Having studied the design features of the Rivenge-class battleships in the previous article, we turn to the brainchilds of the "gloomy Teutonic genius", the heights of the German battleship building of the First World War, called "Bayern" and "Baden".
The history of these ships began in the autumn-winter months of 1910, when the issue of increasing the caliber of the guns of the "capital" Kaiserlichmarine ships was again put on the agenda. But first, a little background.
As you know, the first German dreadnoughts of the "Nassau" type received 280-mm guns, which at that time were the standard main caliber of heavy German ships: the last two series of Kaiserlichmarine battleships, "Braunschweig" and "Deutschland", each had four 280-mm guns with a length barrel 40 calibers. Of course, battleships of the "Nassau" type received an improved and more powerful 45-caliber artillery system, but still it was not considered sufficient for battleships of the future. And now, already the next four German dreadnoughts, ships of the "Helgoland" type, received a much more powerful 305-mm / 50 Krupp gun, which became one of the best in the world (and, perhaps, the best) artillery system of this caliber, a real work of artillery art that left the British 305-mm / 45 and 305-mm / 50 guns far behind. Of course, they are not looking for good from the good, so the next series, battleships of the "Kaiser" type, were armed by the Germans with the same 305-mm / 50 artillery system.
And then came the year 1909, marked by the laying of the world's first superdreadnought - the British Orion, and it became clear that the "Mistress of the Seas" would continue to build ships with 343-mm artillery. Oddly enough, the news of this did not cause any excitement in Germany: despite the fact that their next series of battleships, laid down in 1911 (type "Koenig"), was intended to fight the British superdreadnoughts, they kept the same 305 -mm / 50 guns that were on the "Kaisers". And the "Kenigi" themselves were structurally very similar to the battleships of the previous series, except for the location of the main artillery.
The logic of the Germans was quite clear: yes, the British 343-mm guns are more powerful, but the German 305-mm guns are lighter, and this made it possible to create a lighter, or better protected tower (more precisely, both at the same time), which required a barbet of a smaller diameter, which again made it possible to improve its protection or save weight, the same applied to feed mechanisms, ammunition … In general, the Germans considered that due to the well-known relief of the main caliber, they could create much better protected ships than the British build, and that the best armor, better flatness of the trajectory of the projectiles, higher rate of fire will provide the Kenigam with an advantage in combat with 343-mm superdreadnoughts, despite the fact that the latter have more powerful cannons. How correct were the German designers and admirals in their reasoning? We will answer this question some other time when we take up a detailed analysis of the English "Orions" and "Iron Dukes" and the German "Kaisers" and "Konigov", but this is beyond the scope of our today's article. Now it is important for us to know what the Germans believed this way, and not whether their views were true.
So, when designing the "Konigi", the Germans believed that ten 305-mm / 50 guns fully meet the tasks of a modern battleship. But soon the United States and Japan followed the example of the British, switched to even larger 356-mm guns, and it became clear that the armament of the battleships of the High Seas Fleet needed to be strengthened. But how? The German Armaments Department of the Imperial Naval Ministry considered two options. One of them was to increase the number of 305 mm / 50 guns to 13-15 units. to a battleship - obviously, this entailed a transition from two-gun turrets to three-gun mounts, or even more. The second option involved the preservation of the two-gun turrets while increasing the caliber of the guns to 340 mm. Having made the necessary calculations, in November 1910 German specialists came to the conclusion that 340-mm cannons in two-gun turrets were preferred. However, the results of the calculations did not at all encourage the Germans to immediately create a 340-mm artillery system. In essence, the result of the calculations of the Department of Armaments was the realization of the need for more powerful naval artillery than the existing 305-mm, but the promising caliber for future battleships had yet to be determined. Therefore, the project of a 340-mm two-gun turret, on its own initiative, developed and presented in July 1911 by the Krupp concern, aroused only polite interest from the naval ministry.
