What if earlier canal system to make Baltic-Black sea-Caspian travel possible?

[Tibi088]

So I was thinking that if the Vikings could travel from the Baltics to Constatinople using the Russian rivers why wasnt there a canal created in tsarist Russia.

A fast search showed that today this is indeed possible, though the Volga-Don canal was only completed in the 1950's. So what if Russia created the necessery canals for this much earlier. IMO as we are speaking flat lands it shouldnt be impossible to do.

So if Russia creates this by the late 19th century and the passage of waships is possible Russia wouldnt have to keep separate fleets for the Baltics and Black Sea.

What effects do you think would all of the above have?

 

[Arkenfolm]

You'd need to have the Russians be more successful earlier in the Azov/Caucasus area first, since the area was a borderland. The Ottomans IIRC tried it in the 16th century, the Russians under Peter the Great tried it, but those attempts failed because the area was often in a state of political flux and the money spent for the canal is better spent on forts and armies.

So if Russia creates this by the late 19th century and the passage of waships is possible Russia wouldnt have to keep separate fleets for the Baltics and Black Sea.

Only smaller ships would be able to pass through the canal, since even today, the largest possible draft is 3.5 m, so they'd still need separate fleets for the Baltic and Black Sea, at least if they want any sizable ships there.

 

[telynk]

also, the volga-don canal is not the most ambitious link in a baltic-black sea waterway. The would be addyional canal(s) necessary to link the upper volga to the baltic and probably more canals to bypass rapids/shallows on the volga. Also, the volga is a long, windy river, meaning that it would probably take weeks or even months for ships to travel from the Baltic to the Black Sea or vice versa. If Russia was attacked while the ships were in transit, the fleet would be useless. So a canal you'd still have to keep separate defensive fleets in the Baltic and Black seas even if the canals were deep enough to allow an common attack fleet to deploy from either St Petersburg or Azov.

 

[telynk]

To be honest, to me the most interesting thing about an earlier don-volga canal would not be the connection between the baltic and black seas but the connection between the Black Sea and the Caspian Sea. An earlier canal could allow Russia to deploy its Black Sea fleet to the Caspian and force Persia to build its own defensive Caspian fleet. The Caspian as a potential theatre for naval battles is often overlooked.

 

[sloreck]

The canal from the Black Sea to the Caspian would be a huge amount of work - there are some significant mountains in the way. You'll need a lot of locks, and also pumps, and probably powered assistance for boats

 

[mitfrc]

A canal from the Baltic to the Caspian in fact existed in OTL Tsarist Russia and was critical to the development of the world oil industry, see the Nobel river tankers. This proved much easier than the Volga-Don link.

 

[alexmilman]

So I was thinking that if the Vikings could travel from the Baltics to Constatinople using the Russian rivers why wasnt there a canal created in tsarist Russia.

Which one? There were canals in Tsarist Russia but they were built with some commercial purpose in mind. Taking into an account that by the time when the term "Tsarist Russia" starts making sense the Vikings had not been around for quite a few centuries and Constantinople was in the Ottomans' hands what would be a practical usage for such an exercise?

A fast search showed that today this is indeed possible, though the Volga-Don canal was only completed in the 1950's.

How this is relevant to your 1st sentence about the Vikings and their route from Baltic to the Black Sea?

So if Russia creates this by the late 19th century and the passage of warships is possible Russia wouldnt have to keep separate fleets for the Baltics and Black Sea.

Do you understand the difference between Vikings' ships and the "warships" of the late XIX century? Also, how exactly these warships would end up in Volga from the Baltic Sea? Марии́нская во́дная систе́ма, AFAIK, was not constructed for a passage of the battleships or even cruisers.

What effects do you think would all of the above have?

Zero because construction of a system allowing passage of the battleships built in the late XIX does not make any sense technically and strategically. FYI, a pre-dreadnought would not be able to get through the existing Volga-Don canal and most probably the same applies to Марии́нская во́дная систе́ма connecting Baltic Sea and Volga.

 

[alexmilman]

A canal from the Baltic to the Caspian in fact existed in OTL Tsarist Russia and was critical to the development of the world oil industry, see the Nobel river tankers. This proved much easier than the Volga-Don link.

They were using existing Марии́нская во́дная систе́ма (not a single canal) built by the early XIX to connect Volga with Baltic Sea and they were substantially smaller than a battleship of the late XIX - early XX:

Zoroaster: 184 feet long, 27 feet beam, draft 9 feet.
Pre-dreadnought battleship (Potemkin): 378 ft 6 in, 73 ft, 27 ft correspondingly.

As for Volga-Don, the 1st practical attempt had been made in 1701 at Yepifan "Between 1702 and 1707, twenty-four locks were constructed, and, in 1707, about 300 ships passed the canal under remarkably difficult navigation conditions." In 1709 the project was halted. (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Volga–Don_Canal#History)

The OTL construction (1948 - 52) involved 900,000 workers and modern technology. Distance may look small on the map but canal's length is approximately 100km and it has 13 locks which can raise ships 88 m and then lower them 44 m. Getting back to the initially proposed idea, a pre-dreadnought of Potemkin class would not get through it: maximum allowed vessel size is 460 ft long, 54 ft wide and 11 ft deep (compare this with the numbers above).

