Real contribution. What role did the Navy play in the Great Patriotic War?
Perhaps there is no more controversial topic in the newest military stories of our country, rather than the role of the Navy fleet The USSR in the Great Patriotic War and in the final results of the Second World War for our country as a whole.
What kind of opinions on this subject do not have to listen sometimes. “The fleet is the most expensive way to produce infantry”, the evacuation of Tallinn with huge losses on mines, the loss of three warships at once on October 1943, XNUMX from the actions of the German aviationthat could have been easily avoided - that’s what military history buffs usually recall. More erudite citizens will recall the unsuccessful raid on Constanta, the landing troops in the Baltic who died in 1941 in the Baltic Sea, the network barriers at the exit from the Gulf of Finland, the Armenia steamer, the frequent fact of the lack of information about shelling from the sea in battle logs of German formations, in the case when, according to our data, such a shelling was fought. The history of the Second World War fleet, according to some figures, seems to be the story of the beating of large and numerous, but stupid formations by the small forces of well-trained German pilots and even smaller German allies: Italians on the Black Sea, Finns on the Baltic.
Someone knows that German submarines freely operated in the North off the Soviet coast until the very end of the war, and it was impossible to do something with them.
The most advanced will remember how the fleet evaded the opportunity to attack the Japanese detachment of surface ships in 1945 and get at least some combat experience in naval battles. Even quite serious public figures, employees and leaders of domestic think tanks (we won’t poke a finger at respected people for the time being), quite seriously uphold the thesis that the Navy was a burden in that war. However, more often for their statements are seen clashes of group interests in the Ministry of Defense, associated with the sharing of the military budget. Why are there social activists, even many sailors, sad, agree with this point of view. And it begins: “The Russian fleet has never really helped all the money to the ground forces, we cannot with developed marine nations,” and so on until the thesis is voiced by the inability of the Russians to have effective naval forces in general. On the de facto cultural inferiority.
Meanwhile, the real history of the Great Patriotic War speaks about directly opposite things. It is only necessary to throw off the blinders from the eyes. Moreover, that historical lesson is still very relevant.
To begin with, it is worth looking at the objective state of the Navy before the war. First, in the USSR by the 1941, the year simply did not exist in a sufficient number of competent naval command personnel. After 1937 of the year and the inability of the Navy to ensure the safe delivery of cargo to Spain (order to deploy fleet forces in the Mediterranean Sea, I.V. Stalin was given, but was sabotaged), as well as mass incompetence of naval commanders in the fleets , Stalin staged a grandiose "sweep" in the Navy, accompanied by mass repressions and the nomination of political appointees to command posts who had no idea whatsoever about naval activities. Naturally, this did not help. The level of training of command personnel continued to fall, the accident rate grew. In fact, the fleet began to exist as a fleet and, at the very least, to prepare for hostilities only from the spring of 1939, when Stalin firstly decided to appoint N.G. Kuznetsova, People's Commissar of the Navy, and secondly, when the repressions flywheel in the Navy went to idle, and the sailors stopped fevering with mass and sudden arrests. It was only in May that 1939 began to put in order the normative documents concerning combat training, charters and instructions.
N.G. Kuznetsova was long taken to idealize. Then, in recent years, on the contrary, a wave of critical publications began to be observed, and attempts to nearly dispel the cult of the personality of the admiral. It must be said that the brilliant naval commander by world standards N.G. Kuznetsov, of course, was not. But his contribution to the pre-war Naval construction is strictly positive. His post-war ideas about naval construction were not quite adequate to the situation. Nevertheless, he was, for example, the most consistent and competent supporter of the creation of an aircraft carrier fleet in the USSR. In general, he was a talented leader, whose role in the development of our fleet is certainly positive. As a significant military commander in charge of the course of hostilities, he did not show himself, but, frankly, he didn’t have such opportunities, including during the war. But it was not his fault, to which we will return.
Thus, the first factor - the fleet had only two years to put itself in order after the era of incompetent leaders, and cruel repression. At the same time, the experience of the past could not be used by the fleet - the revolution led to a break in the historical continuity, including with personnel. All the often mentioned failures of naval commanders - from the inability to provide air defense of ships on the Black Sea, to the inability to stop German artillery fire from the sea in the 1945 in the Baltic - they are from there.
The second important factor that determined the specifics of the military path of the Navy in a war was the inability of the national military science to correctly determine the face of a future war. It is not necessary, apparently, to stigmatize domestic theorists with shame. Nobody, except Germans, who could correctly unite the theory and practice of the "blitzkrieg", and having very limited resources, put the British Empire and the USSR on the brink of military defeat at the same time, simultaneously "reeling on caterpillars" France , also considered then a world power, and several smaller countries.
And this inability to determine what the future war would be fraught with, played a truly fatal role. But on the other hand, who on June 21 of 1941 could determine that the German army would reach Moscow, the Volga and Novorossiysk? How was it possible to prepare for this? Some may argue that the experience of the Civil War and intervention was the same, but the fact is that at the beginning of the forties the political reality in the country and the assessment of the Red Army by the political leadership and society made such a way of thinking impossible.
Thus, the nature of the future war a priori excluded the possibility for the Navy to prepare for it: it was almost impossible to imagine the real course of events even after the war began, and therefore it was impossible to prepare for these events. This is a very important fact that is usually overlooked. The Navy did not prepare for such a war, which had to be entered. One of the consequences of this was the inadequate ship crew. As a result, the tasks that the Navy carried out the entire war were often carried out by obviously worthless means.
The third factor was the low technical and technological development of both the fleet and the country as a whole. So, neither Soviet submarines, nor Soviet torpedoes in developed countries simply would not be considered as weaponfit for war. The only question that could really arise from a German or British submariner, while familiarizing himself with Soviet submarines and weapons, is: “How can one fight on this?”.
With surface ships, the situation was somewhat better, at least they were not so much worse than the world average ... but worse all the same. It is worth remembering that the USSR began 1941-th year was a technically backward country. Only in the course of the war were individual samples of weapons created, in a number of parameters that surpassed the western one — but precisely that individual samples, and precisely that in a number of parameters. Fleet in this case, no luck. He spent the whole war with outdated technology. Only in naval aviation, over time, positive changes began, mainly related to the lend-lease supplies (although not only with them, of course).
The Germans in the war, though not massively, but used jet aircraft, and anti-tank rocket launchers, ballistic and cruise missiles, guided bombs, by means of submarine war, the same USSR caught up to Kriegsmarine many years after 1945. In general, the technical level of Germany was much higher than the Soviet. With the Allies, it was also generally — for example, we didn’t have such amphibious capabilities that any American tank landing ship had on the 1942, when the Andrew flag was raised on the Ivan Gren BDK, the portable radios that the US military did use in the early forties In general, the Soviet Army never even waited in principle, we had armored personnel carriers only in the fifties, more than ten years later than the Wehrmacht and the US Army, and so on, there were many such examples. And it was necessary to fight in such conditions. And not only sailors.
This undoubtedly influenced the course of the hostilities and their results.
The fourth, and very important factor that had a truly fatal significance, was that neither before the war, nor during it, was the place of the Navy in the general command and control system of the armed forces.
So, for the first half of 1941 of the year, the Navy received from the General Staff of the Red Army only ONE directive - "On the preparation of communications for the interaction of units and formations of the Red Army and the Navy" from March 11 of 1941. And that's it! There was a feeling that the country was preparing for defense separately from the fleet.
A few days after the start of the war, the fleets were handed over to the command of strategic areas, and after their liquidation, the fleets began to submit to fronts. In fact, the Main Naval Headquarters "fell out" of the fleet management system. But the ground commanders could not properly put the tasks to the sailors.
