The opinion goes from source to source: "Sevastopoli were distinguished by disgusting seaworthiness and were decidedly unsuitable for operations in the sea."
On the one hand, arguing purely theoretically, it is difficult to disagree with such a statement. Indeed, the freeboard (according to the project 6 meters) in the bow did not exceed 5, 4-5, 7 meters, and that was not much. In addition, the nasal contours of the hull were too sharp (to obtain a high travel speed) and, in theory, did not provide good emergence on the wave. And this led to the fact that the first tower was overwhelmed by water.
But here's the thing - the sources write about all this more than vaguely. "Even in the conditions of the Gulf of Finland, with insignificant excitement for such large ships, their bow end was buried in the water right up to the first tower …"
So try to guess - "insignificant for such large ships" is how much?
It turns out interesting - they talk a lot about low seaworthiness, but there is no specifics about how bad it was. The most important question is at what level of excitement on the Beaufort scale the battleships of the Sevastopol class would no longer be able to fight? (Note: Generally speaking, the Beaufort scale regulates by no means excitement, but the strength of the wind, but we will not get into such a jungle, besides, whatever one may say, there is a certain relationship between the strength of the wind and the waves in the open sea.)
I could not find the answer to this question. Well, do not take seriously the information that "on a small excitement for such a large ship, the optics of its tower were splattered"! And that's why.
Firstly, the optics in the tower is an important thing, but in battle the main method of using guns was and remains the centralized control of artillery fire, in which the tower optics are secondary. And if the centralized control is broken, and the towers are given the command to fight on their own, then, most likely, the ship itself is hardly capable of giving out full speed, at which its optics will overwhelm.
Secondly, let's take the German battle cruiser Derflinger. In the bow, its freeboard exceeds 7 meters, which is significantly higher than that of the Russian battleship, but its stern was only 4.2 meters above sea level. And here is his stern, you say, he did not go stern forward into battle, did he? This is certainly true. However, I came across data that at full speed its feed, up to and including the barbet of the stern tower, went under water. Hard to believe, right? But in Muzhenikov's book, The Battlecruisers of Germany, there is a charming photograph of a battlecruiser in full swing.
At the same time, I have never heard that the "Derflinger" had any problems with the use of guns related to seaworthiness.
Finally, the third. Already after the First World War and on the eve of the Second World War, the British very imprudently demanded that the 356-mm guns of the newest King George V-class battleships be provided directly on the course. Therefore, the bow of the battleship did not receive a forecastle or lift, which adversely affected the seaworthiness of the ship. In the famous battle against the German battleship Bismarck, the English gunners of the Prince of Wells bow tower had to fight, being knee-deep in water - it swept right through the embrasures of the towers. I fully admit that the optics were splattered at the same time. But the British fought, and fell, and inflicted damage on the enemy, although the British battleship, which had not completed a full course of combat training in terms of the experience of its crew, was much inferior to the fully trained Bismarck.
As an example of the lousy seaworthiness of our battleships, the unfortunate case is usually cited when the battleship "Paris Commune", when crossing from the Baltic to the Black Sea, landed in the Bay of Biscay in a violent storm that inflicted the most sensitive damage to our dreadnought. And some even undertake to argue that there was no storm at all, so, one pampering, citing the fact that the French Maritime Meteorological Service recorded on the same days a wind of 7-8 points and a sea state of 6 points.
I'll start with the storm. It must be said that the Bay of Biscay is generally famous for its unpredictability: the storm seems to be raging far, far away, it is clear on the coast, but there is a multi-meter swell in the bay. This often happens if a storm is coming from the Atlantic to Europe - the coast of France is still quiet, but the Atlantic Ocean is seething, preparing to unleash its fury on the coast of Britain, and then it will come to France. So even if the same Brest does not have any storm, this does not mean at all that the weather in the Bay of Biscay is excellent.
And during the release of the "Paris Commune" in the Atlantic and off the coast of England, a violent storm raged, destroying 35 different merchant and fishing vessels, and a little later it reached France.
