As you know, the battleship Oslyabya was destined to lead the mournful list of Russian ships that died in the Battle of Tsushima. At 13.49 "Prince Suvorov" opened fire, and at 14.40, that is, only 51 minutes after the start of the battle of the main forces, "Oslyabya" turned over. And we can safely say that his death was predetermined even earlier, since at 14.20, when the battleship left the system, he was already doomed: by that time, the Oslyabya had a roll of 12 degrees. on the port side and sat in the water with his bow to the very haws.
At the same time, the "Oslyabe" "Peresvet" of the same type withstood all the hardships of the battle at Shantung, which took place on July 28, 1904, despite the fact that at least 37 shells hit it, including 13 caliber 305 mm. In fact, "Peresvet" turned out to be the most damaged Russian ship in that battle, but it managed not only to survive the battle, but also to return to Port Arthur on its own.
Why did one battleship die, and the other survived? The question is all the more interesting because, according to the data available today, the ships received largely comparable, similar damage. In the proposed series of articles, I will try to find an answer to this question.
A small preface
Since "Oslyabya" was killed in battle, no one, of course, could at least somewhat comprehensively study and systematize the calibers of the shells that hit it, the number and time of hits. If the damage to the squadron battleship "Peresvet", received by him in the battle on July 28, 1904 in the Yellow Sea, was scrupulously recorded and described, then on "Oslyab" researchers of the future got only very fragmentary information from the reports of Russian and Japanese sailors. In this case, the available evidence can be divided into 3 main categories.
Category 1 is, of course, evidence from the Oslyabi crew. They are the most valuable and reliable, since these people were on the battleship and saw what was happening to it with their own eyes. However, this does not make such evidence the ultimate truth - given the hectic battle and the severe psychological trauma caused by the death of the battleship, their evidence may be somewhat confusing or contain an approximate assessment of an event (for example, the caliber of the victim projectile).
Category 2 - evidence of Russian sailors from "neighboring" warships who had the opportunity to observe the shooting of the Oslyabi from a relatively short distance. Taking into account the fact that Z. P. Rozhestvensky set the intervals between the armored ships at 2 cables, from the Sisoi the Great and the Eagle they could see the Oslyabya from a distance of no more than 350 meters, and taking into account the crowding of Russian ships at the beginning of the battle - or less than the specified value. But still there can be much more confusion and observation errors. There were no loitering among our sailors, each was busy with his own business, and, obviously, the sailors and officers of other ships could not, and did not have such a duty, constantly watch the Oslyabey. Accordingly, their evidence could be significantly distorted and largely erroneous.
Finally, the third category should include the certificates of Japanese sailors. They, of course, knew well what they were doing themselves, but they had only a rough idea of what was happening to the Oslyabya, simply because the Oslyabya was at a considerable distance from them.
Word to the Captain Obvious
Let's start with the simplest. The squadron battleship "Oslyabya" died as a result of loss of stability: it had a strong trim on the bow and heeled to the left side until it lay on it, and then rolled over and sank. It is quite obvious that the ship received extensive flooding of the bow compartments and premises on the port side, which was the reason for its death. It is no less obvious that such flooding occurred as a result of damage to the hull caused by enemy shells that hit the Oslyabi waterline.
Thanks, Cap!
In view of the above, the author of this article does not set himself the task of identifying, counting and studying all hits in "Oslyabya". This is, frankly speaking, ungrateful and unnecessary for our purposes. Let's concentrate better on studying the hits that caused the flooding mentioned above.
Japanese data
Judging by the information available to the author, the Japanese battleship Fuji inflicted decisive damage to the Oslyaba. Its gunners believed that they had achieved three hits with 305-mm shells on the left side of the Russian ship - and they all fell in the waterline area. The first 12-inch projectile hit the Russian ship in the bow, unarmored part of the hull at approximately 13.56 (hereinafter - Russian time). Then, at 14.12 almost simultaneously, two more 305-mm "suitcases" landed in "Oslyabya". One of them, we will consider it the second in a row, hit the area of coal pit # 10. And one more, the third, struck the Russian battleship in the immediate vicinity of the place of the first hit.
