Unfortunately, neither "Peresvet" nor "Oslyabya" became those "battleships-cruisers" that the Naval Department wanted to receive. Errors in their design and construction led to the fact that these ships, due to their relatively low cruising range, could not perform the functions of ocean raiders. And yet it cannot be said that the "Peresvets" turned out to be completely disastrous ships - they also had some advantages.
We can only welcome the fact that during the discussion of the project, the admirals stopped at an increased (for our fleet) speed of 18 knots. As a matter of fact, at the time the Peresvet was laid, this was not a big breakthrough even for battleships - the French were building the eighteen-knot Charlemagne, and indeed, from the very beginning of the 1890s, they strove to provide such a course for their squadron battleships. The Germans expected to get 17.5 knots from the Kaisers, and the British 1st class battleships of the Majestic class were supposed to develop 16 knots on natural thrust, with forced blowing they were expected to do at least 17 knots. In fact, some "Majestic" managed to exceed 18 knots with forced blowing. Well, by the time Peresvet entered service, 18 knots had become the standard speed for the ship of the line, so at least our "battleships-cruisers" had sufficient speed to interact with the latest battleships. The high side and forecastle provided good seaworthiness and conditions for artillery action in rough seas.
Undoubtedly, in terms of strength and defense, the Peresveta were quite ordinary ships, whose fighting qualities only slightly exceeded those of the British battleships of the 2nd class. They roughly corresponded to the German squadron battleships, but this can hardly please us, because the capabilities of the Kaisers Friedrichs with their suboptimal armor protection scheme and only 240-mm artillery of the main caliber (and even far from the best characteristics) were more likely to correspond to the 2nd class of British battleships than the 1st.
But, on the other hand, "Peresveta" was much cheaper than full-fledged squadron battleships. According to the "All-Subject Report on the Naval Department for 1897-1900," the "successor" of "Peresvetov", the squadron battleship "Pobeda", laid down at the Baltic Shipyard in 1898, had to cost the treasury 9,535,924 rubles. (in fact, it turned out to be slightly more expensive, 10.05 million), while the “Alexander III” (“Borodino” type) pledged two years later at the same enterprise was estimated at 13,978,824 rubles. In other words, two battleships of the Borodino class had a cost of about 3 Pobeda. The contrast with the ships laid down at foreign shipyards was also quite striking - according to the same Report, the cost of building the Tsesarevich was determined at 14,004,286 rubles, and even the cheapest of all the newest Russian battleships, the Retvizan, which cost 12 553,277 rubles., Also had to become more expensive than "Pobeda".
At the same time, being much cheaper than full-fledged battleships, ships of the "Peresvet" class were able to stand in line. The "Peresvet" itself demonstrated good stability in the battle on July 28, 1904 in the Yellow Sea - then up to 40 shells hit the ship, including 11 - 305-mm, 1 - 254-mm, and one more either 254-mm or 305 mm, and the rest are of a smaller caliber. Let's dwell a little more on the damage to the battleship.
The vertical armor of the hull was hit by 9 shells and, in general, she coped with the tests that fell to her lot. The greatest damage, perhaps, was caused by a 305-mm armor-piercing projectile, which hit the edge of the 229 mm plate of the armor belt: he could not pierce it, but the hard (hardened) layer cracked, and the soft part was bent. The tightness of the side was broken, so that 160 tons of water entered the ship. Three shells (of which two were 6-10 dm in caliber and another of an unknown caliber) hit the 178 mm belt, the armor was not pierced, but as a result of one of the hits, 5 frames and the bulkhead were dented. The shells hitting the 178 mm armor plates damaged the copper and wood sheathing, but this did not lead to a leak and did not affect the ship's combat effectiveness in any way. The 102 mm belt took over the blows of one 305-mm and two 152-mm shells, and the latter did not cause any harm to the armor plates, but at the point of impact of the 12-inch armor, the armor split - however, the shell did not enter and did no other damage. Another 305-mm projectile hit the armor belt under the lower casemates (it is unclear whether it was a 229 mm or 102 mm belt), but the armor was not pierced, although a shell fragment disabled the 152-mm cannon. One shell of an unknown caliber hit the casemate's armor, could not pierce it, and this hit did not give any other consequences.
