American Holland class submarine

The American Holland Class Submarines, also AG or later A Class Submarines were Holland 602 type submarines used by the Imperial Russian and Soviet Navies in the early 20th century. The medium-sized submarines participated in the World War I Baltic Sea and Black Sea theatres and a handful of them also saw action during World War II.

Development

The AG submarines were designed by John Philip Holland at Electric Boat Company. The design was called Holland 602GF/602L, [http://www.deepstorm.ru/DeepStorm.files/under_1917/ag/list.htm Тип "АГ" (Американский Голланд)] ru icon "( [http://babelfish.altavista.com/babelfish/trurl_pagecontent?lp=ru_en&trurl=http%3a%2f%2fwww.deepstorm.ru%2fDeepStorm.files%2funder_1917%2fag%2flist.htm Translation] )"] [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/class.html?ID=248 Allied Warships: Submarines - A (AG) class] ] which was very similar to the American H class submarine. The Russian abbreviation "AG" comes from "Amerikansky Golland", which means "American Holland". In 1916, the Russian Naval Ministry ordered 11 units.The boats were built at Barnet Yard in Vancouver, Canada as knockdown kits. The kits were transported by ship to Vladivostok in Russia and over the Trans-Siberian Railroad to European Russia. The boats were assembled at the Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg and its subsidiary in Nikolayev by the Black Sea (now Mykolaiv, Ukraine). Like some of the British subs of the same design, the boats were equipped with Fessenden transducers, an early form of Sonar.

The Russian Revolution of 1917 slowed down the assembly in Nikolayev, but they were completed after much travail. One AG submarine was taken over by the Russian White movement at Bizerta and five were taken over by the Red Army after the Civil war. The submarines were all completed after the war. All surviving Soviet AG submarines were modernized before World War II.

The Russians had also ordered an additional six submarines, but these could not be delivered due to the Revolution. These were instead taken over by the US Navy as the H 4-9 in 1918.

Operational service

Five of the submarines were allocated to the Baltic Fleet while the remaining six were allocated to the Black Sea Fleet.

During World War I, the Russian subs operated together with the British submarine flotilla in the Baltic against the German Navy. This all changed with the October Revolution and the Finnish Civil War.

In 1918, the German occupation of Tallinn and the Brest-Litovsk peace treaty forced the British flotilla to move to Helsinki, then under the protection of the Finnish Socialist Workers' Republic. The German intervention in the Finnish Civil War and the landing of the 10,000-strong German Baltic Sea Division in Hanko forced the crew to scuttle the eight remaining submarines and the three support ships, "Cicero", "Emilie" and "Obsidian", outside Helsinki harbour.

The crews of the Russian ships were in a state of panic. Through negotiations with the Germans the many vessels of the Russian Navy moored in Helsinki were allowed to depart to Kronstadt. However, the difficult ice situation made it impossible for smaller vessels to follow, and they had to be abandoned. Among these were the four Russian AG class submarines in Hanko. The arrival of German troops under Rüdiger von der Goltz on April 3, forced the Russians to hastily scuttle the submarines, including AG 12 and AG 16, in Hanko harbour.

The Finns located the submarines and lifted them. Extensive plans were made to refurbish these two. However, with the strained economical situation of the 1920s and the new ship building program for the Navy of the 1930s finally led to the scrapping of the submarines. [ [http://users.tkk.fi/~jaromaa/Navygallery/Submarines/submarines.htm Finnish Submarines] ]

The Soviet Navy renamed their remaining five AG submarines to the A class, and all of these saw major modernization in the late 1930s. Two of the A class submarines were sunk during World War II.

hips of the class

Baltic Fleet

*AG-11 (scuttled 3 April 1918)
*AG-12 (scuttled 3 April 1918, lifted by the Finns and later scrapped)
*AG-14 (sunk by a mine in July 1917 off Libau)
*AG-15 (scuttled 3 April 1918)
*AG-16 (ex AG-13, scuttled 3 April 1918, lifted by the Finns, scrapped in 1929)

Black Sea Fleet

*AG-21 (fell into British hands in 1919, scuttled)
*AG-23, later renamed A-1 (lost 26 June 1942) [cite web
url=http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5804.html
title=Allied Warships: A-1 - Submarine of the A (AG) class
accessdate=2007-07-08]
*AG-24, later renamed A-2 [ [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5805.html Allied Warships: A-2 - Submarine of the A (AG) class] ]
*AG-25, later renamed A-3 (lost 28 October 1943) [ [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5806.html Allied Warships: A-3 - Submarine of the A (AG) class] ]
*AG-26, later renamed A-4 [ [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5807.html Allied Warships: A-4 - Submarine of the A (AG) class] ]
*AG-27, later renamed A-5 [ [http://uboat.net/allies/warships/ship/5808.html Allied Warships: A-5 - Submarine of the A (AG) class] ]

References

Literature

* "Building Submarines for Russia in Burrard Inlet" by W.Kaye Lamb published in "BC Studies" No.71 Autumn, 1986

External links

* [http://www.gwpda.org/naval/cdnsubs.htm World War One Submarines Built in Canada]
* [http://www.morflot.tsi.ru/rus_flot_1696-1917/podlodki/ag.html Русский Флот 1696-1917 гг. - Тип «А.Г.»] ru icon