Bulgarian Navy

The Bulgarian Navy (Bulgarian: Военноморски сили на Република България, romanized: Voennomorski sili na Republika Balgariya, lit. 'Naval Forces of the Republic of Bulgaria') is the navy of the Republic of Bulgaria and forms part of the Bulgarian Armed Forces.
The Principality of Bulgaria established its navy soon after its creation, in 1879, to operate on the Danube river and the Black Sea, but the young country could spend only limited resources on warships. In the conflicts of the 20th century in which Bulgaria was involved - the Balkan Wars, World War I and World War II, the navy played a limited role, mainly protecting Bulgarian harbors and shipping. The navy's greatest combat feat was a torpedo attack against an Ottoman cruiser during the First Balkan War that forced the ship to retreat.
In the aftermath of World War II, the People's Republic of Bulgaria was a part of the Eastern Bloc and the navy was reorganized and supplied with Soviet-made equipment. It participated in various Warsaw Pact naval exercises, but took no part in any military operations. The navy reached its peak, in both materiel and personnel, in the late 1980s, but even then its most powerful ships were frigates and destroyers.
After the fall of the Soviet Union and Bulgaria's communist regime, all Bulgarian armed forces fell in decline due to their reduced relevance, and the economic crisis of the 1990s limited the resources that could be set aside for their modernization. The Navy was no exception. After a period of negotiations and reforms in order to comply with NATO standards, Bulgaria was admitted in the alliance in 2004. Since then, the Navy has acquired and operates a small number of relatively modern vessels.
Since the 1940s, the Bulgarian Navy has two main bases, each near one of the two major commercial port cities in the country - Varna and Burgas (by the village of Atia).
The Bulgarian Navy's first combat action was the 1912 Battle of Kaliakra during the First Balkan War, when four Bulgarian torpedo boats attacked the Ottoman cruiser Hamidiye; Bulgarian torpedo boat Drazki managed to score a hit, forcing Hamidiye to retreat back to Istanbul for emergency repairs.
The Bulgarian Navy scuttled its four Danube gunboats during the Second Balkan War, probably to avoid capture by the invading Romanian Army. The four gunboats were 400-600-ton vessels, with a top speed of 11 knots (20 km/h; 13 mph) and armed with two-to-four 75 mm (3 in) guns and two-to-four 47 mm (1.9 in) guns. They were still present on the Bulgarian Navy list in August 1916.
When Bulgaria entered World War I in 1915, its navy consisted mainly of a French-built torpedo gunboat called Nadezhda and six torpedo boats. It mainly engaged in mine warfare actions in the Black Sea against the Russian Black Sea Fleet and allowed the Germans to station two U-boats at Varna, one of which came under Bulgarian control in 1916 as Podvodnik No. 18. Russian mines sank one Bulgarian torpedo boat and damaged one more during the war.
The Bulgarian Navy during World War II supported the Axis Powers in the Black Sea and consisted mainly of four obsolete Drazki-class torpedo boats, five modern Lurrsen type motor torpedo boats and three formerly Dutch motor torpedo boats. Bulgaria and the Soviet Union were not at war with each other, but there was still little naval fighting with Soviet submarines operating in Bulgarian waters, its main action taking place in October 1941.
The so-called Operation Varna consisted in the minelaying of the Bulgarian coast by the Romanian minelayers Amiral Murgescu, Regele Carol I and Dacia, escorted by Romanian 250t-class torpedo boat Năluca, Sborul and Smeul, Romanian gunboats Sublocotenent Ghiculescu and Căpitan Dumitrescu and Bulgarian torpedo boats Drazki, Smeli and Hrabri. The operation, lasting between 7 and 16 October 1941, was largely successful, as despite the loss of the Romanian auxiliary minelayer Regele Carol I to a Soviet mine, the five minefields laid by the Romanian minelayers along the Bulgarian coast are credited with the sinking of four Soviet submarines: S-34, L-24, Shch-211 and Shch-210, although the latter could have also been sunk by German aircraft or depth-charged by the Bulgarian patrol boats Belomorets and Chernomorets.
On 6 December 1941, Belomorets and Chernomorets depth-charged and sank the Soviet submarine Shch-204.
Soviet submarines also laid mines near the Bulgarian coast. The 2304-ton Bulgarian steamer Shipka ("Шипка", also transliterated Chipka) was sunk off Varna in September 1941 by mines laid by the submarine L-4.
