In the previous articles of the series, we described in detail the history of creation, service and combat path of the Novik armored cruiser. The article presented to your attention will be devoted to the assessment of the project of this, in many respects, an outstanding ship.
So, let's start with some statistics. The period from January 27 to July 28, 1904 contains 183 days. During this time, "Novik" 36 times went to sea, considering such an exit, including participation in a battle with the Japanese fleet on January 27, but not counting the cases when the cruiser went out to the outer roads, and, after standing there for a while, returned to the inner harbor of Port Arthur. Thus, on average, the cruiser went to sea about once every 5 days: let's analyze where and why.
So, oddly enough, most often the Novik went out to sea to fire at ground targets, and in total, the cruiser made 12 exits in support of our troops. In some cases, advancing to the coastal flank of our ground forces, he also had to drive off Japanese destroyers firing at our troops. But the key task has always been the delivery of artillery strikes against the enemy's ground positions.
The next task is to escort the squadron at sea, for this purpose "Novik" left Port Arthur 8 times, including the battle on January 27 and the battle in the Yellow Sea on July 28. I must say that the Russian cruiser participated in all the exits of the main forces of the Pacific Squadron, later renamed the 1st Pacific Squadron.
The third place is divided by as many as three tasks, including: going to sea in search of, or intercepting enemy destroyers; going to sea in order to support, provide, or rescue their own destroyers and, finally, cover active mine laying. To solve each of these tasks, "Novik" went to sea 4 times.
In fourth place is intelligence. For this purpose, "Novik" went to sea three times.
All this together makes 35 exits: and once more the cruiser went to sea to conduct individual exercises.
Dear readers probably have not forgotten that high-speed armored cruisers of the 2nd rank for the needs of the Pacific Squadron were conceived as ships adapted to solve two tasks that were considered key for this class: reconnaissance and service with the squadron. In other words, the 2nd rank cruisers were designed to lead the marching order of the squadron, to look for the enemy far from it, as well as to perform rehearsal and messenger service with it. In addition, the 2nd rank cruisers had to solve other tasks for which the capabilities of the 1st rank cruisers were excessive, and the gunboats and destroyers were insufficient.
It would seem that a small and very fast cruiser is ideal for the role of a scout, but we see that for this service Novik was almost completely not used. Moreover, all three times when the cruiser was nevertheless sent for reconnaissance, this did not happen when he went to sea as part of a squadron. In all these episodes, he was part of a separate detachment, sometimes together with other cruisers, and sometimes only with destroyers. Why did this happen?
The almost complete rejection of the use of Novik as a reconnaissance ship is associated with a number of factors, both objective and subjective. At the same time, they are so strongly intertwined with each other that it is already very difficult to understand which of them are primary.
Let's consider the objective first. It is sad to state this, but "Novik" (together with "Boyarin") was the most weakly armed cruiser of both squadrons, both Russian and Japanese. Not taking into account the pre-ancient "Sayen", which the Japanese got as a trophy since their war with the Chinese, and was, rather, a 15-knot gunboat, even the weakest armored cruisers in Japan were armed with either 6 * 152-mm guns (the same "Tsushima"), or 2 * 152-mm and 6 * 120-mm cannons ("Izumi", "Suma", etc.). But the point is not only in the number and caliber of the guns - as we have already noted, in order to achieve high speed when designing the Novik, German engineers had to resort to a very large ratio of the length and width of the cruiser (9), and this made it a relatively unstable artillery platform. For the same "Tsushima" this figure was only 7, 6, which means that the gunners of the Japanese cruiser were much more convenient to aim their guns at the target than their "colleagues" on the "Novik". Obviously, for Novik, which had only 6 * 120-mm guns and worse firing conditions, a one-on-one battle with any Japanese armored cruiser was very dangerous, and even if the Russian ship could succeed, it would only be at the cost of heavy damage.
I would like to note right away that here and below, comparing Russian and Japanese ships, we will only compare their technical characteristics and capabilities, while ignoring the quality of ammunition and the level of crew training. The fact is that our task is to figure out how acceptable the concept of a high-speed reconnaissance cruiser, embodied in Novik, was for the fleet. But it is clear that no, even the most advanced concept will bring victory if the enemy shoots five times more accurately, as it was in the Yellow Sea. And even if the level of training of the Russian and Japanese teams were comparable, the quality of ammunition could still lead to a loss, even if the enemy was formally weaker and less sophisticated in tactics.
