The K-1000 battleship was rumoured to be a type of advanced battleship produced by the

Soviet Union The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a List of former transcontinental countries#Since 1700, transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, ...

at the beginning of the Cold War. Soviet intelligence agencies actively encouraged the circulation of rumours about the type, which were reprinted by several Western journals including ''

Jane's Fighting Ships ''Jane's Fighting Ships'' by Janes Information Services is an annual reference book of information on all the world's warships arranged by nation, including information on ships' names, dimensions, armaments, silhouettes and photographs, etc. Ea ...

''.

History

Accounts of the new Soviet battleships appeared in journals in France, Germany and the US in the late 1940s and early 1950s. The rumours were unclear about the specifications of the ships. The main point of agreement between different descriptions was that the type carried guided missiles, mounted in distinctive domed turrets, in addition to a conventional heavy gun armament. The ships were often said to have been laid down in Siberian shipyards. The displacement stated varied between , and their speed was said to be anything between 28 and 33

knots A knot is a fastening in rope or interwoven lines. Knot may also refer to: Places * Knot, Nancowry, a village in India Archaeology * Knot of Isis (tyet), symbol of welfare/life. * Minoan snake goddess figurines#Sacral knot Arts, entertainme ...

. The main armament was normally said to be twelve guns, though sometimes nine guns were alleged. The names assigned to the class were said to be ''Strana Sovetov'', ''Sovetskaya Byelorussia'', ''Krasnaya Bessarabiya'', ''Krasnaya Sibir'', ''Sovietskaya Konstitutsia'', ''Lenin'' and ''Sovetsky Soyuz''. Many of the names were re-used from units of the authentic, but never completed, which were under construction when

World War II World War II or the Second World War, often abbreviated as WWII or WW2, was a world war that lasted from 1939 to 1945. It involved the vast majority of the world's countries—including all of the great powers—forming two opposing ...

broke out. The Soviet Union actively perpetrated the hoax class of warships. A Soviet 'fleet recognition manual' planted in the West seemed to confirm the existence and general features of the K-1000 Heavy Fleet Unit ''Sovetskaya Byelorussia'', and that she was in commission from 10 November 1953. The accompanying drawings, showing two missile domes, six heavy guns and a cluster of lighter armament, gave a further veneer of accuracy to the document. In fact the drawings were a direct copy of the 1949–50 edition of ''Jane's Fighting Ships''. In reality, the USSR was (like other naval powers) retiring or scrapping its existing battleships, which had been rendered obsolete by the aircraft carrier. The

United States Navy The United States Navy (USN) is the maritime service branch of the United States Armed Forces and one of the eight uniformed services of the United States. It is the largest and most powerful navy in the world, with the estimated tonnage ...

considered creating a 'missile battleship' out of the unfinished , which would have had some similarities to the fictional K-1000 class; however, this plan never went ahead.

References

{{Disinformation Battleships of the Soviet Navy Disinformation operations Fictional naval ships Information operations and warfare 1940s hoaxes 1950s hoaxes