Of course, in addition to Fuji, other Japanese ships also fired at Oslyabya. It cannot be ruled out that the Russian ship received some more heavy 254-305-mm "suitcases" from "Kasuga" and "Sikishima". Without a doubt, the Japanese achieved numerous hits on the Oslyabya with 152-203-mm shells. But, as far as the author knows, other shells hitting the area of the Oslyabi waterline, in addition to the above, were not observed from the ships of the United Fleet.
Dispatches and reports of the crew members of the "Oslyabi"
Of the three hits of 305-mm shells in the area of the left side waterline, the Russian sailors from the Oslyabi quite accurately confirm two - in the unarmored side in the bow, and in the coal pit No. 10. This, of course, does not mean that the third Fuji 305-mm projectile missed the target. But the fact is that both of the above hits produced a very noticeable effect, and required significant efforts from the crew to correct the damage received. At the same time, our sailors did not seem to notice the third hit of a 305-mm projectile from the "Fuji" the harm to describe why it was not recorded.
First hit
It was best described by the Oslyabi mine officer, Lieutenant Mikhail Petrovich Sablin 1st:
“One of the first shots hit from the left side into the living deck near the first forward bulkhead. In the hole received from this projectile, water entered the first and second compartments of the living deck, and through the cracks formed in the deck, through the hatch and into the broken fan pipes, it went into the left bow 6-inch cellar and into the turret compartment. The hole was underwater, but due to the stroke and strong swell, it could not be repaired. The spread of water along the living deck was stopped by the second bulkhead, in front of the bow beam, and in the holds, the water reached the compartment of bow dynamos and underwater vehicles."
How did the lieutenant know so well the damage from hitting this Japanese heavy projectile? As follows from his own report, the commander of the "Oslyabi", Captain 1st Rank V. I. Baer, ordered Lieutenant Sablin to be at the "electrical installations" that were located in the immediate vicinity of the compartment of underwater mine vehicles. Although it is not said directly, it is quite obvious from the context that we are talking about the placement of dynamos. Immediately after the hit, Sablin went to the living deck: “When we got a hole in the bow compartment, the smoke in the 1st and 2nd bow compartments was so thick that the incandescent bulbs were not completely visible and there was complete darkness. Assuming that the wires were broken there, I went there with a repair party."
Arriving on the living deck, Sablin found a senior officer Pokhvistnev and a bilge mechanic there. Sablin ventilated the premises by opening the porthole on the starboard side, and, apparently, checked the electrician for some time (he does not directly write about this), but did not participate in sealing the resulting hole. This follows from his own report: “After a while I asked the senior officer how they dealt with the hole. He replied that the hole could not be repaired, but the water was dealt with and the hole now poses no danger."
Apparently, by this time, the Oslyabi had not yet had a strong trim on the bow, and the ship had only a slight heel, otherwise D. B. Pokhvistnev, obviously, would not have been so optimistic about the possible threat. Lieutenant M. P. Sablin tried to return to his department, but he failed: “I wanted to go to the underwater vehicle department, but the hatch there was battened down and there was 2 feet of water above it. I inquired by phone - like theirs, they answered that everything was fine. The bow dynamos under the submersibles compartment were working properly."
Why did it happen? The fact is that this hatch was battened down from below by mine-machine conductor V. Zavarin, who indicated in his report:
“I went down to my mine vehicles and a dynamo car, but not even 10 minutes passed (this happened immediately after the start of the battle - ed.), When our battleship got into the bow of the enemy's 12-inch shell, made a surface hole, interrupted ventilation pipes; although the hole was repaired, the water got into the underwater mine vehicles prior to sealing. I temporarily left the mine apparatus compartment in order to batten down the neck of the armored cover, which I managed to do."
Having battened down the lid, the conductor came back, saw that water continued to flow through the ventilation pipes and ordered them to be closed up. At that moment, Sablin managed to contact him: "How, Zavarin, how are you, can I be controlled?" I replied that there is not much water, I can manage."
