Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleship

German reconnaissance picture of Sovetsky Soyuz taken in June 1942
Class overview
Operators Soviet Navy
Preceded byImperator Nikolai I
Succeeded byProject 24
Cost1,180,000,000 rubles (for all 4 ships laid down)
Built1938–1941
Planned15 (4 laid down before cancellation)
Cancelled15
General characteristics after 1941 modifications
TypeBattleship
Displacement
Length269.4 m (883 ft 10 in) (o/a)
Beam38.9 m (127 ft 7 in)
Draft10.4 m (34 ft 1 in)
Installed power
Propulsion3 shafts; 3 geared steam turbines
Speed28 knots (52 km/h; 32 mph)
Endurance7,680 nmi (14,220 km; 8,840 mi) at 14 knots (26 km/h; 16 mph)
Armament
  • 3 × triple 406 mm (16 in) guns
  • 6 × twin 152 mm (6 in) guns
  • 6 × twin 100 mm (3.9 in) DP guns
  • 10 × quadruple 37 mm (1.5 in) AA guns
Armor
Aircraft carried4 KOR-2 flying boats
Aviation facilities2 aircraft catapults

The Sovetsky Soyuz-class battleships (Project 23, Russian: Советский Союз, 'Soviet Union'), also known as "Stalin's Republics", were a class of battleships begun by the Soviet Union in the late 1930s but never brought into service. They were designed in response to the Bismarck-class battleships being built by Germany. Only four hulls of the fifteen originally planned had been laid down by 1940, when the decision was made to cut the program to only three ships to divert resources to an expanded army rearmament program.

These ships would have rivaled the Imperial Japanese Yamato class and America's planned Montana class in size if any had been completed, although with significantly weaker firepower: nine 406-millimeter (16 in) guns compared to the nine 460-millimeter (18.1 in) guns of the Japanese ships and a dozen 16-inch (406 mm) on the Montanas. The failure of the Soviet armor plate industry to build cemented armor plates thicker than 230 millimeters (9.1 in) would have negated any advantages from the Sovetsky Soyuz class's thicker armor in combat.

Construction of the first four ships was plagued with difficulties as the Soviet shipbuilding and related industries were not prepared to build such large ships. One battleship, Sovetskaya Belorussiya, was cancelled on 19 October 1940 after serious construction flaws were found. Construction of the other three ships was suspended shortly after Nazi Germany invaded the Soviet Union in June 1941, and never resumed. All three of the surviving hulls were scrapped in the late 1940s.