There were 3 hits in the turrets of the main caliber. The aft tower got surprisingly little - one single, and most likely, a small-caliber projectile (we are talking about 75-152-mm, but still, rather, 75-mm) hit the roof of the tower and slightly bent it, the fragments penetrated through the viewing slots the commander, which caused the latter (who bent down at the time of the hit) was wounded in the arm. The nasal one suffered much more: one 10-12 dm shell hit the hinged cover above the right cannon, while the tower did not receive serious damage, but the fragments that penetrated inside killed the tower commander and two gunners, and injured other servants. The second shell (305-mm) also did not penetrate the armor, but bent the mamerin so that the rotation of the turret was extremely difficult (10 people could hardly turn it). Equally important, the fire control cables and the communication pipe in the bow tower were broken.
In general, the damage to the bow turret clearly demonstrates how severely a ship can be damaged, even if its armor was not pierced. The installation of the bow guns of the main caliber lost its centralized fire control, it was jammed, and the gunners suffered heavy losses. Here we can talk about an almost complete loss of combat effectiveness: of course, the tower could still occasionally shoot "somewhere in that direction", but without a commander and central fire control it hardly had a chance to hit the enemy. On the other hand, had it not been for the armor, the tower would have been irreparably damaged, and the crew would most likely have been interrupted, and the flame could well have reached the cellars … The role of armor in naval battles during the Russo-Japanese War is extremely important, but you should always remember that the battleship could lose its combat effectiveness, even if its armor was not pierced.
Another example of the above is a single hit in the conning tower, more precisely, in the traverse of the aft conning tower, where an unidentified (but most likely, large) caliber projectile hit. From this blow, the wheelhouse did not suffer at all, the armor fully fulfilled its purpose, however, shell fragments crushed the engine hatch and disabled one of the battleship's vehicles, and only after (about) half an hour it was put into operation. Fortunately for "Peresvet", the Russian squadron was sailing at a very moderate 13 knots, which the ship could hold even with two machines running, but if it had been otherwise, the ship would have been forced to leave the battle line, with all the ensuing consequences. Another extremely unpleasant hit went to the foremast - a 305-mm projectile exploded right in it and disabled the Barr and Stroud rangefinder, which obviously affected the firing accuracy of the battleship.
The rest (more than twenty) hits fell on the unarmored parts of the ship, but only two of them had a truly serious impact. The 305-mm projectile hit almost the waterline into the unprotected bow end, in the area of the electroplating workshop. Nevertheless, the ship was lucky - despite the fact that the bulkheads and the door to this workshop swelled, and the water rushing through the hole washed everything overboard, there were no extensive flooding - the absence of holes in the bulkheads surrounding the compartment can be considered a miracle … In addition, it turned out that the carapace deck was not pierced, the tightness was not broken, which is why the water did not go down, and the standing bulkheads limited its horizontal spread. As if the pre-war calculations, which relied on the ability of the armored deck and pressurized compartments to protect the unarmored ends of the ship, were fully confirmed, but … the second hit of a 305-mm projectile in about the same place led to much more trouble. Water penetrated everywhere - in the turret compartment, bomb cellars and underwater torpedo tubes. In fact, 25 people, providing the supply of shells and charges to the nasal 254-mm turret, were captured by the water - they could only get out through the supply pipes. The battleship itself, taking water with its nose, did not hold on in the best way. After shifting the rudder, the ship slowly heeled 7-8 degrees in the opposite direction, and kept this heel until the next rudder shift to the other side followed - the water that spilled in the forward compartments of the living deck was to blame, flowing towards the roll. However, when the commander of the ship ordered the counter-flooding of the double-bottom compartments of the battleship (except for the bow), the Peresvet regained its seaworthiness.
In that battle, "Peresvet" received the largest number of hits of all Russian ships, but was not going to sink, explode, or even just leave the system. Nevertheless, two hits of 305-mm shells in the bow, unarmored part seriously threatened the ship's combat capability. Fortunately, everything turned out well that time, and the crew coped with the problems that arose.
But "Oslyabya" was not lucky. It is not known how many shells the ship received before its death, however, judging by the available data, there were only three of them twelve-inch - however, they hit so "in place" that they led to the death of the battleship. It should be borne in mind that, unlike "Peresvet" and "Pobeda", "Oslyabya" was very poorly built, and it is possible that the quality of construction affected its premature death. Interestingly, overloading with coal from the list of possible reasons for the death of this ship, most likely, should be crossed out - before the battle, the supply of coal did not exceed the normal value too much.