And it is getting even worse on Don's side. As of now, a sufficient water level is supported by the sequence of three dam-and-ship-lock complexes and there is a need of a regular dredging: "Frozen during three months of the year, it is also occasionally hampered by severe spring flooding, but also large volumes of silt that make navigation in its lower reaches treacherous because of shifting sandbanks and shallows. Its entryway into the Sea of Azov, the Gulf of Taganrog, is one of the shallowest bodies of water in the world, with depths averaging a mere 3.3 ft (1 m)." http://geography.name/don-river/

 

[Tibi088]

Which one? There were canals in Tsarist Russia but they were built with some commercial purpose in mind. Taking into an account that by the time when the term "Tsarist Russia" starts making sense the Vikings had not been around for quite a few centuries and Constantinople was in the Ottomans' hands what would be a practical usage for such an exercise?



How this is relevant to your 1st sentence about the Vikings and their route from Baltic to the Black Sea?

Do you understand the difference between Vikings' ships and the "warships" of the late XIX century? Also, how exactly these warships would end up in Volga from the Baltic Sea? Марии́нская во́дная систе́ма, AFAIK, was not constructed for a passage of the battleships or even cruisers.



Zero because it does not make any sense technically and strategically.

Sorry but I get the feeling that you are intentionally misunderstanding what I have written in an attempt to try to ridicule me which is pretty rude.
If not please read again what I have written and maybe you will understand but i will also try to make it more clear.

The part about vikings was simply where I got the idea from - even if it wasnt the best of ideas as it turned out: If they could get from the Baltic Sea to the Black sea using mostly the great rivers shouldnt it be possible to later - by the 19th century - create a waterway by linking the rivers with canals? This actually does exist OTL. And actually OTL the canals linking the Baltic to the Volga did exist even before the 20th century. The last part completed was OTL the Volga-Don Canal in the 1950's.

So technically it made sense as its a huge boost to the economy OTL and a lot of trade uses it. Its simply not practical for military aplication. But there is life outside the military.

 

[alexmilman]

also, the volga-don canal is not the most ambitious link in a baltic-black sea waterway. The would be addyional canal(s) necessary to link the upper volga to the baltic and probably more canals to bypass rapids/shallows on the volga.

Such a system was available by the early XIX. Of course, it was strictly commercial and not expected to allow through the battleships.

 

[alexmilman]

Sorry but I get the feeling that you are intentionally misunderstanding what I have written in an attempt to try to ridicule me which is pretty rude.

Well, if you start with writing something absolutely irrelevant (by your own admission) to the point you are trying to make, why are you upset with me saying that it is irrelevant?

If not please read again what I have written and maybe you will understand but i will also try to make it more clear.

The part about vikings was simply where I got the idea from - even if it wasnt the best of ideas as it turned out: If they could get from the Baltic Sea to the Black sea using mostly the great rivers

A big part of their route was along relatively small rivers and involved a lot of portage. And the route to Constantinople had nothing to do with Volga so it was rather difficult to figure out what you are talking about.

shouldnt it be possible to later - by the 19th century - create a waterway by linking the rivers with canals?
This actually does exist OTL. And actually OTL the canals linking the Baltic to the Volga did exist even before the 20th century. The last part completed was OTL the Volga-Don Canal in the 1950's.

As I said earlier, Марии́нская во́дная систе́ма was created to connect Volga to the Baltic Sea with a clear purpose to allow transport of the goods from Central Russia to St-Petersburg. This system had nothing to do with passing of the Baltic Fleet to the Black Sea and would not allow such a thing.

So technically it made sense as its a huge boost to the economy OTL and a lot of trade uses it. Its simply not practical for military aplication. But there is life outside the military.

Your initial post was talking about the military aspect, which I addressed and which you now declared impractical.

Building something with a commercial goal is a completely different issue but, judging by the resources involved in construction of Volga-Don the answer is "highly unlikely". Now, if we assume (just for argument's sake) that it was built in the late XIX - early XX, how the things would proceed? In OTL canal's planned throughput capacity is 16.5M tons annually but in 2006 only 8.053 M tons had been carried (half of them oil) and in 2009 13.2M tons. Many ships are only partially loaded. Why? Because canal is getting too shallow for a planned traffic and in 2012 400M rubles had been allocated for the dredging works. On a Don side there is a whole system of the artificial reservoirs and locks to maintain a minimal acceptable depth level and there is a need of a dredging of the lower flow of the Don River. Only the ships under 7,000 tons are allowed (hence no serious warships there). Not to mention that canal requires maintenance of the numerous pumping stations.

Now, back to your premise. There were numerous (more than 30) projects of canal predating 1917. However, even if it was built navigation would be possible only in a spring time when the rivers' water level is higher (see above about the OTL reservoirs). Canal itself is only a part of a much bigger system needed for a meaningful navigation.

 

[mitfrc]

alexmilman is absolutely right. And the absence of canals didn't slow down Pyotr Velikiy's Caspian Expedition in the early 18th century anyway, which included building large warships.

 

[alexmilman]

alexmilman is absolutely right. And the absence of canals didn't slow down Pyotr Velikiy's Caspian Expedition in the early 18th century anyway, which included building large warships.

Indeed. In 1722 He founded Caspian flotilla which still exists. At that time 270 ships had been built including 200 transport ships. In campaign of 1723 he used 15 ships with 3 masts. The ships had been built in Astrakhan, which was much cheaper than to build them on Don,dig a canal and move them to the Caspian.

But later size of the flotilla shrunk due to an absence of a reason for keeping a big naval force on Caspian.In 1918 flotilla consisted of 2 gunboats and few armed steamers and was the only armed naval force on the Caspian Sea: experience of Peter’s Persian campaign convincingly demonstrated that conquest of the Southern coast of Caspian does not make sense and later conquests of Azerbaijan and Armenia did not require a big (or any in the case of Armenia) naval force.