Yugoslav Submarines
Cold War Service and Demise of the Yugoslavian Submarine Fleet
The coastal navy of Yugoslavia and its successor Montenegro employed a number of submarine designs for more that seventy years. The remnants are now for sale.
Yugoslavia, under Marshal Tito, walked a fine line in the Cold War between East and West. The good marshal, himself a veteran of the partisans in World War Two, believed in the old philosophy of Si vis pacem, para bellum/ if you want peace prepare for war. He stocked a huge army of nearly a million men when fully mobilized, a reasonably effective air force, and a respectable coastal defense navy. The Navy was designed to control the coast of the Adriatic with fast patrol boats, frigates and small submarines. These submarines included three Heroj class submarines commissioned in the 1960s, no less than nine Una and Mala class midgets submarines (the same model was later sold to North Korea) and two more modern Sava class boats laid down in 1975.
These Savas were the namesake Sava, pennant no. 831, commissioned in 1978 and the Drava, no. 832 commissioned three years later. These boats were 964 tons full load displacement, and carried six 533mm forward torpedo tubes in a 65 meter (213 foot) long hull. The submarines could make 16 knots on their diesel electric plants. The Yugoslav navy, who had operated submarines since 1929, had a respectable amount of expertise in these size and type of boats. They were based from the historica Naval Base of Cattaro (Kotor), former home of both the KuK Austro-Hungarian Kriegsmarine submarines and later German U-Boats. When compared to their contemporary vessels of the time the Savas were seen as slightly better than the Soviet Whisky and Foxtrot designs and more on par with the more modern Kilo-type and the early West German Type 209 boats, especially in the shallow littorals of the Adriatic. The mean depth of the Adriatic is only 240 meters and the Savas had a design working depth of 300, placing the bottom well with reach. Operationally it was within the capabilities of the submarine pair to attempt to close the vital Strait of Otranto, long the key to the ancient sea.
After peaceful service in the Cold War these ships were retained by the new country of the "Federal Republic of Yugoslavia" -basically just Serbia and Montenegro- when old Yugoslavia broke apart in the 1990s. Rarely putting to sea these boats decayed to the point of inservicibility. The three old Heroj-class boats Heroj, Junak and Uskuk were all laid up for scrapping followed by most of the midgets. Two of the midgets were captured in 1991 by Croatia and after refitting one of these entered Croatian Navy service in 1997 as the Velebit. This left only the pair of Savas in the Yugoslav operational inventory. By 1998 the Drava was placed in reserve and cannibalized for parts to keep her older sister operational in name only.
On June 3, 2006 Montenegro declared its independence from Serbia and took the coastline along with the remnants of the former Yugoslav fleet with it. The remaining submarines have remained dockside for the past two years in Tivat before being recently moved. In April 2008 Vice Admiral Samardzic of the Montenegrin Navy explained in an interview with the Montenegro daily newspaper "Vijesti" that the submarines are up for sale. Noting that the vessels are long unserviceable he stated that the unique submarines "... would be difficult to sell, so we are hoping someone would purchase them as museum exponats." This has already been accomplished with one of the smaller remaining midgets, Una P-911, that has already been preserved in the tourist center at Tivat.
Sources
Jane’s Fighting Ships -update December 2007
Baker, AD Combat Fleets of the World
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