Both cruisers, and "Pearl" and "Emerald", immediately after the completion of construction (although, perhaps, it would be more correct to say - a little before it was completed) went on a long voyage, the apotheosis of which was the tragic battle for the Russian fleet of Tsushima. However, these cruisers did not leave together. The Zhemchug set off on a campaign on October 2, 1904 as part of the 2nd Pacific Squadron. "Emerald" was included in the so-called "Additional squadron of ships of the 2nd squadron of the Pacific Fleet", which included ships that did not have time for the campaign of the main forces. This unit, colloquially referred to as the "Catching Detachment", left the Baltic on November 3, 1904 under the command of Captain 1st Rank L. F. Dobrotvorsky and met with the main forces of Z. P. Rozhdestvensky only in Madagascar. Therefore, we will consider the path from Libava to Madagascar for each cruiser separately.
Pearl
It must be said that the Zhemchug, being the lead cruiser in the series, was always considered by the leadership of the Nevsky Shipyard as a priority ship, and, with the outbreak of the war, the efforts of the builders were focused on it. Therefore, of course, the "Pearl" was built with a higher quality and was in the best technical condition by the time it left Libava. Nevertheless, he still did not pass the prescribed test cycle, and one would expect various "childhood illnesses" of the ship during the cruise. In addition, there was another problem - non-technical in nature. The fact is that the Russian Empire experienced difficulties with crews - by urgently commissioning and acquiring warships abroad, it simply did not have time to prepare crews for them.
According to the report of the cruiser commander, on the ship entrusted to him, 33% of the total number of the crew were "reserve lower ranks", and another 20% were young sailors. In other words, the "Pearl" left for a campaign and battle with more than 50% of an unprepared crew that needed additional training. This, of course, does not mean that it was the same on the other ships of the squadron, but on the Zhemchug things were exactly the same.
In general, the cruiser demonstrated quite acceptable technical reliability, although the campaign began with embarrassment: at the very first stop at about. Langeland (Great Belt Strait) managed to sink boat # 2. When it was launched into the water, the bow cable broke, which caused the boat to hang on one davit, bent it, and then went under the water. A buoy was dropped at the site of the drowning of the boat, but it was not possible to find it. Then they decided to at least repair the bent davit, but alas, they did not succeed here either, drowning it during an attempt to transfer it to the Kamchatka floating workshop.
However, the only really serious problem that the ship faced was poor steering, which was especially evident just before the arrival of the Pearl in Madagascar: Hooke's gimbal broke three times. The first time this happened when the squadron entered the Atlantic Ocean, again on October 14, and for the third time on November 18, on the way to Djibouti. And for the second and third time it turned out that Hooke's cardan failed just at the moment when the electric drive did not work either. As a result, on October 14, the cruiser had to stop the vehicles for repairs, and on November 18, although the vehicles were not stopped, the Zhemchug was forced to raise “Can't be controlled”. Control had to be transferred to the steering compartment, where commands were given by voice, after which the cruiser was able to return to service. This time the problem was corrected within 24 hours.
Thus, the steering of the Pearl demanded special attention. The cruiser commander had to take a number of preventive measures, including the purchase of spare parts, which most often failed, in order to have them on the ship in reserve all the time. In addition, constant supervision of the steering was organized, and all this gave a positive result. According to P. P. Levitsky: "… damage often happened before the arrival of the cruiser to Madagascar, but after that everything was so successfully adjusted that such cases of damage did not happen until the arrival of the cruiser in Vladivostok."
True, all of the above did not apply to the electric steering drive - it worked very badly during the entire campaign, and did not act in the Tsushima battle. And, in addition, a significant rudder accident happened in Madagascar itself, but this was not related to the steering drives: the rudder blade was damaged. After one of the cruiser's exits from the parking lot at sea, a malfunction was discovered - apparently the ship reacted poorly to course changes. Upon examination, it turned out that the rivets holding the steering wheel cover riveted, which is why the steering frame was partially exposed. It took 9 days of hard work to fix the damage, according to P. P. Levitsky divers worked around the clock. They pulled off the skin with through bolts, after which it bounced back and until Vladivostok there were no complaints about the rudder blade.
