Despite the fact that the contract for the construction of two armored cruisers of the 2nd rank was signed only on September 22, 1901, in fact, work on the "Pearl" began earlier, on February 17 of the same year. However, they concerned mainly the preparation of production, and to a much lesser extent - the construction itself: by October 1901, the ship's readiness was estimated at 6%, but mainly due to auxiliary operations. Work on the second cruiser, Izumrud, began after the contract was signed, on October 1, 1901.
At the same time, the "Zhemchug" entered the factory tests on August 6, 1904. For the "Izumrud" this date can be considered September 19, when it went out to sea to test machines. True, before that, "Izumrud" made the transition from the "Nevsky" plant to Kronstadt, and "Pearl" officially entered the campaign as early as July 15, but this was due to the desire to complete the acceptance of these ships as soon as possible and prepare them for the march to Dalny Vostok as part of the 2nd Pacific Squadron. In fact, factory tests at sea were started at the time indicated above.
Consequently, almost 3 years passed (rounding up) from the date of the construction start to the factory running tests for Izumrud, and 3 years and 6 months for Zhemchug. Against the background of similar terms of "Boyarin" (2 years and 7 months), and, even more so, "Novik" (1 year 5 months), such terms do not look very good. Of course, on the one hand, the timing of the construction of the Pearl is artificially delayed by a long preparatory period, and the difference between the Emerald and Boyarin seems to be not so great. Moreover, the "Izumrud" was accepted into the treasury on September 24, 1904, that is, from the start of construction work to the receipt by the fleet, all the same 3 years passed. But you need to understand that by the time the factory sea trials began, the "Izumrud" was much less finished with construction than the "Boyarin".
The Danish-built cruiser entered the fleet after 2 years and 9 months. after the start of work on it, and at the end of the specified period, "Boyarin" was a completely finished warship that had passed almost a full course of tests (mine vehicles and, for some reason, loud battle bells were not tested). The MTK specialists, who examined it in Kronstadt, did not find any particular reasons for criticism, and, although on the way to the Far East, the cruiser still called in Denmark to carry out repairs, these works were small and very insignificant.
At the same time, "Izumrud" was officially accepted into the treasury on September 24, that is, on the very first day of official sea trials, while even by the time of departure to the Far East, a number of cruiser units were not ready, so that individual systems were accepted even in Madagascar, and some of them were not commissioned at all. In other words, on November 3, 1904, the ship went on a cruise, corny unfinished and did not go through a full cycle of tests.
Thus, if we consider the end of the construction and acceptance of the cruisers of the Nevsky Zavod into the treasury the date of their departure on the campaign, then the terms of their construction for the "Pearl" and "Izumrud" were 3 years and 8 months. and 3 years and 1 month. It is interesting that for the Zhemchug this actually happened, while the cruiser was accepted by the Russian Imperial Navy retroactively: on January 28, 1905, it was decided to assume that the Zhemchug entered service on October 2, 1904.
We can, perhaps, say that if the "Pearl" and "Izumrud" still passed the full course of tests, and all the necessary accompanying work were performed on them, then this would lengthen the terms of their commissioning by another couple of months … Taking into account the fact that the preparatory period for the construction of "Pearl" is unnecessary, and through no fault of the plant was delayed, most likely we can talk about an average construction period of 3 years and 3 months, with a planned construction time of 2 years 4 months. for the first ship and 3 years for the second. “Boyarin” was under construction for 2 years and 9 months, “Novik” - 2 years and 4 months, and against this background, the results of the Nevsky Plant, of course, do not look, but, on the other hand, one cannot say that they are completely disastrous, especially considering that the enterprise for a long time did not deal with warships larger than destroyers. Still, oddly enough, to some extent the timeliness of construction was influenced by … the elements, since the cruisers twice suffered from floods. For the first time - indirectly, at the R. Krug plant, ready-made evaporators for cruisers were damaged, at Siemens-Halsk, the delivery of dynamos was disrupted. But on December 2, 1903, the pressure of the broken ice tore off the "Pearl" from the moorings and pulled it 533 m away from the outfitting wall, where it got stuck in the ice plug. "Emerald" stuck to the shore, its nose was aground. Fortunately, both cruisers did not receive any damage to the hull, so that hardly all this led to significant delays in construction - nevertheless, as they say, the fact took place.
