Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov (1872–1919) — naval architect and scholar
An honored professor, major-general in the corps of naval engineers, and a brilliant inventor, he remains to this day an unquestioned authority in the world of shipbuilding. Bubnov entered the field of shipbuilding swiftly and with great energy. The Kronstadt Technical School of the Naval Department. Junior assistant to the constructor at the St. Petersburg Port Administration. The Naval Academy. Before he had even defended his diploma project, he was already teaching the course "Design of Warships." He knew how to learn, and he loved it. "Everything entrusted to him he carried out with great diligence and care." This was the assessment of his practical training supervisor at the Kronstadt school. Throughout all his years of study, he received only one grade of "satisfactory" — in drawing, at the Nizhny Novgorod Vladimir Real School. Yet that same teacher gave him "excellent" in draughtsmanship. The name of Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov could be seen on the marble honor boards listing the finest graduates of both the Kronstadt school and the Naval Academy. While studying at the academy, he was awarded first prize for a design of an ocean-going high-speed cruiser. His participation in experiments on the dampening of rolling is well documented. Aboard the armored cruiser Rossiya, Bubnov studied the dynamics of a ship's launching. The turning point in his life came in 1900. A memorandum from the Naval Technical Committee landed on the desk of the Minister of the Navy. It contained the following words: "For a long time now, foreign naval powers have been striving to solve the problem of protecting torpedo boats by using the water itself — that is, to achieve the approach to the enemy for the firing of a torpedo while submerged." The subject was the submarine. The Naval Ministry was reluctant to voluntarily "sink" a ship, and so established the "Commission for the Design of a Semi-Submersible Vessel." Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov was appointed chairman of the commission. Thanks to him, the vessel became fully submersible after all. Its crew was made up of volunteer officers. On 21 June 1904, it went out for trials under the name Delfin (Dolphin). Then came Kasatka, Minoga, Akula, Bars, Morzh… Based on Bubnov's designs, 32 submarines were built for the Russian Navy. If the dive time of the first Russian submarine, Delfin, was approximately six minutes, the Bars-class boats required just three. In 1907, the designer was enrolled in the lists of submarine service officers. Ivan Grigoryevich did not neglect his research work. Aboard the Black Sea cruiser Kagul, he conducted the world's first full-scale trials of the effect of water depth on a ship's speed. While developing the design for the battleship Sevastopol, he proposed mounting the triple-gun main-caliber turrets in a linear arrangement. But this had no precedent in world practice. Now it would. The battleship Izmail incorporated his longitudinal framing system for the ship's hull, which made it possible to significantly reduce weight while strengthening armor and armament. Subsequently, the Soviet government would sell the unfinished hulls of battleships of this type to Germany for scrap at a pittance, and with the proceeds buy locomotives from Sweden. German specialists would draw lessons in design and apply them to the construction of their "pocket battleships," which would become a menace to Allied convoys during the Great Patriotic War. Bubnov's fundamental theoretical works are in constant demand among shipbuilders. He became the founder of an independent scientific discipline — the structural mechanics of ships. His Foundations of Shipbuilding Statistics, along with works titled On the Unsinkability of Vessels and Structural Mechanics and the Theory of Elasticity, were translated into foreign languages. Shortly before his death, Ivan Grigoryevich turned his attention to the problem of towing vessels and barges along narrow river channels. It was as though he knew how useful this would prove to his fellow Nizhny Novgorod residents when they began building submarines.
He died alone. No one was allowed in to see him. Typhus. The thirteenth day of spring in 1919 was his last. Life had allotted him just 47 years — grievously few. The following day, St. Petersburg newspapers quietly announced the death of the naval scholar Ivan Grigoryevich Bubnov.