Our battleship went to sea on December 7, was forced to return back on December 10. During this time:
- On December 7, the cargo ship "Chieri" (Italy) sank in the Bay of Biscay, 80 miles (150 km) off the coast of France (approximately 47 ° N 6 ° W). 35 of the 41 crew members were killed. The rest were rescued by the trawler Gascoyne (France);
- The cargo ship "Helene" (Denmark) was abandoned by rescuers in the Bay of Biscay after an unsuccessful towing attempt. It was thrown onto the French coast and destroyed by waves, its entire crew perished;
- On December 8, the sailing ship "Notre Dame de Bonne Nouvelle" (France) sank in the Bay of Biscay. His crew was saved.
The only photo of our dreadnought on that trip obviously hints that the excitement was overwhelming.
Moreover, the photo captured the ship clearly not in the midst of a riot of elements - when a hurricane flew, accompanying the cruiser from which this photo was taken, he himself was damaged, and, obviously, at such a time they would not have photo sessions with him. Therefore, there are no prerequisites for questioning the testimony of Soviet sailors.
But let's move on to the damage to the Russian dreadnought. In fact, it was not its design that was to blame for the damage that the huge ship received, but the technical improvement made to this design under Soviet rule. In the USSR, the battleship received a bow attachment designed to reduce the flooding of the bow of the ship. In shape, she was most of all like a scoop, dressed directly on the deck.
In the Baltic, this design has fully justified itself. The waves of the Baltic are short and not too high - the bow of the battleship cut through the wave, and the "scoop" broke and threw up the water that rushed up from the impact on the hull of the battleship. But in the Bay of Biscay, where the waves are much longer, the battleship, descending from such a wave, stuck its nose into the sea, and … the "scoop" now worked like a real scoop, capturing many tens of tons of sea water, which simply did not have time to leave the deck. Naturally, under such a load, the hull structures began to deform. Fortunately, the cladding was almost torn off by waves, but the battleship was already damaged and had to return for repairs … which consisted in the fact that the French workers simply cut off the remnants of the nose cladding, after which the Paris Commune continued on its way without any problems. It turns out that if it were not for this ill-fated "modification", the battleship would most likely have passed through the storm without any serious damage.
Subsequently, on all battleships of this type, a new bow attachment was installed, but already of a completely different design - like a small forecastle, covered with a deck on top, so that the new design could no longer draw water.
I do not in any way presume to assert that the Sevastopoli were born frothy oceans, by no means the worst typhoon in the Pacific. But to what extent their unimportant seaworthiness prevented them from conducting an artillery battle and whether it interfered at all, the question remains open. As far as I understand, the ships fight in the excitement of 3-4 points, well, a maximum of 5 points, if this is the case and there are no other options (just as “Togo” did not have them in Tsushima - whether it is storming or not, and Russians cannot be allowed into Vladivostok) … But under normal circumstances, at 5, and even more so at 6 points, any admiral would prefer not to look for a battle, but to stay in the base and wait for good weather. Therefore, the question boils down to how stable an artillery platform were the battleships of the "Sevastopol" type with an excitement of 4-5 points. Personally, I suppose that with such excitement, our battleships, if they had gone against the wave, might have had some problems with shooting right in the nose, but I strongly doubt that the excitement could prevent them from fighting on parallel courses, i.e. when the bow the tower is deployed aboard and is positioned sideways to the wave. It is highly doubtful that the German battleships on 5 points would stand side-to-side with the wave - at such a pitching it would hardly be possible to demonstrate the wonders of accuracy. Therefore, I suppose that for a fight with German dreadnoughts in the Baltic, the seaworthiness of our dreadnoughts would be quite enough, but I cannot strictly prove this.
Since we are talking about the ship's driving performance, we should also mention its speed. Usually the speed of 23 knots is put to advantage for our ships, since the speed of 21 knots was standard for battleships of those times. Our ships turned out to be in their speed qualities in the gap between battleships and battle cruisers of other world powers.