We will return to the question of the quality of the construction at the end of this series of articles, and now we will move on to the construction of "Pearls" and "Emerald". However, due to the fact that both of these cruisers were built according to the Novik project, it makes no sense to describe it in detail: let's concentrate better on the differences between the ships built by the Nevsky Zavod and our German prototype.
Artillery and mine weapons
Initially, the project assumed an almost complete copy of Novik, the cruisers were to receive 6 * 120-mm, 6 * 47-mm guns, as well as one 63.5-mm Baranovsky landing cannon and a 37-mm cannon for equipping boats. In addition, it was supposed to install two 7, 62-mm machine guns on Mars, and the mine armament consisted of 5 * 381-mm torpedo tubes, two throwing devices for boats and 25 mines. Thus, the difference was only one single mine apparatus, since according to the initial project, Novik should have had 6 of them.
The only thing that is incomprehensible is the question of the 37-mm guns. In the original project of "Izumrud" and "Zhemchug" there was only one such gun, and was intended for arming the boat, and on the "Novik", perhaps, there were no guns of this caliber at all. But then, at some point in time, both on the Novik and on the cruisers of the Nevsky Plant, 2 * 37-mm guns appeared, which were to be installed on the wings of the aft bridge. Unfortunately, the author does not know the exact date of the decision on the installation of these cannons; it can only be argued that this happened until the moment when the question arose about strengthening the artillery of the cruisers of the Nevsky Plant, that is, until October 1903. As a result, the Novik had 37-mm cannon were installed exactly where it was planned, but on the "Izumrud" and "Pearl" they were ultimately placed in the area of the 92nd frame, that is, at the stern, between the aft bridge and the extreme pair of side 120-mm guns.
It is also unclear at what time Zhemchug and Izumrud received the second pair of machine guns, which were placed on the wings of the nose bridge: the first pair, like on Novik, was located on Mars.
But, by and large, all these are trifles. But the catalyst for the first major change was the Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich, our infamous General-Admiral, and I must say that this time his order was completely reasonable and correct. He ordered to completely remove from the "Pearl" and "Izumrud" all mine weapons, both torpedo tubes and barrage mines.
Taking into account the fact that domestic torpedoes of 381 mm caliber, even at 25 knots, could overcome only 900 m, they did not pose any danger to the enemy in a naval battle. The only purpose that could be thought of for them is the rapid destruction of the captured transports. But, since the Russian armored cruisers of the 2nd class were not intended to operate on communications, even this, an extremely situational advantage, for which, by the way, did not require 5 mine vehicles, they did not need.
But the danger from torpedoes was very serious - the narrow and long hulls of the cruisers did not leave room for mine vehicles in the hold, so they could only be placed in the upper part of the hull without any protection. Naturally, the hits of enemy shells could lead to the detonation of the mine ammunition, which, in turn, would lead to severe damage, or even the death of the cruiser. So the admiral-general's desire to deprive the Zhemchug and Emerald of both self-propelled mines and minefields was an excellent solution, which, moreover, also saved displacement.
The next step was taken by the captain of the 2nd rank P. P. Levitsky, who at the beginning of 1902 became the commander of the "Pearl", and before that was overseeing the construction of cruisers. According to him, the MTK in October 1903 considered the issue of installing two additional 120-mm cannons, at the expense of the weights released as a result of the removal of mines and mine vehicles. However, the decision was delayed: apparently, this case was moved by none other than Stepan Osipovich Makarov. Of course, in his usual extravagant manner.
As you know, S. O. Makarov considered the ideal type of warship to be a "armless vessel" - an armored cruiser with a displacement of 3,000 tons, armament of 203-mm and 152-mm guns and a moderate speed of 20 knots, and remained an adherent of this theory until his death. And so, having received on February 1, 1904, the appointment of the commander of the 1st Pacific Squadron, Stepan Osipovich immediately submitted to the Naval Ministry a proposal for a very global restructuring of the Pearl and Izumrud.