On 19 May 1943, the Bulgarian torpedo boat Smeli foundered between Varna and Burgas during a storm.
Any hostilities ended when Bulgaria changed sides and joined the Allied powers in September 1944.
In line with Soviet naming practices the navy of the Bulgarian People's Army was called the Military-Maritime Fleet (Bulgarian: Военноморски флот, ВМФ). The merchant marine, which was to mobilize in wartime in support of the regular navy was called Bulgarian Sea Fleet (Български морски флот, БМФ).
In the 1970s the Burgas Naval Base relocated to Atia with a corresponding change in name.
The Naval Fleet Staff was located in Varna.
The Bulgarian Communist Party was forced to give up its political monopoly on 10 November 1989 under the influence of the Revolutions of 1989. With the restoration of freedom from the Warsaw Pact entanglement, it became a member of NATO in 2004, and after several years of reforms, it joined the European Union and the single market in 2007, despite EU concerns over government corruption.
In order to meet some of the NATO requirements, the Bulgarian government purchased a Wielingen-class frigate from Belgium in 2005. Wandelaar (F-912), built in 1977, was renamed to Drazki. That same year the Bulgarian frigate Smeli took part as a full NATO member for the first time in Operation Active Endeavour. In 2006, following a decision of the Bulgarian National Assembly, Drazki deployed as part of the United Nations Interim Forces in Lebanon (UNIFIL), patrolling the territorial waters of Lebanon under German command. This was the first time the Bulgarian Navy took part in an international peacekeeping operation. The Bulgarian government purchased two more Wielingen-class frigates and one Tripartite-class minehunter in 2007.
On 21 July 2020 took place the official inauguration of the Maritime Coordination Center in Varna. This was an important step towards greater NATO and regional cooperation in the Black Sea region.
In 1989, the people's navy's inventory consisted of:
A "Division" is the equivalent of land forces battalion or air force squadron as the Bulgarian Navy follows the Russian naval tradition, according to which an "Operational Squadron" or "Оперативная эскадра" is a temporary formation, an equivalent of a land forces division and in modern times a "Squadron" of the Russian Navy is an equivalent of a land forces corps.
According to the reform plans envisioned in the White Paper on Defence 2010, the two naval bases would be merged into one with two base facilities in Varna and Burgas. The manpower of the Navy would account to about 3,400 seamen. The ordered Eurocopter AS565 MB Panther helicopters were reduced from six to three units. Between 2011 and 2020 the naval "Longterm Investment Plan" should come into action, providing the sea arm of the Bulgarian military with modernised ships and new equipment.
The list does not include vessels assigned to the border police. The Bulgarian Navy has inherited the Soviet tradition of "board numbers" (Bulgarian: бордови номер, romanized: bordovi nomer), which means that unlike pennant numbers and hull classification symbols, they do not identify uniquely a vessel during its lifetime – for example, a ship can change numbers when it's transferred to another unit, and new ships reuse the numbers of old ones in the same unit.
In November 2020, the Bulgarian Ministry of Defense signed a contract with Lürssen Werft Germany to build two patrol boats for the Bulgarian Navy. The boats will be built by the Bulgarian MTG Dolphin shipyard in Varna and delivered in 2025 and 2026 with the 984M lev (approximately €503M) price also including training.
On 9 June 2017 during a training mission of artillery fire against surface targets as a part of the "Black Sea-2017" exercise of the Bulgarian Navy, a Panther helicopter crashed in the water, killing the commander and injuring the other two officers on board. The helicopter's main rotor made contact with the fore flagpole of the frigate BGS-41 Drazki, after which it crashed into the sea. The crew commander suffered heavy injuries upon the crash, causing his death. The other two crew members suffered minor injuries, mainly by inhaling gases caused after the crash.) The helicopter has been written off and the remaining two units have been grounded for a month on 10 June. After the helicopter struck the flagpole it became increasingly unstable and the commander, Capt. Georgi Anastasov, decided to turn back to the frigate and attempt an emergency landing in the water nearby, maximizing the chances for a rapid emergency recovery by the surface ships nearby. According to the Ministry of Defence and Navy officials his actions have directly contributed to the saving of the other two officers on board with only minor injuries, for his efforts he has been posthumously promoted to Major.
3 Mil Mi-14 (stored in non-airworthy condition)
The rank insignia of commissioned officers.
The rank insignia of non-commissioned officers and enlisted personnel.