This article appeared thanks to the respected A. Rytik, who kindly provided me with the documents of Lieutenant Grevenitz and Captain 2nd Rank Myakishev, for which I am extremely grateful to him.
As you know, naval battles of the Russo-Japanese War were fought by 4 large formations of warships, including the 1st, 2nd and 3rd Pacific squadrons, as well as the Vladivostok cruiser squadron. At the same time, at least three of the four indicated formations had their own guidelines for organizing artillery fire.
So, the 1st Pacific Squadron (at that time - the Pacific Squadron) was guided by the "Instruction for fire control in battle" compiled by the flagship artilleryman Myakishev, created "with the assistance of all senior artillery officers of the large ships of this fleet." Second Pacific - received the document "Organization of artillery service on ships of the 2nd squadron of the Pacific Fleet", authored by the flagship artilleryman of this squadron - Colonel Bersenev. And, finally, the Vladivostok cruiser detachment had an instruction introduced 2 months before the start of the war on the initiative of Baron Grevenitz, but here a very important nuance should be taken into account.
The fact is that the specified instruction was finalized based on the results of hostilities, in which Russian cruisers based in Vladivostok took part. Thanks to the help of the respected A. Rytik, I have this final version of the document entitled "Organization of long-range firing at sea by individual ships and detachments, as well as changes in the Rules of Artillery Service in the Navy, caused by the experience of the war with Japan", published in 1906. But I do not know which provisions of the "Organization" were added to it already following the results of hostilities, and which were guided by the artillery officers in the battle on August 1, 1904. Nevertheless, this document is still interesting, and gives us the opportunity to compare the methods of artillery combat that our squadrons were going to use.
Sighting
Alas, all three of the documents listed above are very far from the optimal and most effective methods of zeroing. Let me remind you that in the 1920s, after the First World War, it was believed that:
1) any shooting must begin with zeroing;
2) zeroing was to be carried out in volleys;
3) when conducting sighting, the principle of taking the target into the "fork" is necessarily used.
The situation is the worst with Myakishev - in fact, he did not describe the procedure for zeroing at all. On the other hand, it should be understood that Myakishev's instructions only supplemented the existing rules on the squadron, which, unfortunately, I do not have, so it may well be that the zeroing process is described there.
But the existing instruction violates the optimal rules in at least one point. Myakishev believed that zeroing was required only at a long distance, by which he meant 30–40 cables. At an average distance of 20-25 cables, according to Myakishev, zeroing is not required and you can completely do with the readings of rangefinders, immediately moving on to rapid fire to kill. In addition, neither shooting in volleys, nor the "fork" at Myakishev is mentioned at all.
As for the "Organization" of Bersenev, here the shooting process is described in sufficient detail. Unfortunately, nothing is said about the minimum distance from which you need to open zeroing. In this matter, Bersenev's "Organization" can be interpreted so that sighting is mandatory at all distances, except for a direct shot, or that the decision on sighting should be taken by the senior artilleryman, but nothing is said directly.
The shooting procedure is as follows. If the enemy approaches, then the senior artilleryman assigns the plutong from which the zeroing will be made, and the caliber of the guns, which will be fired. This is a very important reservation: although Bersenyev mentioned that the priority caliber for controlling the fire of the senior artillery officer is the 152-mm cannon, he indicated "in most cases", and the need to assign a caliber made it possible to use both lighter and heavier guns …
Thus, Bersenev left the opportunity to shoot from the ship's heavy guns in cases where 152-mm is not enough range, or in other cases. Was this done by accident or on purpose? The question is, of course, interesting, but, as you know, what is not prohibited is allowed.
Further, according to Bersenev, the following should have happened. The senior artillery officer, having received the data of the rangefinder stations and assuming the speed of the convergence of his own and the enemy ships, gave a sight and rear sight so that the shot fell short of the enemy ship. At the same time, for guns equipped with optical sights, the fire controller had to give final corrections to the sight and rear sight, that is, already containing "corrections for its own move, for target movement, for wind and for circulation." If the guns were equipped with a mechanical sight, then the correction for its course was taken by the plutongs independently.