In general, it can be assumed that the Peresvets could endure a significant number of hits without prejudice to their combat capability, but severe damage to the extremities was extremely dangerous for them, if such were inflicted in a short period of time, as happened with the Oslyabey. On the other hand, this was a common weak point of many old battleships that did not have a continuous waterline reservation - it can be assumed that the survivability of the Peresvetov in this respect did not differ fundamentally from the same Poltava, Sevastopol or Fuji. And, of course, the "Peresveta" could not withstand the fire impact to which the battleships of the Borodino type in Tsushima were subjected - they would have died many earlier.
As for the firepower, we have already said that the medium caliber of the squadron battleships - rapid-fire six-inch guns - turned out, if not completely useless, then completely insufficient to cause any serious damage to armored ships. First of all, this was due to the low accuracy of medium-caliber firing. For example, in the battle in the Yellow Sea, the 1st and 3rd combat detachments of the Japanese together with the armored cruiser Asama fired a total of 603 12-inch rounds and 4095 6-inch rounds, i.e. the latter were released almost 6, 8 times more. But as a result of the battle, 57 12-inch shells were hit on Russian ships; four more hits had an indeterminate caliber of 254-305-mm, but there were only 29 "identified" 152-mm hits. which is not true, since some of them could be 203-mm, and 76-mm, and even the same 305-mm), then only 80 six-inch shells fall on 57-61 hits of 305-mm projectiles.
At the same time, the relatively low power of 152-mm shells did not allow inflicting serious damage to an armored ship, and we can conclude that the presence of only 11 six-inch guns on the Peresvet, of which only 5 could participate in an onboard salvo, while the newest Russian, British and Japanese battleships, the number of such guns in an onboard salvo reached 6-7, did not seriously affect the firepower of the ship.
But the lightweight main caliber is a completely different matter. The mass of the British 305-mm cannon projectile was more than 70% higher than the Russian 254-mm projectile, which had the most significant effect on the weight of the explosive in the projectile, and therefore on its destructive effect. The mass of explosives in the British armor-piercing projectile reached 11, 9 kg, while in the Russian 254-mm armor-piercing - only 2, 9 kg, and the high-explosive only 6, 7 kg. At the same time, despite their rather high ballistic qualities, the 254-mm cannons installed on Peresvet and Oslyab lost in armor penetration to British 305-mm guns with a barrel length of 35 calibers installed on the battleships Majestic and Canopus ", And the improved 254-mm guns that the battleship Pobeda received were still inferior in armor penetration to the newest English twelve-inch guns 40 caliber long. Thus, in a long-range battle with high-explosive shells, "Peresvet" would be inferior to the modern English 305-mm battleship due to the weakness of the damaging effect of 254-mm shells, and at a short distance Russian armor-piercing shells would have less armor penetration, and a much weaker armor-piercing effect …
All this, of course, does not mean that the Russian 254-mm cannons were safe for the squadron battleship. Not at all. In addition, the small amount of explosives in Russian shells was compensated to a certain extent by its quality - if the British equipped their shells with gunpowder, then the Russians - with pyroxylin. Still, the twelve-inch cannons had a significant advantage and one can only regret that during the design of the Peresvet, the admirals sacrificed the main caliber of these ships to other qualities … Of course, their reasons can be understood. Firstly, the turret of 254-mm guns weighed significantly less than a similar turret with 305-mm cannons, and weight savings were very important for reducing the ship's displacement and cost. Secondly, we must not forget that the "Peresvets" were made high-sided, with a high forecastle, so that the bow turret gave a large upper weight - for reasons of stability, it was better to be lighter. And finally, thirdly (and this was the most important thing), the Russian 254-mm cannon had superiority over the 240-254-mm artillery systems of their potential opponents - the German squadron and British battleships of the 2nd class. Thus, the decision to lighten the main caliber of the "Peresvetov" suggested itself …
As always, the cunning from the foggy Albion are to blame for everything. In fact, the British shipbuilders chose a completely different path for their "second-class" battleships - having built 2 ships of the "Centurion" type, they were not satisfied with 254-mm artillery, considering it too weak. Therefore, the third British battleship of the 2nd rank, "Rhinaun", was supposed to receive full-fledged 305-mm cannons, but their development was unexpectedly delayed, which is why the British, with a wave of their hand, hoisted on it old, but industrially worked out 254-mm cannons, similar to those that stood on the "Centurions".
