So, we ended the previous article on the fact that the contract for the construction of a battleship and an armored cruiser of the 1st rank was concluded with Ch. Crump out of competition, and, most importantly, even before the aforementioned Ch. Crump could present projects of these ships. Instead, Provisional Specifications were attached to the contract, which in many ways simply repeated some of the general requirements of the Program for Design that we listed in the previous article (displacement, speed, armament, cruising range and coal reserve as a percentage of normal displacement). Added to these were the size of the crew, information about the stocks of provisions, as well as some technical details, alas, not numerous and, as we will see later, poorly and incorrectly formulated.
But even this specification was not a definitive document. As it follows from the contract, after Ch. Crump returns to America, he must "in accordance with the preliminary specifications and guided by the most modern practice regarding the details" and, of course, "by mutual agreement" to formulate and prepare the final specifications. And then, on the basis of them, to design a cruiser.
At the same time, the "Preliminary Specification" contained a number of flaws, such as:
1. Vague wording;
2. Discrepancies in the Russian and English texts of the document;
3. Arithmetic errors and mistakes;
4. Direct deviations from the requirements of the ITC.
Description of the main errors of the "Preliminary specification" is given by R. M. Melnikov in the book "Cruiser" Varyag "":
1. While the MTC demanded the installation of Belleville boilers, the specification allowed boilers of a different system to be installed on the cruiser - Nikloss. This was in direct violation of the instructions of the ITC;
2. As we said earlier, in the Russian fleet the contractual speed of the ships was supposed to develop on natural thrust, however, forced blowing was allowed for the Varyag (though with some restrictions, but nevertheless);
3. The specification indicated the standard form of testing the cruiser's driving performance at the maximum speed - twelve hours' mileage. In the contract, this requirement was replaced by two runs for six hours;
4. According to the terms of the competition, the technical requirements and design of the main and auxiliary mechanisms of the "armored cruiser of 6,000 tons" had to correspond to the best world models. However, in a contract with an American industrialist, this requirement mysteriously changed to "conformity to the level reached by the Crump plant." In other words, according to the contract, it turned out that if Crump did not do something before, he was not obliged, and if the Russians want to get it, please, but only for an additional fee. Subsequently, this item was widely used by Ch. Crump to his advantage: for example, the Naval Department had to pay separately for electric drives for auxiliary mechanisms;
5. According to the Russian text of the contract, the armored deck was to be made of armor used on "the best ships of this type." However, the English text kept a "small" amendment: "the best ships in the United States Navy."Everything would be fine, but the most modern types of armor (that is, hardened by the Krupp method and extra soft nickel steel) were not used in the US Navy, which allowed Ch. Crump to "shake out" the additional payment for booking the Varyag and the battleship Retvizan, when the MTK began to insist on the use of these types of booking;
6. It was not stipulated that the cost of the contract includes the supply of a number of types of equipment and devices, such as: general ship dynamos, electric motors, electric lighting, telephones, loud chimes and bells;
7. In the case when a ship for the domestic fleet was built abroad, its armament was often not included in the cost of the contract - the obligation to supply it remained with the Naval Department. In this case, weapons were ordered from domestic factories and paid separately, respectively, its cost was not included in the contract. In such cases, weapons, torpedo tubes, ammunition for them, and related devices and devices, such as searchlights, were subject to delivery. But in the case of C. Crump's contract, MTK was surprised to find that all devices for servicing guns and supplying ammunition, such as: rails, elevators, electric motors and dynamos, which usually belonged to the duties of the plant, must be paid by the Maritime Department separately;
8. The draft of the future cruiser was recognized as one of the most important parameters - its excess relative to the contract "was punished" by specially stipulated fines (the first six inches are free, but then $ 21,000 for each next inch (25.4 mm)). Accordingly, the specification established the maximum draft size - 5, 9 m. Everything would be fine, but the English text of the contract provided for a draft of 6, 1 m (20 feet), and the Russian (which is an obvious misprint) - 26 feet or 7, 93 m. there is one of the most important parameters of the cruiser received according to the text as many as three different limiting values, one of which was so great (7, 93 m) that it could not be achieved under any conditions. Naturally, the possibility of subsequently demanding a reasonable draft or fining Ch. Crump's firm for failure to comply with such a requirement was thus completely excluded;
9. The metacentric height, which, according to the MOTC requirements, should have been at least 0.76 m, in the contract and the Specification mysteriously “changed the sign to the opposite” - according to these documents, it should have been no more than 0.76 m;
10. The English text of the specification contained an enlarged summary of the scales: body and devices - 2900 t; power plant - 1250 tons; armament - 574 tons; supply and stocks - 550 tons; coal - 720 tons. For some reason, this summary was absent in the Russian text.
