The Revenge of the Bear
Chapter 30: Catching up with the Naval Lag
“Have toured the Admiralty Wharfs today to observe the progress on the new line of battleships that are expected to compete with the British and German dreadnoughts. The keels were laid down in January already, so work has been progressing.”
“With me was Rear-Admiral Sims of the United States Navy, who amongst his credentials had a lengthy stay in St. Petersburg as Naval Attache of the US Embassy. Sims was quite interested in our adaptation of US techniques and designs for our own Dreadnought equivalents and was himself quite active in offering assistance with improving our gunnery training.”
- St. Petersburg, 16th June 1909
It became clear by late 1908 that the Russian battleships were made obsolete in a matter of years by the frantic speed of naval buildup and improvements in Britain and Germany. Norhtern Europe was frantically arming itself not only on land, but also on sea. Germany maintained her status as the world’s first and foremost naval power by continuously laying the keels for new dreadnoughts and light cruisers every passing year. The Kaiserliche Marine already counted thirty dreadnoughts in her arsenal and was laying the keels for more each passing year.
A dreadnought detachment of the Hochseeflotte on the move
France and Britain maintained dreadnought parity, each navy fielding sixteen battleships of this class. However, overall in terms of numbers of ships, the Royal Navy was considerably more powerful than their French counterparts. Even Scandinavia had already commissioned eight ships of the dreadnought class. Russia, if she wished to maintain her status as an overall world superpower would have to increase her naval capacities in the coming years or be forever left behind.
Another worrisome fact was the complete lack of submarines in the Imperial Navy of Russia. This put Russian battleships in the Baltic Sea at the full and complete mercy of German submariners. The Russians would have not only to build up a proper dreadnought fleet, but also proper screening ships in the shape of light cruisers and also build a submarine fleet to complement the picture.
The
Four Year Naval Armaments Plan foresaw that by 1913, Germany would field no less than fourty dreadnoughts. The Russians would, thus, aim to produce a total of twenty dreadnoughts over the four coming years, along with thirty submarines and fourty light cruisers. The heavy surface ships would be complemented with destroyer screeners. The initial plan foresaw the supply of ten submarines to each of the Baltic (based mainly in St. Petersburg), Black Sea (based mainly at Constantinople) and Pacific (based in Port Artur). As far as the surface ships were concerned, the Baltic fleet would get the bulk of the new force, with ten dreadnoughts and twenty light cruisers and their assorted screeners. The remaining planned ships would be split equally between the Black Sea and Pacific fleets. However, the possibility of regrouping the ships destined for the Pacific fleet with the Baltic fleet and instead retiring pre-dreadnoughts from Europe to Russia’s Asian possessions was also carefully considered.
Keel of the Alexander Nevski at the Admiralty Wharfs, St. Petersburg
As such, if all estimates proved correct, Russia would still be severely outnumbered by Germany in the north. Taken into consideration the formal alliance between Germany and Scandinavia, as well as the cordial relations between Germany and Britain which both saw Russia as a rival and threat, in the worst case scenario the Russian Empire would have to deal with overwhelming odds in the Baltic Sea, possibly also in the White Sea.
This led some in the Admiralty to suggest allocating all of the modern ships to the Baltic Fleet. The very idea was met with hostility by the officers and commanders of the Mediterranean Sea, who recalled that an insufficient naval defence of Russia’s southern seas could prove catastrophic of the British or Germans decided to secure the Bosphorus and the Dardanelles and, thus, cut Russia’s south from communications with the outside world.
All in all, Russia’s naval strategies in the Baltic Sea relied extensively on using her heavy surface ships in defensive operations and interdicting the Gulf of Finland to the Kaiserliche Marine. In the Mediterranean the Imperial Navy ruled the waves for in as long as the British or the Germans did not redeploy important naval assets to the region. In which case, the Black Sea Fleet would also be used in a defensive role.
The contracted wharfs expected to finish the four year plan in about three and a half years.
To realize the plan, the full capacity of Russian wharfs and extensive American assistance was called upon. The Americans were one of the leading designers of dreadnought ships, fielding twenty six themselves and their expertise in the matter was invaluable to help advance Russia’s naval programs further. There was nothing shameful in this, for just as Russians called upon Americans for help in the naval domains, so did the Americans call upon Russians for help in the land forces domain. The exchange of experience and knowledge was mutual and benefited both nations equally.
To conclude, the four year plan of naval armament was in no way the final point in Russia’s naval growth. It was a starting plan that would, in four years, reduce Russia’s naval lag in comparison to other European powers. Already plans were drawn for a new batch of surface ships to be laid in the next year, and the year after the next, which would, depending on the speed of the buildup, close the naval gap between Russia and Germany towards or even before 1920.