Of course, it is nice to have an advantage in speed, but it should be understood that the difference of 2 knots did not allow the Russian dreadnoughts to play the role of a "fast vanguard" and did not give them a special advantage in battle. The British considered the 10% difference in speed to be insignificant, and I tend to agree with them. When the British decided to create a "fast wing" with their columns of 21-knot battleships, they created the powerful Queen Elizabeth-class superdreadnoughts designed for 25 knots. The difference in 4 knots, perhaps, would allow these ships to cover the head of the enemy column, associated with the battle with the "twenty-one-knot" battleships of the British line … Anything is possible. Apart from the famous "Togo Loop", the Japanese in Tsushima constantly put the Russian ships at a disadvantage, but the Japanese fleet had at least one and a half times the advantage in squadron speed. And here it is only 20%. Russian ships have even less - 10%. For example, having engaged in a battle at full speed and at a distance of, say, 80 kbt, being abeam "König", our battleship could go 10 kbt ahead within half an hour. How much good is this? In my opinion, in battle, the extra 2 knots of speed did not mean too much for the Russian dreadnoughts and did not give them either a decisive or even any noticeable advantage. But this is in battle.
The fact is that even during the design of the Sevastopol-class battleships, it was clear that the German fleet, if he wishes it, would dominate the Baltic, and the construction of the first four Russian dreadnoughts could not change anything in this - the superiority of Hochseeflotte in the number of ships was too great lines. Therefore, the Russian battleships, at any exit to the sea, would risk meeting with the obviously superior forces of the enemy.
Perhaps the two knots of superiority in speed did not give the Sevastopol-class battleships significant advantages in battle, but they did allow Russian ships to engage in battle at their own discretion. Our dreadnoughts were not suitable for the role of a "high-speed vanguard", but even if the cruisers and destroyers overshadow the enemy and suddenly, at the limit of visibility, the signalmen will see numerous silhouettes of German squadrons - the speed advantage will allow you to quickly break contact before the ships receive any significant damage. Taking into account the unimportant Baltic weather, having detected the enemy, say, at 80 kbt, you can prevent him from breaking away, impose a battle and break if he is weak, and if he is too strong, quickly go out of sight. Thus, in the specific situation of the Baltic Sea, the additional two speed knots for our battleships should be considered a very significant tactical advantage.
It is often written that Sevastopoli developed 23 nodes with great difficulty, right up to modernization already in Soviet times (after which they went 24 nodes each). This is a perfectly fair statement. But you need to understand that battleships of other countries, having developed 21 knots during testing, usually gave a slightly lower speed in everyday operation, this is a common practice for most ships. True, it happened the other way around - the German battleships sometimes developed much more in the acceptance tests. The same "Kaiser", for example, instead of the 21 knots put for it, developed 22, 4, although I do not know whether it could maintain such a speed in the future.
So the twenty-three-knot speed for domestic dreadnoughts turned out to be absolutely not superfluous and can in no way be considered a project error. One can only regret that for the Black Sea dreadnoughts the speed was reduced from 23 to 21 knots. Taking into account the actual state of the Goeben's boilers and vehicles, it can be assumed that he would not have left the 23-knot battleship.
Battleships of the "Sevastopol" type had an extremely short cruising range
Here, alas, there is no need to argue with this. Sadly, it really is.
Russian dreadnoughts turned out to be bad in terms of seaworthiness and cruising range. But if we ordered dreadnoughts in England …
One of the main problems associated with seaworthiness was the overloading of our ships, and its main reason was that the undercarriage (turbines and boilers) turned out to be as much as 560 tons heavier than the project. Well, the problem with the range arose because the boilers turned out to be much more voracious than expected. Who is to blame for this? Perhaps the British firm John Brown, with which on January 14, 1909, the joint management of the Baltic and Admiralty plants entered into an agreement on the technical management of the design, construction and testing at sea of steam turbines and boilers for the first four Russian battleships?
The Sevastopol-class battleships proved to be extremely expensive and ravaged the country
I must say that our battleships, of course, were a very expensive pleasure. And moreover, no matter how sad it is to realize it, but the construction of warships in Russia often turned out to be more expensive than that of the leading world powers such as England and Germany. However, contrary to popular belief, the difference in the cost of the ships was by no means many times.
For example, the German battleship "König Albert" cost the German taxpayers 45,761 thousand gold marks (23,880,500 rubles in gold). Russian "Sevastopol" - 29.400.000 rubles.
