Soviet submarine D-2 (my pics, 56k warn!)

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:19 PM

Well, better late than never - I took these on my visit to St. Petersburg last year and somehow put off posting them until now. So, here's a solid tour of it for ya - sorry for my crappy camera, though!

Today D-2 is on display at the historic St. Petersburg Hafen, near the corner of Nalichnaya Street and Shkiperskiy Protok ("Skipper's Creek") on the Vasilievsky Island. Admission was a measly 50rub (~$2) when I went there, with a full 1-hour guided tour (!) conducted by a real retired diesel sub captain (!!). He was an excellent guide, sorry I didn't get any pictures of him. You could tell he really enjoyed the job, and kept relating stories from his own career during the tour. You could tell by the way he talked and moved about the sub that he was a true submariner through and through

Some background - D-2 "Narodnovolets" is possibly the oldest war veteran sub (that is, a sub that went on combat patrols, sunk enemy ships and returned home safely) on display today. She belongs to the D ("Dekabrist") class of submarines, which are the first very Soviet design, built in the later 1920s. All 4 subs, of which this one is the 2nd, were named after famous revolutionary movements - the class' lead ship was named after the December uprising in 1825, and "Narodnovolets" was named after the "People's Will" movement, responsible for the assasination of the Tzar in 1881.

D-2 originally served with the Northern Fleet, but at the start of WWII transfered to the Baltic. In the shallow and heavily-patrolled waters there - the survival rate of Soviet subs in '41-'43 was about the same as U-boats in the Atlantic in '43-'45 - she made several successful patrols and sunk 4 German freighters. While Soviet subs in the Baltic are often subject to controversy for their role in the death of many German civilians that evacuated by sea in '44-'45 - D-2 is not subject to this, as all her successes occured in the early part of the war when the scales were decidedly against the Soviets.

And before I get into the sub interior pics - just a few of her neighbour at the waterfront nearby - a PT boat!

I lived the first 14 years of my life just a half hour's walk from these two ships, but somehow I never toured the D-2 before. On the other hand I used to play with other kids on that PT boat (noone seemed to mind for some reason, I guess it wasn't looked after...). Both of them are in really good shape now though!

To be continued...

Chock · 11-10-07, 04:25 PM

Wow, thanks for posting those, some nice pics and some interesting background info too.

Chock

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:25 PM

Some tech data on the sub -

She's about 900t in displacement, so about the size of a Type IX, but has much shorter range. She did about 18kt on the surface and 9 underwater. Her rated diving depth was about 90m. Armement includes deck gun (105mm?), flak (40 or 37mm?), and 8 torpedo tubes (6 fore, 2 aft. The aft tubes could only be reloaded in port).

A lot of her equipment was operated completely manually, including flooding valves and dive planes.

to be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:27 PM

Some closeups of the hull, screw and rudder. Love that old metal texture

The sub was operated as a training vessel after WWII, I can't remember until when exactly but possibly even until the early 80's. She was converted as a museum ship during the 90s.

To be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:29 PM

Some paintings on display in the adjacent building...

The last one depicts her in the pre-war period, assisting as a radio relay ship.

To be continued...

HunterICX · 11-10-07, 04:30 PM

Nice pics mate,

she really is a good looking

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:32 PM

Now onto the interior tour, starting in the aft compartment.

The aft compartment is an odd combination of living quarters, torpedo room and motor room. The electric motors are underneath the forward part of the compartment (for display purposes, the flooring over one of them was removed).

Interesting story behind the boxes on the floor at the back of this picture - D-2 was the first sub to test these, they were an early air recycling apparatus. In 1936, D-2 spent 30 days submerged on the Baltic sea floor in a successful test of those. Not very useful for WWII, but eventually they came in handy on nukes :P

To be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:37 PM

Still in the aft compartment, with tubes 7 and 8. They could only be reloaded in port.