In short, the idea of S. O. Makarova was simple enough (in words). He proposed to "throw away" one steam engine together with boilers, which should have provided about 270 tons of weight savings. Instead, according to Stepan Osipovich, it was necessary to install 2 machines with a capacity of 100 hp in the boiler room. "For quiet cruising", increase coal reserves by about 100 tons, and also completely change the composition of artillery weapons, replacing 6 * 120-mm, 6 * 47-mm and 2 * 37 mm guns with 1 * 203-mm, 4 * 152-mm and 10 * 75-mm cannons and, in addition, return 4 mine vehicles to the ships. This was supposed to add 112 tons of weight to the cruiser, thus, taking into account the "hundred-strength" vehicles and the additional supply of coal, the reserve from removing the vehicle turned out to be exhausted. The speed of the cruisers was to drop by 2, 7 knots, and S. O. Makarov believed that the remaining 22, 3 knots. will be enough. Obviously, he did not know that the speed of the Pearl and Emerald was allowed to be reduced to 24 knots.
I must say that the chief inspector of shipbuilding N. I. Kuteinikov immediately declared: "After all, this is a new excitement of the question of an armored combat ship!" Nikolai Evlampievich, nevertheless, was political: he did not try to defend his point of view, but agreed with all the reasons of S. O. Makarov. But at the same time, he notified the chairman of the ITC that such a restructuring would delay the delivery of the cruisers by at least 9 months each: it is clear that during the war no one would have gone to such a thing.
Nevertheless, it can be assumed that the ideas of Stepan Osipovich, at least, had the positive effect that the case of re-arming the Pearl and Izumrud got off the ground, and both cruisers received an additional pair of 120-mm guns, located instead of the middle one. pairs of 47 mm guns. The latter were moved to the wings of the aft bridge, where 37-mm guns were supposed to be located, well, and those, in turn, took their place on the upper deck at the 92nd frame, as mentioned above.
However, it also turned out to be negative - under the influence of S. O. Makarov, 3 of the 5 mine apparatus envisaged by the initial project returned to the cruiser of the Nevsky Plant - one stern and two traverse, the latter were placed in the hull under the bow 120-mm gun.
Thus, the armament of "Pearl" and "Izumrud" ultimately amounted to 8 * 120-mm, 6 * 47-mm, 2 * 37-mm guns, 4 * 7, 62-mm machine gun and 3 * 381-mm torpedo tubes … Weight savings were 24 tonnes from the original design.
Unfortunately, neither Zhemchug nor Izumrud received side keels, which are extremely important for them. The fact is that the operation of the Novik showed that the narrow and long hull was subject to strong rolling, which made the cruiser a very unstable artillery platform. In 1903 (apparently, already closer to June) P. P. Levitsky proposed to install such keels on the cruiser of the Nevsky plant. According to the results of calculations performed by engineer Skvortsov, MTC authorized the installation of such keels with a length of 48, 8 m and a "depth" of 71, 12 cm - they significantly improved seaworthiness, although they caused a slight loss of speed. The plant even started the production of these keels, but alas, it quickly became clear that their installation would still delay the launch of the cruisers, and they had to be abandoned.
Reservation
It was completely identical to the "Novik" - the deck had 30 mm in the horizontal part (20 mm of armor on a 10 mm steel substrate) and 50 mm on bevels (35 mm of armor on a 15 mm substrate). To protect the parts of the vehicles protruding above the armored deck, 70 mm glacis were provided (55 mm of armor on a 15 mm substrate), covered from above with 30 mm of armor. Just like on the Novik, the conning tower and the pipe from it under the armored deck had armor of 30 mm thick, and the artillery was covered with armored shields. Unfortunately, there are no correct data on the weight of the armor protection on the Novik and Russian-built cruisers, so it is not possible to identify the presence of over- or underweight.
