readx; The Type 24 uses extremely powerful armor and watertight protective structures, and its total armor weight is 93,224 tons, which even exceeds the "Amaterasu" class, which has an armor weight of 93,048 tons. www.biquge.info The armor protection system of the "Great Soviet" class is a unique incomplete double armored capsule type, and the structure is extremely complex, and in addition to the front and rear armored partition walls of the main armored capsule in the center, there are also two outer bow and stern armored partition walls with greater thickness. Between the two armoured partition walls in the bow and stern, side armor belts and horizontal armor were still arranged. Looking at it this way, the armor protection system of the "Soviet" class can still be regarded as a key defense type, but its effective protection volume is obviously larger and more effective than the general but armored capsule type.

The thickness and structure of the main armor capsule are as follows, the total length of the main armor belt is 296.8 meters, extending from the No. 64 keel in front of the No. 1 turret to the No. 196 keel behind the No. 3 turret, accounting for about 57% of the length of the waterline. The armor belt is 12.54 meters high, of which 3.54 meters is below the design waterline. Due to the different expected impact angles, the thickness of the armor belt is also designed with different thicknesses and thinness according to the angle of hit. The armor belt on the outside of the power compartment was 750 mm thicker / inclination / 5 degrees, the thickness of the side armor at the ammunition magazine of the No. 2 turret was increased to 780 mm, the armor belt between the No. 2 and No. 1 turrets was 812 mm thick, and the outboard armor of the ammunition magazine of the No. 1 turret was strengthened to 840 mm. The length of the 812 and 840 mm armor belts was 35 and 22 meters, respectively, and the side armor of the ammunition magazine of the No. 3 turret was accordingly thinned to 760 mm. The thickness of the front and rear armor partition walls of the main armored capsule reached 460 and 730 mm, respectively. At the keel position of No. 30 in the bow of the ship, there is also a No. 2 large-angle inclined transverse partition wall with a thickness of 570 mm, and the waterline side armor between the four bow transverse partition walls is 440 mm thick, which can resist the attack of 406 mm shells. The side armor strips at the ammunition depot of turret No. 3 extend to the stern armoured partition wall, which is unevenly thick, 360, 730 and 720 mm from top to bottom. The armor plates of the "Great Soviet" class were all made with relatively strong tongue and groove connections.

The horizontal protection of the "Great Soviet" class consisted of 6 decks, the top of which was a 50 mm thick first floor deck, the 310 mm thick upper deck as the main horizontal armor plate, and the lower part of which was 100 mm thick. The armor thickness of the front and rear conning towers was 850 and 440 mm, respectively, and the signal bridge on the mast was protected by armor 150-200 mm thick.

The underwater protection system of the "Great Soviet" was also mixed, and between its keels No. 64-153 was the Presey double cylindrical anti-torpedo system with a total length of 246 meters. The depth of the amidships is 16.3 meters, and the bow and stern are reduced to 14 meters. Due to the large width of the Plesay system, it is not conducive to the smooth transition of the underwater line shape of the hull. The "Great Soviet" class therefore converted the keel compartment of the stern 153-170 into a multi-torpedo compartment structure. The outer plate of the cylinder is 22 mm thick, the walls of the inner two cylinders are 14 mm thick, the diameter of the central cylinder is 6.3 meters, and the outer layer is about 2.4 meters of oil-water. Inside, there was no heavy armor anti-torpedo mediastinum, only a 20 mm thick water discharge support plate and a 70 mm thick light armor mediastinum wall. The bottom of the ship is a double longitudinal bone structure, and the lower part of the main gun ammunition magazine is a triple bottom, which has a certain explosion-proof ability.

According to the design requirements, the armor of the "Great Soviet" could withstand the attack of 510-mm armor-piercing shells and 2000-kilogram bombs dropped at an altitude of 5000 meters. Its underwater defense system is extremely powerful, and the anti-torpedo system can defend against 1500 kg** of underwater explosions! The designers believe that the "Great Soviet" class can also achieve the amazing vitality of 10 unsinkable torpedoes with a water intake or 4 hits from the bottom of the ship, and 6 torpedoes with a 2 hit on the side without losing their combat effectiveness.

In January 1939, blasting experiments were carried out on the 3/1 structural model manufactured by БkП1 (Barnaul forge), which proved the effectiveness of the design of the Great Soviet-class TDS.