The extreme high cost of domestic dreadnoughts, apparently, stemmed from some confusion over the question of how much the Russian battleship cost. The fact is that in the press there are two prices for battleships of the "Sevastopol" type, 29, 4 and 36, 8 million rubles. But in this matter, one should bear in mind the peculiarities of the pricing of the Russian fleet.
The fact is that 29 million is the price of the ship itself, and it must be compared with the prices of foreign dreadnoughts. A 36.8 million- this is the cost of the battleship according to the construction program, which, in addition to the cost of the ship itself, includes the price of half of the guns supplied additionally (a reserve in case they fail in battle) and double ammunition, as well as, possibly, something else, which I dont know. Therefore, it is incorrect to compare 23.8 million German dreadnoughts and 37 Russian ones.
However, the cost of the dreadnoughts is impressive. Maybe their construction really brought the country to the handle? It will be interesting to consider whether it would be possible to overwhelm our army with rifles / cannons / shells, abandoning the creation of armored leviathans?
The estimated cost of four battleships of the "Sevastopol" type was calculated in the total amount of 147,500,000.00 rubles. (along with the combat stocks I indicated above). According to the GAU (Main Artillery Directorate) program, the expansion and modernization of the arms factory in Tula and the construction of a new arms factory in Yekaterinoslav (production of rifles), with the subsequent transfer of the Sestroretsk rifle factory there, should have cost the treasury 65,721,930, according to preliminary estimates. 00 RUB During the First World War, 2,461,000 rifles were delivered to Russia, including 635,000 from Japan, 641,000 from France, 400,000 from Italy, 128,000 from England and 657,000 from the USA.
In 1915, the cost of the Mosin rifle was 35.00 rubles, which means that the total cost of rifles, if they were produced in Russia, and not bought abroad, would have been 2,461,000 x 35.00 = 86,135,000.00 rubles.
Thus, 2,461,000 three-line rifles, together with factories for their production, would have cost the treasury 151,856,930.00 rubles. (65 721 930, 00 rubles. + 86 135 000, 00 rubles), which is already somewhat more than the program for the construction of Baltic dreadnoughts.
Let's say we do not want to build a mighty fleet capable of defeating the enemy at sea. But we still need to defend our shores. Therefore, in the absence of battleships, sea fortresses will have to be built - but what will it cost us?
In the Baltic, the Russian fleet had Kronstadt as a base, but it was already too small for modern steel giants, and the famous Helsingfors was considered not very promising. The fleet was supposed to be based in Revel, and in order to adequately protect the future main base of the fleet and block the enemy's entrance to the Gulf of Finland, they decided to build a powerful coastal defense - the fortress of Peter the Great. The total cost of the fortress was estimated at 92.4 million rubles. Moreover, this amount was not one of the most outstanding - for example, it was also planned to allocate about 100 million rubles for the construction of a first-class fortress in Vladivostok. At that time, it was assumed that 16 356-mm cannons, 8 305-mm, 16 279-mm howitzers, 46 six-inch guns, 12 120-mm and 66 - 76-mm guns would be installed in the fortress.
If, say, to build the defense of the Gulf of Finland and Moonsund solely on the basis of coastal artillery, then at least 3 fortified areas will be needed - Kronstadt, Revel-Porkalaud and, in fact, Moonsund. The cost of such a solution will be 276 million rubles. (7 dreadnoughts commissioned by the Russian Empire cost 178 million rubles.) But you need to understand that such protection will not be able to block the path of enemy squadrons either to Riga or the Gulf of Finland, and the Moonsund Islands themselves will remain very vulnerable - what is 164 guns for the whole archipelago?
The situation on the Black Sea is even more interesting. As you know, the Turks had Napoleonic plans to commission their fleet of three dreadnoughts.