Power plant
With machines and boilers, everything turned out very predictable. It is known that Shihau boilers were used on Novik, which were, in fact, modernized boilers of Thornycroft. As you can see from the history of the cruiser, this decision fully justified itself: despite the extreme intensity of operation, they proved to be quite reliable, and began to "hand over" at the end of the cruiser's service. But at the time of the decision on the power plants "Pearl" and "Izumrud", the Russian Imperial Navy did not yet have experience in operating them and treated the new type of boilers with certain caution. So, overseeing the construction of the cruisers Zhemchug and Izumrud, senior mechanical engineer N. I. Ilyin, having visited the Novik tests in Danzig, wrote to the chief inspector for mechanical parts in the fleet, Major General N. G. Novikov: “While recognizing some of the advantages of the Shikhau boilers in terms of achieving a more complete combustion of fuel in them, one cannot but pay attention to some of their negative qualities”. N. I. Ilyin pointed out the design features that impeded their thorough cleaning, the difficulty of jumper and plugging of water-heating pipes, the excessive curvature of these pipes, which contributed to the accumulation of scale and their frequent burnout. The Nevsky plant insisted on using Yarrow boilers, but he had his own interest in this matter: firstly, by building destroyers, the plant already had considerable experience in manufacturing Yarrow boilers, and secondly, its owners were so sure of receiving an order for a cruiser for own project, which began, on the sly, the production of boilers for the Yarrow system for them. Thus, the Nevsky Zavod already had a certain groundwork, which, however, could not have been used if a different type of boilers had been chosen for the cruisers.
The case ended with the MTC submitting an extensive explanatory note to the Ministry of the Navy, in which it compared boilers of various systems, including even Nikloss boilers. Based on the comparison results, MTK specialists recommended using Yarrow boilers as the most tested and reliable: it was noted that their design is the simplest and most convenient for maintenance. It was also taken into account that the Nevsky Zavod is capable of producing boilers of this type on its own, without foreign assistance. The result of all this was the resolution of the Head of the Marine Department: "I agree on Yarrow … Speed below 24 knots is unacceptable."
As a result, Zhemchug and Izumrud received 16 Yarrow boilers each, while Novik had 12 Shihau boilers. Unfortunately, this decision led to an increase in the mass of the cruiser's power plant, but how much is very difficult to say.
We, of course, have the figures kindly provided to us by V. V. Khromov in his monograph "Cruisers of the" Pearl "class". According to his data, the mass of the boilers and mechanisms of the Novik cruiser was 589 tons, while the Zhemchug and Izumrud had 799 tons, that is, the power plant with Yarrow boilers seemed to be 210 tons heavier.
But, firstly, here the question arises of the correctness of the distribution of weights in the summary, that is, the weights of the same components could appear in different articles of the weight lists. Indeed, if we look at the weight summary given by A. Emelin in the book “Cruiser“Novik”, we will see completely different figures.
We see that the structure of the weight reports is very different, and according to A. Emelin, it turns out that the weight of the Novik machines and boilers is as much as 790 tons. What is the difference between these two figures?
On the one hand, it is obvious that A. Emelin also had a mass of boiler water in his machines and boilers, which V. V. Khromov is given separately, but this is still 63 tons. In total, we have differences not 589 tons against 790 tons, but only 653 against 790 tons. Then, in V. V. Khromov, steam pipelines, dynamo and ventilation are placed in a separate line, in the amount of 138 tons, and at least part of this "sits" in 790 tons of A. Emelin. This conclusion is made because in other articles the load for these steam lines, dynamo, etc. there is simply no room left: according to V. Khromov, the hull is even heavier, and in the article "Various equipment" (97 tons) there are obviously boats and davits (46 tons), that is, no more than 51 tons are left for steam pipelines.