The "Great Soviet" class was pre-equipped with 24 three-boiler, high-calorific oil-fired boilers and 12 impulsive single-stage gear reduction steam turbines, with an operating parameter of 37 atm/380C. The total power of the turbine is 804,000 shaft horsepower, the 4-hour emergency overload power is 924,000 shaft horsepower, and the corresponding maximum speed of the warship is 27.5 and 28.5 knots, respectively. Due to the later improvement of the propeller, the maximum speed was revised to 28 and 29 knots on July 13, 1939. However, at that time, the Soviet Union could not build such a powerful turbine, so it had to buy it from abroad. The ruthless British took advantage of the fire and offered a sky-high price of 1.4 million pounds. The cash-strapped Soviet Navy had to find another way to contact the Swiss company Brown-Boffary. The company's unit price is only £800,000, which is completely acceptable. The Soviet Union first imported 8 units, of which 6 were intended for loading on the "Great Soviet Russia", and the remaining 2 units were handed over to the Kharkov Turbine Generator Plant for mapping and imitation. The Soviets turned out to be quite sensible in their choice, and the Brown-Bowey company's steam turbine lived up to expectations, sending out a powerful power of 315624 axle horsepower during test drives. The power compartment of the Type 24 is a peculiar staggered layout, first with 4 rows of 8 watertight boiler rooms, each with 2 boilers, followed by 6 independent watertight engine rooms in parallel with the 4th row of boiler rooms, and then 2 rows of 4 boiler rooms. The flues of the eight of the front boilers converge into the front chimney, and although the internal flues and exhaust volumes are completely different, the external dimensions of the two chimneys are exactly the same. The "Great Soviet" class's vertical chimney with a rain cover at the top is rather antiquated and does not match the smooth hull line.

There have been many misconceptions about the configuration of the power plant of the "Great Soviet" class, the most profound of which is the statement that "a 600,000-horsepower turbine - electric power was used". Of course, this misunderstanding in the West is not unfounded, it originated from an official note dated September 5, 1938, when the Soviet government informed Britain that it was ready to build battleships. In this notice, the Soviets reduced the Type 24 to a 176,760-ton, 484-m-x72.6-x18.3-meter, 600,000-horsepower steam-electric Pact battleship. Although later there was a lot of intelligence about the true situation of the Type 24, the so-called electric units continue to appear in some articles to this day. Another common misconception is the misinterpretation of the Type 24 6-axis layout. According to many Western sources, the Soviet Union once obtained the drawings of the "Hindenburg" class during the Soviet-German honeymoon and changed the original 8-axis scheme to 6-axis according to the design of the "Hindenburg". In fact, the preliminary design of the Fourth Design Bureau in the second half of 1936 adopted a three-axis layout, because the width of the Plesay system was too large, and there was not enough space in the ship to place eight heavy turbines in parallel, so it had to adopt a six-axis arrangement. To date, there is still no exact information that the Type 24 was ever designed with a revised design based on the German battleship layout.

The initial multi-equipment design of the Type 24 adopted the form of single main rudder + double auxiliary rudder, but in the later ship model test, it was found that once the main rudder was stuck, the auxiliary rudder could not correct the yaw of the hull at all. After discussions, it was finally decided in 1939 to adopt a double rudder system. The projected tactical diameter is about 9 ship lengths, that is, about 2340 meters. The tanks of the "Great Soviet" class have a capacity of 21,120 tons of oil and a cruising range of 7,560 nautical miles/28 knots, 17,200 nautical miles/21 knots, and 25,200 nautical miles/14.5 knots. The auxiliary engines are 8 turbine generator sets with a single power of 7200 kW and 8 diesel generator sets with a single power of 2800 kW.

The long bow of the "Great Soviet" class has 4 hangars in the aft section, which can carry 12 KOP-2 seaplanes, and on the aft deck there are 4 aircraft catapults and 4 cranes.

After two five-year plans, the Soviet shipbuilding industry made great progress, and the four large shipyards left over from the Tsarist period underwent several rounds of expansion.

Current name, original name, confidential code, location

Ordzhonikidze Baltic Shipyard, Baltic Shipyard, Plant 189, Leningrad A. Marty Shipyard, Navy Shipyard, Plant 190, Leningrad

A. Marty Shipyard, Nikolaev Shipbuilding Complex, Plant 198, Nikolaev

61 Paris Commune member shipyard, Franco-Russian shipyard, 200 factory, Nikolaev

In addition, Stalin personally chose to build another large shipyard in Molotovsk (today's Severodvinsk) near Arkhangelsk. Tens of thousands of prisoners in the labor camps have carved out four giant reinforced concrete docks 600 meters long, 84 meters wide and 15 meters deep in the impregnable Arctic granite. This was the 402nd Northern Shipyard, which became known as the 402nd Northern Shipyard, and so far, the pattern of the three major shipbuilding centers in the Soviet era was formed and has been continued.

On January 21, 1938, even before the new battleships were finalized, the Soviet government decided to start construction of eight Type 24 battleships that year, which were scheduled to be launched in 1939 and put into service by 1942. On July 15, 1938, the groundbreaking ceremony of the lead ship "The Great Soviet" was held at the slipway of Plant 189, but this was only a coping scene to please Stalin. The real work was delayed until January 1939, when it began in earnest. In the following year, the construction of sister ships of the "Great Soviet" class began one after another.

"Great Soviet", "Bolshevik", "**", "October Revolution", "USSR", "Soviet Ukraine", "Soviet Belarus", "Soviet Russia"

Project code 299, 352, 101, 102 (2 ships each)

Construction started: July 15, 1938, October 31, 1938, December 21, 1939, July 22, 1940

Construction factories 189 factory, 198 factory, 402 factory, 402 factory