In 1998, a book of a group of authors was published under the general editorship of the then commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral V.I. Kuroyedov “The main headquarters of the Navy: history and modernity. 1696 — 1997 ». In particular, it states:
Thus, in those very years when the Navy led high-intensity military operations, he was out of a clear and well-thought system of command.
Similar problems have occurred with the supply. So, during the evacuation of the German troops from the Crimea, naval aviation sometimes sat without fuel and ammunition for several days. It is not surprising that the Germans managed to take out a significant part of the troops from the Crimea - they simply had nothing to drown. The surface ships, by that time, not only did the orders be shackled to the ports, and technically they were already in an almost incapacitated state, with "dead" cars and guns shot by laners. And the aircraft suddenly sat on the "hungry ration." The same problems arose in the Baltic Fleet.
It is difficult to judge what could be achieved by the available forces if they were differently controlled.
The naval control system was put in order only 31 March 1944 of the year.
In his book of memoirs “Steep turns” N.G. Kuznetsov gives a very vivid example of how the command of the Red Army really related to the fleet. When on the night of 21 on 22 on June 1941 of the year, Kuznetsov turned to NGS Zhukov for instructions, they simply dismissed him.
What could be achieved by entering the war with such prerequisites?
About the failures listed at the beginning of the article, many people remember today. But let's look at what these failures distract attention from.
The first terrible day of 22 June 1941, the Navy met in full combat readiness. Faced with the absence of any orders and realizing that before the start of the war there were only a few hours left, N.G. Kuznetsov trivially phoned the fleets, and brought them into full combat by simple verbal orders by telephone. Colossal contrast with the army immediately lost control! As a result, the attacks that the Germans carried out against the Soviet naval bases that day ended in nothing.
In the very first days of the war, Navy airplanes retaliated against Romania. The bombing of Berlin in 1941 was also carried out by naval aircraft. From a military point of view, these were injections, but they had important moral significance for the Soviet troops and population.
Fleet always left last. The army left Odessa, but the Primorsk group of troops (later - the Primorsk army) continued to fight in the environment, moreover, the Navy immediately gave it serious support, delivering reinforcements, and delivering supplies, and landing a large tactical landing force. in Grigorievka. And this was not an isolated case. Could the Maritime army fight if it had been cut off from the sea?
When the resistance turned out to be absolutely hopeless, more than 80 000 thousands of Odessa defenders were evacuated to the Crimea.
These operations became a kind of “prologue” to what the fleet was engaged in throughout the war. Having no significant enemy at sea, the Navy completely expectedly launched its actions against the coast, especially since the army was rapidly rolling back, leaving the enemy one strategically important city after another.
This is a very important point in assessing the effectiveness of the actions of the Navy - the ground forces were unable to protect coastal cities from land attack, which led to the loss of fleets (except for the North) bases, repair and production facilities. Not the fleet surrendered Odessa or the same Crimea.
Similarly to the army, the Red Army air forces were unable to stop the Luftwaffe, and all fleet operations were carried out with the full domination of the enemy in the air.
It makes no sense to describe in detail the course of the fighting in 1941-1945 - many books and articles have been written about this. To assess the role the Navy played in defending the country, we will briefly describe what they did, all the more, we know the conditions under which it was done.
Black Sea Fleet. After the evacuation of the defenders of Odessa, the Navy conducted operations to supply the group cut off from the main forces of the Red Army in the Crimea. After the collapse of the defense of the peninsula, the Kerch-Theodosia landing operation was strategically important for the entire course of the war. 33 000 man of amphibious assault was landed, and in the aftermath still almost 50 000 man with equipment and armament was delivered to Crimea. It would have been crucial - without this operation, Sevastopol would have been quickly taken and, at the height of the first battle for Rostov, the command of the Army Group South would have at its disposal a fully equipped 11 th field army with serious combat experience and experienced command. Which in reality had no effect on the battles for Rostov.
It is clear that the whole course of the fighting on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front would be different in the end. For example, the Germans could begin the summer offensive on the Caucasus in 1942 with a much more favorable position. As a result, they could move the wave further than in reality. The latter, in turn, could lead to the loss of the Caucasus, and the entry into the war on the side of the “axis” of Turkey ... and even without this, German aircraft in 1942-m bombed ports in the Caspian Sea. The loss of the Caucasus would have led to the loss of oil and the loss of at least one third of allied supplies of equipment and strategic materials. This would call into question the possibility of continuing the war in principle.
Instead, it turned out fighting for the Kerch Peninsula, and hundreds of days of defense of Sevastopol, the supply of which completely fell on the shoulders of the fleet.
We remember that in the end the city was lost. As a result of the hardest fights, having suffered huge losses in people (Manstein recalled one company in which nine people remained, with the staff of a German infantry company of one hundred and ninety people), the Germans nevertheless took the city.
But it was just a military defeat, but the release of the 11-th army during the decisive battles of the end of 1941-th, would be just a disaster.
The fleet is usually criticized for the outcome of the defense of Sevastopol. But is this criticism fair? It is necessary to ask the question - and which naval forces have the same operation in the asset? To supply an isolated enclave, with tens of thousands of defenders, hundreds of days in a row, against an adversary who dominates the air? Who else could like? Who even tried to do something like that?
Moreover, if the Stavka had given the order to evacuate Sevastopol after the collapse of the Crimean front, then it would probably have been done, just as it had been done earlier in Odessa. Until a certain point it was possible.
The Kerch-Feodosia operation and the supply operations for the garrison of Sevastopol were of strategic importance for the outcome of the war as a whole. They would be even more important if the army succeeded in landing on the Kerch Peninsula. But the army did not fulfill this task.
In the future, landing and military transportation became the main task of the fleet. Thus, the storming of Novorossiysk would have turned into a “Soviet Verdun” if not for the simultaneous attack of the troops from the “Malaya Zemlya” bridgehead, and, at the hottest moment of the battle, the landing force directly into the port, disorganized the German defenses in the city. How could all this be done without the Navy? A rhetorical question. Capturing a bridgehead without a fleet would absolutely certainly not be possible.
And during the liberation of the Crimea, the Navy also played a crucial role. Although the Kerch-Eltigen landing operation was incomparable in scale with the Kerch-Feodossiysk operation, and although the landing in Eltigen was defeated, and its remnants had to be evacuated, the main landing forces eventually managed to gain a foothold in the Crimea and drew off four of the nine that belonged to the enemy.
As a result, the task of the Soviet troops attacking from the north, which actually liberated the Crimea, was simplified approximately twice. Can I somehow underestimate it?
In total, the fleet conducted the following main landing operations on the Black Sea Theater (chronologically):
1941: Grigorievsky landing, Kerch-Feodosia landing operation
1942: Evpatoria landing, Sudak landing
1943: Landing at Verbyanaya Spit, Taganrogsky Landing, Mariupol Landing, Novorossiysk Landing Operation, Landing at Osipenko, Landing in the area of Blagoveshchenskaya - Salt, Temryuk Landing, Landing on the Tuzla Spit, Kerch-Eltigen Airborne Operation
1944: Landing at Cape Tarkhan, Landing at the Kerch port, Landing at the Nikolaev port, Konstanz landing.
And that's not counting the shelling of German troops from the sea, and military traffic, and in fact during the latter two million people were transported! Not counting the evacuation of Odessa.
Not only the Kerch-Feodosia operation and the supply of Sevastopol were strategically important, but, for example, the Novorossiysk, Kerch-Eltigen landing operations or the evacuation of Odessa were of paramount operational importance, but also the fact that the efforts exerted enormous pressure on the enemy, and had a significant impact on the course of the war as a whole.
At first glance, the Baltic fleet is not so simple. From the very beginning, in addition to all the problems peculiar to the Navy, the Baltic Fleet also suffered from extremely incompetent command. This is due, for example, the failure of evacuation of Tallinn. But remembering Tallinn, we must remember the evacuation of the garrison of the Hanko Peninsula, carried out in conditions of great mine danger, but on the whole, in spite of everything, successful.
