War for the Baltic, 1942

It is no secret that communications on the Baltic Sea were strategically important for the Nazi invaders. With their help, the command of the Third Reich used the resources of the Baltic states, transported strategic raw materials, delivered industrial products, iron ore, timber, as well as the transfer of weapons and additional military forces. Moreover, the movement of transport ships in the Baltic was carried out freely, without any interference from the Soviet troops.

The order of the Supreme Commander-in-Chief of 1942 to expel the enemy from Soviet territory meant, among other things, the organization of active offensive operations by the Navy command on the sea lanes of the Nazi invaders. Before the Baltic fleet The priority task was to seize the Gogland Islands and the B. Tyuters Islands in the Baltic.

Military historian, candidate historical Sci. Miroslav Morozov, in his next lecture on military operations in the Baltic in 1942, will talk about who the command of the Baltic Fleet had high hopes for in the planned operation, what forces the Red Banner Baltic Fleet had at the beginning of 1942, whether the enemy was able to repel the attacks of the Soviet armed forces.

Comments

[Lamata]

There Tributs oh how "distinguished himself" with our PLL.

[Machito]

I don’t understand the articles, the main part of which is video. I go here to read. Is the author too lazy to make a description of the video? The author is just too lazy.

[GKS 2111]

Here is the heading to see "photos and video". Read it on" news "," opinions "," analytics ", weapons", "history" ...

[novel66]

Moreover, the movement of transport ships in the Baltic was carried out freely, without any interference from the Soviet troops.

and how could troops interfere with the fleet ??

[Russia]

Quote: novel xnumx

Moreover, the movement of transport ships in the Baltic was carried out freely, without any interference from the Soviet troops.

and how could troops interfere with the fleet ??

If friends stand up in a chain and "join hands", naturally from coast to coast. Greetings Roman A joke, of course.

[Lamata]

Prince Eigen sharpened our positions until April 1945 led. and our flo and aviation are not gugo.

[210ox]

Talk nonsense. In any case, aviation tried. In general, the most difficult conditions in the Baltic were for our fleet. The ban in Kronstadt, Leningrad, the sailors fought in the ground units, part of the gun mount was removed ashore. And with the submarines in general there was a tragedy - they were able to break through with heavy losses only by the end of 1944 on communication. People tried and did what they could.

[swzero]

It’s worth adding that both in the Baltic and the Black Sea, large ships were not really repaired or serviced in 41-43 (in one case the loss of bases affected, in the other the blockade), they also lost a significant part of the crews that went to the land front so they were in 44-45, in fact, not combat ready. Naval aviation also did not have much experience working on naval targets, as mainly practiced on land.

[Catfish]

In Leningrad, "Petropavlovsk" (ex. "Zeyditz"), which sat down on the ground as a result of damage, was not repaired? "Marat" after taking off the bow "recovered" and was able to fire by itself? On the Black Sea, the ships subjected to constant attacks by German aviation did not need repairs either? Then how could they function throughout the war?
Regarding our naval aviation, explain what its objectives were in the Baltic, and especially at the Black Sea Theater?

[swzero]

they could fire from a place, act at sea - no. as for the naval aviation, it worked on coastal targets. Most of the 1st mtap, for example, was sharpened during attacks on tank columns at 41, the remainder during raids on Berlin. All pre-war footage was lost. 4 Guiap CBF covered the road of life.

[Catfish]

This is the Baltic, it’s not that surface ships, submarines could not enter the operational space. Aviation worked on coastal targets, and right, if the Germans had taken Peter and the ships themselves would have had to explode.
Do you have anything on the Black Sea?

[swzero]

after the liberation of sevastopol nikolayev, all the large ships got up for repairs there and until the end of the war I did not go to sea as much as I remember. Aviation in the same way was engaged in work on coastal targets, including supported naval landings. They didn’t at all prevent the Germans from evacuating from the Crimea — the ships were not combat-ready, the aircraft really had no experience fighting naval targets, and there the evacuation was on boats and airborne infantry battles — mainly difficult targets for aviation. Unless il-2 could work on them, it was mostly cannon-fire, but there were few of them in naval aviation. Ground aviation units generally did not like to fly over the sea and did not know how, nor did they work for Mrr goals - here the option to drop bombs at the command of the presenter does not roll. Once again, army units did not have rescue battles in the form of inflatable boats. aircraft to save the downed pilots (mbr2), too

[Catfish]

You are a little cunning. In what year was Sevastopol and Nikolaev freed? And before that? This is me in the sense of repairing ships. And once again I repeat, the fate of the war was decided exclusively on the land front, and therefore the fleet aviation worked there. And at sea, there were no goals for her at all, except for the goal of several German BDBs and a couple of Romanian destroyers who did not stick their nose out of the base. But when the Germans evacuated Crimea, our aircraft worked quite well for themselves, they are still raising military equipment for museums from German topliki.

[swzero]

and the remotable capacities were normal only in Sevastopol and Nikolaev and were. Novorossiysk was also unavailable. How to repair ships in Tuapse? And after the Germans everything was destroyed, there was nowhere to repair the fleet. See the combat path of any Black Sea ship. In 43-45gg they did not go to sea. Intensive use in 41-42 without maintenance and repair affected the most deplorable way, as well as the destruction of the enemy's naval base and repair facilities. decrease hp on the land front also need to be considered.