The process of determining the optimal caliber of promising German battleships was slow and very detailed. State Secretary (Minister of the Navy) A. von Tirpitz asked a completely reasonable question: until recently, 280-305-mm cannons suited everyone, now the newest ships are equipped with 343-356-mm artillery systems, but where will the finish line in this race of calibers be? ? There was no doubt that he would be somewhere: there would, in the end, be both technical and economic restrictions. Von Tirpitz saw that the size and power of dreadnoughts was growing from year to year, but he was well aware that this growth was finite: sooner or later battleships would reach their maximum size for the existing technological level, which would no longer make sense, since the growth of combat capabilities was already will not compensate for the outrunning growth in the cost of ships.
In other words, von Tirpitz assumed that sooner or later the same thing would happen to dreadnoughts as to squadron battleships, and that their size and firepower would stabilize at some level. But in 1911, obviously, this has not yet happened, however, whoever sets the limit boundaries of battleships before others will be able to start building them earlier, and thus will benefit while other countries create weaker ships.
Von Tirpitz ordered some calculations, both technical and tactical, and was soon convinced that the maximum caliber of the guns would stabilize somewhere around 16 inches (400-406 mm). In this, his assumptions were confirmed by the consultants of the Krupp company, who argued that the British, adhering to the old methods of making artillery systems (wire barrels), would not be able to create heavier naval guns.
It would seem that this is the solution to the issue, everything is clear, and it is necessary to build battleships with sixteen-inch artillery, but von Tirpitz hesitated. The fact is that he had to take into account both domestic and foreign policy factors, and everything was complicated here.
There was still no information that any countries were designing 15-16 "guns, and battleships for 16" guns promised to be huge and expensive. Will the Reichstag accept such an increase in cost, given the fact that no one else in the world builds such battleships? Will the creation of "16-inch" ships by Germany provoke the next round of the naval arms race? But, on the other hand, if only to "catch up" for other powers in the caliber of artillery, will not Germany lag behind at sea? Von Tirpitz did not have answers to these questions, and on August 4, 1911 he wasinstructed three departments of the Naval Ministry: the shipbuilding, general and armaments department to carry out comparative studies of the transition of the main ships of the fleet to 350-mm, 380-mm and 400-mm guns.
And so, on September 1, an expanded meeting was held on the choice of the caliber of future guns. An interesting fact - the 380-mm cannons were thrown back immediately, but a heated debate unfolded about the other two. Ten 350mm cannons or eight 400mm cannons? It is interesting that the artillerymen and the head of the armaments department, Rear Admiral G. Gerdes, spoke in favor of 10 * 350-mm guns, which should be placed on the battleship in five two-gun towers, similar to the "König". Their arguments boiled down to the fact that a 400-mm gun, of course, better penetrates armor, but not so much as to have an overwhelming advantage over 350-mm guns, their rate of fire is comparable, and 10 barrels will be able to "bring into the enemy" more shells than 8 Oddly enough, they were opposed by shipbuilders - the chief designer of the fleet G. Buerkner said that he was a staunch supporter of the four-turret ship, the guns of which were grouped in the bow and stern, leaving the middle part of the hull unoccupied for vehicles, boilers, boats and mine artillery. He stated that the fifth tower "always gets in the way" and that it should be disposed of whenever possible. In addition, he drew attention to the fact that 10 * 350-mm guns will have a greater weight than 8 * 400-mm, and that the savings can be up to 700 tons.
Seeing that the discussion had reached a dead end, A. von Tirpitz proposed a compromise solution - to use 10 * 350-mm guns, placing them at the ends in two- and three-gun towers so that the 1st and 4th towers were three-gun, and 2 the third and third - with two-gun, that is, similar to how the Americans subsequently installed 10 * 356-mm cannons on the battleships Oklahoma and Nevada, which were laid down about a year later than the events described. But this compromise did not satisfy anyone, because the rejection of the three-gun towers in the Imperial Naval Ministry bordered on a phobia. We list the main arguments against such towers below.
1. The large diameter of the barbets led to the need to cut "huge holes" in the decks of the ship - according to the German shipbuilders, this violated the optimal distribution of the longitudinal structural connections of the hull and negatively affected its strength. I must say, the argument is completely contrived - both then and later many ships with three-gun turrets were built, whose hull strength was quite satisfactory.
2. Reducing the rate of supply of ammunition to the medium gun. In fact, if such a problem existed, then it could, if not be solved at all, then reduced to a completely insignificant value.
