The pre-war period of service of the cruiser "Novik" was not marked by any extraordinary events. After completing the full course of tests, "Novik" on May 18, 1902 arrived in Kronstadt, and on the morning of September 14 left for the Far East. During these 4 months, spent in the Baltic, the cruiser twice participated in the celebrations on the Neva (launching the Eagle and Prince Suvorov), was honored by the attention of the crowned persons - Emperor Nicholas II and the Greek Queen Olga Konstantinovna and her son went aboard and brother, underwent all sorts of tests and went through the cars before the campaign.
The campaign itself was also not replete with something outstanding, no one drove horses, probably it would be more correct to say that the cruiser left not for the Far East, but for the Mediterranean Sea, where he stayed for a fair amount of time, and only then moved to Port Arthur. Leaving Kronstadt on September 14, "Novik" passed the Kiel Canal only a week later, and then visited many places: Cadiz, Algeria, Naples, Piraeus, then went to Poros, where he arrived only on November 19, 1902. There the cruiser engaged in combat training. as well as waiting for the new commander, Nikolai Ottovich von Essen, upon whose arrival he returned to Piraeus on December 5 of the same year. And only after the newly made commander introduced himself to the Greek queen Olga, on December 11, 1902, N. O. von Essen took the ship out to sea, sending it to Port Said - from that moment, in fact, the transition to the Far East began, and, by an interesting coincidence, the day of departure coincided with the birthday of the new commander of the Novik.
It is interesting to compare the transition to the Far East of the cruiser "Novik" with a similar campaign of the armored cruiser "Varyag", which took place just a year before: the latter left Piraeus on December 6, 1901, "Novik" arrived in Port Arthur on April 2, 1903, " Varyag "- February 25, 1902, thus the passage of" Novik "took 112 days, and" Varyag "- 111 days. Of course, it is impossible to compare the capabilities of the ships based on the above figures - they were not given the task of arriving in Port Arthur as quickly as possible, and moreover, they were given various tasks that had to be completed along the way. So, "Varyag" made a "cruise" to many ports of the Persian Gulf in order to demonstrate the flag, as well as a call to Nagasaki, which, of course, prolonged his trip. The same thing happened with the "Novik" - for example, having come to Aden, the cruiser was engaged in inspecting and describing the bays nearby to this port, and earlier, in Djibouti, he stayed for participation in official events. But if the descriptions of the "Varyag" campaign abound with the enumeration of numerous repairs of its power plant, then nothing of the kind is said about the "Novik". The delays of Novik were usually of a different nature: for example, the ship arrived in Manila on March 9, 1903, and left it 6 days later, on March 15, but all this time Novik was engaged in combat training. The cruiser stayed in Djibouti for 2 weeks, but this was due not only to political necessity and officialdom, but also to the fact that N. I. von Essen did not want to leave his officer, who became very ill (blood was running in his throat) until he was sent to Europe on the first steamer to go there.
At the same time, the technical condition of the Varyag and Novik by the time these ships arrived at Port Arthur was fundamentally different. An attempt to give the "Varyag" full speed during the transition from Nagasaki to Arthur led to the fact that the machines rattled at 20, 5 knots and the speed had to be reduced to 10 knots. Three days after coming to Arthur, "Varyag" again went to sea, conducted a shooting practice, tried to develop full speed again: knocking and heating of bearings, breaks of several tubes, and the speed did not exceed 20 knots. The result was the withdrawal of the ship to the armed reserve and serious repairs - alas, only the first in an endless series of them in Port Arthur.
But with "Novik" everything was completely different: 11 days after coming to Arthur, he went to the measured mile to destroy the deviation, the cruiser was increased to 23.6 knots. It seems to be against the background of a delivery speed of 25, 08 knots. this result does not look at all, but we must not forget that the Novik showed its 25 knots in a displacement close to normal, while on tests in Port Arthur it went in full load or close to it. During the acceptance tests, the Germans loaded the cruiser so that the Novik even got a slight trim at the stern: the sternpost draft was 4.73 m, the stem - 4.65 m. But in everyday operation, having a larger displacement, it sat with its bow. So, during the transition to the Far East, its draft fluctuated: aft 4, 8-4, 9 m, bow - 5-5, 15 m, and during the war period, the draft reached 4, 95 and 5, 3 m, respectively.
Thus, we can say that the increase in displacement and trim on the bow significantly (but alas, it is not known to what extent) influenced the decrease in the speed of the ship, but the mechanisms seemed to be in perfect order. The author is not aware of any complaints about them during this period of time, and the subsequent events speak for themselves. On September 23, the cruiser carried out progressive tests at full speed, then trained with the squadron, after which, together with Askold, went to Vladivostok, demonstrating the Russian flag in Mazanpo on the way. On May 16-17, "Novik" is carrying Adjutant General A. N. Kuropatkin to Posiet Bay, on May 26 he left with "Askold" for Shimonoseki, then - to Kobe, on May 12-13 - to Nagasaki, after which he returned to Port Arthur. In other words, the cruiser immediately took an active part in the life of the Pacific Squadron, serving with it exactly as planned during its construction.
Perhaps the only design flaw was the vibration of the body, which occurs at the middle stroke, apparently somewhere between 16 and 18 knots. But it was easy to deal with it - you had to go either faster or slower than a certain critical interval, which could cause certain inconveniences, but in general it was not critical.
Completing the comparison of the technical condition of "Novik" with the cruiser "Varyag", one cannot fail to note such anecdote. As you know, the disputes about whether the steering drives of the Varyag were destroyed during the battle at Chemulpo continue to this day - we made the assumption that it was not the steering drives themselves that were killed or simply out of order (the Japanese, having examined the cruiser after lifting, they claimed that everything was in order with them), and the drives leading from the steering column in the conning tower to the central post. Such damage (contacts have moved away, for example), in our opinion, could well have occurred as a result of a close rupture of a heavy projectile.
Well, "Novik" did not need any enemy projectile - during one of the training firing, performed by him during the transition to the Far East, shots of the bow gun deployed at 125 degrees. in the stern, led to the fact that the wires of the electric rudder drive passing in the armored tube … broke. Subsequently, this malfunction was corrected by the crew: unfortunately, there is no information about how long it took.
Another technical nuisance occurred with the cruiser on September 24, 1903.in Port Arthur, when, under the influence of stormy weather, "Novik", anchored, leaned forward on the stern of the mine transport "Amur". However, the damage was so insignificant that it was repaired by ship means, so that on September 25 the ship made the transition to the Talienvan raid, and on September 26-28 "fled" to Chemulpo to see if there were Japanese ships there.
On the whole, it can be stated that upon arrival in the Far East, the Novik was fully operational in terms of its technical condition. His combat training, thanks to N. O. von Essen, who trained the crew quite intensively during the transition to Port Arthur, was at a completely acceptable level, which, of course, only increased in the course of further joint maneuvers with the ships of the squadron. Of course, the early termination of combat training in connection with the review announced by the Governor and the armed reserve that followed it had a negative impact on the cruiser's combat effectiveness. But there is not the slightest reason to believe that by the time the Russo-Japanese war began, Novik's combat training was at least somewhat inferior to other ships of the squadron.
The beginning of the war - a mine attack on the night of January 27, 1904
Being a high-speed cruiser of the 2nd rank, "Novik" could have played a significant role in repelling a mine attack that took place on the night of January 27, but for objective reasons it was not able to do so. As you know, the officers of the squadron and Vice Admiral O. V. Stark was diligently convinced that war was not expected in the near future, preventive measures were taken only partially. “Novik” was located, perhaps, in the most unsuccessful place for repelling an attack: it was anchored practically at the entrance from the outer roadstead to the inner one. Thus, the cruiser was actually fenced off from the attacking Japanese destroyers by almost all ships of the squadron: as a result, many did not even hear the start of firing on the Novik. In his memoirs, Lieutenant A. P. Stehr, who was on watch at that time, describes the events of that night as follows:
“On January 26, I was on duty from 12 to 4 am; at the first shot, I ordered the drummer who was near me to sound the alarm, just in case, the commander and officers ran upstairs in bewilderment, not understanding why I decided to make a noise at night. Hearing the shots, the commander ordered to separate the pairs, so that when the squadron leader gave us a signal, the pairs were already ready and we weighed down to pursue the enemy, but his trace was gone."
Perhaps, in fact, with couples, everything was a little different: of course, N. O. von Essen immediately gave the order for their withdrawal as soon as it became clear that the squadron was attacked, and, apparently, this was started on the cruiser immediately after 23.45 on 26 January, when the "wake-up" took place. But they managed to separate the pairs in six boilers only at 01.05, that is, a little more than an hour later, and by that time Vice Admiral O. V. Stark has already given two signals to the Novik. The first of them was lifted on the flagship battleship at 00.10, the commander ordered to breed pairs, the second - at 00.35: "It is more agile to breed pairs, weaken anchor and pursue enemy destroyers." As you can see, "Novik" was able to fulfill this instruction only after half an hour. Of course, and this was much faster than if the Novik had not started to dilute the steam at once, but waited for the orders of the commander, but still, by the time the order was received, the cruiser could not give a move. However, it was "Novik" who was the first to go in pursuit of the enemy.
Nevertheless, at 01.05 the cruiser gave way, and after 20 minutes 4 Japanese destroyers were seen on it. Novik did not have the slightest chance of catching up with them, because the steam was not raised in all boilers, but still N. O. von Essen chased after them, hoping that one of the destroyers was hit during the attack and could not reach full speed. One after another, 5 more boilers were put into operation on the cruiser, including 2 boilers at 01.25 and the other three at 0200, but still at 02.35, after an hour of chase, the Japanese destroyers broke away from the Novik. There was no sense in pursuing them further, and von Essen turned back to the squadron, to which he returned at 03.35, without causing any damage to the enemy and without undergoing any such damage himself - only in two boilers, from their urgent breeding, gauge glasses burst. At 05.45, Pobeda and Diana opened fire again, believing that they had undergone another attack by destroyers, but by this time the Japanese had already left. Nevertheless, the Novik went to sea again and, finding no one there, returned at 06.28 back to the outer roadstead.
Fight January 27, 1904
The general course of this battle is described by us in the article "The Battle of January 27, 1904 at Port Arthur: The Battle of Lost Opportunities", and we will not repeat ourselves, with the exception, perhaps, only of some nuances. The first to go to the Russian squadron was the 3rd combat detachment - the cruiser of Rear Admiral Deva, whose task was to reconnaissance and assess the damage that the Russian squadron received during a night mine attack. In addition, with luck, "Chitose", "Kasagi", "Takasago" and "Yoshino" should have carried away the Russian ships south of Encounter Rock, so that the main forces of H. Togo could cut them off from Port Arthur and destroy …
What happened next is not entirely clear, there is evidence that after the Japanese were spotted on the Russian ships, the signal "Cruisers to attack the enemy" was raised on the flagship, but it may not have happened. It is also possible that the Novik asked for permission from the squadron commander to attack the enemy, but this, again, is not accurate. It is only known for certain that "Bayan" and "Askold" went to the cruiser Deva, but after a quarter of an hour they were called back - Vice Admiral O. V. Stark decided to go in pursuit of them with the whole squadron.
At 08.15 am "Novik" set in motion and followed the Japanese, being on the right traverse of the flagship "Petropavlovsk" - the chase lasted an hour, then the squadron turned back and at 10:00 anchored again in the same place. At the same time, O. V. Stark left the cruiser, including the "Novik" with the squadron, sending one "Boyar" for reconnaissance, which discovered the main forces of the enemy.
At 10.50, the flagship ordered the 1st rank cruisers to go to the rescue of the Boyarin by a signal, and the semaphore was sent to Novik: “Go for reinforcements to the Boyarin, do not leave the area of operations of the fortress”. Just at this time, the forces of the Japanese were quite clearly visible: on the Novik they were identified as 6 squadron battleships, 6 armored cruisers and 4 armored cruisers of the 2nd class. Here an error crept into the observations of our sailors - there were only 5 armored cruisers, since "Asama" was at that time in Chemulpo.
Further in the sources usually follows a description of the rapprochement of "Novik" with "Mikasa", but we will interrupt in order to draw the attention of dear readers to one interesting nuance that is often overlooked. The fact is that at the time the main Japanese forces appeared, Vice Admiral O. V. Stark was absent from the squadron, as he was summoned by the governor E. I. Alekseev. Orders were passed to the cruisers on the initiative of the commander of the battleship "Petropavlovsk" A. A. Eberhard, who also ordered the entire squadron to anchor. It was quite clear that, remaining at anchors, the squadron could undergo a monstrous defeat, so A. A. Eberhard decided to act at his own peril and risk and led the ships into battle, although he had no right to do so. The fact is that according to the charter, the flag-captain, in the absence of the admiral, could take over command of the squadron, but only in peacetime, and the battle on January 27, 1904, obviously, was not such. In battle, the junior flagship was supposed to take command, but only if the squadron leader was wounded or killed, and O. V. Stark was alive and well. As a result, it turned out that the enemy was approaching, and none of the officers stationed on it had the right to command the squadron. Obviously, the drafters of the naval charter considered the situation in which the admiral would find himself somewhere else during the battle, and not on the ships of the squadron entrusted to him, as an oxymoron and they did not regulate it.
So, on "Novik" (as, incidentally, on "Bayan" and "Askold") the mood of the commanders was such that they carried out the order, which, strictly speaking, was insignificant for them, since the commander of "Petropavlovsk" had no right give it to them. But then it was even more interesting - it is clear that E. I. Alekseev could not allow the squadron to be led into battle by the captain of the 1st rank, so he ordered to stop filming from anchor until O. V. Stark returned to his flagship. Accordingly, at "Petropavlovsk" they had to raise at 11.10 am "Battleships to anchor all of a sudden is canceled" and after another 2 minutes: "Stay in place."
The last order obviously extended to the cruisers of the squadron, but here the captains of the 1st rank Grammatchikov ("Askold"), Viren ("Bayan") and von Essen ("Novik") were once again struck by an illness. Twenty minutes ago, they suddenly lost their memory so much that they completely forgot the charter and rushed into battle, carrying out the order of a person who had no right to give it. Now, all three were equally suddenly struck by blindness, so that none of them saw the signal to cancel the attack.
“Novik” went directly to “Mikasa” - on the one hand, such a jerk of a small cruiser, completely not intended for squadron combat, looks like sheer suicide, but von Essen had every reason to do just that. Realizing that the squadron needs time to wait for the commander's return, to weaken the anchor and line up in battle formation, all that Nikolai Ottovich could do was to try to distract the Japanese by himself. Of course, the Novik's armor did not protect at all from heavy 203-305-mm Japanese shells, and 152-mm could do the job, but von Essen relied on speed and maneuver. In his report, he described his tactics as follows:
“Turning to the right, and giving the machines 135 revolutions (22 knots), I went to the enemy's lead ship (Mikasa), meaning that thanks to this movement the cruiser is the enemy’s least target, while the speed of movement of the target makes it difficult for him to zero in; in addition, being on the right flank of my squadron, I did not interfere with her anchoring and maneuvering."
"Novik" went straight to "Mikasa", and approached her by 17 cables, then turned around and, breaking the distance to 27 cables, again turned to the Japanese flagship. At this time, intense fire was fired at the cruiser, but there were no direct hits, only fragments damaged the longboat and the six (boats) and shattered the whaleboat. In addition, there were two shrapnel hits in the middle pipe of the ship, in which two holes were subsequently discovered with an area of 2 and 5 inches (5 and 12, 5 cm2). Then "Novik" again approached the "Mikasa", now by 15 cables and turned back again, but at the moment of turning was hit by a large-caliber projectile, it is believed that it was 203-mm. The shell hit the cruiser at about 11.40, that is, by the time the Japanese hit, the Novik had already been dancing for half an hour in front of their entire line of warships.
As a result, the ship received a hole in the starboard side just below the waterline with an area of 1.84 sq. M. and other serious injuries - although there are some discrepancies in the description of the latter in the sources. So, N. I. von Essen gave the following description in his report:
“The exploding shell completely burned and destroyed cabin No. 5 and through the resulting hole of 18 square meters. feet water appeared in the wardroom, filling at the same time the above-armored compartments of the starboard side: the rusk compartment and the compartment under the commander's quarters. At the same time, it was discovered that water gushed into the steering compartment, why all the people jumped out of there, battening down the exit neck behind them."
But at the same time, in a memorandum about the battle on January 27, 1904, enclosed in a letter to his wife, Nikolai Ottovich indicated somewhat differently - that the shell hit directly into the wardroom, and that as a result of this hit, the cabins of three officers were destroyed, as well as pierced the armored deck, which is why, in fact, the steering compartment was flooded.
Apparently, nevertheless, the most reliable is the description of the damage to Novik, given in the official work "The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905." cruiser. It claims that the ship received a hole that extended to 4 sheets of plating up to the armored deck - the latter, however, fully fulfilled its function and was not pierced. However, as a result of the rupture of the projectile, the Kingston cartridge cellar, located at a distance of less than 2 meters from the hole, was damaged, as a result of which water entered the steering compartment, completely flooding it.
Why is it important? The fact is that most sources claim that Novik was hit by a large-caliber projectile, no less than eight-inch. At the same time, the nature of the damage indicates, rather, about a 120-152-mm projectile - remember that hitting the battleship Retvizan below the waterline with a 120-mm projectile led to the formation of a hole with an area of 2.1 square meters, that is even more than that of Novik. At the same time, an eight-inch projectile should have left behind more significant damage: for example, hitting the Varyag's deck of a 203-mm projectile led to the formation of a hole of 4.7 sq. M. So, if the Novik's armor had been pierced, then one should unconditionally accept that a 203-mm projectile hit the cruiser, because the 152-mm armor-piercing shell was hardly capable of "overpowering" a 50-mm armor bevel, even at those small distances at which the battle was going, but 203-mm was quite capable of it. But, apparently, the armor was not broken, so it cannot be ruled out that a six-inch shell from one of the Japanese battleships or armored cruisers hit the Novik. This hypothesis could be refuted by data on shell fragments, if they were found and examined, and the caliber of the shell was restored from them, but the author of this article did not come across such evidence.
On the whole, the most reliable description of the damage seems to be presented in the official source "The Russo-Japanese War of 1904-1905." The hole between frames 153 and 155 with an area of “about 20 sq. ft.”(1.86 sq. m.), the upper edge of which was just above the waterline, the steering and rusk compartments and the compartment under the commander's quarters were flooded, one cabin was destroyed, the second was damaged, the muzzle and shield of 120-mm gun No. 3 were broken by shrapnel, which, however, fully retained its combat capability. Probably, the only human loss on the Novik was caused by a fragment of the same shell - the gunner of the 47-mm gun Ilya Bobrov, who died on the same day, was mortally wounded.
As a result of the hit, the ship received 120 tons of water, having received a serious trim at the stern, and in addition, although the steering control continued to operate, it could fail at any moment, and N. O. von Essen decided to withdraw the ship from the battle. This was absolutely correct: as we have already said, the Novik hit happened at about 11.40, at the moment when the cruiser was turning to break the distance to the Japanese, and some 5 minutes after that, Mikasa turned away from Port Arthur in the sea - trying to attack him and then no longer made much sense, since the Russian squadron managed to wean off the anchors and form a battle formation. It was important to distract the attention of the Japanese while our squadron had not yet formed, but now such actions, and even on a damaged cruiser, were obviously an excessive risk.
So von Essen ordered a retreat, and at 11.50 the cruiser anchored in its place in the outer roadstead. By that time, it was possible to bring the plaster, but it was not possible to pump out the water, because the valve with which it was possible to drain the water into the hold so that it could be pumped out from there was just in the flooded steering compartment, where it was impossible to penetrate. In this regard, Nikolai Ottovich asked the head of the squadron for permission to enter the inner harbor, which was given. Of course, the decisive and brave actions of the small cruiser could not fail to cause admiration and enthusiasm among the people who watched and participated in the battle, so this return was triumphant for Novik. This is how Lieutenant A. P. Shter:
“When the Novik returned to the harbor with a hymn after the battle, cheers were heard from everywhere, especially from the coastal batteries, from where all the actions of both fleets were clearly visible. According to these eyewitnesses, "Novik" was so close to the enemy squadron, in comparison with the rest of the ships, that they suggested a mine attack on our side. The imagination of the spectators was so intense that they were ready to swear that they saw how one of the enemy cruisers capsized.
The mood on the cruiser itself after the battle … perhaps best described by the same A. P. Shter:
"The freelance conductor of our orchestra was so carried away by the war that he categorically refused to leave Novik, and asked to give him a gun next time, probably instead of a conductor's baton."
Let's try to figure out what damage Novik inflicted on the enemy fleet - I must say that this is not so easy to do.
In total, three Russian ships armed with 120-mm artillery took part in that battle, these are the armored cruisers Boyarin and Novik, as well as the transport Angara. Alas, the reliable consumption of shells is known only for Novik - its gunners fired 105 120-mm shells at the enemy. All that is known about the Boyarin is that, having discovered the main forces of the Japanese, he turned around, and, returning to the squadron standing on the outer roadstead, fired three times at the Japanese from the 120-mm aft cannon, and not so much in order to hit (the distance exceeded 40 cables), how many in order to attract attention and warn the squadron about the approach of the main enemy forces. Then the commander of the "Boyar", not wanting to endanger his cruiser, "hid" it behind the left flank of the Russian squadron, where it made constant circulation so that, while remaining in place, would not present a tasty target for the Japanese, and finally entered the wake "Askold" who passed by him. At the same time, the distances to the Japanese were very large, and "Boyarin" fired infrequently, but, alas, there is no information about the consumption of ammunition from this cruiser.
As for the "Angara" transport, the data differ here. The ship's logbook shows the consumption of 27 120-mm shells, but for some reason the Angara commander indicated a different figure in the report - 60 shells of this caliber, and it is difficult to say which one is correct. Nevertheless, the compilers of the "Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905." accepted the consumption of shells in the logbook, that is, 27 - they probably had some additional information to make sure that this figure was accurate.
The Japanese, in describing the damage to their ships received in the battle on January 27, 1904, indicated three hits with 120-mm shells. One of them was received by "Mikasa" - the shell left a pothole on the poop, in the area of the left side of the ship. Hatsuse received two more hits, one of which fell into the artillery shield, and the second - into the admiral's salon, and the shell exploded, hitting the bulkhead of the bedroom.
To the best of his modest strength, the author tries not to “play along” with the ships he describes, but based on the above, it can be assumed that all three indicated hits were achieved by the Novik artillerymen. Both "Boyarin" and "Angara" fired from a significantly greater distance than "Novik", in addition, "Angara" used up quite a few shells, and "Boyarin", apparently, too. Moreover, according to the "Russian-Japanese War of 1904-1905." "Boyarin" made its first shots not at battleships, but at Japanese cruisers. It can only be surprising that in all the descriptions of the battle "Novik" attacked "Mikasa", and how then could two of his shells hit the "Hatsusa", which was the last in the ranks of the battleships? However, there is no contradiction here: the fact is that the Novik, either attacking or retreating from the Japanese flagship, obviously could only shoot at it from one or two bow (aft) 120-mm guns, while the rest could not allows you to do the same limiting the angles of fire. But the gunners couldn't sit idle, and they probably fired at other targets at which they could direct their guns.
But as for the mine attack, it apparently did not happen. To the desire of N. O. von Essen to launch a torpedo attack was indicated in his memoirs by SP Burachek, who served on the Novik, but the fact is that, firstly, he wrote these memoirs about half a century after the events described, and during that time (and at this age) human memory can make different things. And secondly, S. P. Burachek cites the words of Nikolai Ottovich as a justification: “Prepare torpedo tubes. I'm going to attack! " - however, strictly speaking, there is no direct evidence in them that von Essen was planning a mine attack. They can also be understood in such a way that the Novik commander ordered the torpedo tubes to be loaded in the hope that during the attack he was planning, he might have a chance to use them. Again, we recall that the range of the 381-mm "self-propelled mine" of the "Novik" was only 900 m, or slightly less than 5 cables, and it is absolutely impossible to imagine that N. I. von Essen could count on getting his cruiser so close to the Japanese flagship.
The Japanese also wrote about the use of mines by Novikom, claiming in their official history that the cruiser did fire a torpedo that passed right under the Iwate's nose. As we understand, this could not be - despite the fact that Novik, among other Russian ships, came closest to the Japanese, but it also did not approach a distance of less than 15 cables to Mikasa, and to Iwate, of course, it was even further. But even 15 cables exceeded the firing range of the Novik torpedoes three times - and this is not counting the fact that N. O. von Essen never mentioned a mine attack and nowhere did he report a spent mine.
On the whole, it can be stated that Novik fought in an exemplary manner - attacking the Japanese flagship, he tried to divert the fire to himself at the most difficult moment for our squadron, and even the Japanese noted his courage. At the same time, it is obvious that he still managed to inflict some damage on the enemy. Even if the author's hypothesis that all three 120 mm shells hit the Japanese ships "arrived" from Novik is incorrect, it is still completely impossible to assume that Angara and Boyarin hit, but no Novik not a single hit. But just one blow, and it is not even excluded that a 152-mm projectile, led to serious damage to the ship and forced N. O. von Essen remove the cruiser from the battle.