However, the enemy was able to successfully block the Baltic Fleet, and the attempts of the Baltic submariners from time to time to break minefields and network barriers cost them dearly. And this is in conditions where the submarines in any case could not cause significant damage to enemy communications. And the first landings in the 1941 and 1942 years of the Baltic were almost completely destroyed by the Germans. The fate of the Narva landing in 1944 was no better ...
However, it is worth understanding this. Even in a blocked state, the Navy played the role of a deterrent to the Germans. To understand how, you have to make an assumption, and imagine what would have happened if there had been no fleet in the Baltic.
And then a completely different picture opens up to the imagination - the Luftwaffe dominates the sky, Kriegsmarine dominates the sky, and the Wehrmacht drives the Red Army to the northeast by tens of kilometers a day on land. The Germans in general would not have been constrained in their activity on the Baltic, and this would inevitably end up in carrying out amphibious operations against the Red Army - in conditions when the German troops landed could rely on air support and supplies by sea, and the reserves of the Red Army would be constrained by strikes from the front. Of course, such operations would have accelerated the advance of units of the Wehrmacht even more, and it is also obvious that there would be nothing to oppose the Red Army at that time. And this is a big question, where in this version of reality the Army Group North would stop, which was really stopped at Leningrad by super efforts and huge losses.
However, the Baltic Fleet still came to life. Let the effectiveness of his actions was the lowest among all the Soviet fleets.
After the failed (next) Narva landing, successful operations to seize the Bjørk islands and islands in the Vyborg gulf, the fleet and army conducted an important operation to capture the Moonzund islands, even if accompanied by a tragedy with the landing at Wintry, after which the landing forces landed on the Frische spit -Nerung and Danish Bornholm.
When the blockade was removed from Leningrad, the fleet ships provided all the necessary military transport, including to the Oranienbaum bridgehead, which played a decisive role both in the defense of Leningrad and in its de-blockade. The troops, who attacked the Germans from this bridgehead in January 1944, were both delivered by naval sailors and attacked with the support of naval artillery.
What would the operation to lift the blockade of Leningrad look like without an attack from this patch of land? It is worth thinking about it, as well as the fact that without the fleet it would not have been withheld.
In general, it must be admitted that of all the fleets, the Baltic “acted” in the worst way. Just do not forget that he got the most complicated theater of war, and with all the drawbacks of his combat work, the zero value of the Baltic Fleet was never, like a near-zero one. Although much more could have been done.
The merit of the Northern Fleet is described by the simple and capacious word "convoys". It was the Northern Fleet that provided the "connection" of the belligerent USSR with the British, and, to a large extent, with the Americans. The polar convoys were the main means of delivering material and technical assistance to the USSR, and it was of vital importance. After the war, in order not to "podmahivat" Western propaganda, instantly becoming hostile, into the national historical "science" (without quotes here in any way in this case, alas) and the mass consciousness was thrown into the myth of allied supplies as something unprincipled for Victory. Naturally, there is nothing more distant from reality. For example, let us mention the fact that the Soviet Union lost 70% of aluminum production by October 1941. What would aluminum (until the middle of the 1943) blocks of B-2 diesel engines be made of, famous for the T-34 and KV? Aircraft engines? And you can still raise the list of the best Soviet pilots, aces and see what they flew. Only the top ten "top" Soviet fighter pilots cost Germany about 1% of all aircraft produced by it during the war. And almost all of these people flew, in most cases, on “Air Cobra”, and not on Lagg-3, oddly enough.
It was the Northern Fleet that performed the task of ensuring the security of the Allied convoys in its area of responsibility, and most importantly, made a significant contribution to the defense of the Arctic. Of particular note is the landing in the West Face, on the west coast, made in July 1941 year. Then 2500 fighters and commanders from the 325 rifle regiment and marines disrupted the July German offensive on Murmansk, forcing them to withdraw troops from the front and move them to the bridgehead captured by the landing force. A successful operation actually cost the Germans victory in the Arctic: they could not “win back” the lost time, they missed the counterattack of the Red Army, and when the Wehrmacht launched an offensive again in the fall, he no longer had the strength to break through to Murmansk. The "Road of Life" for the entire USSR was kept. In the future, marines raids continued with varying success, ships and aircraft provided the escort of allied convoys, and smaller domestic convoys along the NSR and inland waters. Also, fleet aviation systematically attacked small German convoys. Each such episode separately did not mean anything, but together they seriously complicated the activities of the Germans. Preventing them from relaxing in between British attacks.
River flotillas made a special contribution to the struggle against the Germans. The volume of the article simply does not allow disclosing their contribution to the outcome of the war, as well as the composition and the loudest operations. We state the following. The personnel of the flotillas was recruited from the Navy, received previous training in the Navy. Much of the ships in the flotilla was created earlier for the Navy, and was not mobilized by civilian ships. Without the Ladoga military flotilla, Leningrad could well have been lost. The most successful Soviet landing operation, which had an important tactical importance - Tuloksinskaya, was carried out by the river crew. Its scale exceeded the scale of most amphibious landings, and the ratio of losses to the results achieved, the very “price of victory”, would have done honor to any army and fleet of those years. In general, river flotilla landed more landings than any of the fleets. Rechniki fought on the Azov Sea, the Don and the Volga, fought almost all over the Danube, to the Balkans and the Spree River, and ended up fighting in Berlin.
The armored boat of the Dnieper flotilla on the Spree, in the background - the destroyed Reichstag
The last theater of operations, in which the Navy had to fight, was the Far East. By the time the USSR entered the war on the side of the United States and allies, the Japanese fleet was almost completely defeated, and could not offer significant resistance. As well as during the Great Patriotic War, landing became the main type of military operations. Accompanying the offensive of the Red Army, the Navy consistently landed five landings in Korea, three river forces of the Amur Flotilla, landed two tactical landings on Sakhalin, and carried out the Kuril landing operation strategically important for the USSR then for Russia.
Of course, the landings to Korea and on the rivers of Northern China did not have any fundamental significance for the outcome of the Red Army offensive. However, there was one exception that is usually forgotten.
It should be understood that if the USSR did not have not only those fragile ships in general, on which these operations were carried out, but also commanders and staffs who are able to carry them out, do not have experience in conducting such operations, roughly speaking, don’t have at least some fleet in the Pacific theater, and the surrender of Japan on the Kuril Islands could go to the Americans. It is simply impossible to describe what the strategic consequences for our country would be in this case. They would be indescribable.
Let's sum up.
In the course of the Great Patriotic War, the Navy, acting against the coast, conducted amphibious operations and ensured the army’s operations by military transport, including the retention of communications with its allies. Other tasks, such as attacks by enemy convoys by aviation, small ships and submarines, did not have a strategic influence, although, in general, had a serious impact on him. Unfortunately, the limited format of the article forced us to leave the actions of naval aviation and submarines "behind the scenes", although this seems to be unfair.
The actions of the Navy against the coast had a significant impact on the course of hostilities and the outcome of the war as a whole. In some cases, fleet operations were of strategic importance for the survival or future of the country (Crimea, Kuriles).
Of course, there were a lot of flaws in the plans for amphibious operations, and in how these plans were implemented, which led to large unjustified losses in people. But the value of landing operations does not reduce it. 80% of all Soviet landings were successful; if we talk about landings that were of operational importance, then almost everything.
