Russia enters the naval war!

In spring 1942 the Russian navy made its presence felt for the first time in the war. After securing the agreement of neutral Turkey to pass their navy through the Dardanelles, in exchange for the relinquishing of territorial claims in the east, the Soviet navy prepared to sortie through the Sea of marmara into the eastern Mediterranean. Stalin had a geopolitical agenda as well, aiming to show Russian strength in the Mediterranean to support his claims over eastern Europe. This wasn't lost on the British, who began to step up their own campaign against the Italians.

The Russian sortie composed of three cruisers and four destroyers, but the news they had sailed was quickly leaked to the Italians, who dispatched Three Zara class vessels and four destroyers to intercept them. The two forces clashed in the eastern Agean, with the Italian destroyers making a torpedo run on the Russian vessels. Although they managed to sink one crusier, the destroyers paid the ultimate price, being sunk in turn.

The battle now revolved around the remaining cruisers, as of the two Russian destroyers which weren't sunk, only one managed to get off any torpedoes, and the Pola, damaged, quickly retreated under a smokescreen. The Italians now formed a battle line of their two remaining cruisers, and repeatedly crossed the "T" of the Russian cruisers, who focussed on presenting as small a target to the enemy by constantly pointing to face the Italians. The Italian shooting was poor anyway, and the Russian tactics only highlighted this fact. Another cruiser was crippled but the Italians in turn had Zara badly damaged by the front guns of the two soviet light cruisers. What should have been a victory for the Regia Marina turned into defeat, as Fiume and Zara also fled the scene, leaving the eastern Agean open for further Russian sorties.

In the Baltic the soviet navy also sortied in strength,, and the Kriegsmarine were alarmed to find that the Russians had completed and commissioned a super Battleship, the Sovetsky Soyuz class Sovetskaya Belorussiya. Displacing nearly 60,000 tons and armed with nine 16" guns, the ship left Leningrad and was quickly spotted by the German navy. Escorting her was the Kronshtadt, a recently commissioned battlecruiser, and the old WWI battleship Gangut.

In response the Germans sent Tirpitz, along with Scharnhorst and Gneisenau, and soon enough the two forces met in the Baltic. The judgement of the Soviet Navy was quickly called in to question as the Tirpitz opened fire on Gangut at extreme range. The ageing battleship was totally at a loss to reply, and within minutes was blasted apart by the superior firepower of the german monster. Kronshtadt and Sovetskaya Belorussiya replied with their heavy guns, damaging the Tirpitz, but not decisively. Eventually poor weather forced both sides to return to port, but the Germans now had the upper hand in the Baltic, although the discovery of a Soviet Super-dreadnought was cause for concern.