In general, it can be stated that the contract with the firm of Charles Crump was drawn up extremely illiterately and to the great benefit of the latter.
You can, of course, refer to the fact that the contract had to be prepared very quickly … but why? Where was the hurry? What benefits did this contract promise us? Perhaps Ch. Crump offered some extremely favorable prices for his products? It never happened at all - according to the contract, the cost of the cruiser was estimated at 2,138,000 dollars (4,233,240 rubles), while, for example, the cost of the cruiser "Askold" (the project that won the competition in 1898) was only 3.78 million. rub. - we are, of course, talking about ships without weapons and ammunition. That is, not only did the contract for the construction of "Varyag" have many "holes" that allowed Ch. Crump to "legally" increase the cost of construction, but also the initial price was significantly (about 12%) higher than that of the winner of the tender competitor!
However, there is a nuance here that has been repeatedly discussed by lovers of naval history on specialized sites. The fact is that "Varyag" really seems very expensive, even at the contract price, that is, without taking into account the subsequent surcharges. However, the battleship Retvizan, which contracted to build Ch. Crump had a contract value (with reservations, but without weapons) $ 4,328,000. At the same time and almost simultaneously with the Retvizan, the Tsesarevich was being built in France, the contract price of which (also with reservations, but without weapons) was 30,280 000 francs or 5 842 605 US dollars.
In other words, "Retvizan" seemed to cost the domestic treasury much cheaper than "Tsesarevich", and was this not the advantage of Ch. Crump's commercial offer? It was even suggested that the relatively high cost of the Varyag became a form of compensation for the extreme cheapness of the battleship squadron, which the Americans undertook to build.
The dumping price version is certainly a very interesting and logical point of view that could explain a lot. Unfortunately, upon closer inspection, this version does not appear to be correct, and there are three reasons for this.
The first is that, most likely, the cost of the contracts of "Retvizan" and "Tsesarevich" includes a different volume of structures. We know that the tower installations of the Retvizan were produced in Russia, while all eight towers (two - the main, and six medium caliber) of the battleship Tsesarevich were designed and built in France. And here an interesting question arises - was the cost of the development of the tower installations included in the same 5,842,605 US dollars of the contract price of "Tsarevich"? I must say that we are talking about a very large amount - the order of 305-mm turret installations for Retvizan cost 502 thousand rubles, or more than 253 thousand dollars. How much did the 152-mm installation of Tsesarevich cost author, unfortunately, does not know, but it is known that 6 152-mm towers of the squadron battleship "Slava" in total turned out to be more expensive than her two 305-mm towers by 18.6% (632 and 537 thousand rubles, respectively). Applying the same proportion to the cost of the Retvizan towers, and converting rubles into dollars at the then prevailing rate of 1.98 rubles / dollar, we understand that eight Tsesarevich towers could cost more than 550 thousand dollars.
Unfortunately, the author of this article does not have an exact answer to the question whether the cost of tower installations was included in the contract price of Tsearevich, but such reasoning demonstrates at least the fact that it is impossible to compare the contract prices of Retvizan and Tsesarevich head-on. this requires a detailed analysis of all the specifications of both ships. At the same time, indirect data confirm the hypothesis presented by the author.