In the future, Lieutenant M. P. Sablin, most likely, no longer descended below the level of the living deck, since he does not mention anything about it. It should be noted that his report is extremely detailed, but, of course, there is no minute-by-minute timing in it, and only the sequence of actions performed by this officer is stated. As mentioned earlier, at the beginning of the battle, he was somewhere near the dynamos, then, after 13.56, when a 305-mm projectile hit the bow of the Oslyabi, he went to the living deck, repaired or checked something there, talked with a senior officer, could not return, but managed to contact the submarine department. All this took him 16 minutes, and then the second, and perhaps the second and third 305-mm shells from Fuji hit the Oslyabya.
Second hit
Sablin notes in the report:
“… A shell hit from the left side into the 10th coal pit, breaking through the armor. Then water appeared in the left spare pit-chamber, and the roll began to increase. At the beginning of the roll, they began to fill three side corridors with water on the right side, and then, with an increased roll, the right cartridge magazines”.
How did he know all this? As follows from his own report, Sablin managed to talk with the bilge mechanic and ship engineer Zmachinsky, who insisted that it was necessary not to be limited only to the side corridors, but to urgently "counter-flood" the cartridge magazines. Sablin himself was instructed to start turbines No. 4-6, and only here he mentions the appeared trim on the nose: "The roll continued to increase, and we sat down with our nose."
Then Sablin tried to contact his mine team located in the department of underwater mine vehicles and in the department of dynamos, but it turned out that neither the telephone nor the voice communication was working anymore. Then he sent down the miner Chernov, who was to go down through the bow tower and order everyone to get out and batten down the hatches. Realizing that this would lead to a stop of the dynamos, Sablin decided to start up the others in the batteries. But the lieutenant no longer tried to descend into the hold or establish contact with those who were in it.
What happened to the mine team at that time? V. Zavarin points out:
“The ship began to heel; I ordered to open the release valve, which drains water from the underwater mine vehicles room and in the hold of the dynamo machines, and to start up the turbines to pump out the water accumulated in the underwater mine vehicles room; then ordered to look in the turret compartment for water; there, too, water ended up through ventilation pipes, which flooded the premises; all of this was repaired in a timely manner."
This fragment of the report contains an implicit indication of the time of what is happening. The Oslyabi got a slight roll after the first hit, as indicated by Lieutenant Sablin. And it would be strange for him not to appear: after all, water was spreading over the living deck, flooding it (at least) by 60 centimeters, which led to a considerable overload and flowed into the hold. But this list, apparently, did not increase, or at least did not increase significantly, otherwise the senior officer of the battleship would not have reason to consider the hole safe. A sharp increase in the roll occurred only after the second Japanese 305-mm projectile hit the coal pit No. 10, as a result of which both this pit and the left pit-chamber were flooded. Thus, the above excerpt from V. Zavarin's report refers to the moment when "Oslyabya" got the second (or second and third) hits.
We see from his report that the mine team fought against the influx of water, but this struggle was unsuccessful: the measures taken did not help. In the testimony of the Investigative Commission V. Zavarin indicated:
“I opened the release valve and the water went into the hold, then, to pump out the water, I started up the turbines, but apparently this did not help, as the water began to penetrate into the turret compartment, which was soon flooded, and I ordered the room to be repaired and everything is tight close.
Seeing that his actions did not succeed, V. Zavarin tried to appeal to the mine officer, that is, to Lieutenant Sablin:
“I went to the phone, I wanted to ask the mine officer what to do and how, because the ship was very tilted and water was being added to the premises, but it turned out that the phone was not working. I - to the pipes for the meeting rooms, which were also interrupted; at that time there was a command: "Escape through the tower, whoever can," because the battleship began to roll very quickly."
Apparently, Sablin and V. Zavarin tried to contact each other at about the same time, but both failed, since the telephone and voice communication no longer worked. And then, probably, the miner Chernov, sent by Sablin, "arrived" - although nowhere is it said directly, but, most likely, it was he who gave the order to the mine team to leave through the tower. Which she did, after stopping the dynamos and battening down the hatches.
The death of "Oslyabi"
According to the testimony of midshipman Shcherbachev 4th (squadron battleship "Orel"), by the time the "Oslyabi" went out of action at 14.20, the ship had a strong roll to the left side and sat with its bow to the very haws. The author is inclined to trust this judgment, since the observation was carried out at an extremely small distance, from which it would be difficult to make a mistake, and it is fully confirmed by the testimonies of other eyewitnesses. In this position of the port ship, its battery decks were in the immediate vicinity of the water.
