Having talked in the previous article about the Deutschlands, including the Admiral Graf Spee, we now turn to his opponent in the battle at the mouth of La Plata. Our character today is a York-class heavy cruiser. Mainly Exeter, as York played their game very quickly.
The "York" type is very remarkable precisely because it is ambiguous in its entirety. With whom they just did not try to compare, but I will express my personal opinion, these were not quite heavy cruisers, rather, light heavy ones.
In general, the impression was that the cruisers were built on a leftover basis. That is, the limit of tonnage and money remained for one and a half normal cruisers, and the British had a choice: one normal heavy cruiser or two do not understand why. Obviously, the Admiralty chose quantity at the expense of quality, and the result was "York".
After the construction of the County series, a couple of Yorks looked like they were made under the slogan "save on everything!"
The savings can be seen in any photo. They just took and removed one main caliber turret. There was a lot more economical, but six guns instead of eight is the main difference from "County". Together, of course, with reduced combat power.
In general, there were offensive nicknames like "mini-Washington", "light heavy", "small heavy", but all to the point. After all, the displacement was also below the permitted 10 thousand tons.
Some authors of "Yorks" are usually compared with "Deutschlands" or "Myoko", this was also on our pages. Well, one can only express bewilderment, because six 203-mm barrels against six German 283-mm or ten Japanese 203-mm are just stupid.
Compared to ships like the Japanese Furutaki or the Argentine Almirante Brown. Here they are really comparable. And as the fight at La Plata showed, Exeter was just a target for Spee. But we will return to the results of the battle later.
They decided to build the Yorkies back in 1925. Initially, it was envisaged to build a series of 7 cruisers, but there was not enough money, and in 1930 the London Naval Treaty was concluded, and it turned out that the displacement limit for heavy cruisers allotted to Great Britain was actually used up.
The rest of the limit and went to the creation of two light heavy cruisers, which generally went down in history as the last two British cruisers, armed with 203-mm guns.
Despite the fact that the ships were of the same type, they differed in appearance. Apparently, this can only be explained by the fact that almost a year and a half has passed between the laying of the ships, and the fashion has changed somewhat.
But ships can be easily distinguished by such an essential detail as the inclination of the chimneys. At York they are inclined, and Exeter was built with straight pipes.
Let's look at the ships in terms of numbers. But it is even better to do it with an example, so that anyone can make sure that comparing "Yorkies" with "Moko" or "Deutschland" is, to put it mildly, unfair.
Our "Kirov" was specially inserted there, because it is also a ship with oddities, like the Deutschlands. But in the main, most sources consider him a light cruiser, except, perhaps, Marshall, who lists Kirov and all the other projects 26 and 26 bis as heavy.
And it cannot be said that it is not without reason. It is difficult to say who would whom if the meeting between "Kirov" and "Exeter" happened.
But the fact is that against the background of real heavy cruisers, our figurants look a little weak. So "light heavy" is still quite a normal characteristic. “Not heavy” is just for “Yorks”, “lightweight” is about “Kirov”.
Still, the difference is light / heavy, not only in the caliber of the guns (and where, again, "Kirov" to do with its 180-mm), it is necessary to look in conjunction with the rest of the characteristics.
Other characteristics …
I did not enter anti-aircraft weapons into the table, since this is a variable component.
Initially, the air defense consisted of four 102-mm cannons, two 40-mm Pom-Pom assault rifles and a dozen 7, 62-mm machine guns. Before the war, instead of machine guns, they installed quad mounts of 12.7 mm heavy machine guns.
On the whole, the assessment of the anti-aircraft artillery is unsatisfactory, which, in fact, brought the Yorks to the handle in a sense.
Exeter differed from the York in hull width, it was wider by a foot (0.3048 m), a new type of tower-shaped superstructure, straight masts and pipes, the number of seaplanes and catapults for them (Exeter had 2 and 2 accordingly, "York" has one plane and one catapult).
The superstructure of this turret type on Exeter later became the standard for British cruisers, proving to be a very useful invention. It lowered the silhouette and significantly reduced the effect of powder gases when firing the bow turrets of the main caliber and smoke from the pipes.
The main caliber was not bad, as, indeed, all British naval artillery. Of course, six 203-mm guns are not eight, but what was there was. And there were six 203-mm Vickers BL MkVIII guns of the 1923 model with a barrel length of 50 calibers and a mass of 17, 19 tons.
The average rate of fire was 3-4 rounds per minute, the maximum was five. The turret mounts provided the guns with an elevation angle of 70 ° for firing at both surface and air targets. In theory. In practice, firing at air targets was found to be ineffective due to the frankly low rate of fire of the guns and the slow turret traverse drive.
The direct firing range was quite, the 256-pound (116 kg) projectile at an elevation angle of 45 ° was 26.5 km.
The Yorks were booked on an all-or-nothing basis and covered only vital parts of the ship. The armor of the walls of the artillery towers, as well as their barbets, were 25 mm thick, the armored traverses of the towers were 76 mm, the side traverses of the cellars of all the main turrets were 111 mm.
The ships had the usual speed for British cruisers of 32 knots (the York even made 32.3 knots) and an excellent cruising range of 10,000 miles.
In principle, the ships differed slightly from the predecessors of the "County" in all characteristics, except for weapons and armor. They frankly saved on them, because, in fact, the combat service of the ships was not very long.
York.
He began his service in 1930, in 1939 he began serious work, participated in escorting convoys. In 1940 he took part in the invasion of Norway, towed away the damaged destroyer Eclipse from there, and evacuated troops from Namsos when the Germans won the battle for Norway.
Then he participated in all operations of British ships in the Mediterranean, covered convoys, covered the aircraft carrier "Illastries", whose planes carried the Italian fleet in the harbor of Taranto, ferried troops to Greece, conducted convoys to Egypt.