The fact is that in the "All-Subject Report on the Naval Department for 1897-1900." the full cost of the battleships "Tsesarevich" (14,004,286 rubles) and "Retvizan" (12,553,277 rubles) "with mechanisms, armor, artillery, mines and combat supplies" are given. If we subtract from these figures the contract values of the Tsarevich and Retvizan, adding to the latter the total amount of over-contract payments that the Naval Department paid Ch. Crump for this ship ($ 489,839 not counting the over-contract payments for the Varyag, of course), and converting dollars into rubles at the rate of 1, 98 rubles per dollar, it turns out that the cost of weapons and combat stocks "Tsesarevich" amounted to 2,435,928 thousand rubles, and "Retvizan" - 2,954,556 rubles.
Obviously, if the cost of the Tsesarevich's towers were taken out of the contract price, then it should have been taken into account in the column "armament", because otherwise it would have absolutely nowhere to be. But in this case, guns, ammunition, etc. + 8 Tsesarevich turrets should cost much more than practically the same number of artillery barrels and ammunition for them and two 305-mm Retvizan turrets. We see the opposite - the cost of the Retvizan's armament is higher than that of the Tsarevich, and the difference (518 628 rubles) is suspiciously similar to the 502 thousand rubles that the Naval Department paid to the Metal Plant for a pair of twelve-inch towers.
And from this it follows that (most likely!) The contract price of the "Tsarevich" included the battleship with all the turrets, while the contract price of the "Retvizan" did not include two 305-mm towers, as they were made in Russia. Of course, this increased the cost of the contractual cost of the first and made the second cheaper.
However, not towers alone … The fact is (and this is the second of the above reasons) that "Retvizan" and "Tsesarevich", despite the similar displacement, are very different types of warships, because "Tsesarevich", with its tower medium artillery and littered sides, of course, has a much more complex structure than an American-built ship. After all, the cost of the tower is one thing, and in order for this tower to work, it must be provided with all the necessary types of energy (electricity) and many more different works must be done, and in a very specific French building. Compared to turrets, the casemate placement of medium-caliber guns is technologically many times simpler.
Of course, the fact that the contract price for the construction of the Retvizan was set at 30 months, and the Tsarevich at 46 months, can be interpreted as a "special" attitude towards French suppliers (as you know, the admiral-general had a certain weakness for everything French), but, according to the author, the understanding of the ITC is much closer to the truth, that "Tsesarevich" is much more laborious to manufacture than "Retvizan".
This point of view is also confirmed by the figures for the tonnage value (that is, their cost per one ton of normal displacement, taking into account weapons and combat stocks) of the squadron battleship Pobeda and Prince Suvorov. Both of them were built in Russia, at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg, and the difference in the periods of their construction is not too great (Pobeda was laid down 2 years earlier than Suvorov) to have a too significant effect on the cost of the ships. But the per tonne "cost" of "Pobeda" was 752 rubles / ton, while the "Prince Suvorov" - 1,024 rubles / ton. At the same time, "Victory" was a battleship of classical architecture, and its middle artillery is located in casemates, while "Suvorov" was a domestic copy of the "Tsarevich". As we can see, the cost of the Suvorov by as much as 36, 17% exceeds that of the Pobeda, which indicates a significantly greater complexity of the construction of battleships of the "French" type.
Summarizing the above, we can say with a high degree of probability that the lower price of the Retvizan relative to the Tsarevich is not at all connected with the generosity of Mr. Ch. Crump, but with the fact that the Retvizan project was structurally much simpler than the French battleship. That is, it is quite possible that if we ordered the French not "Tsarevich", but a ship similar to the "Retvizan", then the French could build it for a price quite comparable to that proposed by Ch. Crump.
But the activity of the state controller, Senator T. I. Filippov, finally refutes the version about the cheapness of American ships. He studied the contracts for the supply of "Retvizan" and "Varyag" and other documents related to this transaction, discovered the errors contained in them that caused large over-contract payments, and saw in this the most significant violation of Russian interests. Revealing all this, T. I. Filippov demanded an explanation from the Naval Ministry. Obviously, if the indicated shortcomings had such a reasonable and beneficial explanation for the treasury as the low initial cost of the ships, it would undoubtedly be presented. Instead, P. P. Tyrtov and V. P. Verkhovsky wrote the answer for more than five months and did not indicate anything of the kind in it - according to R. M. Melnikov, this document: "was replete with unconvincing excuses and, being a typical example of formal defense of the" honor of the uniform ", did not contain any substantive explanations."