M. P. Sablin wrote:
“When the heel was very great and water started pouring into the living deck through hatches and a fan from the battery, I went up to the battery deck and saw that water was pouring into the gun ports of the battery … Then I called several crewmen and wanted to batten down the neighboring port, but soon convinced that this is impossible. The half-portkits were broken, and during the wave, the water rolled in a stream into the entire port, knocked out the suitcases and covered us with our heads."
Obviously, being in a similar position, the battleship Oslyabya could no longer count on salvation. He was doomed for the simple reason that the flow of water into his hull took on a completely uncontrollable character - the battery deck was heavily drowned, and the emergency parties could no longer do anything about it. But a very interesting nuance attracts attention - M. P. Sablin points to the flow of water precisely through the port of the battery, and by no means through the holes in the Oslyabi hull. After another 20 minutes, at 14.40. "Oslyabya" turned over.
Results and conclusions
To begin with, let's look at the diagram of the bow of the ship and determine exactly where the mine officer M. P. Sablin and conductor V. Zavarin. The room for dynamos is shown with yellow fill, green is the compartment for underwater mine vehicles, and the red line is the living deck
As you can see, none of the Oslyabi crew of those who survived the Tsushima battle and wrote reports "by authority" had the opportunity to observe the compartments located in the bow of the turret compartment of the bow 10-inch turret and below the living deck (circled in the diagram blue). So, of course, there is no way we can know what was going on there for sure. However, from the testimony of V. Zavarin and M. P. Sablin, we know that:
1. As a result of a 305-mm projectile hitting the bow of the battleship at the level of the living deck, water not only spilled over this deck, but also began to penetrate through hatches, deck cracks and ventilation shafts into the rooms below it.
2. At the same time, the water very actively flooded even premises that were very remote from the place of the explosion of the projectile, such as a 6-inch cartridge cellar, the premises of underwater mine vehicles (it was located immediately behind the compartment of underwater mine vehicles
Hence, it can be assumed that the rooms located closer to the place of the rupture were filled with water even more intensively, since in this area there should have been noticeably more leaks through the cracks and damaged ventilation. But, apparently, in the period from 13.56 to 14.12, that is, in the interval between the first and second or third hits of the 305-mm Fuji shells, relatively little water entered the nasal compartments, this did not cause a feeling of danger in either the senior officer D. B. Pokhvistnev, nor Lieutenant M. P. Sablin, who were near the hole.
However, another interpretation of events is also possible. The nasal compartments below the waterline could be flooded quite intensively, but D. B. Pokhvistnev and MP Sablin did not pay attention to this, attributing the appearance of the trim on the bow to the appearance of water on the living deck.
But then, at 14.12, "Oslyabyu" hit the second 305-mm projectile, which hit the area of coal pit # 10. This caused flooding, first of the pit itself, and then also the placement of a spare pit-chamber under it: I must say, very similar damage, and with similar consequences "Peresvet" received, but more on that in the next article. Naturally, these floods caused a lurch, which they tried to correct by counterflooding. Unfortunately, the author could not figure out exactly which compartments were counter-flooded, but common sense suggests that these were compartments on the starboard side opposite the 10th coal pit.
What was all this supposed to lead to? Let us recall the logic of protecting the extremities of battleships that did not have a full armor belt along the waterline. Their creators were well aware that the bow and stern of such ships, unprotected by armor, could be damaged in battle, which would cause them to be flooded with water. But at the same time, it was assumed that this water would flood only the compartments at the waterline, and the carapace armored deck would protect against its penetration into the depths, that is, into the hold of the ship. Thus, it turned out that the flooding would be limited from below by the armored deck, and towards the center of the ship - by armored traverses, which means that the ship would receive a relatively small amount of water, which would not prevent it from continuing the battle.