In general - the usual life of a cruiser.
But on March 26, 1941, dashing guys from the 10th MAS flotilla of the Italian Navy visited the Souda bay on the island of Crete, where the York was stationed in the company of other ships. These were saboteurs using MTM boats.
The boat MTM (Motoscafo Turismo Modificato) carried a charge of 300 kg of explosive with a shock-hydrostatic fuse. MTM, developing a decent speed of 24 knots, when hitting the target, broke and began to sink, after which, at a certain depth (below the armor belt), the detonator was triggered under the action of hydrostatic pressure and the main charge was detonated, leading to the formation of large holes in the underwater part of the enemy ship.
At the same time, the pilot left the boat some time before the explosion, having previously directed it to the target. He had to have time to climb onto a special life raft in order to avoid death from hydrodynamic shock in the explosion of the boat.
And now two of these boats have chosen the "York" as their target. The cruiser could not withstand the blow and was run aground. The engine room was flooded with water and the ship was left without energy. While there was talk about where and how it would be better to repair it, a submarine "Rover" was moored to the side of the cruiser in order to supply electricity from it so that the cruiser's guns could be used in the air defense system.
Alas, but here the Luftwaffe got down to business. And first the bomb damaged the Rover and the boat had to be dragged for repairs.
And on May 18, taking advantage of the fact that the cruiser could only fight back with machine guns, the gallant guys from the Luftwaffe butchered it like a cod. As a result, the British military leaving Crete on May 22 simply blew up the cruiser towers and threw it in the bay.
Exeter has lived a richer life.
Since 1931, the cruiser has served, taking part in exercises, parades and campaigns. In April 1939 he was sent to the South Atlantic with the cruiser Ajax.
In October 1939 he was assigned to Hunter Group G along with the cruisers Cumberland and Ajax to search for the enemy ship Admiral Graf Spee in the South Atlantic. The cruiser Achilles later joined the patrol.
On December 13, a patrol discovered the Spee …
Exeter took the brunt of the German raider's blow. It is difficult to say how his fate would have been decided then if "Ajax" and "Achilles", obeying Harwood's orders, had not launched a suicidal and impudent attack.
As a result, "Spee" was driven into and locked up in Montevideo, where he drunk himself safely, and "Exeter" managed to crawl to the Falklands.
There, having examined the damage to the cruiser, everyone (both the crew and the base personnel) was very surprised that he generally stayed afloat and reached the base. The Germans beat the cruiser in such a way that they should be given their due. So the boat was - not great, that's for sure, but it turned out to be very tenacious for testing. Taking plots with a caliber of 283 mm is still not as easy as it seems.
Nevertheless, Exeter fought until the water flowing through the holes closed the wiring and left without energy the turning mechanisms of the guns. Plus, a serious fire blazed on the cruiser.
In general, having patched up in Port Stanley in a hurry, Exeter was sent for overhaul to the UK.
After repairs in 1941, Exeter was sent to the Indian Ocean, where she was engaged in routine cruising work as part of the US-British-Dutch squadron of ships.
On February 27, 1942 he took part in the First Battle of the Java Sea.
In a battle against the Japanese cruisers Haguro, Naka, Nachi, Jintsu and an escort of 14 destroyers, she was hit by a 203-mm shell in the engine room, the speed dropped critically and the cruiser was saved only by the torpedo attack of the British destroyers Jupiter. "Electra" and "Encounter" to the Japanese squadron. The Elektra was sunk by the Japanese, but the Exeter was able to crawl away.
The heavily damaged cruiser ended up in the port of Surabaya, where it got up for emergency repairs. Then it was decided to send the ship for repairs in Colombo.
On March 1, 1942, the ship and the escort destroyers fell into a trap that led to the Second Battle of the Java Sea.
A group of Allied ships were stumbled upon by the Nachi, Haguro, Ashigara and Myoko with a couple of destroyers. Naturally, the Japanese ships opened fire. Exeter again got hit in the boiler room and lost both speed and power supply to the towers.
Allied destroyers tried to smokescreen and organize a torpedo attack, but did not get hits. Despite the smokescreen, Exeter received several more hits from 203-mm shells from Japanese cruisers. The crew was unable to extinguish the fire, which disabled the electrical network and, as a result, the cruiser commander gave the order to leave the ship.
The final point in the fate of Exeter was put by a 610-mm torpedo from the destroyer Inazuma.
And a little later, planes from the aircraft carrier "Rudjo" flew in and sent to the bottom of the escort destroyers, the American "Pope" and the British "Encounter".
What can you say in the end?
Greed is punishable and the desire to save money does not always lead to the expected result.
Today it is very difficult to understand the logic of the Lords of the Admiralty of Great Britain who ordered these ships. For a naval power of the first rank, the meaning of owning such discounted cruisers is not obvious.
Yes, Spain and Argentina could and built such ships for themselves, but they were still secondary maritime powers, whatever one may say.
What tasks such "light heavy" cruisers could solve for Britain, I do not understand. If we talk about intimidating the colonies, then the cannons of the light, so-called "colonial" cruisers would be quite enough for this.
And if you take the real opponents, which were Italian, German and Japanese heavy cruisers, here the "Yorkies" were completely uncompetitive. First of all, there was not enough armor, and secondly, firepower.
And if Exeter somehow managed to survive the meeting with the lonely German raider, then the Japanese Myokos in the amount of more than one turned out to be fatal for the "light heavy" cruiser.
A strange project. It would be possible to spit on all the contracts, since things were heading for war, and build normal ships, and not outright stubs. But - what is done is done, and what came out came out.
As a result, "York" and "Exeter" became the last heavy cruisers built in Great Britain, and ended their life, as it should be cruisers, in battle.