If the British had observed the development schedules of their new twelve-inch gun, then it would have become the main caliber of the Rhinaun, and the latter was taken as the “starting point” in the design of the Peresvetov! There is no doubt that if the Rhinaun had 305-mm artillery, the Russian admirals would have demanded cannons of the same caliber for the Peresvetov.
It is interesting that the Admiral-General himself, Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, thought about this. Undoubtedly, this statesman devoted too little time to state affairs in general and the fleet in particular, preferring overseas rest and entertainment, which is why the unpleasant nickname "7 pounds of august meat" was well deserved for them. But in this case, he came up with a completely reasonable initiative: in 1898, in the year the Victory was laid, he asked the sailors whether it was possible to replace the 254-mm guns with the 305-mm ones. Unfortunately, there was not the slightest opportunity for this.
It was already quite clear that "Peresvet" would turn out to be pretty overloaded. And therefore in the "Victory" project, the main emphasis should have been placed not on improving its combat qualities by strengthening artillery, since such improvements would require additional weight, but on the contrary, every possible economy of weights. As a result, for "Victory" they limited themselves to improved, heavier, but still only 254-mm cannons, and also widely used Krupp's armor, instead of armor hardened according to the Harvey method, which gave an increase in protection with the same thickness (and therefore, mass) armor plates. In addition, they removed the wooden and copper underwater plating, as it was believed then, protecting the ship from fouling, reduced the height of the living deck, and abandoned the aft conning tower. As a result of all of the above, "Pobeda" "got off" with a minimal overload relative to its predecessors: only 646 tons, against 1136 tons of "Peresvet" and 1734 tons of "Oslyabi".
Undoubtedly, Pobeda became the most advanced ship of the series - more powerful main battery guns, stronger Krupp protection, approximately the same speed, but less overload, thanks to which it was possible to increase coal reserves and thereby bring the estimated cruising range by 10 knots to 6080 miles … All this allows us to consider Pobeda not the third ship in the Peresvet series, as is usually done, but the first ship of a new type: and yet, despite all the above advantages, the construction of Pobeda should be considered a mistake. By 1898, it was already quite clear that Japan was gaining strength in the Far Eastern waters, which forms its naval power on the basis of large squadron battleships, which are quite consistent and, perhaps, even somewhat superior to the British battleships of the 1st class. At the same time as England for service in the Far Eastern waters lays powerful battleships of the "Canopus" type. Confronting the ships listed above required much more serious combat qualities than those possessed by Pobeda.
The British began construction of a series of Canopus-class battleships, intended for service in Asian waters, the next year after the laying of the Peresvet and Oslyabi. Six British ships were laid down in 1896-1898 and entered service in 1899-1902 - it was with these ships that the Peresvet would have to meet in the Far East, had there been a war with Great Britain.
Unlike the same "Rhinaun", "Canopus", like "Peresvet", received the same progressive for that time Belleville boilers, with which the newest British ships were able to develop 18 knots (and some ships of the series - and more) without forced blast, i.e. the speed of the Canopus was at least as good as the Peresvet. Their booking was slightly less powerful, but more rational. A very high, 4.26 m, armor belt, towering 2.74 m above the waterline, consisted of 152 mm Krupp armor plates, which (according to British tests) was equivalent to approximately 198 mm of Harvey armor. "Peresvet" carried 229 mm, but it was Harvey's armor …. On "Canopus" the British provided for a high belt covering the bow end - it was very thin, only 51 mm and did not guarantee, of course, the protection of the extremities from heavy enemy shells.
In a battle on July 28, 1904, the Retvizan, whose extremities had protection of the same thickness, received from a long distance an extremely unpleasant hit of a 10-12 dm shell in 51 mm armor plate in the bow. Apparently, the projectile was high-explosive and did not pierce the armor, but the plate cracked and deformed, the side tightness was broken, and water entered the hull. Of course, if the nose of the Russian battleship had no armor at all, the rupture of a high-explosive projectile would have formed a much larger hole, and even worse, fragments could damage the internal watertight bulkheads, thereby causing more extensive flooding than actually happened. We can say that 51 mm armor could not protect the ship from trouble, but it still significantly minimized possible damage - even from a large-caliber projectile.