Thus, if everything went according to the textbook, and if the Japanese hits did not cause extensive flooding of the hold compartments in the nose of the Oslyabi, then the water that entered the hull through the hole from the 305-mm into the nose of the battleship, at some point it would simply stop arriving. A certain amount of it would have spilled over the living deck, probably creating some trim on the bow, but that was all, because below the carapace armored deck, the compartments remained buoyant. Then "Oslyabya", slightly sinking under the weight of water taken from flooding and counter-flooding, had to return to an even keel, without significant heel and trim.
But instead of this, both the trim to the bow and the roll to the left side continued to increase. And this suggests that after 14.12, that is, after a 305-mm projectile from Fuji hit the coal pit, the bow compartments of the Oslyabi were intensively flooded with water, and first of all, the left side compartments were heated. If the water would evenly fill the nasal compartments and the port and starboard sides, then the battleship sat down strongly with its nose, but did not have a large bank at the same time. If it were not the nasal compartments of the left side that were drowned, but others that were located next to coal pit No. 10, then in this case the battleship should have received a large list, but its trim on the bow remained small. But all observers indicate the presence of both roll and trim, which refutes both the hypotheses just stated. Accordingly, we have no other options other than intensive flooding of the bow compartments, and first of all - on the port side.
What could have caused these floods? It is quite possible that the third 305-mm "Fuji" projectile, according to the Japanese artillerymen, hit the "Oslyabya" in the immediate vicinity of the first 12-inch hit. It is also possible that there was no hit, and that the Japanese projectile simply exploded near the side, but the hydrodynamic shock shook the already leaking hull structures of the ship, causing the water inflow into the bow compartments on the left side to significantly increase. Or maybe there was no third hit either in the Oslyabi hull or next to it, and that all this was just an observation error among the Japanese, and the whole point is that after the bank started to flood coal pit No. 10, there was a semi-underwater hole in the bow of the ship from the 1st hit it became "underwater", the pressure of the water increased, and this accelerated the flooding of the compartments on the left side of the doomed battleship.
Could it be that the hull structures in the bow of the Oslyabi received additional damage from other Japanese shells of smaller calibers, which caused intensive flooding? This is highly questionable, and here's why. No matter how powerful the 152-203-mm high-explosive shells of the United Fleet were, they still had to hit it in order to cause significant damage to the living deck. But from the testimony of M. P. Sablin we know that the living deck in the bow dropped much below sea level: it was flooded from the battery deck, which was above it and which was drowned through the damaged gun ports. So, if a lot of Japanese landmines would hit the residential deck, it would be drowned first of all through holes from ruptures, meanwhile M. P. Sablin does not mention anything like that - neither about holes, nor about flooding.
Thus, the most reliable hypothesis seems to be that the Oslyabya was disabled and completely lost its combat effectiveness as a result of only two or three hits of 305-mm shells in the waterline area on the left side. And even if not a single Japanese shell had hit the battleship, it still would not have been able to fight, since a ship with a roll of 12 degrees and sitting in the water up to the haws, obviously, was not able to continue the battle.
Moreover. The author of this article would venture to suggest that these two or three Japanese twelve-inch shells from Fuji caused not only a complete loss of combat capability, but also the death of the ship. The fact is that, according to the reports of the same V. Zavarin, the hold compartments of the Oslyabi continued to be heated all the time while he was below - in spite of the measures he had taken. Most likely, the water flowed down from the flooded living deck and seeped from the flooded bow compartments, that is, its appearance had nothing to do with other hits in the Oslyabya. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the flooding from the 305-mm shells from "Fuji" that hit the Russian battleship gradually took on an uncontrollable character, and would still lead to the death of "Oslyabi", although this, of course, would have happened a little later than what happened in reality …
However, even if the author is wrong in this assumption, it should be understood that all other hits only finished off the ship. In this case, the damage to the gun ports, which ceased to be closed, should be considered a "misericord", despite the fact that in the conditions of a rather stormy sea they could not be repaired. This damage turned out to be quite enough for the destruction of the Oslyabi, and other hits on the hull, turrets, and superstructures of the battleship did not play a decisive or even at least some significant role.
Let us now consider the damage to the squadron battleship "Peresvet", received by him in the battle on July 28, 1904 in the Yellow Sea.