On Russian battleships, guns of different calibers were often included in one plutong. In this case, the fire controller gave corrections for the main caliber, by default these were 152 mm cannons. For the rest of the guns, the corrections were recalculated in plutongs independently, for this it was necessary to apply the data of the firing tables for the corresponding guns to the firing parameters given by the control fire.
Other plutongs were aimed at a distance of 1.5 cables less than what was given for zeroing. If, for example, the fire controller assigned the sight to 40 cables, then all the plutong's guns should have been aimed at 40 cables, but the guns of the other plutongs should have been aimed at a distance of 38.5 cables.
The plutong officer assigned for zeroing fired a single gun of a given caliber when ready. Thus, if there were several 152-mm guns in the plutong, and it was from them that the order was given to aim, then all of them were aimed at the target. And the commander of the plutong had the right to choose which one to shoot from, giving priority to either the most skillful calculation, or the weapon that was ready to fire faster than others. Further, the fire controller observed the fall of the projectile, according to which he gave the necessary corrections for the next shot. At the same time, every time a new order from the fire control arrived at the plutong, the guns of the entire plutong that carried out the zeroing were aimed according to the amendments. The rest of the ship's plutongs changed the sight to the one indicated by the fire control minus 1.5 kabeltov.
The primary task of the senior artillery officer during zeroing was first to correctly set the corrections to the rear sight, that is, to make sure that the fall of the shells would be observed against the background of the enemy ship. Then the sight was adjusted in such a way that, firing undershoots, to bring the burst from the fall of the projectile closer to the target board. And so, when the cover was received, the fire controller, "taking into account the speed of convergence," had to give the order to open fire to kill.
In fact, with this method of zeroing, the senior artillery officer in the course of it specified not only the distance to the enemy, but also the magnitude of the change in distance (VIR), after which, in fact, he opened fire from all the guns.
If the enemy did not approach, but moved away, then the zeroing was carried out in exactly the same way, only with the amendment that it was necessary to achieve not shortages, but flights, and the other plutongs that were not used in zeroing had to take aim at 1.5 cables more than the designated one. control of the fire.
In general, this method looked quite ingenious and could lead to success, if only it were not for two important "buts":
1) the fall of six-inch shells behind the target was not always possible to observe, for which it was necessary to use volley shooting and strive to take the target into the “fork”, which made it possible to determine the number of projectiles that flew over or hit the target by the bursts that were absent against the background of the ship;
2) bursts against the background of the target were usually clearly visible. But it was often very difficult to determine at what distance the burst rose from the target. On my own behalf, I will add that such control of shooting, when the distance between the burst and the target was estimated, was brought to a workable state only in the interval between the First and Second World Wars. This became possible when the command and rangefinder stations for this purpose began to use separate rangefinders, whose task was precisely to determine the distance to the burst.
Thus, the technique proposed by Bersenyev was not that inoperative, but suboptimal and could be effective only in conditions of excellent visibility and at relatively short distances.
The method of sighting, established by Baron Grevenitz, largely repeated the one prescribed by Bersenyev, but there was also some difference.
Firstly, Grevenitz finally introduced the requirements for zeroing in volleys, which, undoubtedly, favorably distinguished his method from the developments of Bersenev and Myakishev. But he ignored the “fork” principle, believing it necessary to achieve a cover exactly the same way as Bersenev had suggested. That is, in case of convergence - shoot undershoots, gradually bringing the bursts closer to the board of the target, in case of divergence - shoot overflights with the same task.
Secondly, Grevenitz demanded that the zeroing be carried out from medium-caliber guns, while Bersenyev left the choice of the caliber of the guns that carry out the zeroing to the discretion of the fire controller. Grevenitz motivated his decision by the fact that, as a rule, there are not many heavy guns on the ship and they are loaded too slowly so that, with the help of zeroing, it was possible to correctly determine the sight and rear sight.
Thirdly, Grevenitz determined the maximum distance from which it is worth zeroing in - this is 55-60 cables. The logic here was this: this is the maximum distance at which 152-mm cannons could still shoot, and, accordingly, 50-60 cables is the maximum combat distance. Yes, larger calibers can shoot further, but there was no point in this at Grevenitz, because such guns would have difficulty in zeroing in and would waste valuable heavy shells with a minimal chance of hitting.