If we tried to resist this not by building a fleet, but by building naval fortresses, just trying to cover the cities that suffered during the "Sevastopol wake-up" - Sevastopol, Odessa, Feodosia and Novorossiysk, would cost much more than building dreadnoughts. Even if we assume that only a third of the cost of the fortress of Peter the Great (only about 123 million rubles) will be needed to cover each of the cities, then this is much more than the cost of three Black Sea Russian dreadnoughts (29.8 million rubles apiece or 89 million rubles!) But having built the fortresses, we still could not feel safe: who would prevent the same Turks from landing troops outside the zone of action of the fortress artillery and attacking the city from the land direction? Moreover, one should never forget the excellent performance of the Russian Black Sea Fleet during the First World War. Our sailors cut off the sea communications of the Turks, forcing them to carry supplies to the troops by land, which was long and dreary, while they themselves helped the army by sea. About the brilliant assistance to the troops of the coastal flank is very interesting and in great detail written by Patients in the book "The Tragedy of Errors". It was the Black Sea Fleet, perhaps the only one of all the fleets of the First World War, that landed successful landings, greatly helping the army to smash the enemy.
But all this would be absolutely impossible if the Turks had dreadnoughts, and ours had fortresses. It was the Turks who would interrupt our communications, fired at our coastal flanks, and land troops in the rear of our troops … But we would have paid much more for this than for the dreadnoughts!
Of course, no one cancels the need for coastal artillery - even with the most powerful fleet available, you still need to cover key points of the coast. But an attempt to ensure the security of a power from the sea not with a sword (the fleet) but with a shield (coastal defense) is obviously unprofitable in financial terms and does not provide even a tenth of the opportunities that the presence of a fleet gives.
And finally, the last myth - and perhaps the most unpleasant of all.
The project of the Baltic Shipyard (which later became the project of the Sevastopol-class battleships) turned out to be far from the best of those presented for the competition, but was chosen because the chairman of the commission, Academician Krylov, had family ties with the author of the project, Bubnov. So he helped in a related way, so that the plant received a smart order
Even commenting is disgusting. The point is not even that the Baltic plant was actually state-owned, i.e. was in state ownership and therefore Bubnov personally from the "smart order" did not foresee any special gesheft. The fact is that in the Baltic, the Russian Empire had exactly four slipways on which it was possible to build ships of the line, and two of them were located exactly at the Baltic Shipyard. At the same time, it was originally supposed to build new battleships in series of four ships. And therefore, it does not matter at all who and where developed the project. If the project was even Russian, even Italian, even French, and even Eskimo, two battleships would still be built at the Baltic Shipyard - simply because there was nowhere else to build them. So the plant received its order in any case.
This concludes the articles about our first dreadnoughts, but before putting an end to it, I will allow myself to comment on two very common points of view on battleships of the "Sevastopol" class, which I had the pleasure of getting acquainted with on the net.
Dreadnoughts are, of course, not bad, but it would be better to build more cruisers and destroyers instead
Purely theoretically, such an option is possible - after all, a Svetlana-class cruiser cost about 8.6 million rubles, and a Novik-class destroyer - 1.9-2.1 million rubles. So at the same cost, instead of one dreadnought, it would be possible to build 3 light cruisers or 14 destroyers. True, the question arises about the slipways - how much money do not give out, and one battleship slipway cannot be converted into three cruising slipways. But these are, perhaps, details - in the end, light cruisers could be ordered by the same England, if there was a desire. And, undoubtedly, their active use in the Baltic communications of the Kaiser added a pretty headache to the Germans.
But the key words here are “active use”. After all, for example, the Russian Baltic Fleet had many fewer cruisers and destroyers than it could have been if we set up instead of the Svetlana and Noviki dreadnoughts. But after all, even those light forces that were at our disposal, we used far from 100%! And what would a few more cruisers change here? Nothing, I'm afraid. Now, if we built a bunch of cruisers and destroyers and began to actively use them … then yes. But here another question arises. And if we leave everything as it is, we will not build squadrons of cruisers and destroyers, but instead we will actively use battleships? What would happen then?
I urge dear readers to avoid one logical error, which I notice on the Internet no-no. You cannot compare the dreadnoughts standing in the harbor with destroyers cruising on enemy lines of communication and say that destroyers are more effective. It is necessary to compare the effect of active actions of battleships and active actions of destroyers and then draw conclusions.
The question posed in this way smoothly flows into another plane: which is more effective - the active use of many light forces of the fleet, or the active use of smaller forces, but supported by battleships? And what is the optimal ratio of battleships and light forces within the limits of the funds that were actually allocated for the construction of the Russian fleet?