Here's one of the electric motors:

Russian subs, including D-2, boasted some of the most sophisticated escape gear of that period. There was equipment for every member of the crew to reportedly escape from depths up to 100m.

Electric motor controls in the forward part of the compartment:

To be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:42 PM

Diesel room in the next compartment!

The diesel engineer's station. Next to it are tools and machines for making repairs at sea.

Serious Das Boot vibes from this one!

Just forward, an odd little compartment, the compass room. Most space in it taken up by the huge gyrocompass.

Looking forward from the compass room to the control room. Note that unlike many museum ships, D-2 has all the circular hatches preserved, and you have to duck like a submariner to go through them (not great for those of us with low mobility, but a thrill for a healthy sub fan

)

Looking aft from the compass room into the diesel room. (Das Boot vibes again!)

To be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:47 PM

I believe this is the air ventilator, in the compass room. Is that what it looks like?

Whether it is or not, the tourguide captain happily told us that the main ventilator - the noisiest machine on board according to him - still functions, and at the hit of a switch it indeed roared into action.

Likewise, all the alarms and speaking tubes on the boat are fully functional, as he also gladly demonstrated.

Controls in the very cramped central compartment. It's tiny compared to the Zentrale on U-boats or the control room on US fleet subs.

Kids playing with the observation scope.

Me playing with the observation scope

. All I could see was light.

They let me climb up the conning tower ladder and peer in to take a picture. It was neat.

To be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 04:55 PM

Looking forward from the control rooms into various quarters.

Me chilling in the officer's mess (and no, the rope was blocking the area with the table on which I put the camera! We were allowed to sit there.)

Batteries in the bilge. Most of the battery compartments, however, were cut away to make room for displays on the sub's history.

Like this exhibit about the sub's very first combat patrol in 1942 when merely a day out of port, it got tangled in a German sub net during a storm. Germans had their nets connected to alarms to alert ships and aircraft if anything was caught, but due to the rough seas, the captain gambled that the alarms were turned off (otherwise they would be ringing all the time) and surfaced. The crew spent the next 3 nights in stormy seas trying to free the sub, mostly by cutting the steel net with axes

They succeeded and continued their patrol.

The sub's most famous attack involved no sunk ships, but one very large ship damaged. The railroad ferry "Deutschland", converted to transport German troops, was spotted under escort in the baltic. The captain attacked her and scored a hit before being detected. While the huge ferry escaped intact, a very large number of German soldiers aboard were killed. German sources put the number of dead from this attack at 600, Russians at 700, the neutral Swedish (the attack took place closest to them) placed it at approximately 800 troops killed. Quite a somber reminder of just how destructive these weapons are.

To be continued...

U49 · 11-10-07, 05:18 PM

Great stuff. Thanks for showing is those photos

CCIP · 11-10-07, 05:19 PM

Moving on to the very typical forward compartment...

6 torpedo tubes and their reserves, as well as most of the crew's quarters, were located here.

Gas masks and escape gear.

The cover of Tube 4

One of the bunks, sans mattress

To be continued...

CCIP · 11-10-07, 05:22 PM

And there's me trying to load a tube :p

And that was mostly it - but here's some more exterior shots for an encore...

Deck gun and conning tower.

THE END

TteFAboB · 11-10-07, 05:24 PM

Very nice! I like! High-five!

11-10-07, 04:19 PM	#1
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Soviet submarine D-2 (my pics, 56k warn!) Well, better late than never - I took these on my visit to St. Petersburg last year and somehow put off posting them until now. So, here's a solid tour of it for ya - sorry for my crappy camera, though! Today D-2 is on display at the historic St. Petersburg Hafen, near the corner of Nalichnaya Street and Shkiperskiy Protok ("Skipper's Creek") on the Vasilievsky Island. Admission was a measly 50rub (~$2) when I went there, with a full 1-hour guided tour (!) conducted by a real retired diesel sub captain (!!). He was an excellent guide, sorry I didn't get any pictures of him. You could tell he really enjoyed the job, and kept relating stories from his own career during the tour. You could tell by the way he talked and moved about the sub that he was a true submariner through and through Some background - D-2 "Narodnovolets" is possibly the oldest war veteran sub (that is, a sub that went on combat patrols, sunk enemy ships and returned home safely) on display today. She belongs to the D ("Dekabrist") class of submarines, which are the first very Soviet design, built in the later 1920s. All 4 subs, of which this one is the 2nd, were named after famous revolutionary movements - the class' lead ship was named after the December uprising in 1825, and "Narodnovolets" was named after the "People's Will" movement, responsible for the assasination of the Tzar in 1881. D-2 originally served with the Northern Fleet, but at the start of WWII transfered to the Baltic. In the shallow and heavily-patrolled waters there - the survival rate of Soviet subs in '41-'43 was about the same as U-boats in the Atlantic in '43-'45 - she made several successful patrols and sunk 4 German freighters. While Soviet subs in the Baltic are often subject to controversy for their role in the death of many German civilians that evacuated by sea in '44-'45 - D-2 is not subject to this, as all her successes occured in the early part of the war when the scales were decidedly against the Soviets. And before I get into the sub interior pics - just a few of her neighbour at the waterfront nearby - a PT boat! I lived the first 14 years of my life just a half hour's walk from these two ships, but somehow I never toured the D-2 before. On the other hand I used to play with other kids on that PT boat (noone seemed to mind for some reason, I guess it wasn't looked after...). Both of them are in really good shape now though! To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart) Last edited by CCIP; 11-28-07 at 03:17 AM.

11-10-07, 04:25 PM	#2
Chock Sea Lord Join Date: May 2005 Location: Under a thermal layer in chilly Olde England Posts: 1,842 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Wow, thanks for posting those, some nice pics and some interesting background info too. Chock __________________

11-10-07, 04:25 PM	#3
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Some tech data on the sub - She's about 900t in displacement, so about the size of a Type IX, but has much shorter range. She did about 18kt on the surface and 9 underwater. Her rated diving depth was about 90m. Armement includes deck gun (105mm?), flak (40 or 37mm?), and 8 torpedo tubes (6 fore, 2 aft. The aft tubes could only be reloaded in port). A lot of her equipment was operated completely manually, including flooding valves and dive planes. to be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:27 PM	#4
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Some closeups of the hull, screw and rudder. Love that old metal texture The sub was operated as a training vessel after WWII, I can't remember until when exactly but possibly even until the early 80's. She was converted as a museum ship during the 90s. To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:29 PM	#5
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Some paintings on display in the adjacent building... The last one depicts her in the pre-war period, assisting as a radio relay ship. To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:30 PM	#6
HunterICX Rear Admiral Join Date: May 2006 Location: Malaga, España Posts: 10,750 Downloads: 8 Uploads: 0	Nice pics mate, she really is a good looking __________________

11-10-07, 04:32 PM	#7
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Now onto the interior tour, starting in the aft compartment. The aft compartment is an odd combination of living quarters, torpedo room and motor room. The electric motors are underneath the forward part of the compartment (for display purposes, the flooring over one of them was removed). Interesting story behind the boxes on the floor at the back of this picture - D-2 was the first sub to test these, they were an early air recycling apparatus. In 1936, D-2 spent 30 days submerged on the Baltic sea floor in a successful test of those. Not very useful for WWII, but eventually they came in handy on nukes :P To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:37 PM	#8
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Still in the aft compartment, with tubes 7 and 8. They could only be reloaded in port. Here's one of the electric motors: Russian subs, including D-2, boasted some of the most sophisticated escape gear of that period. There was equipment for every member of the crew to reportedly escape from depths up to 100m. Electric motor controls in the forward part of the compartment: To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:42 PM	#9
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Diesel room in the next compartment! The diesel engineer's station. Next to it are tools and machines for making repairs at sea. Serious Das Boot vibes from this one! Just forward, an odd little compartment, the compass room. Most space in it taken up by the huge gyrocompass. Looking forward from the compass room to the control room. Note that unlike many museum ships, D-2 has all the circular hatches preserved, and you have to duck like a submariner to go through them (not great for those of us with low mobility, but a thrill for a healthy sub fan ) Looking aft from the compass room into the diesel room. (Das Boot vibes again!) To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:47 PM	#10
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	I believe this is the air ventilator, in the compass room. Is that what it looks like? Whether it is or not, the tourguide captain happily told us that the main ventilator - the noisiest machine on board according to him - still functions, and at the hit of a switch it indeed roared into action. Likewise, all the alarms and speaking tubes on the boat are fully functional, as he also gladly demonstrated. Controls in the very cramped central compartment. It's tiny compared to the Zentrale on U-boats or the control room on US fleet subs. Kids playing with the observation scope. Me playing with the observation scope . All I could see was light. They let me climb up the conning tower ladder and peer in to take a picture. It was neat. To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 04:55 PM	#11
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Looking forward from the control rooms into various quarters. Me chilling in the officer's mess (and no, the rope was blocking the area with the table on which I put the camera! We were allowed to sit there.) Batteries in the bilge. Most of the battery compartments, however, were cut away to make room for displays on the sub's history. Like this exhibit about the sub's very first combat patrol in 1942 when merely a day out of port, it got tangled in a German sub net during a storm. Germans had their nets connected to alarms to alert ships and aircraft if anything was caught, but due to the rough seas, the captain gambled that the alarms were turned off (otherwise they would be ringing all the time) and surfaced. The crew spent the next 3 nights in stormy seas trying to free the sub, mostly by cutting the steel net with axes They succeeded and continued their patrol. The sub's most famous attack involved no sunk ships, but one very large ship damaged. The railroad ferry "Deutschland", converted to transport German troops, was spotted under escort in the baltic. The captain attacked her and scored a hit before being detected. While the huge ferry escaped intact, a very large number of German soldiers aboard were killed. German sources put the number of dead from this attack at 600, Russians at 700, the neutral Swedish (the attack took place closest to them) placed it at approximately 800 troops killed. Quite a somber reminder of just how destructive these weapons are. To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 05:18 PM	#12
U49 Grey Wolf Join Date: Nov 2006 Location: D/Niedersachsen Posts: 777 Downloads: 0 Uploads: 0	Great stuff. Thanks for showing is those photos __________________ SH3 battle capability upgrades: GWX2.0, JSGME2.0, SH3Commander 2.7, SH3Gen 0.8.2, TorpDamageMod 2.0, OLC GUI 1.1.5 Awaiting combat readiness for GWX2.0: SH4 effetcs for SH3, SH3Weather 1.5 Following development of: www.subwolves.com Realism: 90%

11-10-07, 05:19 PM	#13
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	Moving on to the very typical forward compartment... 6 torpedo tubes and their reserves, as well as most of the crew's quarters, were located here. Gas masks and escape gear. The cover of Tube 4 One of the bunks, sans mattress To be continued... __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 05:22 PM	#14
CCIP Navy Seal Join Date: Apr 2005 Location: Waterloo, Canada Posts: 8,700 Downloads: 29 Uploads: 2	And there's me trying to load a tube :p And that was mostly it - but here's some more exterior shots for an encore... Deck gun and conning tower. THE END __________________ There are only forty people in the world and five of them are hamburgers. -Don Van Vliet (aka Captain Beefheart)

11-10-07, 05:24 PM	#15
TteFAboB Admiral Join Date: Oct 2004 Posts: 2,247 Downloads: 4 Uploads: 0	Very nice! I like! High-five! __________________ "Tout ce qui est exagéré est insignifiant." ("All that is exaggerated is insignificant.") - Talleyrand