[Catfish]

... How to repair ships in Tuapse? And after the Germans everything was destroyed, there was nowhere to repair the fleet.

You are right, but before the age of 43 they did their job, even with the "repair" they were capable of. And then there was no need to go out - there was no enemy in the Black Sea.

[swzero]

of course, our aviation worked there, but not as efficiently as German in the 42nd, and there are objective reasons for this.

[Catfish]

Our experience was not any to effectively deal with convoys. But ... what they could, they did it and very well. In the seventies, in Sevastopol, the sailors showed me their map with marked marshes only in our sea zone, from Sevastopol to Odessa - was impressive.

[swzero]

do not write nonsense at the same Sevastopol trunks were completely fired - rifling chipped. the state of eu was not better, the crew was also not really there, only the very minimum

[Avior]

Ship repair has nothing to do with it.
The leadership banned large ships of the Black Sea Fleet from going to sea after the "rainy day" on October 6, 1943 without a special order (Directive of the Supreme Command of the Supreme Command from 11.10.1943/XNUMX/XNUMX) - one of the tragic pages of the Black Sea Fleet.
On this day, a group of Black Sea Fleet ships consisting of the leader of the destroyers "Kharkov", the destroyers "Merciless" and "Capable", after the shelling of the ports of Yalta and Alushta, as well as the unsuccessful shelling of Feodosia, due to gross miscalculations in the planning and implementation of the operation, was sunk by German aircraft.
Details can be found here.
"Raid operation of the Black Sea Fleet destroyers to the ports of Crimea on October 6, 1943"
https://vpk-news.ru/articles/3478

.... October 6, 1943 killed three modern destroyers, which were in high combat and technical readiness, were fully equipped with everything necessary. Their commanders and personnel had more than two years of experience in the war, including the struggle for survivability in the worst cases of damage (both destroyers lost their bow parts, but returned to the base under their own power!). Against these three ships, German dive bombers Yu-87 (recently relocated from Crete) with well-trained pilots acted, and everything happened in the area of ​​our fighter jets. This was the fourth similar raid operation of the destroyers - the previous three ended in vain, but without loss of ships.
...
The decision on the operation of the command of the Air Force Black Sea Fleet does not hold water. In fact, no interaction between ships and fighters was provided for - each acted according to its plans. The fighter aviation outfit for covering ships was scanty. Indeed, what joint actions could be organized during the first strike of the enemy, when two German fighters fell on two Soviet fighters. In the second strike, fourteen Yu-87s opposed: two A-20G bombers (?). In our third strike, six fighters took part on our side, but twelve also flew Germanic! There were no German fighters during the fourth strike, but two P-39s and two Pe-2s (bombers?) Had to confront twenty-four Yu-87s (!). We can say that no matter what our aces pilots were, they physically could not disrupt any of the strikes.

[swzero]

44-45, little is left of these pieces and, in general, German aviation. Ours had air supremacy. And after the return of Crimea, aviation was able to normally cover the ships. There was simply no means to cover Kharkov and Co., all available long-range fighters were allocated to participate in the operation (All 6 P-40s). The rest simply did not have a radius of action.

[Avior]

The link is a detailed article on this topic, quite serious

[swzero]

And what contradicts my words there? The fact that the A20g was sent to cover damaged destroyers 3 hours after the first attack indicates hopelessness - that there were no more fighters - 2 koby and 6 hocks were all that could fly and cover for some time. Another thing with such a cover of the Black Sea Fleet, the operation might not have been worth undertaking at all. But most likely the order came from Moscow, and it was fraught to challenge it. And Moscow, in turn, simply could not have the idea that there were simply no combat ready combatants with the required range.

[Avior]

But most likely the order came from Moscow

Most likely did not come, claims to the Air Force and Navy for inconsistency and a lot of everything

[swzero]

It is doubtful that the fronts (and the fleet can be equated with them) can carry out large operations (and this is precisely a large operation involving large ships) without the sanction of the Supreme Command. As for the ban on the use of large coral without the approval of the rate, this is also the norm. The headquarters often prohibited the fronts from using large attached formations without a separate order. However, this did not prevent their use, having received appropriate approval. A debriefing about the misuse of forces and means was not only in the navy. The same counterattack 5 Ta. There the situation was the same there too - the rate approved the counterattack, but the conditions changed during the implementation (loss of lines for deployment), which led to rather disastrous results.

[Constanty]

The Black Sea was affected not by the loss of bases, but by a black day "on October 6, 1943, when the leader of the destroyers" Kharkov ", the destroyers" Merciless "and" Capable "were sunk. Since then, the operation of larger surface ships practically ceased, fearing to lose them The distorted idea of ​​"Fleet in beign" remained.

As a result, unpunished evacuation of Germans from Crimea and active support of the front
in the Baltic Krigsmarin unanswered by large ships of the RKKF.