Of course, if we needed to predict the outcome of a battle that could take place, then we should definitely take into account both the tactical and technical characteristics (TTX) of ships, and the quality of their crews and ammunition, as well as many other nuances. But if we want to analyze the performance characteristics of the ship for compliance with the tasks facing it, we should ignore the shortcomings in the training of crews and in the quality of ammunition, comparing ships from different countries as if they have a crew of the same skill and shells of comparable quality. In addition, we are interested in trying to imagine how the Russian admirals could think when making this or that decision - and they, at least before the war, believed that Russian crews and shells were in no way inferior to the Japanese.
But back to Novik. As we have already said, in terms of artillery, the Russian "second-rank" cruisers of the Port Arthur squadron turned out to be the weakest in their class. And this could not but affect their use.
Of course, "Novik" was superior in speed to any Japanese cruiser, but what gave it in practice? He, of course, could catch up with any ship of his class, but such an ability was useless due to the weakness of his artillery. He could also escape any Japanese cruiser, but how? The Novik's speed was 25 knots, the speed of a typical small Japanese cruiser was about 20 knots, that is, the Russian cruiser had a speed advantage of 25%. Of course, "Novik" in daily operation did not develop 25 knots, but it can be assumed that the Japanese cruisers "in life" showed less than on a measured mile. Thus, the superiority in speed of the Novik guaranteed it escape from any Japanese cruiser, but, for example, if the enemy was on the way to the base, it would not have been possible to go around it and go "home" without a fight. A battle with any Japanese cruiser was unprofitable for Novik because of the weakness of its artillery. In addition, the Japanese had faster ships, with a speed of 21 knots, and the "dogs" developed 22, 5-23 knots, and it was even more difficult for Novik to avoid meeting them.
So, if we talk about some kind of "general battle in a vacuum", then all of the above did not have much significance. After all, how was it conceived? The squadron goes out to sea, and ahead of it, forsail, are the Novik-class cruisers. As they get closer to the area where the enemy is expected, the reconnaissance cruisers can go forward to search for the enemy on divergent courses. In such a situation, enemy scouts have almost no chance of cutting off the Russian cruisers from the main forces, and even if suddenly this happens, they themselves will be caught between the reconnaissance cruisers and the main squadron.
But in Port Arthur, it was very different. Any somewhat distant reconnaissance led to the fact that the cruiser would have to return to Port Arthur in the early morning. And here there was a real danger of being cut off from its own base by the Japanese forces approaching at night, and then the Novik could only flee from the enemy into the sea, having the sad prospect of being intercepted by numerous detachments of Japanese light forces. Or go for a breakthrough and accept a completely unfavorable battle for yourself. Actually, even going out on reconnaissance in the morning and returning that evening was fraught with the appearance of Japanese light forces with the same result.
Thus, it should be said that Russian cruisers of the 2nd rank in most combat situations (in fact, any long-range reconnaissance) could not operate effectively without the support of larger ships. Such support could be provided by cruisers of the 1st rank, both armored and armored. At the beginning of the war, we had four such cruisers in Port Arthur (not counting the Varyag in Chemulpo): the armored Bayan and the armored Askold, Diana and Pallada.
So, even the worst of them (we are, of course, talking about "goddesses") nevertheless were not inferior in combat power to most of the Japanese armored cruisers. As a matter of fact, only the "dogs" had a significant superiority in artillery barrels over the "goddesses", but even here everything was not so simple. Yes, "Chitose", "Kasagi" and "Takasago" had 2 * 203-mm and 5 * 120-mm guns in an onboard salvo against 5 * 152-mm guns of cruisers of the "Diana" class, but … The fact is that " dogs "were focused on powerful weapons at high speed, which a priori required long and relatively narrow hulls, thus, their capabilities as artillery platforms left much to be desired. In other words, the same factors that made Novik less convenient for gunners in comparison with Tsushima, in this case worked for Russian cruisers of the Diana class, whose hulls were designed for ocean raiding and a very moderate speed.
And so it turned out that the presence of 203-mm cannons, which seemed to give the Japanese "dogs" the ultimate power, in practice did not help them too much. At least to date, there is not a single confirmed hit by a 203-mm projectile made from these ships, although, in principle, it is possible that they hit someone. For example, in the same "Aurora" in the Tsushima battle. But on the whole, the firing accuracy of these guns (precisely from the "dogs") was, for the Japanese fleet, extremely low.
There is nothing to say about the rest of the ships - "Askold" with its 7 * 152-mm in an onboard salvo was much stronger than the Japanese ships of the same class, and the "Bayan" with its very decent speed, excellent protection and 203-mm turret looked real "The killer of armored decks", capable of engaging in battle even with a detachment of Japanese small cruisers without much risk for himself.
However, apparently, the Japanese also understood this. And so they, as a rule, covered their cruising detachments either with the 5th combat detachment, which included the old battleship Chin-Yen, or with modern armored cruisers.
And this was a real "check and checkmate" to the Russian cruiser squadron in Port Arthur. Simply because in comparison with even the most powerful Russian "Bayan" any Japanese armored cruiser, with a similar or even superior level of protection, had almost twice as powerful side salvo.
As a result, for our fleet in Port Arthur before the start of the war, a completely bleak situation developed. We had only two cruisers of the 2nd rank, while the Japanese had as many as 17 armored cruisers. Yes, most of them were either very old or unsuccessful construction, and, of course, not all of them could be concentrated near Port Arthur, but there were more than enough of them to organize a "hunting net" when trying to "Novik" and "Boyarin" to carry out long-range reconnaissance - all the more dangerous because the Boyarin, alas, did not differ in high speed, approximately corresponding in this parameter to the four Japanese "dogs".
In order to disperse and destroy enemy armored cruisers, we had 4 or even 5 (counting the Varyag) cruisers of the 1st rank, which, acting together, in battle could defeat any enemy detachment of armored cruisers. But the presence of the Japanese 6, and later - 8 armored cruisers led to the fact that the slowest Russian cruisers of the 1st rank "Diana", "Pallada" (and "Varyag", if he remained in Port Arthur) was extremely dangerous would be taken out to sea for some kind of operations - they could neither escape from ships like "Asam", nor successfully fight them.
And after the death of "Varyag" and "Boyarin" we had only three fast cruisers, which together could well have successfully fought with one of the combat detachments of Japanese armored cruisers, and had a good chance of success to retreat from the superior forces of armored cruisers of the Land of the Ascending The sun. But even then - only if they were not cut off by them from the base, respectively, any long-range reconnaissance was fraught with a very high risk. And, even if such sorties were nevertheless undertaken, there was no point in using the Novik separately, the whole detachment of cruisers should have gone.
All this to a certain extent nullified the advantage of Novik in speed, since the detachment, of course, would not move faster than its slowest ship, but it emphasized the shortcomings of the small Russian cruiser as an artillery platform and the weakness of the artillery.
We will illustrate all of the above with the example of the only exit to the open sea of the 1st Pacific Squadron, when it itself was looking for a meeting with the enemy: it happened on June 10, 1904. As for the other exits, the squadron took the battle on January 27, barely weighed anchor on the outer raid, and in the battle on July 28, the squadron had the task of breaking through to Vladivostok. So, if, by some miraculous incident that day, the Japanese did not come out to intercept her, V. K. Witgeft would never have thought of looking for them on purpose. As for S. O. Makarov, then he took the ships out for training, but if he was looking for a battle, he did not go out into the open sea, but sought to lure the Japanese fleet under the fire of Russian coastal batteries.
And only on June 10, the situation was fundamentally different. Governor E. I. Alekseev, being sure that the Japanese fleet had received severe damage, and that only a few ships remained in the ranks of Heihachiro Togo, insisted on a general engagement. Obeying his instructions, V. K. Vitgeft brought the squadron out to sea and was going to look for the enemy: if the main forces of the Japanese were not nearby, he was going to go to look for them near the Elliot Islands.
It would seem that this is a case when a detachment of cruisers of the Port Arthur squadron can show itself in all its glory, especially since it did not yet lose the support of its strongest cruiser - "Bayan", which was blown up by a mine later. And there is no doubt that on June 10, the Russian commander really needed to see the main Japanese forces as early as possible. Nevertheless, the cruisers did not go into reconnaissance, remaining with the squadron battleships. Why?
Even when the 1st Pacific Squadron was just following the trawls that paved its way from the outer roadstead into the sea, the Chin-Yen, Matsushima and a dozen destroyers appeared. The latter tried to attack the trawling caravan, but they were driven away by the fire of "Novik" and "Diana". However, by the time the Russian squadron completed the trawling, 2 armored and 4 armored cruisers of the Japanese had appeared.
Well, what was the point in this case, to send Russian cruisers somewhere? Attempting to push them forward would only lead to an unequal battle with Yakumo and Asama, supported by at least 3 Dogs and Chiyoda, as well as possibly Matsushima and Chin-Yen. Why would the Japanese be given the opportunity to win an easy victory, especially since, being tied up in battle, the Russian cruisers would still not be able to reconnoitre anything? It was possible, of course, to try to send the 3 fastest cruisers in some completely different direction, not where the Japanese were (they were going from Encounter Rock), leaving the slow-moving Pallada and Diana with them. But in this, if the Japanese armored cruisers followed them in pursuit, they thereby cut off the Bayan, Askold and Novik from the main forces. If V. K. Vitgeft, following E. A. Alekseev, would have believed that the Japanese had practically nothing to fight at sea, it could still have been done, but the commander of the Russian squadron absolutely rightly believed that the governor was mistaken.
In addition, generally speaking, usually the main forces of the enemy are usually to be expected from the side from which his cruisers appear. And to send your own cruisers for reconnaissance not where the enemy should be expected from, but where the path is not blocked … it looks a little pointless.
Did this mean that the 1st Pacific Squadron was completely unable to conduct reconnaissance with cruisers? In fact, from the height of our current experience and knowledge of the tactics of naval combat, we understand that this is not the case. Yes, the Japanese had powerful armored cruisers, which we had no analogues, but at the disposal of V. K. Vitgeft had the battleships Peresvet and Pobeda.
As you know, when creating this type of ships, our admirals were guided by the performance characteristics of British battleships of the 2nd class, and, at least in theory, their four turret 254-mm guns ensured complete superiority over Japanese armored cruisers. At the same time, "Peresvet" and "Pobeda" were relatively fast. In other words, if V. K. Vitgeft would separate these two battleships into a separate detachment, obliging its commander to support the actions of the cruiser detachment, then the situation “on the battlefield” would change radically: in this case, “Yakumo” and “Asama” had no choice but to retreat urgently to do not accept the battle on unfavorable terms.
But, of course, to demand such a thing from V. K. Vitgeft or from any other admiral of those times was decidedly impossible. Although in the correspondence during the design and construction of ships of the "Peresvet" class they were sometimes called "battleships-cruisers", but officially they were nothing more than squadron battleships, and were perceived by the fleet precisely as squadron battleships, albeit with weakened weapons. Accordingly, in order to separate them into a separate detachment, it was necessary to understand and accept as a guide to action the concept of a battle cruiser, which was completely impossible in the era of the Russian-Japanese war.
The Japanese, of course, put their armored cruisers in line, but they had a completely different concept: after the battle at Yalu, where the Japanese were forced to send their armored cruisers into battle against the Chinese battleships, the admirals of the Land of the Rising Sun made several far-reaching conclusions. And perhaps the main one was that medium-caliber artillery will play an important, possibly key role in the sea battles of the future. The Japanese considered the cruiser's "fast wing" a useful addition to the main forces of the fleet in a general engagement and tried to defend against the "main" weaponry: medium-caliber guns. So, in fact, they got their armored cruisers, but for them they were just cruisers, and nothing else. Therefore, the performance of their cruising duties, such as covering their light forces, was understandable and, from the point of view of the naval science of those years, could not cause any rejection. But in order to use squadron battleships, albeit lightweight ones, to perform purely cruising tasks … for this, we repeat, the concept of battle cruisers is needed, which could not have appeared during the Russo-Japanese war.
So, from all of the above, we can draw some conclusions regarding the suitability of high-speed cruisers of the 2nd rank for various kinds of reconnaissance.
Conclusion 1: cruisers of the 2nd rank (not only "Novik", but in general), in principle, could successfully carry out long-range reconnaissance missions, but only with the support of heavier cruisers. The latter, at least, should be in no way inferior to the enemy's armored cruisers, which he will allocate to cover his light forces.
Conclusion 2: to perform tasks of both long-range and short-range reconnaissance, high speed is not a necessary characteristic for a cruiser.
And indeed - that's really something, but the high speed of the Japanese armored cruisers never differed. However, they served very successfully as "eyes and ears" for Heihachiro Togo. The Russian admirals, on the contrary, had exceptional walkers such as Askold and Novik, but, unlike the Japanese, they had practically no intelligence. And the point here is not only the passivity of the Russian commanders or the numerical superiority of the Japanese, but also the fact that the high speed could not compensate for the lack of support for large cruisers.
At the same time, oddly enough, the only episode of successful reconnaissance of the enemy's main forces by Russian cruisers is the merit of a not so remarkable walker, which was the Boyarin. It was he who, having received on January 27 the order of Vice-Admiral O. V Stark "Go for reconnaissance from Liaoteshan to O for 15 miles", found the 1st and 2nd combat detachments of the Japanese there and quickly retreated, informing the commanders of the Russian squadron about approaching the main forces of the enemy. At the same time, as we know, the average speed of the Boyarin during the tests did not exceed 22.6 knots.
And so it turns out that to perform the functions of a reconnaissance squadron, the Novik's ultra-high speed was not at all necessary. But maybe she was needed for something else? Well, let's take a look at other tasks that this cruiser performed.
"Novik" did not miss a single exit of the main forces of the Russian squadron at sea, but in no case was its speed in demand. And it would be difficult to come up with such a service with squadron battleships, for which it is necessary to develop 25 knots. Still, in order to inspect a steamer that appeared on the horizon, or to perform the functions of a rehearsal or messenger ship, such a speed is completely unnecessary. It is also not needed to repel the attacks of enemy destroyers, if the latter try to threaten the main forces of the squadron.
By the way, about destroyers … How about going out to search and intercept Japanese destroyers, or to cover your ships of the same class? It would seem that this is where the speed of "Novik" will be more than in demand. However, the realities of the Russo-Japanese War do not confirm this.
In all cases, when "Novik" tried to pursue enemy destroyers or fighters, they broke the distance relatively quickly and moved away from it. This is not surprising - after all, those fighters of the Japanese fleet had a speed of 29-31 knots, and a significant part of the 1st class destroyers developed 28 knots or slightly higher. In fact, "Novik" could only catch up with obsolete Japanese destroyers, but the latter were lucky - in those cases when they were nearby, the high-speed Russian cruiser had no time for them.
Another important nuance. It cannot be said that the Novik artillerymen were inept - they with a certain regularity sought to hit the Japanese ships. In the battle on January 27, 1904, Novik, most likely, achieved three hits on two Japanese battleships, Mikasu and Hatsusa. Subsequently, he knocked out an auxiliary gunboat (at least two hits) and, most likely, the day before the breakthrough into Vladivostok, it was his guns that damaged the Itsukushima. Yes, and in his last battle, after a difficult transition and a hasty loading of coal, which must have exhausted the team, “Novik” nevertheless achieved a hit that seriously damaged “Tsushima”.
At the same time, Novik may have fired more shells at the Japanese destroyers than any other warship in the Port Arthur squadron. The author of this article did not specifically calculate this, and there was no such possibility, because in many episodes the consumption of shells fired at destroyers is not given in the documents. But "Novik" opened fire on the destroyers many times, but in no case achieved a hit. The author has only one explanation for this phenomenon - the long, low and narrow hull of a fighter or destroyer moving at high speed is a rather difficult target, while the Novik, alas, was not a stable artillery platform. Thus, shooting from its deck at destroyers was especially difficult. And the Novik was not a stable platform precisely because of its excessive speed, and if a less fast ship were in its place, perhaps its artillerymen would have achieved great success even with the same training that the Novik gunners had.
And it turns out that the "Novik", with all its excellent driving characteristics, still could not catch up with the Japanese destroyers, and it was impossible to hit them either. In those cases when the Novik had to repel the attacks of enemy destroyers, its high speed also remained unclaimed, since engaging in such battles, the ship never developed a speed more than 20-22 knots. This was enough for him not to allow the enemy to quickly get close to the distance of a mine shot.
As support for its own destroyers, "Novik", alas, also did not take place. That is, in all cases when it was necessary to disperse Japanese fighters or destroyers, and in any quantity, "Novik" coped with this task perfectly well. But as soon as they returned, accompanied by Japanese armored cruisers, Novik had to retreat: as we said earlier, Novik was weaker than any Japanese cruiser of its class.
And, of course, the 25-knot speed of the Novik, shown by him on the measured mile, could not be useful to the cruiser when he accompanied the Amur mine transport or gunboats for shelling the enemy coast. Theoretically, when the Novik went out to shell the coast, accompanied only by destroyers, the high speed of the Russian cruiser guaranteed it the opportunity to avoid fire contact when superior enemy forces appeared. But in practice, with rare exceptions, even gunboats, which had a speed half that of the Novik, managed to do this.
All of the above leads us to a very unpleasant conclusion: the concept of a small high-speed armored cruiser, whose fighting qualities were largely sacrificed to high speed, was theoretically erroneous and did not justify itself in practice.
Interestingly, the naval theory of a number of leading naval powers subsequently drew similar conclusions. A new class of ships has appeared, designed to lead destroyers, including by destroying enemy ships of this class: we are, of course, talking about leaders. But at the same time, both in England, and in France, and in Italy, they came to the same conclusion: in order to fulfill their tasks, the leader must be not only more powerful, but also faster than a conventional destroyer.
On the other hand, the practice of the first (and, in fact, the second) world war showed that the leader, as a class of ships, is still suboptimal, and that light cruisers are doing quite well with the task of leading destroyer flotillas. Alas, “Novik” conceptually found itself “between two chairs” - too weak as a cruiser, and too slow-moving for a leader.
"Novik", of course, fought bravely in the Russo-Japanese War, but still this is largely the merit of its brave crew, and not the tactical and technical characteristics of the ship itself.
