The Voyenno-morskoy flot SSSR (literally "Naval military forces of the USSR") was the naval arm of the Soviet armed forces. Often referred to as the Red Fleet, the Soviet Navy would have been instrumental in any perceived Warsaw Pact role in an all-out war with NATO when it would have to stop the naval convoys bringing reinforcements over the Atlantic to the Western European theatre.
The Soviet Navy was divided into several major fleets: the Northern Fleet, the Pacific Ocean Fleet, the Black Sea Fleet, and the Baltic Fleet. The Caspian Flotilla was a semi-independent formation under the Black Sea Fleet command. Other components included Naval Aviation, Naval Infantry (marines) and coastal artillery. The Soviet Navy was reformed into the Russian Navy after the end of the Cold War in 1991.
Early History
The origins of the Russian navy may be traced to the 4th–6th century, when Early East Slavs were engaged in a struggle against the Byzantine Empire. In the 9th–12th century, there were flotillas in Kievan Rus' consisting of hundreds of vessels. The citizens of Novgorod conducted military campaigns in the Baltic Sea (e.g., the siege of Sigtuna in 1187).
In the 16th–17th century, the Cossacks conducted military campaigns against the Tatars and Turks using sailboats and rowboats capable of transporting up to 80 men. By the end of the 17th century, the Russians had accumulated valuable experience in using riverboats together with land forces. In 1668, they built the 26-cannon ship Oryol (Eagle).
Soviet Navy Formation
The Soviet Navy was formed in 1917 out of the Imperial Russian Navy. The "Workers' and Peasants' Red Fleet" existed in a dilapidated state during the interwar years, possessing a few obsolescent battleships but no aircraft carriers.
WW2 — The Great Patriotic War
When Hitler launched Operation Barbarossa in 1941, much of the Soviet Navy during World War II was comprised of ex-U.S. Navy Lend-Lease destroyers, critical in defending convoys from Kriegsmarine U-boats. Much of their fleet on the Baltic Sea was blocked in Leningrad and Kronstadt by Finnish and German minefields during 1941–1944.
Cold War
After the war, the Soviets embarked upon a program to match the West quantitatively. Soviet shipbuilding constructed submarines based on WW2 Kriegsmarine designs. The Soviets equipped their surface fleet with missiles and possessed guided missile cruisers like the Kirov and Slava classes.
In 1968–1969 the helicopter carriers Moskva and Leningrad appeared, followed by the Kiev class carriers in 1973. In the 1980s the Soviet Navy acquired its first true aircraft carrier, Admiral Kuznetsov. The Soviet Navy deployed strategic bombers like the Tu-16 "Badger" and Tu-22M "Backfire" with anti-shipping missiles, and operated the largest submarines in the world, the Typhoon class.
Commanders-in-Chief
- Vasili Altfater (Oct 1918 – Apr 1919)
- Yevgeny Berens (May 1919 – Feb 1920)
- Aleksandr Nemits (Feb 1920 – Dec 1921)
- Nikolai Kuznetsov (Apr 1939 – Jan 1947; Jul 1951 – Jan 1956)
- Sergey Gorshkov (Jan 1956 – Dec 1985) — most responsible for reforming the Soviet Navy
- Vladimir Chernavin (1985 – 1992)
Soviet Navy Ship Classes
Destroyers
- Kashin class (14 vessels, 1960–1971)
- Modified Kashin class (6 + 5 for Indian Navy)
- Sovremenny class (1980s–1990s)
- Udaloy I class (12 vessels, 1980–1990)
Cruisers
- Kynda class (4 vessels)
- Kresta I and II classes
- Sverdlov class (14 vessels)
- Slava class