As for the rest, as noted by the commander of the "Pearl" P. P. Levitsky, in his testimony to the Investigative Commission: “There were no damages in the boilers and mechanisms that were more or less serious and could serve as an obstacle for the cruiser to follow the squadron or reduce its combat ability; any unimportant damage was repaired immediately by ship means”.
The description of the Zhemchug's driving characteristics given by its commander is very interesting. In his words, “the normal deepening of a cruiser in full load” (in fact, oddly enough, this florid wording hides the normal displacement of the ship) was, according to the specification, 16 feet and 4.75 inches, that is, roughly 5 m. By the way, the draft on the Zhemchug tests was 5.1 m. But on the Zhemchug campaign, it was constantly overloaded, so its draft reached 18 feet (5.48 m), which was primarily due to overloading the cruiser with coal. Recall that in a normal displacement, the weight of coal should have been 360 tons, and the total capacity of the coal pits was 535 tons. they were simply poured onto the deck, as well as on the upper deck and the stokers, where the coal was stored in bags. But in addition, the ship also had other "oversized" cargoes necessary for long voyages - practical shells in excess of the full ammunition load, additional stocks of provisions, spare parts and other supplies.
On average, according to the commander of the cruiser P. P. Levitsky, the draft of the "Pearl" tended to 17.5 feet (5.33 m). Assuming that the design draft of the cruiser of 5 m corresponded to the normal displacement of 3,177 tons (as given in the Izumrud's balance sheet), and taking into account the fact that it went out for testing in a displacement of 3,250 tons and a draft of 5, 1 m., then we can assume that an overload of 7.3 tons caused an increase in draft of 1 cm. According to some data, for the armored cruiser "Novik" this figure was slightly more than 6 tons. If the above calculation is correct, then the draft is 5.33 m (17, 5 ft.) corresponded to a displacement of 3 418 tons, which was 168 tons more than the displacement with which the "Pearl" went out for testing. Thus, we can say that the specified P. P. Levitsky's draft approximately corresponded to the full displacement of the cruiser.
So, according to the Zhemchug commander, with such an overload: "we had to increase the number of onboard vehicle revolutions by 6-7 revolutions (which corresponds to a speed loss by 1 knot) against the number of revolutions that corresponded to the normal deepening of the cruiser." Such a result, achieved not on a measured mile, but in a combat campaign, in daily operation, and even on a ship that has not gone through a full cycle of tests and related refinements, should be recognized as brilliant.
Unexpectedly, the lightness of the hull affected. The storage of coal on the upper deck led to its deflection, from which the 120-mm guns on the waist (probably, we are talking about four installations located on the side between the main and foremast) began to rotate tightly in the horizontal plane.
Otherwise, the movement of the "Pearl" from Libava to Madagascar was not of particular interest. The cruiser did not take part in the infamous "Hull incident". Upon arrival in Tangier on October 21, the squadron split up. The old battleships Sisoy the Great and Navarin, accompanied by the armored cruisers Svetlana, Almaz and Zhemchug, went on the same day to Madagascar through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal, following the destroyers of the squadron who had left the same route earlier. They were commanded by Rear Admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Felkerzam, who had previously held the flag on the battleship Oslyabya. The main forces, including the 1st Armored Detachment, the Oslyabya and the large cruisers, stayed in Tangier for two days, after which they moved around Africa.
Both detachments subsequently reached Madagascar almost simultaneously, although they did not connect immediately. There were no special adventures on the road, with the possible exception of an incident in Crete: the British press claimed that as a result of the violent spree of Russian sailors, 15 inhabitants of this island were killed. The Russian consul clarified that some sort of showdown, usual in the port city, did take place, but was promptly settled by the arrived non-commissioned officers and the local police. Of course, without any murder, and the claims of the "receiving" party, caused by damage to property, were fully satisfied by a check for 240 francs.