So, I must say that these provisions of Grevenitz, on the one hand, do in some way take into account the realities of the material part of the Russo-Japanese War, but, on the other hand, cannot be recognized as correct in any way.
Yes, of course, the 305-mm guns of the Russian battleships had an extremely long loading cycle. Its duration was 90 seconds, that is, one and a half minutes, but in practice, the guns could be prepared for a shot well if in 2 minutes. There were many reasons for this - for example, the unsuccessful design of the shutter, which opened and closed manually, for which it was required to make 27 full turns with a heavy lever. In this case, the gun was required to be brought to an angle of 0 degrees in order to open the bolt, then to an angle of 7 degrees to load the gun, then again to 0 degrees to close the bolt, and only after that it was possible to return the aiming angle to it. Of course, shooting from such an artillery system is sheer torment. But Grevenitz did not make adjustments for the 203mm guns, which, apparently, could still fire faster.
In addition, it is completely unclear how Grevenitz was going to distinguish between the fall of 152-mm shells at a distance of 5-6 miles. The same Myakishev pointed out that the splash from a 152-mm projectile is clearly distinguishable only at a distance of up to 40 cables. Thus, it turned out that the Grevenitz technique made it possible to shoot only in conditions of visibility close to ideal, or it required specialized projectiles of the Japanese type. That is, narrow-walled landmines, equipped with a large amount of explosives, giving out clearly distinguishable smoke when bursting, and equipped with tubes installed for instant detonation, that is, tearing when hitting water.
Of course, the fleet needed such landmines, Grevenitz himself spoke about this, but during the Russo-Japanese war we did not have them.
As a result, it turns out that Grevenitz's instructions were not satisfactory both for the Russo-Japanese War and for a later time. He took into account the low rate of fire of Russian heavy guns, but did not take into account that our 152-mm shells would be poorly visible at the ranges of the firing recommended by him. If you look into the future, when such shells could appear, then nothing prevented by that time from increasing the rate of fire of heavy guns so that they could be zeroed in. Both British and French naval heavy guns were significantly faster (the loading cycle on them was not 90, but 26-30 seconds according to the passport) already during the Russo-Japanese War, so the possibility of eliminating this deficiency in Russian guns was obvious. And he was later eliminated.
Grevenitz shared Myakishev's misconception about the uselessness of zeroing at medium ranges. But if Myakishev nevertheless believed that zeroing was not needed for 20-25 cables, then Grevenitz considered it superfluous even for 30 cables, which he said bluntly:
That is, in essence, Grevenitz did not consider zeroing necessary where the range finders gave a small error in determining the distance, according to him, it was about 30–35 cables. This, of course, was not true.
As has been repeatedly mentioned above, zeroing should be carried out in any case of opening fire, except perhaps for the range of a direct shot. You need to shoot with volleys, taking the target into the "fork". Bersenev did not manage to realize the need for any of these requirements, but later the obligatory “fork” adjustment on the 2nd Pacific squadron was introduced by its commander, ZP Rozhestvensky. Grevenitz, on the other hand, went as far as zeroing in with volleys, but, alas, ZP Rozhdestvensky did not happen to him next to him, which is why the sighting with a “fork” was ignored in his method.
As a result, both of these options (with a salvo, but without a fork, and with a fork, but without a salvo) turned out to be far from optimal. The thing is that during the zeroing, the volley and the "fork" organically complemented each other, making it possible to determine the coverage by the absent bursts. It is not always possible to take the target into the fork, shooting from one gun, because if the burst of the projectile is not visible, then it is unclear whether this shot gave a hit or a flight. And vice versa: ignoring the “fork” principle sharply reduced the usefulness of salvo zeroing. In fact, it can only be used to improve the visibility of a fall - at a long distance, one splash is easy and completely overlooked, but out of four at least one may be seen. But, for example, if we, guided by the rules of Grevenitz, fired a sighting four-gun salvo, saw only two bursts, we can only guess what happened. Either we could not see the remaining 2 bursts, although they fell short, or they gave a hit, or a flight … And to determine the distance between the bursts and the target will be a daunting task.
