| Career (Russian Empire) | |
|---|---|
| Name: | Pochtovy |
| Builder: | Metal works in St Petersburg, Baltic Sea |
| Launched: | 1908 |
| Decommissioned: | 1913 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 134 tons surfaced 146 tons submerged |
| Length: | 34.4 m |
| Beam: | 3.0 m |
| Draft: | 2.8 m |
| Propulsion: | 2 shaft gasoline AIP 2 petrol engines 260 hp (190 kW) |
| Speed: | 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h) surfaced 6.2 knots (11 km/h) submerged |
| Range: | 350 nautical miles (650 km) |
| Complement: | 11 |
| Armament: | 4 torpedo drop collars |
Pochtovy (Russian: Почтовый) was a submarine built for the Imperial Russian Navy. The boat was designed by Drzewiecki and built at the Metal Works St Petersburg in 1908. She was funded by Public subscription.[1]
This ship's machinery was a novel attempt at Air Independent Propulsion (AIP) using gasoline engines with oxygen supplied by pressurised cylinders. Forty-five cylinders containing 350 cubic feet (9.9 m3) of air at 2500 psi could give the boat a 28-nautical-mile (52 km) submerged range. The exhaust gasses were vented via perforated pipe under the keel. The system proved reliable in trials but condensation problems and the tell-tale wake produced by the exhaust resulted in no further development and the boat was stricken in 1913.[1]