The armored deck with bevels within the citadel of the "Canopus" had a thickness of 51 mm, which approximately corresponded to, or was slightly larger than that of the "Peresvet". The latter had 38, 1 mm on a steel backing of 12, 7 mm, respectively, the total thickness of the armor deck was 50, 8 mm. It is not known how the British considered their 51 mm, i.e. Whether they ignored the thickness of the steel backing or whether the 51 mm they indicated included it as well, but in any case, the bevels of the English battleship were at least as good as those of the Peresvet. On top of the citadel, the British put another additional 25 mm armored deck (most likely an inch thick). There was a small hoax here - the British had heard about French experiments in the use of howitzers in naval combat and feared that their 51 mm deck would not be enough against the almost sheer falling shells. Accordingly, they put the upper armored deck in order to ensure that the shells were detonated, then the lower armored deck would have to reflect the shrapnel, which it was quite capable of. In fact, the French experiments with howitzers were completely unsuccessful, so that the precaution of the British turned out to be unnecessary. The traverses and barbets of the British battleships defended better than those of the "Peresvetov", but in general the protection of the Russian and British battleships can be considered comparable.
But the main caliber is not. The Canopuses received 305-mm / 35 guns, whose armor penetration was superior to the 254-mm guns of the Peresvet and Oslyabi (perhaps roughly corresponding to the Pobeda's artillery), despite the fact that the power of the British shell was much higher. In terms of the aggregate fighting qualities, "Canopus", perhaps, did not have a decisive superiority over "Peresvet", but it was still stronger (about the same as "Peresvet" was stronger than "Rinaun"). Another thing is the "Victory", which was founded in 1898. Due to the qualitative improvement of the armor (the transition from Harvey to Krupp) and the installation of slightly more powerful 254-mm cannons, Pobeda, perhaps, can still be considered equal to the Canopus. But in 1898, when they began to build the last of the "Peresvetov", the British laid down a series of three ships of the "Formidable" class. Their citadel was formed by armor plates 229 mm thick (Krupp's armor), the bow end was covered with 76 mm armor belt, and the stern - 38 mm, despite the fact that the battleships carried the latest 305-mm / 40 guns, superior in armor penetration to the 254-mm Pobeda cannon. At the same time, the battleships of Britain, during a 30-hour test with 4/5 of full power, showed 16, 8 - 17, 5 knots at rated power, and during forcing they reached a value of 18, 2 knots. And this despite the fact that the mass of coal approximately corresponded to that of the "Pobeda" (900 in normal and 2000 in full displacement). These ships were also intended for action in the Far East, and were significantly superior in their combat qualities to the battleship Pobeda.
However, the Russian Empire had no choice - having stopped the development of classic squadron battleships, which at the time of laying were the ships of the "Poltava" series, the Naval Department relied on lightweight "battleships-cruisers", which were supposed to successfully solve the tasks of the defense of the Baltic and the cruising war in the ocean. And now the Naval Department simply did not have a project of a modern squadron battleship capable of fighting on equal terms with Japanese ships of the same class!
The concept of building "battleships-cruisers" was logical, economically justified, but at the same time contained only one (but fatal) mistake. The versatility of the "battleship-cruisers" was "bought" at the cost of reducing their combat qualities to the level of a battleship of the 2nd class. This seemed justified at the time the Peresvetov was laid, since there were no more powerful ships among their likely opponents. But one should have guessed that such a concept will be viable exactly until some country decides to oppose the Peresvet with full-fledged squadron battleships, with which the “battleships-cruisers” will no longer be able to fight. After all, it would have been enough for the Germans to switch to the construction of full-fledged battleships of the 1st class - and the fleet, made up of ships like Peresvet, lost dominance in the Baltic, even in the unlikely event that it could catch up with the German Navy in terms of the number of keels. As soon as Japan began to order battleships of the 1st class in England, the "Peresvet" immediately lost the ability to "reason" this Asian country on its own, without reinforcement with "first-rank" battleships. It was enough for the Royal Navy to design high-speed battleships with 305-mm guns for service in the Far Eastern waters - and the "Peresvets" immediately moved from the position of ocean hunters to the "game" column. Although in fairness, we note that the "game" from "Peresvetov" turned out to be quite toothy and capable of pretty much picking up the "hunter".