Our opponents, the Japanese, used both targeting with volleys and the "fork" principle. Of course, this does not mean that they used them in any case - if the distance and visibility allowed, the Japanese could well shoot from one gun. However, in those cases when it was necessary, they used both volleys and a "fork".
About shells for sighting
Dear A. Rytik suggested that one of the problems of targeting the Russian artillerymen, which was the difficulty of observing the falls of their own shells, could be solved using old cast-iron shells equipped with black powder and having an instant detonator.
I, without a doubt, agree with A. Rytik that these shells were in many ways similar to the Japanese. But I highly doubt that such a decision would give us a significant gain. And the point here is not even the disgusting quality of domestic "cast iron", but the fact that our 152-mm shells of this type were 4, 34 times inferior to Japanese landmines in explosive content, and the explosive itself (black powder) had several times less force than Japanese shimosa.
In other words, the strength of the "stuffing" of the Japanese high-explosive six-inch projectile was superior to ours not even several times, but an order of magnitude. Accordingly, there are big doubts that the splash from the rupture of a cast-iron projectile was much more noticeable than the splash that was given by steel armor-piercing and high-explosive shells of the same caliber, falling into the water without rupture.
This assumption was supported by the fact that the 1st Pacific Squadron in the battle on July 28, 1904 did not use high-explosive shells for zeroing, although it had them (most likely, she did not use them in the battle on January 27, 1904, but this is not exactly). And also the fact that the senior artilleryman of "Eagle", using cast-iron shells for zeroing in Tsushima, could not distinguish them from bursts of shells from other battleships that fired at "Mikasa".
Unfortunately, my fears were fully confirmed by Grevenitz, who stated the following in his "Organization":
Nevertheless, both Myakishev and Grevenitz believed that it was correct to zero in with cast-iron shells. Grevenitz's opinion is very important here, because, unlike the 1st Pacific Squadron, the Vladivostok squadron of cruisers used cast-iron shells in battle and had the opportunity to assess the observability of their explosions.
So my conclusion will be as follows. The cast-iron shells that the Russian fleet had at their disposal really made sense to use when zeroing in, and their fall would really be seen better than the fall of new steel shells equipped with pyroxylin or smokeless powder and equipped with a delayed-action fuse. But this would not have equated the Russian gunners in capabilities with the Japanese, since our cast-iron shells did not at all give the same visualization of the falls, which was provided by the Japanese high-explosive shells. The falls of the latter, according to our officers, were perfectly observed even by 60 cables.
In general, one should not expect much from the use of cast iron shells for zeroing. In some situations, they would allow you to aim faster, in some - provided the very possibility of zeroing in, which would have been impossible with steel shells. But in the bulk of combat situations, zeroing in with cast-iron shells probably would not give a significant gain. In addition, the use of cast iron projectiles also had disadvantages, since the damaging effect of a steel projectile with pyroxylin was not an example higher. And some of the shells that hit the Japanese ships were precisely sighting.
Considering all of the above, I would rate the use of cast iron shells for zeroing as the right decision, but it could hardly fundamentally change the situation for the better. From my point of view, they could not significantly improve the effectiveness of Russian fire and were not a panacea.
About fire to kill
The "Rules of Artillery Service", published in 1927, with the exception of some extraordinary cases, ordered to fire to kill with volleys. The reason for this is quite understandable. By shooting in this way, it was possible to control whether the enemy remained in the cover or had already left it, even if the fire was carried out with armor-piercing, that is, shells that did not give a visible burst.
Alas, Bersenev and Grevenitz did not see the need to fire to kill with volleys in any case. Myakishev, on the other hand, considered such fire necessary only in one combat situation - when a squadron from a long distance concentrates fire on one target. Of course, this is a significant drawback of all three shooting techniques.
But why did this happen at all?
It must be said that the question of how the enemy should be hit upon completion of the zeroing: with rapid fire or with volleys is a delicate matter. Both options have their advantages and disadvantages.
