commanders of German, British, and American submarines had hydroacoustic stations at their disposal. They worked in noise direction finding mode or in active mode, when the hydroacoustic could determine not only the direction to the target, but also the distance to it. German submariners, with good hydrology, detected a single transport in noise direction finding mode at a distance of up to 100 kb, and already from a distance of 20 kb they could obtain a range to it in the “Echo” mode. Our allies had similar capabilities at their disposal.

And this is not all that directly affected the effectiveness of the use of domestic submarines. Under these conditions, deficiencies in technical characteristics and support for combat operations could be partially compensated only by the human factor.
This is probably where the main determinant of the effectiveness of the domestic submarine fleet lies - Man!
But among submariners, like no one else, there is objectively a certain main man, a certain God in a separate closed space. In this sense, a submarine is similar to an airplane: the entire crew may consist of highly qualified professionals and work extremely competently, but the commander is at the helm and it will be he who lands the plane. Pilots, like submariners, usually either all emerge victorious or all die. Thus, the personality of the commander and the fate of the submarine are something whole.

In total, during the war years in the active fleets, 358 people acted as commanders of submarines, 229 of them participated in this position in combat campaigns, 99 died (43%).

Having examined the list of commanders of Soviet submarines during the war, we can state that most of them had a rank corresponding to their position or one step lower, which is normal personnel practice.

Consequently, the statement that at the beginning of the war our submarines were commanded by inexperienced newcomers who took positions thanks to the political repressions that took place is unfounded. Another thing is that the rapid growth of the submarine fleet in the pre-war period required more officers than the schools produced. For this reason, a crisis of commanders arose, and they decided to overcome it by recruiting civilian sailors to the fleet. Moreover, it was believed that it would be advisable to send them specifically to submarines, since they know the psychology of the captain of a civilian vessel (transport) most well, and this should make it easier for them to act against shipping. That's how many captains long voyage, that is, people who were essentially not military became submarine commanders. True, they all studied at the appropriate courses, but if it’s so easy to make submarine commanders, then why are schools and many years of study needed?
In other words, an element of serious damage to future efficiency was already built into it.

List of the most successful domestic submarine commanders: