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Red Star over Blue Seas - a Soviet Navy AAR

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Vladimir Orlov wasn't a happy man.

Of course, being a People's Commissar was better then not being one, but his wasn't the best of positions either, balancing Stalin's dreams of a Great Navy and the same man's denial of resources to build that Navy. Not that he even thought that was the right path for the Red Fleet... Nope, not a happy man at all.

Still, he had some success to his name. Besides one of the largest submarine fleets in the World, he recently had secured full funding for one of his design Bureaus, even if it had come with the "Great Navy Plan" strings atached.
Moreover, the current series of shipbuilding was coming to an end, giving him a good excuse to ask for more funding in the next series.



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But then he looked at the espionage reports regarding the USSR's adversaries that just bordered depression... Either one of these foes would be dangerous for the whole Red Fleet, even if it wasn't split in 4 unconnected forces.







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The only one weaker then the Union was Germany, but they were certainly up to something in Kiel.

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Trying to put his mind on something else, he devised reforms of the Fleet. This little sketch for the Baltic Fleet actually looked like a good idea. Submarine flotillas in groups of no more than 3, separated from the surface fleet. Yes, it made sense. He should extend it to all the Fleets.

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Now, that new advisor from Crimea should be arriving any time, a People's Commissar should impress, so off to get the uniform...
 
Ah, it seems you follow the true path to naval virtue, Battleships!
 
Battleships are my favourites.

Gonna go for nuke subs like USSR did?
 
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This is looking great - subscribed.
 
The first half of 1936 was rather uneventful at the Naval Affairs Commissariat, mostly spent enacting the minor submarine flotillas reform in the four commands, and addressing the new destroyers and submarines finished in Leningrad's Shipyards and the submarines finished in Vladivostok's.

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These destroyers were new, but not by any means modern. They weren't even the best project the USSR had. But they were the cheapest that wasn't actually laughable.

Using house-resources, as Stalin still hadn't released anything major, the Commissariat also managed to start building a few slightly more modern destroyers, more to keep the shipyard workers warm then anything else.

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The highlight of the semester had really been the submarine espionage runs in the Baltic, Black and China/Japan seas. Nothing too detailed, but a more accurate account of enemy Navy sizes could be obtained.

In the Baltic, Sweden was something of a shock.

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The Black Sea didn't provide any surprises.

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Japan was not a surprise, but the confirmation of a menace that had only grown stronger since the shame of 1905.

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But June came to put and end to the slow days, as the designs for a new class of Battleship were ready, and it was time to present them to Stalin!

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An 11% increase in overall fire-power over our previous designs, increased range and armour, double the anti-air defences, and all that consuming the same resources as the same previous design. The Nevskoye DB was proud of itself, and hoped Stalin could finally issue to order to build these fantastic beasts, not to mention renew their funding.

...things didn't quite go their way.

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Research funding was secured for the Fleet, but not assigned to Nevskoye, as Stalin insisted before any new Battleships were ordered, they needed reliable escorts to be designed. Commissar Orlov's insistence had little other effect then increase the Great Leader's distrust of him.

And so July came.
 
So Stalin prevaricates and delays over the fleet. Quite sensible really given the reality of the situation, what does the USSR actually need a blue water navy for at this stage?

That said I feel that attitude wont last long (if only because this would be a dull AAR if it did ;) )
 
Especialy because next 5 year plan calls for using all those enemies of the revolution to build an ocean between us and all those enemies of the revolution. We will dedicate the new continent to our most glorious leader, and call it simply Stalin.
 
Lord Finnish said:
You photoshopped the flag to the picture after you took the screenie?
Click to expand...
Y... yes... :eek:o :(

That said I feel that attitude wont last long (if only because this would be a dull AAR if it did :) )
Click to expand...
I detect a small fault in that logic...
Perhaps this bit of info will help: one of my AAR plans is about ONE ship of the Portuguese Navy. Sound interesting?:D
 
Ah, th3freakie and a naval AAR. I remember reading your amusing, but short, story about the Japanese Navy and decided to check out this AAR. And it wasn't disapointment.

This is really amusing AAR. Poor Mr Orlov has to balance between demands of Stalin and scant resources he gets.
 
The 7th of August was being a good day for Vladimir Orlov. In the morning he had presided over the commissioning ceremony for the first batch of Leningrad-class destroyers, to serve in the the Baltic Fleet.


One of the new destroyers​

Then he had a superb lunch, and now he was told Stalin had agreed to his plan to offer the Republican Spanish Government one of the old Black Sea light cruisers as part of the Soviet support for the Civil War.
It was a long shot, but he rather hoped the state of the ship would cause it to sink miserably, and that would shame Stalin so much he wouldn't risk ever having to send such old material anywhere under the USSR's flag again.



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He didn't know it yet, of course, but his idea would fail completely, with the ship arriving safely into Spanish hands, not seeing any action until the eventual Republican victory.

Before that happened though, the rest of the year flew by, with nothing worthy of writing about except for the presenting of the new Light Cruiser design to Stalin, who would take the opportunity to reprimand Orlov for sending to Spain a ship in such bad shape, before reminding him again of the importance of a strong surface Navy, but also of the urgent needs of industrial resources elsewhere.



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When in December the second batch of Leningrads are commissioned, the Commissar won't even bother showing up...

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...busy as he'll be asking the Barrikada engineers about the possible applications of their new technology to Naval purposes.

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cegorach said:
You know you could add more advanced and Soviet specific naval icons ?

THose would look much, much better than generic images. ;)
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They're installed now, but I have the game played up until 1942 so there's still a lot of time before we get there. Hopefully I can keep up a 6 months per post pace until the juicy parts though, so The Yearning Masses won't have to wait too much.:)

I'll pic that up one day Olaus. I still have the screenies and finally figured out how to install SEMP pack into running games.

Btw funny story with the ship-giving. The first time I tried it, I offered 5k of every resource and then when I added the CL the "chance to accept" plummeted to 0%! :eek: It seemed the Republican Government knew the ship consumed more resources then it was worth. Sadly I couldn't re-create the bug for screenshots..
 
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