3. An increase in the torque of the turret turntable during firing, since the axes of the outer guns were further from the center of the installation than in a two-gun turret. I must say that, although this objection is absolutely correct, it did not lead to any complications, given the reasonable design of the towers.
4. Large loss of firepower when withdrawing a three-gun turret in battle. A very controversial argument. Yes, of course, three guns are one and a half times more than two, but the fact is that the chances of hitting one of five towers are noticeably greater than one of four.
At the same time, the specialists of the Naval Ministry were fully aware that three-gun turrets also have advantages - a more compact placement of artillery, which makes it possible to reduce the length of the citadel and save weight on this, and in addition, the ability to provide artillery with better firing angles. But all the same, despite the above, and despite the fact that the German naval artillerymen and engineers knew about the introduction of three-gun towers in the fleets of Russia, Italy and Austria-Hungary, their prejudice against such towers remained undefeated.
Though…
The author of this article has some, not even a guess, but rather a direction that requires further research. As you know, Austria-Hungary managed to build four very interesting and powerful battleships of the Viribus Unitis class, combining in a relatively small displacement acceptable speed, very strong artillery weapons and impressive booking. However, very little is known about the battleships themselves (as, in fact, about the overwhelming majority of Austro-Hungarian ships), the bibliography about them is very, very scarce. If you look at the tabular performance characteristics, it turns out that the Habsburg empire succeeded almost the best 305-mm dreadnoughts in the world (at the time of the bookmark, of course). But the history of naval construction testifies to the fact that usually such "super ships" suffer from many non-obvious shortcomings, and their tabular advantages remain only on paper.
At the same time, respected S. Vinogradov in his monograph "Superdreadnoughts of the Second Reich" Bayern "and" Baden ". The main caliber of Admiral Tirpitz”notes that at the time of discussion on September 1, 1911, the Germans already had data on the Viribus Unitis and had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the design of their three-gun installations. Apparently - at the level of the drawings, since the battleships of this series entered service, but perhaps in 1911 the towers themselves were already ready in metal.
Of course, the Germans had a strong prejudice against the three-gun turrets, and this is not in doubt. But it is very difficult to imagine that German engineers, in favor of this point of view, deliberately distorted their conclusion about the towers of Austrian ships. It is much easier to admit that the design of the Austro-Hungarian dreadnoughts and their towers really had all of the above disadvantages and the Germans, having studied them properly, found a "brilliant" confirmation of their position. However, we repeat - this is just a personal assumption of the author, a hypothesis not confirmed by any documents.
Be that as it may, the compromise proposed by A. von Tirpitz did not satisfy either side. Then Rear Admiral G. Gerdes proposed eight 350-mm guns located in four towers in a linearly elevated position at the ends of the ship, but the State Secretary himself rejected such a weakening of weapons, considering it unpromising. As a result, the meeting chose a battleship with eight 400-mm guns for further study, but indicated in the resolution that this decision would require an appropriate political assessment.
Three weeks later, the meeting was held again, and now its participants reacted to the 400-mm caliber much more "friendly" than on September 1. Much was said about the prestige of Germany, about the possibility of overtaking competitors - in general, admirals and designers were now noticeably inclined towards the 400-mm gun, and von Tirpitz began to prepare a report for the Kaiser.
There was not much time left - at the end of autumn, von Tirpitz was to receive an invitation to the annual autumn hunt, which actually happened. There, far from the troubles and bustle of Berlin, the state secretary presented the Kaiser with a sketch of the battleship, from which, in general, the design of the Bayern began. Unfortunately, little is known about this project. Normal displacement of the battleship was 28,250 tons, length - 177 m, armament - 8 * 400-mm, 14 * 150-mm and 10 * 88-mm guns. The project envisaged a three-shaft power plant, which has become a classic for German ships, and the middle shaft was supposed to run on a diesel engine. And that, in general, was all.
The Kaiser liked the project, now it was necessary to draw up a preliminary estimate for the construction of the battleship. Despite von Tirpitz's preference for the 400mm caliber, ships with 350mm and 380mm cannons were also employed. And the very first estimates showed that the preliminary project, which was shown to the Kaiser von Tirpitz, was too optimistic.