[swzero]

as I wrote above, perhaps it’s not so much the fear of losing the ships as their technical condition. In the north, the same destroyers were quite actively acting, for example, in the Petsamo-Krikines operation. In the Baltic, surface operations also obstructed the actions of surface ships.

[Lamata]

I tried Yu result zero
read about the teachings of our aviation in 1946, when ours used the aircraft carrier ZeppeLin as a target, the crab was not on the move, without air defense, the results were depressing. Operate with facts and not emotions.

[swzero]

and what's so surprising about that? Germans on the Marat and the revolution how much missed? And then it was the pilots of pre-war training. As they were knocked out, the effectiveness of the dive bombers generally fell to zero. the same goes for the Japanese. Well, the materiel must be taken into account - the pawns had an automatic exit from the dive for 1.5 km. below simply can not withdraw- former fighter

[swzero]

it is also worth noting that the pawn's dive angle was 70 degrees

[Constanty]

In the Russian monograph Pe-2, I read that these aircraft were practically not used as dive bombers, and the crews were not at all prepared for such attacks.

In naval aviation, the Boston A-20C bombers and the so-called top mast attacks, such as the sinking of the German anti-aircraft cruiser Niobe by 51 MTAP aircraft, were mainly used to combat ships.

[Markgraf]

"Zeppelin" was sunk without the participation of aviation .... By the way, there is an interesting book by AB Shirokorad "The Fleet That Destroyed Khrushchev." It very colorfully describes the sinking of both the "Graf" and other large surface ships that fell into the hands of the Soviet Withers ...

[Operator]

Quote: Avior

"The German Ju-87 dive bombers (recently redeployed from Crete) with well-trained pilots operated against these three ships."

Those. Soviet destroyers were not in terms of air defense and needed constant air cover (as well as the rest of the NK). And the Soviet submarines in the Baltic were driven like cattle for enemy minefields or the dwellers drowned in Bulgaria and Romania in the Black Sea.

Then the big money had to be thrown into a misunderstanding called "surface / submarine forces of the BF and the Black Sea Fleet", wouldn't it be better to build for these theaters a massive naval aviation from fighters, bombers, torpedo bombers and anti-submarine aircraft?

[Constanty]

Complicated topic.

The USSR fleet was undoubtedly needed. Both in the Baltic and the Black Sea.

In the Baltic Sea even destroy the transports of Swedish ore.
The problem is that due to the course of hostilities Liepaja and Hanko died, and the fleet itself was closed in the narrow Gulf of Finland.

On the Black Sea, both geography and the balance of power were on the side of the USSR, but the leadership could not use it. An example is the attack of destroyers on Constanta. Leaders with 130-mm cannons were supposed to destroy the installations on the shore - from small de facto guns, and the cruiser Voroshilov had to “cover” them. Before whom? !!! There were several old destroyers in Romania, and it was a cruiser with larger cannons from a greater safe distance that should fire along the shore, and destroyers and leaders should protect it from submarines and light forces.

The Black Sea Fleet had its own air and anti-aircraft defense, and the cruiser Chervona Ukraine sank in the main fleet base in broad daylight !!!

It is not enough to have a fleet and aircraft. Must use them correctly.

[Operator]

Nobody argues with your last thesis.

We are talking about the technical side of the matter - the structure of naval forces in specific theaters of operations (the Baltic and Black Seas - "soup with dumplings").

[Constanty]

For me, the structure of both fleets was not bad at all. The prospect is violated by the blockade of the fleet in Kronstadt and Leningrad

These fleets also required submarines, light ships and artillery ships.

In the Baltics, the Malyutka, or S, are the leaders, destroyers and cruisers of Project 26. Perhaps the least needed were the heavy ships that were being built. But they were also necessary - even to resist enemy ships
In the Black Sea, the role of heavy ships was greater.

The concept of use and management was absent. That I will not mention the proper cooperation with the army and the Air Force.

[Operator]

Quote: Constanty

The prospect is violated by the blockade of the fleet in Kronstadt and Leningrad

And on the Black Sea what "blockade" prevented?

[Constanty]

Exactly - if you find an explanation in the Baltic Sea, it is difficult to find it in the Black Sea for the inaction of the majority, if not the entire fleet, after the rainy day of 1943.

This inaction was a direct consequence of Stalin's order. Much less due to the condition of the ships.

[Operator]

Stalin's order was connected with the defenselessness of surface ships against the actions of coastal aviation in the Black Sea.

[Constanty]

Why, then, did he not order the Air Force aviation to cover the Black Sea Fleet ships? It would be more appropriate

[Operator]

The Red Army Air Force was not enough to cover the ground forces.

Again: if there were no battleships, cruisers, leaders and destroyers in the Black Sea Fleet, it would not be necessary to cover it. The Germans, for example, provided the effective evacuation of their troops from the Crimea exclusively with the help of torpedo boats, patrol boats and small landing barges.

[Constanty]

It was thanks to the inaction of the Black Sea Fleet of torpedo boats, patrol boats and small landing barges that it was enough to ensure the evacuation of troops from the Crimea. And the evacuated army again fought against the Red Army. Their destruction or cutoff by the Black Sea Fleet ships would save many Soviet soldiers. Of course this is my opinion.