Understanding of those old events by domestic historians and lovers of military history is, unfortunately, paradoxical and somewhat pathological in nature. Without disputing the fact of historical events that have taken place, not disputing their scale, not disputing the direct damage caused to the enemy (killed, wounded, etc.), domestic writers, publicists and ordinary people are not able to see the whole picture, are not able to assess the “integral »The effect of the activities of the Navy in the war with Germany and the war with Japan. No one ever asked the question: “What if there was no fleet?” Nobody ever lost the “alternative” at a serious, professional level, in which, for example, the 11th Army took part in the Rostov battle, or was transferred to the Army Group Center to stop the Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow, or near Leningrad, but not at the time of the Meretskovsky offensive, but six months earlier. What would it be then? But if the Germans, who had completed the campaign on the southern flank in 1941, were more successful than in reality, would they have reached Poti a year later? How would Turkey react, for example? As would have shown themselves those troops that at the end of 1941 landed in the semi-empty Crimea, and their comrades who were then in the besieged Sevastopol, if they had been thrown under German Tanks somewhat north? Would they be able to “freeze” an entire army as much, preventing them from being used in other sectors of the vast front? Or would they quickly burn out in boilers and barren attacks, like millions of others like them?
No one asks such questions and does not want to think about them, at best, simply dismissing the options that did not happen, not realizing that they did not just happen. For their offensive, tens and hundreds of thousands of people died ...
Yes, the Navy had a mass of overtly shameful failures. But who did not have them? The United States began the Pearl Harbor War. The British have a battle with Kuantan, there is the sinking of the aircraft carrier "Glories" and the abandonment of the convoy PQ-17. There is an inability to stop the actions of the Italian fleet until the very moment Italy left the war, and it was not the Allied Navy that made her surrender, well, or not only they. Is this a reason to doubt the meaningfulness of the existence of the Royal Navy?
History is a good teacher, but you need to understand its lessons correctly. Let us briefly summarize what we should learn from the experience of the Great Patriotic War and the fighting against Japan.
1. The fleet is needed. Even in a defensive war on land, on its territory. In principle, there can be no opposition “fleet-army” to which in Russia they often suffer.
2. He must be powerful. Not the fact that it is necessarily oceanic, it depends on current political and military tasks, but necessarily numerous, strong and well prepared. Its structure, strength, ship composition and orientation of combat training must be repelled by the “threat model” adequate to reality, the fleet cannot be built as a “fleet in general”.
3. Military science must work intensively to determine the appearance of a future war, including necessarily a war at sea. The only way to "guess" with the type of future warships. Otherwise, it will be necessary to use cruisers as transports, and to land troops from pleasure boats, scout boats and fishing trawlers and in general to solve problems with obviously worthless means with unreasonably high losses. As it was in the past.
4. Army commanders cannot effectively command a fleet. It's impossible. Sea operations are too different from land operations. The command system must be worked out before the war and then work without fail. The task and responsibility of the military-political leadership is to create and "configure" this system in peacetime.
5. When conducting a landing operation, responsibility for carrying it out should be transferred to army commanders and headquarters only after the landing of the first echelon of the landing force, or later, but never before. Examples of the reverse in the Great Patriotic War were and ended tragically.
6. With the enemy’s attack on the land and weakness of his naval forces (no matter what, or “here and now”), the importance of strikes from the sea along the coast increases - in those years they were airborne troops (including raids) and shelling, today an arsenal of methods and funds significantly higher.
7. The presence of naval aviation, well supplied and prepared, is a crucial factor in determining the success of any naval operation. This should be precisely specialized aviation, at least in terms of personnel training, and better also in the technical characteristics of aircraft.
8. Strange as it may seem, ships may well fight against an adversary with air superiority — this is possible, but very difficult and dangerous.
9. The use by the enemy of mine weapons and aggressive operations on the setting of mine barriers can reduce the number and strength of the fleet to zero. Fully. In this case, the enemy will need for this minimum force. Mines are one of the most important destructive types of naval weapons. This is confirmed by the American experience of the Second World War. Most likely, in the future big war, the losses from mines will exceed those of anti-ship missiles, and significantly. Both mining equipment and the mines themselves are required, as well as well-developed mine support measures.
10. The key to success in a naval war is extremely aggressive, and very well prepared offensive or counter-offensive actions. Purely defensive tasks for ships are an oxymoron; they can only exist as a starting point for intercepting initiative and counterattack. In this case, it does not matter the overall superiority of the enemy forces. In any case, you will have to look for an opportunity to attack, for a series of limited attacks, for raids, raids, and so on.
11. No number of combat fleet is not enough. We need a mobilization reserve from civilian ships, which could then be used for military purposes - both as transport and as armed auxiliary ships. Similarly, we need a reserve in people. It is desirable to have warships on conservation, as it was in the past. At least a little.
12. An example of an enemy shows that even an improvised ship or ship can be very dangerous for the enemy (German speed high-speed landing craft). In some cases, such vessels may pose a threat to warships. It is advisable to have such options in advance.
It is not difficult to notice that a lot of this, far from complete, by the way, list is ignored in our country.
Too much.
What kind of opinions on this subject do not have to listen sometimes. “The fleet is the most expensive way to produce infantry”, the evacuation of Tallinn with huge losses on mines, the loss of three warships at once on October 1943, XNUMX from the actions of the German aviationthat could have been easily avoided - that’s what military history buffs usually recall. More erudite citizens will recall the unsuccessful raid on Constanta, the landing troops in the Baltic who died in 1941 in the Baltic Sea, the network barriers at the exit from the Gulf of Finland, the Armenia steamer, the frequent fact of the lack of information about shelling from the sea in battle logs of German formations, in the case when, according to our data, such a shelling was fought. The history of the Second World War fleet, according to some figures, seems to be the story of the beating of large and numerous, but stupid formations by the small forces of well-trained German pilots and even smaller German allies: Italians on the Black Sea, Finns on the Baltic.
Our war at sea was like that. Marines of the Northern Fleet on boats, they are covered from above by the British 151-fighter RAF wing on Harikkeins.
Someone knows that German submarines freely operated in the North off the Soviet coast until the very end of the war, and it was impossible to do something with them.
The most advanced will remember how the fleet evaded the opportunity to attack the Japanese detachment of surface ships in 1945 and get at least some combat experience in naval battles. Even quite serious public figures, employees and leaders of domestic think tanks (we won’t poke a finger at respected people for the time being), quite seriously uphold the thesis that the Navy was a burden in that war. However, more often for their statements are seen clashes of group interests in the Ministry of Defense, associated with the sharing of the military budget. Why are there social activists, even many sailors, sad, agree with this point of view. And it begins: “The Russian fleet has never really helped all the money to the ground forces, we cannot with developed marine nations,” and so on until the thesis is voiced by the inability of the Russians to have effective naval forces in general. On the de facto cultural inferiority.
Meanwhile, the real history of the Great Patriotic War speaks about directly opposite things. It is only necessary to throw off the blinders from the eyes. Moreover, that historical lesson is still very relevant.
To begin with, it is worth looking at the objective state of the Navy before the war. First, in the USSR by the 1941, the year simply did not exist in a sufficient number of competent naval command personnel. After 1937 of the year and the inability of the Navy to ensure the safe delivery of cargo to Spain (order to deploy fleet forces in the Mediterranean Sea, I.V. Stalin was given, but was sabotaged), as well as mass incompetence of naval commanders in the fleets , Stalin staged a grandiose "sweep" in the Navy, accompanied by mass repressions and the nomination of political appointees to command posts who had no idea whatsoever about naval activities. Naturally, this did not help. The level of training of command personnel continued to fall, the accident rate grew. In fact, the fleet began to exist as a fleet and, at the very least, to prepare for hostilities only from the spring of 1939, when Stalin firstly decided to appoint N.G. Kuznetsova, People's Commissar of the Navy, and secondly, when the repressions flywheel in the Navy went to idle, and the sailors stopped fevering with mass and sudden arrests. It was only in May that 1939 began to put in order the normative documents concerning combat training, charters and instructions.