The problem with artillery fire at sea is that it is almost impossible to accurately determine all the necessary parameters for calculating corrections to the sight and rear sight. All these target distances, courses, speeds, etc., as a rule, contain a known error. Upon completion of zeroing, the sum of these errors is minimal and allows you to achieve hits on the target. But over time, the error grows, and the target gets out of the cover, even if the battling ships did not change their course and speed. This is not to mention the cases when the enemy, realizing that they were being targeted at him, makes a maneuver in order to get out from under the covers.
Thus, it should be understood that the correct corrections to the sight and rear sight found during the zeroing are not always the case, and they allow you to hit the enemy only in a limited period of time.
How can one inflict maximum harm on the enemy under such conditions?
Obviously what you need:
1) release as many shells as possible until the target is out of the cover;
2) to maximize the time spent by the enemy under fire to kill.
It is no less obvious that rapid fire, in which each gun fires when ready to fire, fully meets the first requirement and allows you to release a maximum of shells in a limited time. Volley fire, on the contrary, minimizes the rate of fire - you have to shoot at intervals when most of the guns are ready to fire. Accordingly, some of the guns that were made faster will have to wait for the lagging behind, and those who still did not have time will generally have to miss a salvo and wait for the next one.
Thus, it is quite clear that on the first point, quick fire has an undeniable advantage.
But the fall of many shells fired in a volley is better visible. And to understand whether the volley covered the target or not is much easier than with rapid fire. Thus, salvo fire to kill simplifies the assessment of effectiveness and is much better than rapid fire, adapted to determine the necessary adjustments to the sight and rear sight in order to keep the enemy under fire for as long as possible. Consequently, the indicated methods of shooting to kill are opposite: if rapid fire increases the rate of fire, but decreases the time of shooting to destroy, then salvo fire is the opposite.
What is more preferable from this is practically impossible to deduce empirically.
In fact, even today it cannot be said that salvo fire will in all cases be more effective than rapid fire. Yes, after the First World War, when the battle distances increased greatly, there is no doubt that volley fire had an advantage. But at the relatively short distances of the battles of the Russo-Japanese War, this is not at all obvious. It can be assumed that at a relatively short distance (20-25 cables, but here it all depended on visibility) a quick fire was in any case preferable to a salvo. But at long distances, the Russian artillerymen were better off using salvo fire - however, everything here depended on the specific situation.
The Japanese, according to the situation, fired to kill in volleys, then fluently. And this, obviously, was the most correct decision. But you need to understand that the Japanese, in any case, were here in a deliberately more advantageous position. They always fired landmines - their armor-piercing shells, in fact, were a kind of high-explosive shell. Hits on our ships with such shells were excellently observed. Thus, the Japanese, firing at least fluently, even with volleys, perfectly saw the moment when their shells ceased to hit our ships. Our artillerymen, not having in most cases the opportunity to see the hits, could only be guided by the bursts around the enemy ships.
The conclusion here is simple - the Japanese, unfortunately, also had a certain advantage in this matter, since they resorted to volley fire according to the situation. And this despite the fact that for them he was less important. As mentioned above, volley fire is good because when firing with armor-piercing shells (and our steel high-explosive, which, in fact, were a kind of armor-piercing), it allows you to timely assess the enemy's exit from under the cover, as well as correct corrections when firing to kill. But the Japanese, shooting landmines, even with rapid fire, saw well when the enemy came out from under the cover - simply because of the absence of clearly visible hits.
It turns out that it was we in the Russo-Japanese War that more than the Japanese needed a salvo fire to kill, but it was here that it was rejected by all the creators of artillery instructions. Volley fire, at Myakishev, is a special case of concentrated firing of a squadron at one target, I will consider it later.
Why did this happen?
The answer is quite obvious. According to the "Rules of Artillery Service on Navy Ships", published back in 1890, volley fire was considered the main form of firefighting. However, at the end of the 19th - beginning of the 20th centuries, new artillery systems entered service with the Russian Imperial Navy, the main advantage of which was the rate of fire. And it is clear that the naval artillerymen wanted to maximize the benefits that it gave. As a result, among the bulk of the officers of the fleet, the view on salvo firing as an obsolete and outdated combat technique was established.