These are very interesting questions worthy of a separate study, but analyzing them, we will give an excessive tilt into the field of alternative history, which we would not like to do within the framework of this article. I will note one thing: with all the positive effect that several dozen light ships could give on enemy communications, cruisers and destroyers are unable to withstand the German dreadnoughts. Neither destroyers nor cruisers are physically able to successfully defend the mine and artillery positions, the basis of our defense of the Gulf of Finland and Moonsund. And to neutralize the old Russian battleships, the Germans only had to send a couple of their first series battleships, backing them up with several Wittelsbachs just in case. Therefore, it is absolutely impossible to completely abandon dreadnoughts, and you can argue about the required number of them oh how long …
Why build dreadnoughts if we couldn't give the "last and decisive" battle to Hochseeflotte anyway? Wouldn't it be better to confine ourselves to the defense of the Gulf of Finland and Moonsund and build many coastal battleships?
My personal opinion is in no way better. Below I will try to give this thesis a detailed justification. In my opinion, the coastal defense battleship was and remains a palliative, capable of solving only two tasks - defending the coast from the sea and supporting the coastal flank of the army. Moreover, he solves the first problem very badly.
It's probably not worth talking about battleships of very small displacement, like the Russian "Ushakovs" or the later Finnish "Ilmarinens" - such ships can fight with a dreadnought only until the first hit of an enemy shell, while their own 254-mm guns are unlikely whether they can seriously scratch the battleship. The very successful activity of the Finnish BRBOs during the Second World War is connected not with the fact that coastal defense battleships can defend their own coast, but with the fact that no one attacked Finland from the sea in that war. The Finns did not defend their shores, they used battleships as large gunboats, and in this capacity, of course, their ships, armed with long-range guns, but capable of hiding in the skerries, proved to be excellent. But this does not make the Finnish battleships ships capable of holding back enemy battleships in a mine-artillery position.
Likewise, it probably doesn't make sense to consider the huge pre-dreadnought battleships, the "last of the Mohicans" of the battleship era, built before the dreadnought boom took over countries. Yes, these mastodons could well “transfer” with the dreadnoughts of the first series, while having even some chances of winning - but the price … “Andrew the First-Called” and “Emperor Paul I” cost the treasury more than 23 million rubles each! And if against the English "Dreadnought" the last Russian battleships still had some chances in a one-on-one battle, then against the battleship of the "Sevastopol" type there were none. Despite the fact that the battleship "Sevastopol" is only 26% more expensive.
Of course, one can argue that such a cost of "St. Andrew the First-Called" is a consequence of its long construction and many alterations to which the ship on the slipway has undergone, and this, of course, will be true to a certain extent. But if we look at the English ships, we will see approximately the same. Thus, it makes no sense to build large-scale coastal mastodons, similar in size and cost, but not similar in capabilities to the battleship.
If we try to imagine a coastal defense battleship in the displacement of a classic squadron battleship of the beginning of the century, i.e. 12-15 thousand tons, then … Whatever one may say, but there is no way to make a small artillery ship stronger, or even equal to a large one (excluding tactical nuclear weapons, of course). Two battleships of the Borodino class cost approximately a Sevastopol-class dreadnought (the cost of a Borodino-class battleship ranged from 13.4 to 14.5 million rubles), but they cannot withstand it in battle. The defense of the battleships is weaker, the artillery power is obviously inferior to the dreadnought both in the number of main caliber barrels and in the power of the guns, but, which is much worse, it loses many times in such an important criterion as controllability. Organization of fire from one ship is much easier than from several. At the same time, the combat stability of a large ship is usually higher than that of two ships with a total equal displacement.
Therefore, building a fleet based on two battleships for one enemy battleship (which, most likely, will not be enough), we will spend about the same money on the fleet as on a dreadnought fleet equal to the enemy. But having created dreadnoughts, we will wield a sword capable of adequately representing our interests in the world's oceans, and by building battleships we will receive only a shield suitable only for the defense of the Gulf of Finland and Moonsund.
