The mystic mini-submarine which was discovered on Monday sitting on the bottom in Sweden's territorial waters was immediately linked to Sweden's military's extensive hunt for a suspected Russian submarine in the archipelago outside Stockholm last fall. It is apparently Russian all right but belied by its unblemished and intact appearance the submarine sank in 1916.
Russian submarine Beluga.
Sweden's military has now analyzed the video footage provided by Swedish wreckhunter group Ocean X Team and concluded that it is the wreck of a Russian submarine that sank after a collision with a Swedish vessel in 1916 during the First World War. Ocean X was the team who also found the "Baltic anomali"
Russian Baltic Fleet
According to various experts cited by the Swedish daily Expressen the type of submarine is known as Catfish and was built in Vladivostok in 1904 became part of the Russian Baltic Fleet in 1915. The design is actually American and was originally named Fulton. The Russian Navy bought the design, renamed the class 'Som' and built seven of them in Vladivostok from 1904 to 1907. They were commissioned by the Imperial Russian Navy 1905–1913. The first two, Losos and Sodak, was put out to sea in 1907, forming part of the first Russian Baltic fleet.
The submarine, the Swedes found Monday is the first of the seven that sank. In 1916 it collided with the Swedish ship "Ã…ngermanland" in what experts call a historical well documented accident. 18 people perished when the submarine sank
Armament
Som class had a displacement of 122 tons submerged and crew of 24. It was 20 meters long and three and a half meters wide. It had 160 horsepower and a top speed of 8.5 knots on the surface and 6 kn submerged. under water. It was armed with a single torpedo and a machine gun.
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