We can say that in those years Great Britain created a certain standard of naval power - a battleship of the 1st class with a displacement of 15,000 tons. Such a ship was the top of the "food pyramid" on the sea - being able to fight at least on an equal footing with any military ship of the world, such a battleship was not yet excessively large and expensive for serial construction, and offensive, defensive and seaworthy qualities in it merged quite harmoniously. And the refusal to build ships capable of "transferring" on equal terms with the British fifteen-thousanders was, alas, a very gross mistake, no matter how well-intentioned it was dictated.
And this is science for us today. No matter how much we would like, no matter how profitable it may seem to create ships weaker than those that our potential adversaries have, no matter how tender the corvettes and frigates are, “almost the same” as the destroyers of “sworn friends”, but the implementation of a similar strategy will only lead to the fact that the underfunded by the ruble upon creation will be in full, with high percentages paid for with the blood of the crews forced to fight against a more powerful enemy.
Of course, the attempt of the Russian fleet to implement the concept of cruising war by giving the linear forces raider abilities is extremely interesting. However, such an attempt could have a chance of success only if the Russian Empire created 1st class battleships capable of such operations. In other words, for the successful implementation of the concept of "battleships-cruisers" it was required to create not "Peresvet", but ships, similar to the "fifteen thousandth" British squadron battleships, but at the same time capable of pirating in the ocean for a long time. But such ships a priori would have to become larger and more expensive than their English counterparts, to which the Russian Empire, constrained in funds, could not go …
It is interesting that later only Nazi Germany succeeded in doing something similar - by building the Bismarck and Tirpitz, the Germans got a pair of almost perfect anti-British raiders. Each of these ships was at least not inferior (and in fact even superior) in combat power to its main enemy - the newest British battleship of the King George V class, but at the same time it also had an advantage in cruising range. Nevertheless, the German battleships were a little late with their birth - the raiding of single large ships in the era of aviation could not be successful for a long time.
Sometimes "Peresvets" are called the forerunners of battle cruisers, but this is a completely erroneous opinion. First, battlecruisers were nevertheless created for service with line squadrons and did not dispute the need for battleships. Peresvets, in the opinion of their creators, were to become a class that would replace the classic battleships in the Russian fleet (in the Baltic and the Far East). Secondly, we must not forget that a battle cruiser is a ship that has the same main caliber as the battleship, but at a higher speed, for which it has to pay either with weakened protection or with a displacement greater than that of the battleship. The Peresvets did not have the same caliber as their modern battleships, and if we try to look for the forerunners of battlecruisers among the battleships of the early 20th century, then the British Canopuses are much better suited for this role - although, strictly speaking, they are also have nothing to do with.
In conclusion, a few words about the comparison of the Peresvet-class ships with the armored cruisers of Japan. By and large, neither one nor the other was intended to stand in line against full-fledged squadron battleships, but both of them were forced to do this. However, the Japanese armored cruisers could not be considered equal to the Peresvet - and the point here is not at all in the weakened, 178 mm armor belt of Japanese ships, especially since only Asama and Tokiwa were protected by Garvey's armor, and other armored cruisers received Krupp's armor plates. But the 203-mm main caliber of Japanese ships was too weak to inflict decisive damage on well-protected ships with a displacement of 10 thousand tons or more - suffice it to recall the battle in the Korea Strait, when the "Russia" and "Thunderbolt" Jessen fought for many hours against a twice superior enemy. The battle turned out to be extremely fierce, Kamimura made every effort to defeat the Russian ships, but both Russian armored cruisers did not receive any life-threatening damage - despite the fact that they were protected worse than the Peresvetov. An analysis of the damage inflicted by 203-mm shells unequivocally indicates that this caliber did not pose a great threat to battleships. But the 254-mm guns "Peresvetov" were quite capable of inflicting decisive damage on any ship of Admiral H. Kamimura, or "Nissin" with "Kasuga". The Japanese ships were very powerful and well protected, but only armored cruisers, and, of course, they could not oppose Peresvet, which had the combat capabilities of a 2nd class battleship, primarily due to the very powerful Russian 254-mm guns.