N.G. Kuznetsova was long taken to idealize. Then, in recent years, on the contrary, a wave of critical publications began to be observed, and attempts to nearly dispel the cult of the personality of the admiral. It must be said that the brilliant naval commander by world standards N.G. Kuznetsov, of course, was not. But his contribution to the pre-war Naval construction is strictly positive. His post-war ideas about naval construction were not quite adequate to the situation. Nevertheless, he was, for example, the most consistent and competent supporter of the creation of an aircraft carrier fleet in the USSR. In general, he was a talented leader, whose role in the development of our fleet is certainly positive. As a significant military commander in charge of the course of hostilities, he did not show himself, but, frankly, he didn’t have such opportunities, including during the war. But it was not his fault, to which we will return.
Thus, the first factor - the fleet had only two years to put itself in order after the era of incompetent leaders, and cruel repression. At the same time, the experience of the past could not be used by the fleet - the revolution led to a break in the historical continuity, including with personnel. All the often mentioned failures of naval commanders - from the inability to provide air defense of ships on the Black Sea, to the inability to stop German artillery fire from the sea in the 1945 in the Baltic - they are from there.
The second important factor that determined the specifics of the military path of the Navy in a war was the inability of the national military science to correctly determine the face of a future war. It is not necessary, apparently, to stigmatize domestic theorists with shame. Nobody, except Germans, who could correctly unite the theory and practice of the "blitzkrieg", and having very limited resources, put the British Empire and the USSR on the brink of military defeat at the same time, simultaneously "reeling on caterpillars" France , also considered then a world power, and several smaller countries.
And this inability to determine what the future war would be fraught with, played a truly fatal role. But on the other hand, who on June 21 of 1941 could determine that the German army would reach Moscow, the Volga and Novorossiysk? How was it possible to prepare for this? Some may argue that the experience of the Civil War and intervention was the same, but the fact is that at the beginning of the forties the political reality in the country and the assessment of the Red Army by the political leadership and society made such a way of thinking impossible.
Thus, the nature of the future war a priori excluded the possibility for the Navy to prepare for it: it was almost impossible to imagine the real course of events even after the war began, and therefore it was impossible to prepare for these events. This is a very important fact that is usually overlooked. The Navy did not prepare for such a war, which had to be entered. One of the consequences of this was the inadequate ship crew. As a result, the tasks that the Navy carried out the entire war were often carried out by obviously worthless means.
The third factor was the low technical and technological development of both the fleet and the country as a whole. So, neither Soviet submarines, nor Soviet torpedoes in developed countries simply would not be considered as weaponfit for war. The only question that could really arise from a German or British submariner, while familiarizing himself with Soviet submarines and weapons, is: “How can one fight on this?”.
With surface ships, the situation was somewhat better, at least they were not so much worse than the world average ... but worse all the same. It is worth remembering that the USSR began 1941-th year was a technically backward country. Only in the course of the war were individual samples of weapons created, in a number of parameters that surpassed the western one — but precisely that individual samples, and precisely that in a number of parameters. Fleet in this case, no luck. He spent the whole war with outdated technology. Only in naval aviation, over time, positive changes began, mainly related to the lend-lease supplies (although not only with them, of course).
The Germans in the war, though not massively, but used jet aircraft, and anti-tank rocket launchers, ballistic and cruise missiles, guided bombs, by means of submarine war, the same USSR caught up to Kriegsmarine many years after 1945. In general, the technical level of Germany was much higher than the Soviet. With the Allies, it was also generally — for example, we didn’t have such amphibious capabilities that any American tank landing ship had on the 1942, when the Andrew flag was raised on the Ivan Gren BDK, the portable radios that the US military did use in the early forties In general, the Soviet Army never even waited in principle, we had armored personnel carriers only in the fifties, more than ten years later than the Wehrmacht and the US Army, and so on, there were many such examples. And it was necessary to fight in such conditions. And not only sailors.
This undoubtedly influenced the course of the hostilities and their results.
The fourth, and very important factor that had a truly fatal significance, was that neither before the war, nor during it, was the place of the Navy in the general command and control system of the armed forces.
So, for the first half of 1941 of the year, the Navy received from the General Staff of the Red Army only ONE directive - "On the preparation of communications for the interaction of units and formations of the Red Army and the Navy" from March 11 of 1941. And that's it! There was a feeling that the country was preparing for defense separately from the fleet.
A few days after the start of the war, the fleets were handed over to the command of strategic areas, and after their liquidation, the fleets began to submit to fronts. In fact, the Main Naval Headquarters "fell out" of the fleet management system. But the ground commanders could not properly put the tasks to the sailors.
In 1998, a book of a group of authors was published under the general editorship of the then commander-in-chief of the Russian Navy, Admiral V.I. Kuroyedov “The main headquarters of the Navy: history and modernity. 1696 — 1997 ». In particular, it states:
“In practice, the command of the Navy was offered the role of a passive observer of the development of the situation in the fleets, although with the start of military operations, the NMS regularly received operational reports from the fleets and flotillas. N.G. Kuznetsov considered it his duty to control the correctness of the command of the unions that were operatively subordinate to the maritime groups of the Red Army, he understood the tasks assigned to them by the appropriate military councils, and monitor how these tasks are being solved. Operational orders, directives on behalf of the People's Commissar of the Navy and the chief of the GMG were almost not published. Acting on the instructions of the People's Commissar, the leaders of the General Staff tried to obtain in advance information from the General Staff about plans to use fleet forces in joint operations, in order to orient the executives before issuing the Bids directive. However, this zeal was not always met with understanding, moreover - under the pretext of achieving secrecy of preparing operations with the involvement of fleet forces, the staff of the General Staff deliberately restricted the access of the Navy representatives to relevant information. Occasionally, incidents such as the one that occurred in 1941 on the Moonsund Islands, when troops defending on Fr. Ezel, the disposition of the General Staff were subordinated to one front, and on about. Dago - to another. The unfortunate outcome of defensive actions ultimately depended on the development of a strategic situation on the entire Soviet-German front, but the experience of the war suggests that in this case it would be more correct to assign responsibility for the defense of the archipelago to the Red Banner Baltic Fleet in peacetime. The possibilities for the direct influence of the People's Commissar of the Navy on decision-making in the field of operational leadership by the forces narrowed significantly after July 10 1941 disbanded the Headquarters of the High Command, and it was not included in the Supreme Command Headquarters.
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In 1943, the nature of the combat activities of the operating fleets and fleets changed qualitatively. With the transition of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union to a strategic offensive, it acquired a planned character, it became possible to set tasks for the unions for the entire campaign or strategic operation, giving the command of the operational-strategic, and in some cases the operational level of leadership to set the tasks for subordinate troops and forces . In connection with this, conditions emerged for the transfer of control in matters of the use of fleet forces along the line of the Supreme Command headquarters — Commissar of the Navy-Fleet. However, the inertia of the operational management system that was formed during the first period of the war had long been felt. The People's Commissar of the Navy still did not have the rights of the commander-in-chief and therefore could not fully control the operations of the fleets. This was aggravated by the fact that he was still not part of the Supreme Command Headquarters. From the end of 1942 N.G. Kuznetsov, attracting GMS Navy, tried to change this situation. The first operational directive of the People's Commissar of the Navy to the Military Council of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet was signed only on 13 August 1943. Prior to this, the fleet was solving tasks that were put to him by separate orders of the commander-in-chief of the North-Western forces or the front command. In April, 1943, Chief of the General Staff of the General Staff of the Navy, Rear Admiral V.L. Bogdenko wrote in his official note: “During the war, the Navy’s NMS was never oriented by the General Staff on the further course of hostilities and the arising tasks of fleets and flotillas. Without this, the headquarters was in a difficult position when setting targets for fleets, calculating the required number of ships and weapons, and calculating the development of basic and airfield construction. ” The note also noted that all attempts by the NSS GMSH to get at least a tentative data at the General Staff about the plans of the forthcoming operations and the use of Navy forces in them turned out to be unsuccessful. At the same time V.L. Bogdenko argued that quite often the responsible officers of the General Staff did not even imagine the operational capabilities of the fleets and did not know how to properly use their forces, taking into account only the obvious capabilities of the fleet forces in providing direct fire support to ground forces (the number of ship and coastal artillery, the number of serviceable bombers, attack aircraft and fighters). From the memorandum of V.L. Bogdenko began work on the substantiation of the re-organization of the naval command and control system.