So, the argument for the cost of the building disappears too - what is left? Maybe the timing? But the fact is that the contract terms for the construction of "Varyag" were not too different from those of "Askold" - 20 and 23 months, respectively. That is, the Americans really undertook to build a cruiser a little faster, but just a three-month profit clearly did not justify the conclusion of a contract out of competition.
As we can see, there were no objective reasons to conclude a contract with Ch. Crump's firm before the tender, but perhaps there were some subjective ones? Indeed, there were such reasons.
To begin with, the William Cramp & Sons Shipbuilding Company looked like a real leviathan against the background of other European companies that entered the competition for the construction of a "1st rank 6,000 ton cruiser". Let us take a closer look at the Germania (Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG "Germania"), which won the competition (and built the Askld armored cruiser for the Russian fleet). Her shipyard at the time of participation in the competition had no more than a thousand people, while the company had no experience in building large warships according to its own designs. Moreover, the history of "Germany" was a series of bankruptcies and commercial failure.
This enterprise was created in 1867 under the name "North German Shipbuilding Company" ("Norddeutsche Schiffbaugesellschaft") and has achieved some success and recognition - for example, in 1876, the "Hohenzollern" was built on it - yes, that very famous "Hohenzollern", personal yacht of Kaiser Wilhelm II. However, despite this highest reputation success, after only three years (in 1879) the company went bankrupt.
Then it was bought by a corporation engaged in the production of steam engines in Berlin (already since 1822), but this did not help - now the "happy buyer" began to have financial problems. As a result, in 1882, on the basis of the existing shipyard, a new company was founded under the well-known name "Schiff- und Maschinenbau AG" Germania "", and it has established itself as a good destroyer builder. Alas - financial troubles continued to haunt the enterprise, and in 1896 "Germany" was acquired by the company "Krupp" - from that moment its expansion began, but with all this, in terms of its size and in 1898 (that is, for the duration of the competition) " Germany "was, by the standards of the shipbuilding industry, a small business.
The Italian company Ansaldo was not far from Germany - at the time of the competition only 1250 people were working on it, and although it successfully built two armored cruisers (Garibaldi and Cristobal Colon), it also had no experience in building large combat ships according to their own projects.
In general, it can be stated that the competition of the Russian Empire did not arouse the interest of the "pillars" of the shipbuilding industry of the Old World - the call to design and build was responded primarily to third-rate European firms. But Charles Crump's enterprise …
The story of "William Crump and Sons" began in 1828, when Charles Crump's father, William Crump, built a small shipbuilding workshop.
The company gradually grew, and after the Civil War in the United States, it began to receive orders from the United States government and built 8 wooden ships for it. From that moment on, the firm regularly created something out of the ordinary.
The largest non-turret battleship in the United States (armored frigate "New Ironsides"). The first American ship with a compound vehicle. The first US transatlantic liners. A year after the death of the founder of the company, William Crump, in 1880, the number of workers and employees of the company amounted to 2,300 people, and the company itself was the largest shipbuilding company in the United States. Until 1898, William Crump & Sons built three battleships (Indiana, Massachusetts, and Iowa) and completed the fourth (Alabama). In addition, the company transferred to the US Navy armored cruisers Brooklyn and New York, two armored cruisers of the Columbia class, as well as Newark, Charleston, Baltimore … The same Germany built from large ships one battleship and one armored cruiser. By 1898, the Kramp shipyards employed 6,000 people, that is, about three times more than the shipyards of "Germany" and "Ansaldo" combined.