Emerald
The contract concluded with the Nevsky Zavod for the construction of two cruisers for the Russian Imperial Navy implied that the first cruiser would be commissioned in 28 months, and the second - in 36 months. after all basic drawings are received and the specification is approved. In fact, it was decided to consider this date June 1, 1901, and if the construction time could be met, then the "Pearl", which was built by the head, would be transferred for testing in October 1903, and the next "Emerald" - in June 1904 But, in fact, alas, the Nevsky Zavod failed to meet the contractual deadlines, so the construction of both ships was delayed. Nevertheless, by the beginning of the war, the "Pearl", the construction of which had begun earlier and the terms of delivery of which to the fleet were tougher, was obviously in greater readiness than the "Emerald".
Of course, after the start of the war, the Nevsky Plant concentrated its efforts on completing the Zhemchug, and, alas, to the detriment of Izumrud. We have already said that as a result of this, the "Emerald" was completed later than the "Pearl", and that a lot was not completed on it. Not only did the Emerald not manage to get out with the main forces of the squadron, so many of the auxiliary mechanisms on it had to be adjusted already during the campaign, some of them were adopted only in Madagascar, some were not commissioned at all.
But, unfortunately, we have to admit that the concentration of efforts on the "Pearl" affected not only the degree of technical readiness, but also the quality of construction work on the "Izumrud". The list of malfunctions that the cruiser had to face significantly exceeded that of the "Pearl". But first things first.
"Izumrud" left Libava on November 3, 1904 as part of the "Catching up detachment" and the first stop was made in the same place where the ships of the 2nd Pacific squadron stopped, that is, at about. Langeland. The latter "distinguished himself" by a strange "inhospitableness" to Russian cruisers of the 2nd rank: "Pearl" drowned a boat and a davit there, and "Izumrud", however, did not drown anything, but in search of a place to load coal it went too far into Danish waters. The reason for this was heavy snow, because of which visibility was limited, but this did not prevent the Danish minoska from taking the Emerald home.
Due to unimportant weather conditions, less coal was accepted than planned, but on the approach to England, another problem was discovered - the lack of boiler water, since the desalination plants could not cope. In addition to the cruisers Oleg, Izumrud and five destroyers, the "catching up squad" also had two auxiliary cruisers and a training ship "Ocean", which had fresh water supplies. However, in the process of transferring water to the Emerald, executed in a stormy sea, whaleboat No. 2, a left shot, a verp and 100 fathoms of perlin were lost, and it turned out that the cruiser managed to wind a fishing net on one of the screws.
Then it turned out that the available coal reserves would not be enough to reach Tangier: V. V. Khromov points out that the fault was the cruising range, which turned out to be significantly lower than the calculated one. But it is not entirely clear how correct this is, since he also points out that at the previous parking lot "Izumrud" did not accept a full supply of fuel, and the coal obtained in Libau turned out to be of poor quality: "it gave a lot of smoke and was strongly sintered." In addition, stormy weather should be considered.
The cruiser was constantly pursued by minor breakdowns, as a result of which by November 30, when the Emerald arrived at the Court, it required a very thorough repair of the power plant. The latter included the replacement of the circulation pump pipe of the main refrigerator of the left car and part of the water-heating pipes of the boilers, the bulkhead of the machines and other work with boilers, pipelines and desalination plants. All this took about two weeks, subject to the availability of the necessary spare parts - they were ordered from the plant in Piraeus.
But later, the cruiser was still in trouble. The commander of the cruiser "Oleg", L. F. Dobrotvorsky, who was also the head of the "Catching detachment", telegraphed to St. Petersburg: "There are many shortcomings on the cruiser" Izumrud ": the boilers are leaking, the electricity goes out, there is no running, the pipes are leaking and soaring … In general, sailing with him is worse than with license plates destroyers ". Note that the doctor "Izumrud", V. S. Kravchenko, diagnosed fatigue of the cruiser commander who turned to him for help, the reasons for which he considered, among other things, "ship malfunction, eternal breakdowns" - and this happened even during the exit to the Atlantic.
V. S. Kravchenko pointed out that during the passage of the English Channel, the desalination plants "practically did not work" on the cruiser, rivets fell out, the deck leaked, which could not be caulked, the windows were opened and closed with great difficulty, and there were many other similar trifles. According to his recollections, already later, as a result of tests at full speed, which L. F. Dobrotvorsky, “some warning symptoms appeared in the car” (later it turned out that the main steam line had broken).