Interestingly, the hit statistics of the ten-inch "Peresvetov" casts doubt on the accuracy of these guns. In the battle at Shantung, the Russian battleships used up 344 305-mm shells and 224 - 254-mm, but at the same time the 305-mm cannon achieved 12 hits, and the 254-mm - only four. It turns out that the firing accuracy of twelve-inch guns is much higher than the 254-mm guns of the "Peresvetov" - 3.49% hits against 1.78%. Sometimes one hears the opinion that the almost two-fold superiority of 305-mm guns in percentage of hits indicates some design flaws of 254-mm guns (or their installations), which did not allow firing with the same accuracy as 305-mm. This opinion, of course, has the right to life, since it is confirmed by the actual results of the shooting, but one more thing should be taken into account. The training of the Pobeda and Peresvet artillerymen was much worse than that of the Retvizan, Sevastopol and Poltava, as SI wrote. Lutonin about the 1903 artillery exercises:
"Poltava, taking the first prize, knocked out 168 points, followed by Sevastopol - 148, then Retvizan - 90, Peresvet - 80, Pobeda - 75, Petropavlovsk - 50."
If we assume that the "Tsarevich" shot no better than the "Petropavlovsk", and that the number of points is proportional to the accuracy of the ships' firing, then 4 "twelve-inch" battleships (taking into account the actual consumption of shells in the battle on July 28 for each battleship) should have provided 8-9 hits 305 mm against 4 hits of "Victory" and "Peresvet". In other words, a significant discrepancy in the number of hits may be based on the poor training of the gunners of the "battleships-cruisers", and not at all the materiel of their guns.
But, in addition, we must not forget that the Russian 254-mm high-explosive projectile … could well turn out to be much more powerful than the domestic 12-inch one. This "cute" naval anecdote is due to the fact that the amount of explosives in the domestic ten-inch projectile slightly exceeded that of the twelve-inch - 6, 71 kg versus 5, 98 kg. What's even worse is that due to the lack of pyroxylin, domestic 305-mm shells were filled with smokeless powder, while 254-mm shells were loaded with pyroxylin. This is reliably known for the 2nd Pacific Squadron, but according to Lieutenant V. N. Cherkasov, senior artilleryman of "Peresvet", a similar situation was in Port Arthur. And in this case, the 254-mm high-explosive projectile had an advantage not only in weight, but also in the power of the explosives it contained.
They try to determine the caliber of the projectile hitting the ship by the fragments, but this is not always possible: for example, hitting the 178 mm Mikasa plate when the plate was damaged, but still did not let the projectile go inside. Then it remains only to assess the power of the gap and to determine the caliber by it. The Japanese, being reasonable people, understood that the 305-mm projectile, in any case, should be more powerful than the lighter 254-mm. It is unlikely that it could have occurred to them that the Russians had it all the other way round … And therefore, it cannot be ruled out that some Russian hits with high-explosive 254-mm shells were ranked by them as twelve-inch.
In view of the above, the author of this article has no reason to believe that the 254-mm guns of Peresvet and Pobeda had lower firing accuracy than the 305-mm guns of other Russian battleships. And this meant the extremely unenviable position of any "asamoid" who came out against the "Peresvet" one on one - with a comparable level of training of gunners, of course.
List of used literature:
1. V. Polomoshnov Battle of July 28, 1904 (battle in the Yellow Sea (battle at Cape Shantung))
2. V. B. Hubby "Kaiser-class battleships"
3. V. Maltsev "On the issue of shooting accuracy in the Russo-Japanese War" Part III-IV
4. V. N. Cherkasov "Notes of an artillery officer of the battleship" Peresvet"
5. V. Krestyaninov, S. Molodtsov "Battleships of the" Peresvet "type. "Heroic Tragedy"
6. V. Krestyaninov, S. Molodtsov "Squadron battleships of the" Peresvet "type
7. O. Parks “Battleships of the British Empire. Part IV: His Majesty the Standard"
8. O. Parks “Battleships of the British Empire. Part V: At the turn of the century"
9. R. M. Melnikov "Squadron battleships of the" Peresvet "class"
10. The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905. Fleet actions. The documents. Division III 1st Pacific Squadron. Book one. Actions in the southern naval theater of war. Issue 6th. Fight July 28, 1904