The General Staff did not support the proposal of the command of the Navy at the beginning. ”
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In 1943, the nature of the combat activities of the operating fleets and fleets changed qualitatively. With the transition of the Armed Forces of the Soviet Union to a strategic offensive, it acquired a planned character, it became possible to set tasks for the unions for the entire campaign or strategic operation, giving the command of the operational-strategic, and in some cases the operational level of leadership to set the tasks for subordinate troops and forces . In connection with this, conditions emerged for the transfer of control in matters of the use of fleet forces along the line of the Supreme Command headquarters — Commissar of the Navy-Fleet. However, the inertia of the operational management system that was formed during the first period of the war had long been felt. The People's Commissar of the Navy still did not have the rights of the commander-in-chief and therefore could not fully control the operations of the fleets. This was aggravated by the fact that he was still not part of the Supreme Command Headquarters. From the end of 1942 N.G. Kuznetsov, attracting GMS Navy, tried to change this situation. The first operational directive of the People's Commissar of the Navy to the Military Council of the Red Banner Baltic Fleet was signed only on 13 August 1943. Prior to this, the fleet was solving tasks that were put to him by separate orders of the commander-in-chief of the North-Western forces or the front command. In April, 1943, Chief of the General Staff of the General Staff of the Navy, Rear Admiral V.L. Bogdenko wrote in his official note: “During the war, the Navy’s NMS was never oriented by the General Staff on the further course of hostilities and the arising tasks of fleets and flotillas. Without this, the headquarters was in a difficult position when setting targets for fleets, calculating the required number of ships and weapons, and calculating the development of basic and airfield construction. ” The note also noted that all attempts by the NSS GMSH to get at least a tentative data at the General Staff about the plans of the forthcoming operations and the use of Navy forces in them turned out to be unsuccessful. At the same time V.L. Bogdenko argued that quite often the responsible officers of the General Staff did not even imagine the operational capabilities of the fleets and did not know how to properly use their forces, taking into account only the obvious capabilities of the fleet forces in providing direct fire support to ground forces (the number of ship and coastal artillery, the number of serviceable bombers, attack aircraft and fighters). From the memorandum of V.L. Bogdenko began work on the substantiation of the re-organization of the naval command and control system.
The General Staff did not support the proposal of the command of the Navy at the beginning. ”
Thus, in those very years when the Navy led high-intensity military operations, he was out of a clear and well-thought system of command.
Similar problems have occurred with the supply. So, during the evacuation of the German troops from the Crimea, naval aviation sometimes sat without fuel and ammunition for several days. It is not surprising that the Germans managed to take out a significant part of the troops from the Crimea - they simply had nothing to drown. The surface ships, by that time, not only did the orders be shackled to the ports, and technically they were already in an almost incapacitated state, with "dead" cars and guns shot by laners. And the aircraft suddenly sat on the "hungry ration." The same problems arose in the Baltic Fleet.
It is difficult to judge what could be achieved by the available forces if they were differently controlled.
The naval control system was put in order only 31 March 1944 of the year.
In his book of memoirs “Steep turns” N.G. Kuznetsov gives a very vivid example of how the command of the Red Army really related to the fleet. When on the night of 21 on 22 on June 1941 of the year, Kuznetsov turned to NGS Zhukov for instructions, they simply dismissed him.
What could be achieved by entering the war with such prerequisites?
About the failures listed at the beginning of the article, many people remember today. But let's look at what these failures distract attention from.
The first terrible day of 22 June 1941, the Navy met in full combat readiness. Faced with the absence of any orders and realizing that before the start of the war there were only a few hours left, N.G. Kuznetsov trivially phoned the fleets, and brought them into full combat by simple verbal orders by telephone. Colossal contrast with the army immediately lost control! As a result, the attacks that the Germans carried out against the Soviet naval bases that day ended in nothing.
In the very first days of the war, Navy airplanes retaliated against Romania. The bombing of Berlin in 1941 was also carried out by naval aircraft. From a military point of view, these were injections, but they had important moral significance for the Soviet troops and population.
Fleet always left last. The army left Odessa, but the Primorsk group of troops (later - the Primorsk army) continued to fight in the environment, moreover, the Navy immediately gave it serious support, delivering reinforcements, and delivering supplies, and landing a large tactical landing force. in Grigorievka. And this was not an isolated case. Could the Maritime army fight if it had been cut off from the sea?
When the resistance turned out to be absolutely hopeless, more than 80 000 thousands of Odessa defenders were evacuated to the Crimea.
These operations became a kind of “prologue” to what the fleet was engaged in throughout the war. Having no significant enemy at sea, the Navy completely expectedly launched its actions against the coast, especially since the army was rapidly rolling back, leaving the enemy one strategically important city after another.
This is a very important point in assessing the effectiveness of the actions of the Navy - the ground forces were unable to protect coastal cities from land attack, which led to the loss of fleets (except for the North) bases, repair and production facilities. Not the fleet surrendered Odessa or the same Crimea.
Similarly to the army, the Red Army air forces were unable to stop the Luftwaffe, and all fleet operations were carried out with the full domination of the enemy in the air.
It makes no sense to describe in detail the course of the fighting in 1941-1945 - many books and articles have been written about this. To assess the role the Navy played in defending the country, we will briefly describe what they did, all the more, we know the conditions under which it was done.
Kerch-Feodossiysk landing operation. The largest in our military history
Black Sea Fleet. After the evacuation of the defenders of Odessa, the Navy conducted operations to supply the group cut off from the main forces of the Red Army in the Crimea. After the collapse of the defense of the peninsula, the Kerch-Theodosia landing operation was strategically important for the entire course of the war. 33 000 man of amphibious assault was landed, and in the aftermath still almost 50 000 man with equipment and armament was delivered to Crimea. It would have been crucial - without this operation, Sevastopol would have been quickly taken and, at the height of the first battle for Rostov, the command of the Army Group South would have at its disposal a fully equipped 11 th field army with serious combat experience and experienced command. Which in reality had no effect on the battles for Rostov.
It is clear that the whole course of the fighting on the southern flank of the Soviet-German front would be different in the end. For example, the Germans could begin the summer offensive on the Caucasus in 1942 with a much more favorable position. As a result, they could move the wave further than in reality. The latter, in turn, could lead to the loss of the Caucasus, and the entry into the war on the side of the “axis” of Turkey ... and even without this, German aircraft in 1942-m bombed ports in the Caspian Sea. The loss of the Caucasus would have led to the loss of oil and the loss of at least one third of allied supplies of equipment and strategic materials. This would call into question the possibility of continuing the war in principle.
Instead, it turned out fighting for the Kerch Peninsula, and hundreds of days of defense of Sevastopol, the supply of which completely fell on the shoulders of the fleet.
Marines land in Crimea, 1941 year. Instead of the landing ship, the mobilized vessel, apparently a fishing vessel, but the fleet did not have special landing ships.
We remember that in the end the city was lost. As a result of the hardest fights, having suffered huge losses in people (Manstein recalled one company in which nine people remained, with the staff of a German infantry company of one hundred and ninety people), the Germans nevertheless took the city.
But it was just a military defeat, but the release of the 11-th army during the decisive battles of the end of 1941-th, would be just a disaster.