So, unfortunately, the same "leapfrog" with weights is possible in a separate table by V. V. Khromova: it is possible, for example, that part of the scales that Izumrud has in the article "Main mechanisms and boilers" for Novik are taken into account in the mass of the case or in "Ventilation, steam pipe, dynamo". It should never be forgotten that the Novik is a German-built cruiser, and the Germans did not carry the weights of the ships in the way it was customary in our country. Therefore, it cannot be argued that the decision to switch to Yarrow boilers cost us 210 tons of additional weight only on boilers and machines - this may be a mistake.
So, for example, it is very difficult to understand why under the article “Ventilation, steam pipe, dynamo”, “Izumrud” saved 24 tons in comparison with “Novik”. The “Izumrud” has more boilers, in theory, and there should be more piping, in addition, the cruisers of the Nevsky Plant had a device for blowing the Kingstons with steam (on the “Novik” they were “blown through” with water). Moreover, the ratio of the masses of feed water for boilers also looks extremely strange - only 63 tons for Novik and 196 tons for Izumrud. More than three times the difference! Again, there is a feeling that these figures are not equivalent: perhaps 63 tons for Novik is the water that must be directly in the power plant, and 196 tons for Izumrud is the same, but also a supply of such water additionally?
Why are we talking about this in such detail? The fact is that usually "Pearl" and "Izumrud" appear in comparison with "Novik" overloaded, and therefore less fast ships. Many people interested in naval history, on this basis, consider them less successful, and scold domestic shipbuilders who made ships heavier and slower than their foreign prototypes. Of course, in a number of cases, this is exactly what happened, but can the construction of "Pearls" and "Izumrud" be attributed to such cases?
Undoubtedly, both "Izumrud" and "Zhemchug" were heavier than "Novik", and, at the same time, showed lower speed in tests. However, part of the "excess" weight of the cruisers of the Nevsky Plant appeared as a result of quite deliberate decisions of the fleet management, who sought to improve the Zhemchug and Izumrud relative to their prototype Novik. That is, there was a conscious desire to sacrifice a certain amount of speed, but to get some other benefits at this expense. Construction overload is another matter; this was, of course, pure evil, connected either with incorrect calculation of weights, or poor weight discipline.
Therefore, we will try to figure out how many tons Zhemchug and Izumrud gained in weight relative to Novik as a result of deliberate decisions of the management, and how much - as a result of the worse quality of work of Nevsky Zavod and its counterparties in comparison with the Shikhau shipyard.
So, it turns out that if V. V. Khromov are absolutely correct, the replacement of Shihau boilers with Yarrow boilers, caused by the desire of the Ministry of the Navy to ensure an acceptable balance between the reliability of the power plant and its weight, "cost" "Pearl" and "Izumrud" 343 tons of payload weight - this is how the masses of the machines differ, boilers and water supplies for them.
At the same time, in addition to the design of the boilers, there were other changes. As we said earlier, "Novik" did not reach the cruising range, but this happened because the design of the cruiser's chassis did not provide for disconnecting couplings on the shafting. As a result, when trying to follow the economic course under the left and right machines, the central propeller of the Novik could not rotate by the oncoming water flow and created too much resistance to save coal. As a result, the ship had to set all three vehicles in motion even on economic propulsion. But on "Zhemchug" and "Izumrud", release couplings were installed, and this, undoubtedly, should have had the most positive effect on its travel range. In addition, zinc rings were installed on the stern shafts, greatly reducing galvanic corrosion. Nevertheless, these innovations are unlikely to greatly increase the mass of the power plant - perhaps we are talking about tons, but hardly tens of tons.
In addition, one more question remains open. Obviously, the Yarrow boilers turned out to be somewhat heavier than the Shihau boilers, but how much is this weight gain associated with the design of the boilers, and how much - with the domestic performance? In other words, V. V. Khromov gives the mass of machines and boilers 799 tons, and how much would exactly the same machines and boilers weigh if the same Germans took over their production?
Usually the author in the section "Power plant" gives a description of the sea trials of ships, as well as fuel reserves and cruising range. But now we will only note that the stock of coal in the normal displacement of the Novik and Izumrud was the same - 360 tons, but we will put everything else in a separate section, which will be published after analyzing all the weights of the cruisers built by the Nevsky Plant.