But that's not all. Without a doubt, the name and reputation of the company mean a lot, but it was extremely important that the Marine Department had already placed its orders at the shipyards "William Crump and Sons". In 1878, Crump's workers repaired the hull and machines of the "Cruiser" clipper and, apparently, did it well, because next year Ch. Crump got a contract for as many as four cruisers of the 2nd rank, of which three ("Europe", "Asia" and "Africa") had to be converted from civilian ships, and "Bully" had to be built "from scratch". They turned to Crump later - in 1893 he repaired mine boats of the Dmitry Donskoy cruiser.
Charles Crump was known not only among the ranks of the Naval Department: in 1879, at an exhibition in Paris, he was presented to the Grand Duke Konstantin Konstantinovich. He, by the way, was extremely surprised that Ch. Crump, owning such a solid company, himself does not have a shipbuilding education and is, in fact, self-taught - but this could hardly spoil the reputation of the American, given the brilliant success achieved by the company under his leadership.
Thus, without a doubt, the admirals of the Naval Department, Charles Crump presented himself as the owner of one of the leading shipbuilding enterprises in the world, which already worked for the Russian fleet, and this, of course, played a role in getting him an order for the Retvizan and Varyag. But … the point is that something else is also true: as a result of interaction with William Crump & Sons, the Marine Department had the "pleasure" to be convinced of … how to put it politely? The "slightly" adventurous nature of its owner. Let's return briefly to the time when "Crump and Sons" received a contract for a rank 2 cruiser.
So, on February 8, 1878, at the end of the next Russian-Turkish war, and with the most direct participation of England, Russia was imposed an unsuccessful San Stefano peace treaty for her. In response, the Navy blew the dust off a cruising war plan against Great Britain - it was a very interesting plan, developed in 1863, in which the Atlantic, Pacific and Indian oceans were "sliced" into 15 sectors, in each of which had to act Russian cruiser. A huge advantage of this plan was a very well thought-out support system for these cruisers - it was envisaged to deploy a whole network of supply vessels, etc. In general, the plan was good for everyone, except for one - at that time Russia did not have fifteen cruisers. And so, in order to quickly replenish their number, an "expedition to America" was undertaken to acquire and convert four suitable US civilian ships into cruisers. However, for "cruiser No. 4" the tasks were very different from the other three - in it the Naval Department wanted to see not only a raider, but also a high-speed reconnaissance officer with a squadron, capable of performing the role of a stationary in peacetime. In other words, the cruiser was supposed to be small (within 1200 tons), but fast enough (15 knots under the car and 13 under sails). At the same time, the consumption of coal at full speed should not exceed 23 tons / day. They did not find a suitable civilian vessel for such requirements, so it was decided to build a ship by ordering it from one of the US shipbuilding firms.
So - I must say that the best conditions for the construction of "cruiser No. 4", which later became "Bully" were offered by the Boston shipyard, which, while fulfilling all the other requirements of the Russians, undertook to provide a speed of 15, 5 knots and offered the lowest price for ship - $ 250 thousandHowever, Charles Crump played into the hands of the fact that he had already received a contract for the conversion of three ships into the cruisers "Europe", "Asia" and "Africa". At the same time, Ch. Crump undertook to build a ship that would fully meet the given "technical specifications" within the required time frame.
In June 1878 "cruiser No. 4" was laid down, and on February 22, 1879 "Bully", with more than two months delay from the schedule, went to trial tests, from which Charles Crump created a real show. The cruiser easily reached a maximum speed of 15.5 knots, surpassing the contract by half a knot, and her average speed was 14.3 knots. Of course, there were newsmen on board the ship and the unexpectedly high performance of the ship literally blew up, as it is now fashionable to say, the "information space" - the New York Herald spoke of the Bully generally managed to declare that "the ship is superior to any military cruiser built in the world."
Newspapers, not being professionals, overlooked one most important nuance - "Bully" entered the race not just underloaded, but totally underloaded. With a design displacement of 1 236 tons, in which it was supposed to be tested, Ch. Crump put the cruiser on the run with only a displacement of 832 tons. ballast is taken, which could compensate for the indicated weights. Of course, shipbuilders of other countries also sinned with similar methods, but … by a third of the displacement ?!