The fleet is usually criticized for the outcome of the defense of Sevastopol. But is this criticism fair? It is necessary to ask the question - and which naval forces have the same operation in the asset? To supply an isolated enclave, with tens of thousands of defenders, hundreds of days in a row, against an adversary who dominates the air? Who else could like? Who even tried to do something like that?
Moreover, if the Stavka had given the order to evacuate Sevastopol after the collapse of the Crimean front, then it would probably have been done, just as it had been done earlier in Odessa. Until a certain point it was possible.
The Kerch-Feodosia operation and the supply operations for the garrison of Sevastopol were of strategic importance for the outcome of the war as a whole. They would be even more important if the army succeeded in landing on the Kerch Peninsula. But the army did not fulfill this task.
In the future, landing and military transportation became the main task of the fleet. Thus, the storming of Novorossiysk would have turned into a “Soviet Verdun” if not for the simultaneous attack of the troops from the “Malaya Zemlya” bridgehead, and, at the hottest moment of the battle, the landing force directly into the port, disorganized the German defenses in the city. How could all this be done without the Navy? A rhetorical question. Capturing a bridgehead without a fleet would absolutely certainly not be possible.
And during the liberation of the Crimea, the Navy also played a crucial role. Although the Kerch-Eltigen landing operation was incomparable in scale with the Kerch-Feodossiysk operation, and although the landing in Eltigen was defeated, and its remnants had to be evacuated, the main landing forces eventually managed to gain a foothold in the Crimea and drew off four of the nine that belonged to the enemy.
As a result, the task of the Soviet troops attacking from the north, which actually liberated the Crimea, was simplified approximately twice. Can I somehow underestimate it?
In total, the fleet conducted the following main landing operations on the Black Sea Theater (chronologically):
1941: Grigorievsky landing, Kerch-Feodosia landing operation
1942: Evpatoria landing, Sudak landing
1943: Landing at Verbyanaya Spit, Taganrogsky Landing, Mariupol Landing, Novorossiysk Landing Operation, Landing at Osipenko, Landing in the area of Blagoveshchenskaya - Salt, Temryuk Landing, Landing on the Tuzla Spit, Kerch-Eltigen Airborne Operation
1944: Landing at Cape Tarkhan, Landing at the Kerch port, Landing at the Nikolaev port, Konstanz landing.
And that's not counting the shelling of German troops from the sea, and military traffic, and in fact during the latter two million people were transported! Not counting the evacuation of Odessa.
Not only the Kerch-Feodosia operation and the supply of Sevastopol were strategically important, but, for example, the Novorossiysk, Kerch-Eltigen landing operations or the evacuation of Odessa were of paramount operational importance, but also the fact that the efforts exerted enormous pressure on the enemy, and had a significant impact on the course of the war as a whole.
At first glance, the Baltic fleet is not so simple. From the very beginning, in addition to all the problems peculiar to the Navy, the Baltic Fleet also suffered from extremely incompetent command. This is due, for example, the failure of evacuation of Tallinn. But remembering Tallinn, we must remember the evacuation of the garrison of the Hanko Peninsula, carried out in conditions of great mine danger, but on the whole, in spite of everything, successful.
However, the enemy was able to successfully block the Baltic Fleet, and the attempts of the Baltic submariners from time to time to break minefields and network barriers cost them dearly. And this is in conditions where the submarines in any case could not cause significant damage to enemy communications. And the first landings in the 1941 and 1942 years of the Baltic were almost completely destroyed by the Germans. The fate of the Narva landing in 1944 was no better ...
However, it is worth understanding this. Even in a blocked state, the Navy played the role of a deterrent to the Germans. To understand how, you have to make an assumption, and imagine what would have happened if there had been no fleet in the Baltic.
And then a completely different picture opens up to the imagination - the Luftwaffe dominates the sky, Kriegsmarine dominates the sky, and the Wehrmacht drives the Red Army to the northeast by tens of kilometers a day on land. The Germans in general would not have been constrained in their activity on the Baltic, and this would inevitably end up in carrying out amphibious operations against the Red Army - in conditions when the German troops landed could rely on air support and supplies by sea, and the reserves of the Red Army would be constrained by strikes from the front. Of course, such operations would have accelerated the advance of units of the Wehrmacht even more, and it is also obvious that there would be nothing to oppose the Red Army at that time. And this is a big question, where in this version of reality the Army Group North would stop, which was really stopped at Leningrad by super efforts and huge losses.
However, the Baltic Fleet still came to life. Let the effectiveness of his actions was the lowest among all the Soviet fleets.
After the failed (next) Narva landing, successful operations to seize the Bjørk islands and islands in the Vyborg gulf, the fleet and army conducted an important operation to capture the Moonzund islands, even if accompanied by a tragedy with the landing at Wintry, after which the landing forces landed on the Frische spit -Nerung and Danish Bornholm.
When the blockade was removed from Leningrad, the fleet ships provided all the necessary military transport, including to the Oranienbaum bridgehead, which played a decisive role both in the defense of Leningrad and in its de-blockade. The troops, who attacked the Germans from this bridgehead in January 1944, were both delivered by naval sailors and attacked with the support of naval artillery.
What would the operation to lift the blockade of Leningrad look like without an attack from this patch of land? It is worth thinking about it, as well as the fact that without the fleet it would not have been withheld.
In general, it must be admitted that of all the fleets, the Baltic “acted” in the worst way. Just do not forget that he got the most complicated theater of war, and with all the drawbacks of his combat work, the zero value of the Baltic Fleet was never, like a near-zero one. Although much more could have been done.
The merit of the Northern Fleet is described by the simple and capacious word "convoys". It was the Northern Fleet that provided the "connection" of the belligerent USSR with the British, and, to a large extent, with the Americans. The polar convoys were the main means of delivering material and technical assistance to the USSR, and it was of vital importance. After the war, in order not to "podmahivat" Western propaganda, instantly becoming hostile, into the national historical "science" (without quotes here in any way in this case, alas) and the mass consciousness was thrown into the myth of allied supplies as something unprincipled for Victory. Naturally, there is nothing more distant from reality. For example, let us mention the fact that the Soviet Union lost 70% of aluminum production by October 1941. What would aluminum (until the middle of the 1943) blocks of B-2 diesel engines be made of, famous for the T-34 and KV? Aircraft engines? And you can still raise the list of the best Soviet pilots, aces and see what they flew. Only the top ten "top" Soviet fighter pilots cost Germany about 1% of all aircraft produced by it during the war. And almost all of these people flew, in most cases, on “Air Cobra”, and not on Lagg-3, oddly enough.
It was the Northern Fleet that performed the task of ensuring the security of the Allied convoys in its area of responsibility, and most importantly, made a significant contribution to the defense of the Arctic. Of particular note is the landing in the West Face, on the west coast, made in July 1941 year. Then 2500 fighters and commanders from the 325 rifle regiment and marines disrupted the July German offensive on Murmansk, forcing them to withdraw troops from the front and move them to the bridgehead captured by the landing force. A successful operation actually cost the Germans victory in the Arctic: they could not “win back” the lost time, they missed the counterattack of the Red Army, and when the Wehrmacht launched an offensive again in the fall, he no longer had the strength to break through to Murmansk. The "Road of Life" for the entire USSR was kept. In the future, marines raids continued with varying success, ships and aircraft provided the escort of allied convoys, and smaller domestic convoys along the NSR and inland waters. Also, fleet aviation systematically attacked small German convoys. Each such episode separately did not mean anything, but together they seriously complicated the activities of the Germans. Preventing them from relaxing in between British attacks.
