Project 1231 was a hybrid
surface combatant
Surface combatants (or surface ships or surface vessels) are a subset of naval warships which are designed for naval warfare, warfare on the surface of the water, with their own weapons and armed forces. They are generally ships built to fight oth ...
and
submarine
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or infor ...
developed in the Soviet Union in the 1960s. It was known as "Dolphin" (Russian: ''Дельфин'') and "diving missile boat" (Russian: ''ныряющий катер-ракетоносец''), and represented a fundamentally new type of ship. It was a
missile boat
A missile boat or missile cutter is a small, fast warship armed with anti-ship missiles. Being smaller than other warships such as destroyers and frigates, missile boats are popular with nations interested in forming a navy at lower cost. They ...
, with a considerable surface speed, yet able to dive and move underwater.
The idea of building Project 1231 is said to have originated with the Soviet premier,
Nikita Khrushchev
Nikita Sergeyevich Khrushchev (– 11 September 1971) was the General Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union, First Secretary of the Communist Party of the Soviet Union from 1953 to 1964 and the Premier of the Soviet Union, Chai ...
, who during a visit to a naval base in
Balaklava
Balaklava ( Ukrainian and , , ) is a settlement on the Crimean Peninsula and part of the city of Sevastopol. It is an administrative center of Balaklavsky District that used to be part of the Crimean Oblast before it was transferred to Sevast ...
saw
submarines
A submarine (often shortened to sub) is a watercraft capable of independent operation underwater. (It differs from a submersible, which has more limited underwater capability.) The term "submarine" is also sometimes used historically or info ...
and
missile boats
A missile boat or missile cutter is a small, fast warship armed with anti-ship missiles. Being smaller than other warships such as destroyers and frigates, missile boats are popular with nations interested in forming a navy at lower cost. They a ...
next to each other. He conceived of an entire fleet able to submerge and thus ensure secrecy in the event of
nuclear war
Nuclear warfare, also known as atomic warfare, is a War, military conflict or prepared Policy, political strategy that deploys nuclear weaponry. Nuclear weapons are Weapon of mass destruction, weapons of mass destruction; in contrast to conven ...
.
[ Khrushchev originally ordered the creation of a vessel that could fly, swim and dive. The designers convinced Khrushchev that the construction of a practical aircraft with the surface and sub-surface characteristics he required was impossible. Project 1231 built on the results of work on Project 662, a previous submersible ship: in particular, experience of Project 662 led to the use of hydrofoils for greater surfaced speed.
Work on Project 1231 was ceased after Khrushchev was deposed in 1964. No prototype was built and the design was closed. According to E. A. Aframeev, Project 1231 had no chance of practical implementation, despite the herculean efforts of designers.
]
Previous projects
According to E. A. Aframeev the first practical suggestion for similar diving boats came from Valerian Brzezinski, who in 1939 developed the diving torpedo boat ''M-400 Flea'' in a special technical bureau of the NKVD in Factory 196, Leningrad. The boat had a surfaced displacement of 35.3 tons and speed of , which when submerged became 74 tons and respectively. It was armed with two torpedo tubes and one machine gun. Power came from 2 diesels (which worked on a closed loop system when dived). The intended tactical employment was to approach the enemy underwater, fire a volley of torpedoes, surface and make a fast getaway. Boat building began in 1939 and by 1941, the boat was 60% ready. The project was temporarily shelved in 1942 during the siege of Leningrad
The siege of Leningrad was a Siege, military blockade undertaken by the Axis powers against the city of Leningrad (present-day Saint Petersburg) in the Soviet Union on the Eastern Front (World War II), Eastern Front of World War II from 1941 t ...
, but damage from artillery fire caused the project to be written off completely.[Eduard Aframeev. "Diving Missile-Boats", ''Military Parade'', 1998]
Development of diving boats resumed at the end of the 1950s in the form of Project 662, which was rejected because of the low surface speed of 32 knots. The use of hydrofoils increased the speed of to 45-50 knots, but reduced the range to an unacceptable value. The underwater speed was only 5-6 knots, making the project unfit for combat.[
]
References
Bibliography
*
* Афрамеев Э. А
журнал «Военный парад» (1998), 3, pp. 77–81.
* Афрамеев Э. А
''Проектный эксперимент: быстроходный катер — подводная лодка ''
Судостроение, 1999 4: pp:23-26.
*
* Широкорад А. Б. ''Оружие отечественного флота'', АСТ/Харвест (Minsk/Moscow), 2001, p. 681
* ''Подводные лодки России'' ("Russian Submarines"), ЦКБ МТ «Рубин» (St Petersburg), 1996, volume IV
*
* {{cite web, url=http://ship.bsu.by/ship/100638, script-title=ru:Энциклопедия кораблей. Ныряющий катер, language=ru
Ships of the Soviet Union
Surface-underwater ships
Abandoned military projects of the Soviet Union