The Soviet naval icebreaker Iosef Stalin 1937-

Russian icebreaker Iosef Stalin

German auxiliary cruiser Komet

Belonged to the Leader-class with a displacement of 11,000 tons as dimensions 351 x 75,5 x 30,5’. The two steam engines with diesel electric propulsion and ten boilers supplied 10,500 hp allowing a speed of15 knots. The coal bunker capacity was 3,000 tons. Her crew numbered 142 men minimum. The armament consisted of 2-13cm guns, 4-7,62cm anti aircraft guns, 2 machineguns and maximum 3 small floatplanes. She was built in 1937-1938 at the Ordzonikidze yard at Leningrad.

In 1938 was she for the first time used in an Artic expedition. On 18 January 1940 freed she the Russian icebreaker Sedov between Greenland and Svalbard. The Sedov was at that moment used as a Drifting Polar Station. In 1940 she and the Lenin assisted the German merchant raider Komet which ship went form Gotenhafen via the Artic Ocean passages and the Bering Straits towards the Pacific. The Komet was in advance disguised as the Soviet icebreaker Semyon Dezhnev and was later renamed Donau.(1)

Note
1. See also the url http://warshipsresearch.blogspot.nl/2011/09/german-merchant-or-auxiliary-raider.html