In order to realize how important it is to shoot to kill with volleys, you followed:
1) understand that the range of a naval battle will be from 30 cables and more;
2) to find out that, at such distances, quick fire with steel high-explosive shells equipped with pyroxylin or smokeless powder and not having an instant fuse, if it will allow us to assess the effectiveness of the defeat, then by no means in any case;
3) realize that when rapid fire does not give an understanding of whether the enemy has emerged from under the cover or not yet, volley fire should be used.
Alas, this was practically impossible in the pre-war Russian imperial fleet. And the point here is not in the inertia of individual admirals, but in the system as a whole. I often see comments, the authors of which are sincerely perplexed - they say, why doesn't this or that admiral rebuild the artillery preparation system? What prevented, for example, a series of firing at long distances with medium caliber and realize that the bursts of steel high-explosive shells falling into the water without rupture are not visible in all weather as well as we would like? What made it difficult to try out salvo zeroing, introduce it everywhere, etc. etc.
These are absolutely correct questions. But the one who asks them should never forget two important nuances that largely determine the existence of the Russian Imperial Navy.
The first of them is the confidence of our sailors that armor-piercing ammunition is the most important for the fleet. Simply put, in order to sink an enemy battleship, it was considered necessary to pierce its armor and inflict destruction behind it. And the armoring of ships of the late 19th - early 20th centuries was so powerful that even the most powerful 254-305-mm guns hoped to confidently overcome it no further than 20 cables. Accordingly, our sailors believed that the distance of a decisive battle would be relatively short. And that even if the fire is opened at a greater distance, the ships will nevertheless quickly approach each other so that their armor-piercing shells can inflict decisive harm on the enemy. This is the battle scheme described, for example, by Myakishev.
Interestingly, the results of the battle on July 28, 1904, perhaps, confirmed this tactical thesis. While the Japanese squadron was fighting at a long distance (the first phase of the battle), the Russian ships did not receive serious damage. As a result, Kh. Togo had to go into a clinch, and he stopped the Russian squadron, but only when his ships approached ours by about 23 cables. And even in this case, our squadron did not lose a single armored ship, and none of them received decisive damage.
In other words, the idea of preparing for a decisive battle at a distance exceeding the effective range of armor-piercing shells looked strange to our sailors to say the least. And this situation persisted even after the results of the first battles of the Russo-Japanese War.
Looking ahead, I note that the Japanese saw their main weapons in a completely different way. For a long time they believed that a thin-walled "bomb", filled to capacity with shimosa, has enough destructive power to crush it with the power of one explosion when it explodes on the armor. Accordingly, the choice of such a weapon did not require the Japanese to get close to the enemy, which made it much easier for them to consider the battle at a long distance as the main one. For our sailors, in any case, a long-range firefight was just a "prelude" to a decisive battle at distances of less than 20 cables.
The second nuance is the ubiquitous economy, which literally strangled our fleet on the eve of the Russo-Japanese War.
After all, what is the same shooting in volleys? Instead of one shot - if you please give four. And each high-explosive projectile is 44 rubles, in total - 132 rubles overpayment in a salvo, counting from one-gun. If you allocate only 3 volleys for zeroing, then 396 rubles will already come up from one firing of one ship. For the fleet, which could not find 70 thousand rubles for testing the fleet's main weapon - new steel shells - the amount is significant.
Output
It's very simple. The Russian Imperial Navy, before and during the Russo-Japanese War, developed a number of documents defining the procedure for the operation of artillery in naval battles. Both the 1st and 2nd Pacific squadrons and the Vladivostok cruiser squadron had such documents. Unfortunately, for quite objective reasons, none of these documents was a breakthrough in naval artillery, and each of them had very significant shortcomings. Unfortunately, neither Myakishev's instructions, nor the methods of Bersenev or Grevenitz, allowed our fleet to equal the Japanese fleet in firing accuracy. Unfortunately, there was no "miracle technique" that could improve the situation in Tsushima.