The battleship variant with 10 * 350-mm guns acquired a normal displacement of 29,000 tons and a cost of 59.7 million marks. Well, the battleship with 8 * 400-mm guns turned out to be even larger, despite the fact that its "price tag" was guaranteed to go for 60 million marks. These figures were too high for von Tirpitz, he did not consider it possible to convince politicians of the need to allocate such funds.
And then a draft design of a battleship with 8 * 380-mm guns arrived in time, worked out by the shipbuilding department: with a normal displacement of 28,100 tons, it should have cost about 57.5 million marks. A. von Tirpitz considered such indicators quite acceptable, the ship fit well into the budgets. Of course, the 400 mm gun was more powerful, but von Tirpitz, forced to take into account financial and political aspects, wrote to the Kaiser:
"The advantage associated with a further increase in caliber is relatively small, and hence this gun can probably be retained even when other fleets switch to an even heavier caliber."
In other words, there is every reason to believe that, abandoning the 400-mm gun, von Tirpitz reasoned something like this: now our battleships will still be the strongest, and then, even if some powers switch to 406-mm guns, then we, using a lighter 380-mm artillery system, we use the saved weight to enhance the armor of our ships. So our dreadnoughts, being weaker armed, will become better protected at the same time and will remain quite equivalent to enemy ships of the same class with 16-inch artillery.
In fact, and without a doubt, at this moment the Kaiser's fleet lost its ultimatum-powerful battleships, which in terms of artillery power would have significantly surpassed the British. The fact that the 400-mm gun would be only slightly more powerful than the 380-mm contained a fair amount of cunning, although it is possible that von Tirpitz was simply misinformed by the forecasts of specialists. Today it is easy for us to argue, having at hand all the necessary background information, but the most powerful weapon of the German fleet at that time was the Krupp 12-inch gun (305-mm), and the rest of the guns did not even exist in the form of some elaborate sketches.
However, if we compare two guns of England, made at the same technological level - 381-mm and 406-mm, we will see that the difference between them is quite tangible. As we have already said, the 381-mm cannon fired 871 kg of shells with an initial speed of 752 m / s, and the 406-mm gun, which was subsequently received by the Nelson-class battleships, fired 929 kg of shells with an initial speed of 785 m / s, then there is the muzzle energy of the 406-mm cannon was about 16, 2% higher. It seems to be not so much, but if we forget that the 381-mm cannon was deservedly considered a masterpiece of artillery, but the 406-mm artillery system is recognized by everyone as unsuccessful. In it, the British for some reason left the principle of "heavy projectile - low muzzle velocity" to the principle of "light projectile - high muzzle velocity" was to leave the barrel at a speed of 828 m / s … However, in the future, the artillery system was improved, bringing the muzzle velocity to 797 m / s, so that it became 19.8% more powerful than the British fifteen-inch gun. At the same time, the American 406-mm gun, having a 1000 kg projectile and an initial velocity of 790 m / s, exceeded the British 381-mm gun in muzzle energy by 26.7%.
In other words, there is no doubt that with an equal technological level, a 400-mm gun could be 20-25% more powerful than a 380-mm gun, and this is a very significant superiority. And the Germans stopped literally a step away from it - another thousand, or one and a half thousand tons of displacement, several million marks and … Alas, history does not know the subjunctive mood.
On the other hand, the rejection of the 400-mm gun can in no way be considered a sign of the inertia of the German naval leadership. The fact is that at the time of the decision, the Germans knew only that ships with 343-356-mm artillery systems were being built in the world, and that the British seemed to be thinking about an even larger caliber cannon, but there was no exact information about the latter. And the Germans took a wide step forward, increasing the caliber of their guns by almost three inches in one fell swoop - an absolutely exceptional case in naval history. Suffice it to say that the 380 mm two-gun turret weighed almost twice as much as a similar turret with 305 mm guns. Thus, the Germans not only decided on a revolutionary increase in the power of their dreadnoughts' guns, but also made this step completely independently, under the influence of their own views on the evolution of naval weapons, and not because they were forced to catch up with someone. Information that the British are creating "381-mm" dreadnoughts arrived in Germany about six months after the decision was made to build battleships with 380 mm cannons.