River flotillas made a special contribution to the struggle against the Germans. The volume of the article simply does not allow disclosing their contribution to the outcome of the war, as well as the composition and the loudest operations. We state the following. The personnel of the flotillas was recruited from the Navy, received previous training in the Navy. Much of the ships in the flotilla was created earlier for the Navy, and was not mobilized by civilian ships. Without the Ladoga military flotilla, Leningrad could well have been lost. The most successful Soviet landing operation, which had an important tactical importance - Tuloksinskaya, was carried out by the river crew. Its scale exceeded the scale of most amphibious landings, and the ratio of losses to the results achieved, the very “price of victory”, would have done honor to any army and fleet of those years. In general, river flotilla landed more landings than any of the fleets. Rechniki fought on the Azov Sea, the Don and the Volga, fought almost all over the Danube, to the Balkans and the Spree River, and ended up fighting in Berlin.
The armored boat of the Dnieper flotilla on the Spree, in the background - the destroyed Reichstag
The last theater of operations, in which the Navy had to fight, was the Far East. By the time the USSR entered the war on the side of the United States and allies, the Japanese fleet was almost completely defeated, and could not offer significant resistance. As well as during the Great Patriotic War, landing became the main type of military operations. Accompanying the offensive of the Red Army, the Navy consistently landed five landings in Korea, three river forces of the Amur Flotilla, landed two tactical landings on Sakhalin, and carried out the Kuril landing operation strategically important for the USSR then for Russia.
Of course, the landings to Korea and on the rivers of Northern China did not have any fundamental significance for the outcome of the Red Army offensive. However, there was one exception that is usually forgotten.
It should be understood that if the USSR did not have not only those fragile ships in general, on which these operations were carried out, but also commanders and staffs who are able to carry them out, do not have experience in conducting such operations, roughly speaking, don’t have at least some fleet in the Pacific theater, and the surrender of Japan on the Kuril Islands could go to the Americans. It is simply impossible to describe what the strategic consequences for our country would be in this case. They would be indescribable.
Let's sum up.
In the course of the Great Patriotic War, the Navy, acting against the coast, conducted amphibious operations and ensured the army’s operations by military transport, including the retention of communications with its allies. Other tasks, such as attacks by enemy convoys by aviation, small ships and submarines, did not have a strategic influence, although, in general, had a serious impact on him. Unfortunately, the limited format of the article forced us to leave the actions of naval aviation and submarines "behind the scenes", although this seems to be unfair.
The actions of the Navy against the coast had a significant impact on the course of hostilities and the outcome of the war as a whole. In some cases, fleet operations were of strategic importance for the survival or future of the country (Crimea, Kuriles).
Of course, there were a lot of flaws in the plans for amphibious operations, and in how these plans were implemented, which led to large unjustified losses in people. But the value of landing operations does not reduce it. 80% of all Soviet landings were successful; if we talk about landings that were of operational importance, then almost everything.
Understanding of those old events by domestic historians and lovers of military history is, unfortunately, paradoxical and somewhat pathological in nature. Without disputing the fact of historical events that have taken place, not disputing their scale, not disputing the direct damage caused to the enemy (killed, wounded, etc.), domestic writers, publicists and ordinary people are not able to see the whole picture, are not able to assess the “integral »The effect of the activities of the Navy in the war with Germany and the war with Japan. No one ever asked the question: “What if there was no fleet?” Nobody ever lost the “alternative” at a serious, professional level, in which, for example, the 11th Army took part in the Rostov battle, or was transferred to the Army Group Center to stop the Soviet counteroffensive near Moscow, or near Leningrad, but not at the time of the Meretskovsky offensive, but six months earlier. What would it be then? But if the Germans, who had completed the campaign on the southern flank in 1941, were more successful than in reality, would they have reached Poti a year later? How would Turkey react, for example? As would have shown themselves those troops that at the end of 1941 landed in the semi-empty Crimea, and their comrades who were then in the besieged Sevastopol, if they had been thrown under German Tanks somewhat north? Would they be able to “freeze” an entire army as much, preventing them from being used in other sectors of the vast front? Or would they quickly burn out in boilers and barren attacks, like millions of others like them?
No one asks such questions and does not want to think about them, at best, simply dismissing the options that did not happen, not realizing that they did not just happen. For their offensive, tens and hundreds of thousands of people died ...
Yes, the Navy had a mass of overtly shameful failures. But who did not have them? The United States began the Pearl Harbor War. The British have a battle with Kuantan, there is the sinking of the aircraft carrier "Glories" and the abandonment of the convoy PQ-17. There is an inability to stop the actions of the Italian fleet until the very moment Italy left the war, and it was not the Allied Navy that made her surrender, well, or not only they. Is this a reason to doubt the meaningfulness of the existence of the Royal Navy?
History is a good teacher, but you need to understand its lessons correctly. Let us briefly summarize what we should learn from the experience of the Great Patriotic War and the fighting against Japan.
1. The fleet is needed. Even in a defensive war on land, on its territory. In principle, there can be no opposition “fleet-army” to which in Russia they often suffer.
2. He must be powerful. Not the fact that it is necessarily oceanic, it depends on current political and military tasks, but necessarily numerous, strong and well prepared. Its structure, strength, ship composition and orientation of combat training must be repelled by the “threat model” adequate to reality, the fleet cannot be built as a “fleet in general”.
3. Military science must work intensively to determine the appearance of a future war, including necessarily a war at sea. The only way to "guess" with the type of future warships. Otherwise, it will be necessary to use cruisers as transports, and to land troops from pleasure boats, scout boats and fishing trawlers and in general to solve problems with obviously worthless means with unreasonably high losses. As it was in the past.
4. Army commanders cannot effectively command a fleet. It's impossible. Sea operations are too different from land operations. The command system must be worked out before the war and then work without fail. The task and responsibility of the military-political leadership is to create and "configure" this system in peacetime.
5. When conducting a landing operation, responsibility for carrying it out should be transferred to army commanders and headquarters only after the landing of the first echelon of the landing force, or later, but never before. Examples of the reverse in the Great Patriotic War were and ended tragically.
6. With the enemy’s attack on the land and weakness of his naval forces (no matter what, or “here and now”), the importance of strikes from the sea along the coast increases - in those years they were airborne troops (including raids) and shelling, today an arsenal of methods and funds significantly higher.
7. The presence of naval aviation, well supplied and prepared, is a crucial factor in determining the success of any naval operation. This should be precisely specialized aviation, at least in terms of personnel training, and better also in the technical characteristics of aircraft.
8. Strange as it may seem, ships may well fight against an adversary with air superiority — this is possible, but very difficult and dangerous.
9. The use by the enemy of mine weapons and aggressive operations on the setting of mine barriers can reduce the number and strength of the fleet to zero. Fully. In this case, the enemy will need for this minimum force. Mines are one of the most important destructive types of naval weapons. This is confirmed by the American experience of the Second World War. Most likely, in the future big war, the losses from mines will exceed those of anti-ship missiles, and significantly. Both mining equipment and the mines themselves are required, as well as well-developed mine support measures.
10. The key to success in a naval war is extremely aggressive, and very well prepared offensive or counter-offensive actions. Purely defensive tasks for ships are an oxymoron; they can only exist as a starting point for intercepting initiative and counterattack. In this case, it does not matter the overall superiority of the enemy forces. In any case, you will have to look for an opportunity to attack, for a series of limited attacks, for raids, raids, and so on.
11. No number of combat fleet is not enough. We need a mobilization reserve from civilian ships, which could then be used for military purposes - both as transport and as armed auxiliary ships. Similarly, we need a reserve in people. It is desirable to have warships on conservation, as it was in the past. At least a little.
12. An example of an enemy shows that even an improvised ship or ship can be very dangerous for the enemy (German speed high-speed landing craft). In some cases, such vessels may pose a threat to warships. It is advisable to have such options in advance.
It is not difficult to notice that a lot of this, far from complete, by the way, list is ignored in our country.
Too much.
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