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Some aspects of operational employment of Russian naval forces in World War I

Military Thought, April-June, 2005 by D.Yu. Kozlov

Events that occurred in World War I continue to draw the attention of naval specialists to this day, even though almost a century separates us now from that major armed conflict of the first quarter of the 20th century. World War I was a turning point in the history of naval art. An unprecedented leap forward in the development of naval equipment and a dramatic aggravation in conditions of naval warfare entailed radical changes in the nature of combat operations in oceanic and sea TO and, as a consequence, a transformation of the established and customary forms and methods of naval employment into new and more efficient ones.

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It was precisely in 1914-1918 that new component services--naval aviation and submarine forces--became full-fledged participants in the armed confrontation on the seas. New types of warships and varieties of naval weapons appeared. Improvements in signals perceptibly enhanced naval command and control capabilities. They also expanded the spectrum of missions tackled by naval forces as well as that of forms and methods of their performance. Conditions of naval warfare became so much complicated that in some cases a number of consecutive and simultaneous battles, engagements and attacks were needed to achieve goals assigned, attacks unified by one concept and plan and involving naval forces belonging to different component services, as well as organization of the entire set of supporting actions and measures (reconnaissance, deception of the enemy, etc.). This led to the emergence and step-by-step evolution of naval operation, a new form of employment of naval forces and weapons.

Another form of operational employment of naval forces--systematic combat operations--saw a dramatic surge in its role as well: formerly a discrete sequence of one-act clashes of groups of surface ships, the war on the seas turned into continuous warfare in all natural spheres, and its results often could be estimated only on the basis of a statistical analysis.

The experience of operational employment of fleet forces in home naval theaters, both closed (Baltic and Black Sea) and open (Northern) is of particular interest for us today. Paradoxical though it may seem, the situation that took shape in those theaters before 1914 is in many respects similar to the situation in the early 21st century. In both cases the Russian Navy found itself weakened. In the former case it was weakened by the Russo-Japanese war (1904-1905), which left Russia without its just created Pacific fleet as well as the bigger and better part of the Baltic fleet that had been sent to the Far East as two squadrons under Vice-Admiral Z.P. Rozhdestvensky and Rear-Admiral N.I Nebogatov. Russia, which by the early 20th century was second in number of combatant ships of the main types only to Britain and France, ceased to be one of the leading naval powers. In the postwar years, moreover, it for a number of objective and subjective reasons dragged out the approval and implementation of military shipbuilding programs due to revive the imperial naval forces after the Japanese rout. In the early 21st century, the Navy felt in full the devastating consequences of the USSR's collapse and the grave socioeconomic crisis of the 1990s, whose aftermath exceeds that of many military defeats that befell this country in the past. Against the background of the current dismal state of the domestic shipbuilding industry and the entire defense-industrial complex, as well as the dramatic decline in the Navy's strength and amounts of its operational and combat training, our neighbors, both partners and eventual adversaries, continue building up--qualitatively if not always quantitatively--their naval forces.

The consequence is that today, like in 1914, Russia does not possess superiority in naval forces even over neighboring states, and has to moderate its naval ambitions. It is quite likely, therefore, that the varied and instructive experience of what happened 90 years ago will be not only of scientific-theoretical but also of practical interest--from the point of view of measures due to be taken to restore the combat potential of our fleet.

So, what operational tasks faced the Russian navy during World War I and what forms of tackling them did the Russian naval command choose?

Defense of the coast and the main naval basing areas is to be seen as the first of these tasks. This problem acquired particular importance in the Baltic theater, where the enemy was capable of concentrating naval forces that exceeded Russia's Baltic Fleet many times over (this threat was realized, for example, in August 1915, when the Germans launched the Irben Operation, and in October 1917, when Albion, an amphibious operation designed to capture the Moonsund Islands, took place). For this reason, the danger that the main forces of the German fleet would invade the Gulf of Finland and land troops at the gate of the capital became the main factor that influenced the concept of employment of Baltic Sea naval forces, which was realized both in the last prewar plans and wartime employment plans.

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Some aspects of operational employment of Russian naval forces in World War I

Military Thought, April-June, 2005 by D.Yu. Kozlov

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