Of course, it was impossible for the Russian officers who carried out control and acceptance of the ship in this way to “rub in the glasses”. And in fact, Ch. Crump handed over the ship:
1. Two months late;
2. With a deepening by 1 foot - it must be said that under the terms of the contract, when the draft of the ship differed from the design one by more than a foot, the Naval Department had the right to abandon the cruiser altogether;
3. With a maximum speed of 14.5 knots - that is, half a knot below the contract;
4. And, finally, with the consumption of coal one and a half times higher than it was supposed to be under the terms of the contract.
In fact, one could say that the ship should not have been taken into the treasury at all, but … despite the failure to reach the contractual conditions, the ship still turned out not so bad, and the cruisers of Russia were urgently needed. Therefore, it was decided not to leave the “Bully” Ch. Crump, and the cruiser eventually raised the Andreevsky flag. Still, the enterprise of Ch. Crump in this case did not justify the hopes placed on it (in fairness, let us clarify that with the re-equipment of "Europe", "Asia" and "Africa" "William Crump and Sons" coped much better).
However, the financial policy of Ch. Krump attracts attention. As we said, the Boston shipyard proposed to build a cruiser with a speed of 15.5 knots. for 250 thousand dollars, Ch. Crump asked for the construction of "cruiser No. 4" 275 thousand dollars, that is, 25 thousand dollars more. However, this amount did not satisfy Ch. Crump at all, and therefore in the course of construction, emphasizing all the nuances not stipulated by the contract, he managed to demand himself over-contract payments in the amount of $ 50,662! Thus, the total cost of the "Bully" tended to 325.6 thousand dollars, which was more than 30% higher than the initial price of the Boston shipyard.
It was only in 1879 that they found someone to curb the appetites of the American industrialist. The maritime department fully agreed and confirmed both $ 275 thousand of the initial price and $ 50.6 thousand of payments in excess of the contract. And then, with an unwavering hand and pointing to the relevant paragraphs, she collected fines from Ch. Crump for all the violations committed by him in the total amount of 158 thousand dollars. As a result of this negotiation, “Bully”, for which only 167 thousand 662 were paid dollars became almost the cheapest overseas acquisition of the Russian Imperial Navy in the entire history of its existence.
Thus, as we have said before, Charles Crump's enterprise was supported by its solidity and reputation. But the history of the construction of the "Bully" obviously testified that despite all his "regalia", Ch. Crump would not disdain in any way to increase his own profit, and it does not matter whether such a method is legal and honest or not.
Such "uncleanliness", of course, does not mean that one cannot deal with Ch. Crump's firm. In business, there is generally no biblical honesty. The honesty that can be expected from a businessman is the execution of the contract signed with him in accordance with each of its clauses. If the contract is meticulously executed, but at the same time the customer did not receive what he wanted, then these are the problems of the customer, who should learn to formulate their requirements more clearly. Accordingly, the history of "Bully" irrefutably testified that it was necessary to keep an eye on Ch. Crump and be extremely careful and careful in all matters and in the wording of any document signed with him.
At the same time, there were many ways in which it was possible to do business with Ch. Crump. Without a doubt, it would be best to accept his draft and consider it by the ITC on a common basis with the projects of other companies that sent their proposals to the competition. But no one forbade to conclude an agreement with him out of competition - only in this case it was necessary to first obtain from Ch. Crump the developed project, agree it with the ITC and only then finally approve both the decision to order Ch. Crump's ships and the cost of their acquisition. In this case, all the advantages would remain on the side of the Maritime Department and the ITC, and Ch. Crump would have to play the role of "what will you please?" without raising prices too much. And then, after the project had been developed and agreed by the parties, Charles Crump found it much more difficult to bargain for himself over-contract payments or other concessions. Alas, what was done was done instead, and we see no reason to justify such a strange haste in a deal with an American industrialist.
Thus, we can only congratulate Mr. Charles Crump on an extremely successful deal for his firm.
