weight estimates made in 1940 show that they would have exceeded standard and at full load. The hull form was very full-bodied, especially at the forward magazines, where the torpedo protection system added width to the beam. Coupled with the relatively low length-to-beam ratio of 7.14:1, this meant that very powerful turbines were necessary to achieve even modest speeds. Stalin's decision that the Project 23-class ships would use three shafts instead of four increased the load on each shaft and reduced propulsive efficiency, although it did shorten the length of the armored citadel and thus overall displacement. Metacentric height was designed at and the tactical diameter was estimated at about . The Sovetsky Soyuz-class ships were provided with facilities to handle two to four KOR-2 flying boats which would be launched by the two catapults mounted on the stern. Two hangars were built into the after end of the forecastle deck to house two of them and cranes were provided at the forward end of the quarterdeck to hoist them out of the water. Machinery The machinery arrangement "provided good dispersal of the machinery spaces, but at the cost of very long runs for the wing shafts (ca. ). The turbine compartments for the wing shafts were located forward of boiler room No. 1 and aft of the No. 2 turret magazines. The engine room for the center shaft's turbine was between boiler room No. 2 and No. 3. This meant that the wing propeller shafts had to run underneath the boilers. The steam turbines, and a license to build them, were originally going to be ordered from Cammell Laird in the United Kingdom, but their £700,000 cost was more than the Soviets wanted to pay. Instead they bought them from Brown Boveri, using the technical information acquired from Cammell Laird in the process, for £400,000. Four single-reduction, impulse-reduction geared turbines were ordered from the Swiss firm, three to equip Sovetskaya Rossiya and one to serve as a pattern for the factory in Kharkov that was to build the remainder. The three produced a total of . Six triangle-type water-tube boilers—two in each boiler room—powered the turbines at a working pressure of and a temperature of . Maximum speed was estimated at 28 knots, using the revised propeller design, although forcing the machinery would yield an extra knot. The normal fuel oil capacity was , giving an estimated endurance of