For those who are unfamiliar with the history of Montenegro (which, if I’m brutally honest, I was up until about 30 minutes ago), it is a complicated story. Like most of places in the Mediterranean, it has been conquered and occupied by many different civilisations. The story starts with ancient Illyrian settlements. In the 2nd century BC the Romans turned up and did what the Romans did best. Several hundred years later in the 7th century AD the Slavs staked their claim and called it Duklja, and then Zeta. Under the influence of Byzantium and Greece, Christianity took hold and resulted in the oldest church built in 809 in Kotor. In the 11th century it became a kingdom, and in the 13th century it was divided into Rasta, Bosnia & Zahumlje. After the death of King Dusan in the 14th century, it became one again. There were subsequent kings, rulers and the Ottomans turned up to the party too. Somewhere in there the Venetians had a crack at running the place as well. In 1852 it was transformed into a secular principality. In 1878 it was granted independence (I’m not sure from whom), and since 1910 is has become a kingdom. King Nikolai renounced the throne in 1918 and the Montenegrin parliament decided to join the Kingdom of Serbs, Slovenes & Croats. During WWII Montenegro was taken over by the Mussolini-led Italians, and then the Germans came along and occupied the place properly because the Italians weren’t doing a very good job. The kingdom was ruled by a Serbian dynasty and after the Second World War was incorporated into the SFRY (Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia). During the disintegration of Yugoslavia in 1993, the country was allied with the Republic of Serbia. In 2006, a referendum was held, at which it was decided that Montenegro should receive the status of an independent state. Phew! I told you it was complicated! And that was just a short summary (and probably paraphrased a bit and might not be 100% accurate 😂).
What has all of this got to do with submarines you ask? Well, while it was “Yugoslavia”, it was one of only a few countries who could design and build their own submarines. This model was a “hero” class vessel and was used in defensive operations in the Adriatic Sea.
The submarine has 3 main compartments: the forward is the torpedo tubes, galley (on the lower level), and all of the operating, navigation, radio, sonar etc etc equipment. The middle compartment was all the batteries and electrical stuff - this being an electric submarine powered by Diesel engines. The third compartment was the Diesel engines used to charge the batteries, and also the huge electric motor used to power the propellers. In all but the galley section, there were bunks squeezed into any spare space. Only the captain had his own room and bunk - everyone had to “hot bunk” it.
It could dive to a depth of 210m, and the crush depth was 400m. It was 50m long, by 10m tall and 5m wide. It could do 15.3 knots and it’s displacement was 700 tons. They could stay underwater for 48 days and used a snorkel to change the air periodically. It could deploy torpedoes and mines, and had a crew of 28. It was built in 1968 and was used up until 1992, but was officially decommissioned in 2002. Most of these subs got scrapped for metal, but this one wasn’t and in 2013 they turned it into a museum.
So, all in all, the submarine, and the naval museum next to it were a pretty good thing to stop and see!
Ps. Steve got to tick something off his bucket list and farted in a submarine - and it’s true about not being popular 😂🤣
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