The Quebec-class submarine was the NATO reporting name of the

Soviet The Soviet Union,. officially the Union of Soviet Socialist Republics. (USSR),. was a transcontinental country that spanned much of Eurasia from 1922 to 1991. A flagship communist state, it was nominally a federal union of fifteen nation ...

Project 615 submarine class, a small

coastal submarine A coastal submarine or littoral submarine is a small, maneuverable submarine with shallow draft well suited to navigation of coastal channels and harbors. Although size is not precisely defined, coastal submarines are larger than midget submarine ...

of the late 1950s.

Background

Prior to World War II, work on closed-cycle diesel engines was carried out by S.A. Basilevskiy, who developed a powerplant codenamed REDO. The exhaust gases from the diesel engine were compressed and the

carbon dioxide Carbon dioxide ( chemical formula ) is a chemical compound made up of molecules that each have one carbon atom covalently double bonded to two oxygen atoms. It is found in the gas state at room temperature. In the air, carbon dioxide is trans ...

extracted and dumped overboard, before the purified gases were mixed with stored oxygen and fed back into the engine. A prototype of this powerplant was installed in the experimental submarine ''M-401'', laid down at Gorky on 28 November 1939 and launched on 31 May 1941. ''M-401'' made 74 cruises in the

Caspian Sea The Caspian Sea is the world's largest inland body of water, often described as the world's largest lake or a full-fledged sea. An endorheic basin, it lies between Europe and Asia; east of the Caucasus, west of the broad steppe of Central Asia ...

including 68 dives and of submerged running on its closed-cycle plant. Further work was temporarily suspended due to the war but was resumed after hostilities ended, at Leningrad. The data obtained from trials of ''M-401'' formed a basis for the design of the Project 615 ''Quebec''-class.

Description

Quebec-class submarines were fitted with two regular diesel engines and a third, closed-cycle diesel engine, which used

liquid oxygen Liquid oxygen—abbreviated LOx, LOX or Lox in the aerospace, submarine and gas industries—is the liquid form of molecular oxygen. It was used as the oxidizer in the first liquid-fueled rocket invented in 1926 by Robert H. Goddard, an app ...

to provide air-independent propulsion while the submarine was submerged. The Quebec class had a streamlined conning tower with a fixed snorkel housing at the rear end. They were armed with four torpedo tubes in the bow, for which no reloads were carried, and earlier boats also had a twin 25 mm anti-aircraft gun faired into the forward end of the tower, making them some of the last submarines to be constructed with deck guns. The Quebec-class was plagued with problems caused by liquid oxygen evaporation. Their endurance was limited to 14 days due to continuous evaporation of the oxygen and lack of a re-liquefaction system, and the propulsion system led to several serious incidents. In 1957 two submarines were lost due to accidents caused by the oxygen system. ''M-256'' suffered a fire off

Tallinn Tallinn () is the most populous and capital city of Estonia. Situated on a bay in north Estonia, on the shore of the Gulf of Finland of the Baltic Sea, Tallinn has a population of 437,811 (as of 2022) and administratively lies in the Harju '' ...

in the Baltic, which led to the loss of 35 men, while ''M-351'' sank in the

Black Sea The Black Sea is a marginal mediterranean sea of the Atlantic Ocean lying between Europe and Asia, east of the Balkans, south of the East European Plain, west of the Caucasus, and north of Anatolia. It is bounded by Bulgaria, Georgia, Rom ...

with no casualties. Other incidents caused oxygen-fueled flames to burst out from the boats, which led to their crews to nickname them ''zazhigalka'' ("lighters") or

Zippo A Zippo lighter is a reusable metal lighter produced by Zippo Manufacturing Company of Bradford, Pennsylvania, United States. Thousands of different styles and designs have been made in the nine decades since their introduction, including milita ...

s after the well-known cigarette lighter.

Service

Thirty units were built between 1952 and 1957John Jordan, Soviet Submarines, 1945 to the Present, London, Arms and Armour Press, 1989, pp.26-28 cited in Sean Maloney, 'To Secure Command of the Sea,' University of New Brunswick thesis 1991, p.316 of the 100 planned before the project was abandoned and the Soviet Union developed nuclear-powered boats. The last ones were retired in the 1970s. A unit, ''M-261'' is on display in

Krasnodar Krasnodar (; rus, Краснода́р, p=krəsnɐˈdar; ady, Краснодар), formerly Yekaterinodar (until 1920), is the largest city and the administrative centre of Krasnodar Krai, Russia. The city stands on the Kuban River in southe ...

Russia Russia (, , ), or the Russian Federation, is a transcontinental country spanning Eastern Europe and Northern Asia. It is the largest country in the world, with its internationally recognised territory covering , and encompassing one-eig ...

and another, ''M-296'' re-christened as M-305 in Odessa,

Ukraine Ukraine ( uk, Україна, Ukraïna, ) is a country in Eastern Europe. It is the second-largest European country after Russia, which it borders to the east and northeast. Ukraine covers approximately . Prior to the ongoing Russian inv ...

Notes

External links

Walkaround ''M-305'' Quebec in Odessa

{{DEFAULTSORT:Quebec-class submarine Submarine classes Russian and Soviet navy submarine classes