I must say that the "Izumrud" was not the only ship that had technical problems - there were plenty of them on other ships of L. F. Dobrotvorsky. So, for example, an attempt to develop maximum speed for Oleg ended with the failure of several boilers, while the destroyers were in such poor condition, so that three ships out of five had to interrupt the voyage: "Piercing", "Frisky" and "Discerning" were forced to return to Russia from the Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, it was possible to correct some technical imperfections on our own: for example, L. F. Dobrotvorsky, extremely dissatisfied with the fact that the "Izumrud" constantly lacks fresh water, assembled a commission, including mechanics from all over his detachment. According to the general opinion, the problem was not only, and maybe even not so much in the evaporators, but in the poor lapping of the feed filter valves and the loose connection of the pipe flanges in the boiler rooms, which made the boiler water consumption excessive. As a result of the repairs carried out, it was possible to reduce it by half, to 34 tons of water per day.
It is also difficult to say how skilled the machine and boiler crews of the Emerald were, but it is known that the fleet experienced difficulties in staffing the cruiser even with mechanic officers. Chief inspector for mechanical parts in the fleet N. G. Nozikov noted that: “on the“Izumrud”cruiser, the senior ship mechanic Semenyuk is an experienced and good mechanic, and his assistants - junior mechanical engineers Brailko and Smirnov - have never sailed anywhere, they are unfamiliar with sea machines, the latter, moreover, almost blind, and ensign Schepochenko-Pavlovsky was written off for drunkenness. " The cruiser was assigned 2 new mechanics instead of Smirnov, and a drunken ensign, after which, according to A. A. Alliluyeva and M. A. Bogdanov, a number of faults in the mechanical part of the "Izumrud" were corrected.
From the testimony of the cruiser's senior officer, Captain 2nd Rank Patton-Fanton de Verrion (there were such names in our fleet), it follows that at the time of the departure of the 329 crew members, the Izumrud had 70 young sailors and 36 spare ones. Thus, counting from the staffing of the lower ranks, of which 273 people were supposed to be on the cruiser, it turns out a little more than 13% of the spare and 25.6% of the young. In aggregate, this is 38.8% of all the lower ranks, which, of course, seems to be a very large figure, although things were even worse at Zhemchug - about 53% of the total number of lower ranks were young and reserve ones.
At the end of this article, I would also like to note some of the nuances of the transition of "Pearl" and "Emerald" from Libava to Madagascar.
During the cruise, the cruisers were engaged in combat training, which was extremely important, since the ships did not undergo a mandatory combat training course before leaving Libau. So, for example, on "Zhemchug" before going to sea, only one artillery exercise was conducted in Revel: they fired at the shields while at anchor, at night. The second exercise of the cruiser took place on November 5-6 in the Souda bay, for which the cruiser went to sea. On the first day, they fired with barrels, using up 300 37-mm and 180 47-mm practical shells. On the second day, they fired with the "main caliber", albeit with a reduced powder charge - 60 120-mm, 90 47-mm shells and 700 machine-gun cartridges were used up.
Then, after leaving the Sud Bay, on the way to Madagascar, they shot twice more. During the first firing, 22 120-mm and 58 47-mm shells and some, alas, an unknown number of machine-gun cartridges were spent. The next firing took place on December 10, firing at the shield from 37-mm cannons embedded in 120-mm barrels, thus using up 145 37-mm shells. In addition, they fired from 47-mm guns, and perhaps from machine guns, but the consumption of shells and cartridges for them, unfortunately, is not given in the sources.
As for the "Izumrud", artillery exercises were also carried out on it, but, unfortunately, the consumption of shells for them is unknown. According to the recollections of the officers, in total, the artillery exercises were carried out three times, but, according to the available data, they were very energetic.
According to V. V. Khromov, on January 5, 1905, the cruiser used up cartridges for auxiliary barrels and was forced to switch to the use of practical shells. Unfortunately, it is completely unknown how many of these cartridges were on the cruiser when it left the Baltic waters. But, in accordance with circular No. 32 of June 8, 1904 (issued by the headquarters by order of ZP Rozhestvensky), “for each gun with a caliber of 120 mm and above”, “75 cartridges for training 37-mm barrels were put ". Accordingly, if we assume that the commander of the "Izumrud" Baron V. N. Fersen executed this circular exactly, and taking into account the fact that the cruiser had 8 * 120-mm guns, as of January 5, the cruiser used up 600 37-mm shells, but the artillery exercises continued further.
The head of the "Catching squad" L. F. Dobrotvorsky, in the testimony of the Investigative Commission, indicated that during an independent voyage to Madagascar, his detachment: "passed with excess the entire course of artillery exercises assigned by the order of the Commander of the 2nd Pacific Squadron." At the same time, the distances at which the shooting practice was carried out are of particular interest. L. F. Dobrotvorsky reported:
"… however, they fired no further than 35-40 cables during the day and with difficulty up to 15 cables at night, because over these distances it was impossible to see the splashes of water from the fall of our shells."
The tone is downright apologetic - it turns out that Z. P. Rozhestvensky ordered cruisers to train their gunners from long distances?
The seaworthiness of the cruisers left much to be desired - the lack of onboard keels affected. This is how the ship's doctor V. S. Kravchenko state of "Emerald" when the ship got into a storm in the Bay of Biscay:
“The water was rippling across the deck. From time to time we scooped all over; the whaleboat, hanging high on the hoists, was completely submerged. It seemed that this way it would flood us at all. The cabins of the inspector, the two mechanics … were full of water … The first stability test was passed, however, with flying colors. The cruiser, which did not have side keels, made large swift sweeps, but did not want to turn over ….
Of particular interest are the words of the doctor about the whaleboat, which sometimes went under water. The fact is that whaleboats on cruisers of the "Pearl" class were located here (highlighted in red in the photo):
Obviously, cruisers of this type were hit hard in a storm.
The problem with fresh water existed not only on the Zhemchug and Izumrud: it was, in general, ubiquitous among Russian ships. According to some reports, the problem was in the design of desalination plants and refrigerators, the productivity of which in tropical latitudes was significantly reduced. It is interesting that later, rainwater collection was organized on the ships of the 2nd Pacific Squadron, and in some cases, this way it was possible to extract up to 25 tons of water per day.
And more - a little about the real cruising range of domestic cruisers. According to the project, it was assumed that with a coal reserve of 500 tons, "Pearls" or "Emerald" would be able to overcome 5,000 miles, but such an estimate was overly optimistic. The story repeated itself with the Novik: it was also planned to reach a range of 5,000 miles on this cruiser, but in practice it was somewhere around 3,200 miles, although, according to some other sources, it could reach 3,430 miles.
On the one hand, "Zhemchug" and "Izumrud" received clutch releasers, thanks to which the screws did not stop if the machine was not under steam, but rotated by an oncoming stream of water. Thus, the propellers did not slow down the movement of the cruiser passing under a part of the vehicles, and this gave savings in coal consumption in comparison with the Novik, which did not have such uncouplers. But on the other hand, the cruisers of the Nevsky plant were much heavier than the Novik, and this should have reduced their cruising range in comparison with the latter.
According to calculations, most likely made on the basis of actual data on the consumption of coal, the cruising range of the "Pearl" and "Izumrud" should have been 3,520 miles with 535 tons of coal reserves. But in practice, it turned out that "at one gas station" not only "Izumrud", but also "Oleg" could not overcome the 2,650 miles separating Madagascar from Djibouti, and they had to go for bunkering in the German colony of Dar es Salem.
But, again, it would be wrong to attribute such a result exclusively to the "gluttony" of the power plants of domestic cruisers. The problem was also in coal, that's what L. F. Dobrotvorsky:
“German delivery coal, unsuitable for Norman's boilers, strongly clogs the inter-tube spaces with soot, which is why the steam output of the boilers dropped very much, and the cruiser's navigation area turned out to be not 5,000 miles, but 2,500 miles. Subsequently, when the lower rows of the burned-out tubes were cut down, 2.5 tons of soot was removed from each boiler."
Of course, it was about the cruiser "Oleg", commanded by L. F. Dobrotvorsky, but it is also obvious that Emerald faced similar problems.