The battleship can participate in active naval operations, even if the enemy is superior in strength. The battleship can support the raider actions of its own light forces, it can strike at distant enemy shores, it can try to lure out part of the enemy fleet and try to defeat it in battle (eh, if it were not for Ingenol's cowardice, who turned back when the only squadron of the Grand Fleet went straight into steel jaws of the High Seas Fleet!) A coastal defense battleship cannot do any of this. Accordingly, like any palliative, coastal defense battleships will cost the same, or even more, but will be less functional than dreadnoughts.
There is, however, one "but" in all these arguments. In the only place, in Moonsund, where our dreadnoughts could not enter because of the shallow depths, the strong, but shallow-draft battleship acquired a certain meaning. Such a ship could defend mine positions, like "Glory", could operate in the Gulf of Riga, hit the enemy's flank, if he gets to these shores … It seems so, but not very much.
First, it should be borne in mind that when the Germans seriously wanted to enter Riga, neither minefields nor "Slava" could hold them back, although they hindered them considerably. This was the case in 1915, when the Germans first retreated from behind the fogs, but after waiting for good weather, they were able to drive off the Slava, wipe out our mine positions and enter the bay with light forces. So it was in 1917, when Slava died. And, sadly to say, we lost a large warship, but we were unable to inflict equivalent damage to the enemy. Nobody belittles the courage of the officers of "Slava", who led the "ship committees" under the fire of a much superior enemy and those sailors who honestly fulfilled their duty - our eternal gratitude and good memory to the soldiers of Russia! But with the available material part, our sailors "could only show that they knew how to die with dignity."
And secondly, even when the base for the Baltic Fleet was chosen, the Moonsund Archipelago was considered one of the main contenders. For this, not so much was needed - to carry out dredging work so that the latest dreadnoughts could enter "inside", there was nothing impossible in this. And although in the end we settled on Revel, they still assumed, in the future, to carry out these same dredging works, ensuring the entry of the dreadnoughts into Moonsund. One can only regret that this was not done before the First World War.
Well, it's time to take stock. In my opinion, battleships of the "Sevastopol" type can rightfully be considered a success for the domestic industry and design thought. They did not become ideal ships, but they took their rightful place in the ranks of foreign peers. In some ways, our ships turned out to be worse, but in some ways they were better than their foreign counterparts, but in general they were least “Equal among equals”. Despite a number of shortcomings, battleships of the "Sevastopol" type could well protect the sea borders of the Fatherland with their steel chest.
And as far as I could substantiate this my opinion, you judge, dear readers.
Thank you for the attention!
List of used literature:
I. F. Tsvetkov, "Battleships of the" Sevastopol "type.
A. V. Skvortsov, "Battleships of the" Sevastopol "type.
A. Vasiliev, "The first battleships of the red fleet".
V. Yu. Gribovsky, "Squadron battleships of the Tsesarevich and Borodino types."
V. B. Muzhenikov, "Battlecruisers of Germany".
VB Muzhenikov, "Battlecruisers of England".
V. B. Muzhenikov, "Battleships of the Kaiser and Koenig types."
L. G. Goncharov, "Course of naval tactics. Artillery and armor".
S. E. Vinogradov, "The Last Giants of the Russian Imperial Navy".
L. A. Kuznetsov, "The bow dressing of the battleship" Paris Commune ".
L. I. Amirkhanov, "Sea Fortress of Emperor Peter the Great".
V. P. Rimsky-Korsakov, "Artillery Fire Control".
"Description of control devices for art. Fire, model 1910".
B. V. Kozlov, "Orion-class battleships".
S. I. Titushkin, "Battleships of the Bayern type".
A. V. Mandel, V. V. Skoptsov, "Battleships of the United States of America".
A. A. Belov, "The Battleships of Japan".
W. Kofman, "King George V-class battleships"
K. P. Puzyrevsky, "Combat damage and destruction of ships in the Battle of Jutland".
Taking this opportunity, I express my deep gratitude to my colleague "fellow countryman" from the site of alternative history for brilliant research on the effectiveness of the shooting of Russian and Japanese artillerymen in the Russo-Japanese War (a series of articles "On the question of shooting accuracy in the Russo-Japanese War" and "On the question of the ratio of budgets of the naval department and the Ministry of War of the Russian Empire at the beginning of the twentieth century ", which I copied without a twinge of conscience. You can find articles of this outstanding author in his blog:
