And now, finally, we proceed to describe the American "standard" battleships. As mentioned earlier, for comparison with the British "Rivendzh" and the German "Bayerns" were chosen American battleships of the "Pennsylvania" - mainly due to the fact that the ships of all three of these types were laid down almost simultaneously, in 1913, that is, they were designed and created at the same time. In addition, despite the fact that the first "standard" American battleship is considered "Nevada", she, so to speak, was still a "version-light". Despite the fact that the "Nevada" possessed all the features of a "standard" US battleship, that is, boilers for oil heating, an all-or-nothing booking scheme and the use of three-gun towers (which the Americans were forced to abandon only on the Marylands, as they used on them already 356-mm, and 406-mm guns), it was significantly smaller than the "Pennsylvania" (about 4,000 tons) and weaker armed. The next series of battleships, although they were larger than the "Pennsylvania", but very insignificantly and, up to the "Marylands", carried a similar armament composition.
The history of designing battleships of the "Pennsylvania" class is very simple. Despite the fact that the first American battleships to receive 356-mm artillery were two ships of the New York class, the rest of their design solutions were not at all new. Then the Americans began to design truly revolutionary battleships of the Nevada class, but, unfortunately, the flight of design thought turned out to be pretty slowed down by financial constraints, which boiled down to the following: the newest ships had to be "crammed" into the displacement of the previous New York type.
The point was that the creation of the American linear fleet, and not only the linear fleet, depended heavily on the political situation in Congress and on the current attitude of the presidential administration to shipbuilding programs. The fleet wanted to lay 2 battleships annually, but at the same time there were several years when funds were allocated only for one ship of this class. But even in those cases when Congress sought funds to lay down two ships, it could insist on limiting their value, and in this respect, American sailors and shipbuilders, perhaps, were in worse conditions than, for example, the Germans with their "maritime law" …
So in the case of the "Nevada" admirals and designers had to make well-known sacrifices - for example, the number of 356-mm guns had to be reduced from 12 to 10 guns. Some even suggested leaving only 8 such guns, but the idea of building the newest battleships weaker than the ships of the previous series did not find a positive response at all, even though it was proposed to use the saved displacement to strengthen protection. In addition, the speed had to be reduced from the initial 21 knots. up to 20, 5 knots
So, when it came time to design the next series of superdreadnoughts, which eventually became "Pennsylvania"-class battleships, American lawmakers were "generous", allowing the cost of building new ships to be increased from $ 6 to $ 7.5 million. Why is the word “generous” put in quotation marks, after all, it is as if we are talking about as much as a 25% increase in funding? The fact is that, firstly, in fact, the cost of building the "Nevada" and "Oklahoma" cost $ 13,645,360, or more than $ 6, 8 million per ship. However, the actual cost of building the Pennsylvania also exceeded the planned figure, amounting to about $ 8 million. And secondly, the fact is that we are talking about the cost of construction, excluding armor and weapons: for two battleships of the Nevada type, the cost of these articles amounted to 9,304,286 dollars. In other words, the total cost of "Nevada" was 11,401,073.04 dollars, and "Oklahoma" - and even more, 11,548,573.28 dollars and permission to design and build "Pennsylvania" for 1 The $ 5 million more expensive represented only a roughly 13 percent increase in the total cost of the ship.
I must say that with this money the Americans managed to achieve quite a lot - in general, the battleships of the "Pennsylvania" type looked more powerful and harmonious than the ships of the previous type. This is not surprising: in fact, the main characteristics of the "Pennsylvania" - 12 * 356-mm guns, speed 21 knots. and protection at the level of "Nevada" represent everything that the admirals wanted to see in the project of battleships of the "Nevada" type, but which had to be partially abandoned in order to "cram" the battleships into the required displacement and dimensions of the estimate.
Design
We will not describe in detail the vicissitudes of this stage of the creation of battleships of the "Pennsylvania" type, since they will be more appropriate in the corresponding sections devoted to artillery, armor protection and the ship's power plant. Let us dwell on just a couple of interesting general facts.
The US Navy had a real risk of getting two more Nevadas instead of Pennsylvania. The fact is that the General Council formulated its requirements for the "battleship of 1913" June 9, 1911, just when the Nevada project was almost ready. Unsurprisingly, the Design and Repair Bureau, which was responsible for the design work, was tempted to “sell” the newly made design again. A tactical justification was even provided for this: after all, the General Council itself pursued a line on the construction of battleships in squadrons of 4 ships, so why be wise? We take a ready-made project, finish it a little here, darn it there, and …
But the General Council reasoned perfectly sensibly - there is no point, having received expanded financial capabilities, to build two more "Nevadas", with all their weaknesses, which were the result of a financial compromise. At the same time, battleships of the requirements stated by the General Council (12 * 356-mm, 22 * 127-mm, 21 knots) are quite capable of forming a tactical four with the Nevada, although they will be somewhat stronger and more perfect than the latter.
When the design of the Pennsylvania was in full swing, the General Council went to Congress with a proposal to build in fiscal 1913 as many as four such battleships. History is silent about whether this was a truly serious intention, or whether the responsible persons, inspired by the proverb "You want a lot, you will get little," seriously counted on only 2 battleships, leaving behind a field for trade with congressmen. The fact is that such vast appetites were deemed excessive, but most of all, the 1913 program was crippled by the notorious Senator Tillman, who asked himself the question: why spend a lot of money on a series of gradually improving ships? Let's better immediately start designing and building the most powerful ultimate battleships, more and more powerful than which at the current technological level it will be simply impossible to create. According to Tillman, the logic of the development of naval weapons will still lead other countries to the construction of such battleships, which, of course, will immediately make all the previous ones obsolete, and if so, why wait? In general, the points of view turned out to be too contradictory, the congressmen did not have a common understanding of the future of the linear forces, doubts ruled the show, and as a result, in 1913 the United States laid down only one ship - the Pennsylvania, and its sister ship (strictly speaking, then it was necessary to write "her") "Arizona" was laid only in the next, 1914.
Interestingly, although this does not apply to the topic of the article, in the United States, at the suggestion of Tillman, relevant research was actually carried out. The parameters of the "ultimate" battleship boggle the imagination: 80,000 tons, 297 m in length, a speed of about 25 knots, an armor belt of 482 mm, the main caliber of 15 (!) 457-mm cannons in five three-gun turrets or 24 * 406-mm in four six-gun turrets. ! However, the very first estimates showed that the cost of one such ship would be at least $ 50 million, that is, about the same as a division of 4 battleships of the "Pennsylvania" class, so that the study on this topic was discontinued (although it was resumed later).
Artillery
The main caliber of the Pennsylvania-class battleships was undoubtedly the strangest sight of any heavy naval installation in the world.
"Pennsylvania" and "Arizona" were armed with 356-mm / 45 cannons (true caliber - 355, 6-mm) modification Mk … but which one, perhaps, the Americans themselves do not remember, at least find the exact data in the Russian-language literature failed. The fact is that these guns were installed on US battleships starting with "New York" and were modified a huge number of times: there were 12 main modifications of this gun, but "inside" they had others - they were designated from Mk 1/0 to Mk 12/10. At the same time, the differences between them, as a rule, were completely insignificant, with, perhaps, two exceptions. One of them related to the initial series: the fact is that the very first 356 mm / 45 guns were not lined, but then, of course, they received a liner. The second was produced after the First World War and consisted in an increase in the charging chamber, thanks to which the gun was able to fire a heavier projectile with a higher initial velocity. At the same time, for most modifications (but still not all), the ballistics of the guns remained identical, often the whole "modification" only consisted in the fact that the gun received a generally identical liner with a slightly modified manufacturing technology, and, as the liners were replaced the gun "changed" its modification. Also, the appearance of new modifications could be caused by modernization, or simply by replacing a completely shot gun, and I must say that, especially in the 20-30s of the last century, the Americans drove their gunners quite intensively. And so it turned out that it was the norm for American battleships to have several modifications of guns on one ship at the same time. Thus, at the time of its death, Oklahoma had two Mk 8/0 guns; five - Mk 9/0; one - Mk 9/2 and two more Mk 10/0.
At the same time, as we said above, the ballistic qualities of the modifications, with rare exceptions, remained unchanged. Nevertheless, the Americans did not shy away from putting guns with different ballistics on one ship - it was believed that small deviations were quite capable of compensating for the fire control system. The idea, frankly, is highly dubious, and, one must think, it was not widely practiced after all.
In general, on the one hand, updating the main caliber of US battleships looks more or less logical, but due to its confusion, it is unclear what modification guns Pennsylvania and Arizona received when they entered service. This also creates a certain uncertainty in their performance characteristics, because, as a rule, the corresponding data in the sources are given for modifications Mk 8 or Mk 12 - apparently, earlier models were originally on the battleships of the "Pennsylvania" type.
Usually, for 356-mm / 45 guns of American battleships, the following data are given: until 1923, when another modification increased the chamber, allowing them to shoot with a heavier charge, they were designed to fire 635 kg with a projectile with an initial speed of 792 m / s. At an elevation angle of 15 degrees. the range of the shot was 21, 7 km or 117 cables. In subsequent modifications (1923 and later), the same guns were able to fire the newest, heavier projectile weighing 680 kg at the same muzzle velocity, or, when using the old 635 kg projectile, increase its muzzle velocity to 823 m / s.
Why do you need to describe in detail the situation with post-war modifications, because we, obviously, will not take them into account when comparing battleships? This is necessary so that the dear reader, in case he suddenly comes across some calculations of the armor penetration of these 356-mm / 45 American guns, remember that they can be performed precisely for a later, enhanced modification. So, for example, we can see the calculations given in the book by A. V. Mandel.
Thus, we see that on (rounded off) 60 cables, the American gun "mastered" 366 mm armor, and on 70 cables - 336 mm. This is clearly more modest than the performance of the British 381-mm gun, which in tests pierced the frontal 350 mm armor plate of the German "Baden" turret at a distance of 77.5 cab., But the footnote to the table indicates that the given data were considered for 680 kg of projectile. From which it obviously follows that the indicators of 635 kg of the projectile are even more modest. However, let's not get ahead of ourselves - we will compare the artillery of the battleships of Germany, England and the United States later.
The ammunition load of battleships of the "Pennsylvania" type was 100 shells per barrel, it included … exactly 100 armor-piercing shells. For a long time, American admirals were convinced that their ships of the line were designed for one and only task: crushing their own kind at extreme distances. In their opinion, an armor-piercing projectile was best suited for this purpose, and if so, then why litter the cellars of battleships with other types of ammunition? In general, high-explosive shells on the "standard" 356-mm battleships of the United States appeared only in 1942, and there is no point in considering them in this series of articles.
As for 635 kg of an armor-piercing projectile, it was equipped with 13.4 kg of explosive, namely, Dannite, a later name: Explosive D. This explosive is based on ammonium picrate (not to be confused with picric acid, which became the basis for the famous Japanese shimosa, or liddite, melinitis, etc.). In general, this American explosive was slightly less capable than TNT (TNT equivalent of 0.95), but was much quieter and less susceptible to spontaneous explosion than shimosa. The author of this article, alas, could not figure out whether there was any fundamental difference between the early versions of the dannite and the later "D-explosion", which was equipped with 680 kg of shells: probably, if there were, then extremely insignificant.
An interesting fact: the later 680 kg projectile contained only 10.2 kg of explosives, that is, even less than it was in 635 kg. In general, it should be noted that the Americans in their shells obviously "invested" first of all in armor penetration, strengthening the walls to the extreme, and, accordingly, the strength of the ammunition, sacrificing a mass of explosives. Even in the "mighty" 635 kg projectile, the amount of explosives corresponded, rather, to its 305-mm "brothers": suffice it to recall that the 405.5 kg armor-piercing projectile of the German 305-mm / 50 gun carried 11.5 kg of explosives, and the Russian 470.9 kg ammunition for a similar purpose - 12, 95 kg. However, in fairness, we note that the British 343-mm "greenboy", being a full-fledged armor-piercing projectile and having a mass similar to the American fourteen-inch projectile (639.6 kg), slightly exceeded the latter in explosive content - it contained 15 kg of shellite.
American 356 mm / 45 guns withstood 250 rounds of 635 kg shells with an initial speed of 792 m / s. Not amazing, but not a bad indicator either.
By their design, the 356-mm / 45 artillery systems represented, so to speak, a kind of intermediate option between the German and British approaches. The barrel was of a fastened structure, like the Germans, but the piston lock was used, like the British: the latter was to a certain extent dictated by the fact that the piston, downward-opening bolt was, perhaps, the most optimal solution in a cramped three-gun turret. Undoubtedly, the use of advanced technology gave the Americans a good gain in the mass of the gun. Japanese 356-mm guns of the battleship "Fuso", which had a wire barrel structure and approximately equal muzzle energy, weighed 86 tons, against 64, 6 tons of the American artillery system.
In general, the following can be said about the American 356-mm / 45 gun. For its time, and the first model of this gun was created in 1910, it was a very perfect and competitive artillery system, definitely one of the best naval guns in the world. It was in no way inferior to the British and made in England for Japan 343-356-mm cannons, and in some ways it was superior. But with all this, the potential of this weapon was largely limited by the only type of ammunition - an armor-piercing projectile, which, moreover, had a relatively low content of explosives. And, of course, for all its merits, the 356-mm / 45 gun could not compete with the latest 380-381-mm artillery systems in its capabilities.
On the other hand, the Americans managed to accommodate a dozen 356 mm / 45s on the Pennsylvania-class battleships, while the Rivenge and Bayern ships carried only 8 main battery guns. In order to equip the battleship with so many barrels without excessively lengthening its citadel, American designers used three-gun turrets, the design of which … however, first things first.
For the first time, such towers were used on battleships of the "Nevada" type: forced to "ram" the ship into the displacement of the previous "New York", the Americans were eager to reduce the size and weight of the three-gun turrets as much as possible, bringing them closer to the two-gun ones. Well, the Americans achieved their goal: the geometrical dimensions of the towers differed little, for example, the inner diameter of the barbet of the two-gun turret of the Nevada was 8, 53 m, and of the three-gun turret - 9, 14 m, and the weight of the rotating part was 628 and 760 tons, respectively. this, as it turned out, was not yet the limit: battleships of the "Pennsylvania" type received towers, albeit a similar design, but even smaller, their mass was 736 tons, and the inner diameter of the barbet was reduced to 8, 84 m. But at what cost was reached?
American two-gun turrets had a classic scheme in which each gun is located in a separate cradle and is equipped with its own set of mechanisms that provide the supply of shells and charges. In this respect, the two-gun turrets of the United States were quite similar to the installations of England and Germany. But in order to miniaturize the three-gun turrets, American designers had to place all three guns in one cradle and confine themselves to two shell and charging lifts for three guns!
Interestingly, most sources indicate that there were three charging lifts, so only the supply of shells suffered, but judging by the detailed (but alas, not always clear) description of the tower design given by V. N. Chausov in his monograph "Battleships Oklahoma and Nevada", this is still not the case. That is, in each American tower there really were two shell and three charging lifts, but the fact is that one of the latter supplied charges from the cellars only to the transfer compartment, and from there two other charging lifts supplied charges to the guns. However, in all likelihood, a single lift to the reloading compartment did not create a bottleneck - it was a chain one, and, probably, coped with its task quite well. But in the tower itself, only the outermost guns (first and third) were provided with shell and charging lifts, the middle had no lifts of its own - neither charging nor shell.
The Americans argue that "with the appropriate preparation of the calculations" a three-gun turret can, in principle, develop the same rate of fire as a two-gun turret, but this is very difficult to believe. The technological flaw described above does not in any way allow counting on a similar result with equal preparation of calculations for two- and three-gun turrets. In other words, if the calculation of the two-gun turret is trained regularly, and the three-gun turret is trained in addition to the tail and mane day and night, then maybe they will equalize in the rate of fire per barrel. But this will be achieved exclusively through superior training, and if the same is given to the calculation of the two-gun turret?
Another extremely serious drawback of the American three-gun turrets was the low mechanization of their processes. The main caliber guns of the battleships of England, Germany and many other countries had a fully mechanized loading, that is, both the projectile and the charges, after being fed to the guns, were fed into them by means of mechanical rammers. But not the Americans! Their rammer was used only when loading the projectile, but the charges were sent manually. How did this affect the rate of fire? Recall that the charge for the 356-mm / 45 gun in those years was 165.6 kg, that is, for only one salvo, the calculation had to manually move almost half a ton of gunpowder, and taking into account the fact that the Americans claimed a rate of fire of 1.25-1, 175 rounds per minute … Of course, the loaders did not have to carry the charges on their own backs, they had to be rolled from the lift onto a special table, and then, at a "zero" elevation angle of the gun, "push" the charges into the chamber with a special wooden punch stick (or with your hands). In general, probably, for 10 minutes at such a pace, a physically prepared person could withstand it, and then what?
Let's now return to the "excellent" solution of placing all three guns in one cradle. In fact, the disadvantages of such a design are largely exaggerated and could be partially compensated for by the organization of shooting, taking into account this feature. Which was all the easier to do, using the then advanced "ledge" or "double ledge" zeroing methods, but … the problem is that the Americans did nothing of the kind. And that is why the disadvantages inherent in the "one-man" scheme manifested themselves on their battleships in all their glory.
Strictly speaking, the "one-arm" scheme, in addition to being compact, has at least one more advantage - the axes of the guns are on the same line, while the guns in different cradles had a mismatch of the barrel lines, which was not so easy to deal with. In other words, due to small backlashes, etc. when the guns were mounted, say, at an elevation angle of 5 degrees, it could turn out that the right gun of the two-gun turret received the correct angle, and the left one a little less, and this, of course, affected the accuracy of fire. "One-man" installations did not have such a problem, but alas, that was the end of their list of advantages.
Conventional turrets (i.e. those with guns in different cradles) had the ability to fire with incomplete volleys, that is, while one gun is aimed at the target and fires a shot, the rest are charged. Thus, among other things, maximum fire performance is achieved, since no gun of the tower is idle - at each moment of time it is either guided, or fired, or lowered to the angle of loading, or charged. Thus, delays can only occur "through the fault" of the fire controller, if the latter delays the transmission of data for firing to the guns. And if necessary, a battleship with 8 main battery guns with a rate of fire of 1 shot per 40 seconds per barrel, is capable of firing four-gun volleys every 20 seconds. A battleship with 12 such guns is capable of firing three four-gun volleys every 40 seconds, that is, the interval between volleys is just over 13 seconds.
But in the "one-arm" system, such performance is achieved only with salvo firing, when the towers fire a salvo from all guns at once: in this case, a battleship with a dozen main battery guns will fire only one salvo every 40 seconds, but if it is a full salvo, then in flight 12 shells will be sent, that is, the same as will be fired in three four-gun shells. But if you shoot with incomplete volleys, then the fire performance significantly sags.
But why shoot incomplete volleys at all? The fact is that when shooting "full board", only one type of zeroing is available - the "fork", when you need to achieve that one volley lies in flight, the second - undershot (or vice versa) and then "half" the distance until coverage is reached. For example, we shot 75 cables - a flight, 65 cables - an undershoot, we shoot 70 cables and wait to see what happens. Let's say it's a flight, then we set the sight to 67.5 cables, and here, most likely, there will be a cover. This is a good, but slow method of sighting, therefore inquisitive naval thought invented sighting with "ledge" and "double ledge", when volleys are fired at different distances by “ladder”, and without waiting for the fall of the previous volley. For example, we shoot three volleys with a step of 5 cables (65, 70 and 75 cables) with a small time interval between each salvo, and then we estimate the position of the target relative to several falls. Taking into account a number of nuances of sea shooting, such a zeroing, although, possibly, leads to an increased consumption of projectiles, but it allows you to cover the target much faster than the traditional "fork".
But if the "one-arm" battleship tries to shoot with a double ledge (with an interval of, for example, 10 seconds between volleys), then it will fire 12 shells not in 40, but in 60 seconds, since the waiting time between the first and second and second and third volleys the tools will be idle. Thus, the commander of the American battleship had to choose between fire performance, or modern firing methods. The choice was made in favor of fire performance - both before, and in time, and for a long time after the First World War, the US battleship was fired on with full volleys. For the sake of fairness, it should be noted that this was not a consequence of the "one-arm" towers - the Americans simply thought that at long distances of the battle it would be more convenient to adjust the shooting in response to the falls of full volleys.
However, firing with full volleys entailed other difficulties, which, oddly enough, the Americans themselves simply did not notice. As we have already said, the "one-sided" scheme has a potential advantage over the classical one in accuracy due to the absence of misalignment of the axes of the barrels, but in practice it can be realized only when firing incomplete volleys. But with full volleys, the dispersion, on the contrary, sharply increases relative to the classical scheme due to the close arrangement of the axes of the barrels, and the effect of expanding gases escaping from the barrels on projectiles flying out of neighboring guns. Thus, for the two-gun turrets of the battleship Oklahoma, the indicated distance was 2.44 meters, and for the three-gun turrets, only 1.5 meters.
However, the problem was not recognized, but taken for granted, and this continued until the United States at the end of World War I sent its dreadnoughts to support Britain. Of course, American ships were based and trained together with British ones, and it was here that the US admirals realized that the dispersion of shells in the salvoes of British battleships is much less than that of American ones - and this concerned US ships with two-gun turrets! As a result, a special device was created in the USA, which introduced a small delay of the guns of one turret in a salvo - they fired with a time difference of 0.06 seconds. It is usually mentioned that the use of this device (first installed on US ships in 1918) made it possible to achieve a halving of scattering, but in fairness, it was not possible to do with one device. So, on the battleship "New York" in order to reduce dispersion at the maximum firing distance (alas, it was not specified in the cable ones) from 730 to 360 m, in addition to the delay of the shot, it was necessary to reduce the initial velocity of the shells - and again, it is not reported how much … That is, the accuracy, and hence the accuracy of the American guns, was improved, but also due to a slight drop in armor penetration.
Rhetorical question: if the relatively good two-gun turrets of the Americans had similar difficulties with dispersal, then what happened to the three-gun turrets?
Nevertheless, a number of authors, for example, such as Mandel A. V., undertake to argue that the shortcomings of the towers of American battleships were for the most part theoretical and did not manifest themselves in practice. In support of this point of view, for example, the results of test firing of the battleship Oklahoma for 1924/25 are given …
But we will talk about this in the next article.
