Let's start our comparison with a description of the British battleships of the Rivenge class, which are often called the Royal Soverin class, or simply the R class. All five battleships of this type were built according to the 1913 program: the first laid down the Rivenge on October 22, 1913, the last - the Royal Oak and Royal Soverin, which got up on the stocks on the same day, January 15, 1914.
Of course, even at the stage of determining the performance characteristics, the Rivendzhi looked like a step back in comparison with the magnificent Queen Elizabeth built according to the program of the previous year. The main differences from the "Queen" were to be:
1. Lower speed: instead of 25 knots. in total 21, 5 (and then - 21) knots.
2. Return to a mixed power plant - instead of pure oil boilers, Rivendzhi should have been fitted with units capable of operating on both oil and coal.
3. And finally, the cost - Great Britain wanted to get somewhat cheaper battleships than the fast Queen Elizabeth.
True, there are considerable discrepancies about the last point. So, A. A. Mikhailov in his monograph "Battleships of the Royal Soverin" type indicates that in the case of the Rivendjs, the British wanted to keep within 2 million 150 thousand pounds, while the cost of Queen Elizabeth ranged from 2 million pounds. £ 408,000 up to 3 million 14 thousand pounds. Everything would be fine, but then A. A. Mikhailov indicates the cost of "Rivendzhey" from 2 406 500 pounds sterling. (lead ship) up to £ 3,295,800. (built later than all the "Ramillis") O. Parks, in his famous multivolume work on battleships of England, indicates the cost of battleships of the "Queen Elizabeth" class at 1,960 thousand pounds. Art., but about the price of "Rivendzhey" does not say anything.
The author of this article was unable to find out the exact reason for this discrepancy. Of course, one can assume that the whole thing is in inflation: the First World War hit almost all currencies of the world quite hard, and the British pound sterling was no exception. Battleships of the "Queen Elizabeth" type were being completed already during the war years, and perhaps the price was from 2, 4 to more than 3 million pounds sterling. represent the actual costs of their construction, and indicated by O. Parks 1,980 thousand pounds sterling. - the cost reduced to the pre-war rate of the pound sterling. But in this case, the Admiralty could not have estimated the Rivendzhi at £ 2,150,000. even before the war - how then could they know about the beginning of the war and the resulting inflation? On the other hand, it is also impossible to admit that the cost of ships indicated by O. Parks does not include any nuances of their equipment - what kind of equipment is this, in 50% of the cost of the ship itself?
In any case, one can say with certainty - "Rivendzhi" should have been cheaper than their predecessors.
Artillery
The main caliber was the same as that installed on battleships of the Queen Elizabeth type - four twin-turrets with 381-mm Mk I guns. Recall that these artillery systems had a barrel length of 42 caliber and sent 871-kg shells into flight with an initial speed of 752 m / s. The maximum elevation angle also corresponded to Queen Elizabeth's installations - 20 degrees, which provided a maximum range of 121 cables. The placement of the towers also fully corresponded to that adopted on the battleships of the previous series - they were located linearly elevated, two at the ends, and the artillery cellars of each pair of towers were located under the towers and between them. Ammunition was 100 rounds per gun.
The anti-mine caliber was represented by 14 152-mm MK-XII guns, which is 2 guns less than that of the Queen Elizabeth. Initially, the Rivendzhs were supposed to have the same 16 cannons, of which a dozen were located in the casemate, and four guns were supposed to stand openly on the upper deck, protected only by shields. Subsequently, it was decided to abandon the aft pair of "open" cannons, and the bow ones located in the chimney area were placed in the superstructure, protected with a "semi-casemate" - but this happened after the ships entered service, during one of their upgrades.
In general, despite the reduction in the number of anti-mine caliber guns and the decrease in their protection (there were only 12 guns in the casemates), the Rivendzhey PMK should be recognized as the best in comparison with all previous British battleships. The thing is that, taking into account the high flooding of the casemates on battleships of the Iron Duke type, the British shifted the location of the casemate to the stern. As a result, although the 152-mm artillery of the Rivendzhey was located at about the same height as that of the other British battleships, it was still significantly less overwhelmed. The ammunition load was repeated for Queen Elizabeth - 130 rounds per gun, plus 100 rounds of lighting per ship.
In addition to the above, at the time of entry into service, "Rivendzhi" had two 76, 2-mm anti-aircraft guns and four three-pound salute cannons, as well as five machine guns "Maxim". Not without, of course, mine weapons - it was represented by four underwater 533-mm torpedo tubes with ammunition of 5 torpedoes per vehicle.
Reservation
The armor protection scheme of the Rivenge-class battleships largely repeated that used on the Queen Elizabeth, but still had significant differences from it.
The basis of vertical protection was 330 mm armor belt, stretching from the middle of the barbet of the 1st tower to the middle of the barbet of the 4th. On "Queen Elizabeth" the height of the armor plates was 4.4 m, but the 330 mm section lasted only for 2.28 m. Above it, by 1.21 m, the armor plate had only 152 mm thickness, and below (0, 914 m) - 203 mm. But on "Rivenge" the height of the armor plates was 52 cm less - only 3.88 m, but they were 330 mm thick along the entire height. Without a doubt, such protection was significantly superior to that of battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class.
From 330 mm, the armor belt in the bow and stern continued with 152 mm plates of the same thickness, which, closer to the extremities, decreased to 102 mm. From 102 belts in the bow, one inch thick (25.4 mm) armor followed, although it is possible that this was not armor, but simply sheathing of increased thickness, the stern remained unprotected. At the same time, 102 mm sections were closed by traverses of the same thickness, only in the stern it was located perpendicular to the axis of the ship, and in the bow - at an angle of approximately 45 degrees. to her. This, of course, was not the only traverse - in the places where 152 mm and 102 mm armor belts closed, 38 mm armor bulkheads were located in the bow and stern, and the edges of 330 mm armor plates and the front walls of the barbets of the 1st and 4th main caliber turrets connected 152 mm traverse, located at an angle to the longitudinal plane of the ship. That is, in order to get into the feed pipe of the bow or stern tower, the enemy projectile first had to penetrate 152 mm of the side armor belt, and then 152 mm of traverse, located at a large angle to the trajectory of the projectile.
We described the main armor belt of the ship - the second, upper armor belt, which had a thickness of 152 mm, towered above it. It was shorter than the 330 mm section of the main armor belt: starting in the same place as the 330 mm armor plate in the nose, that is, approximately in the middle of the barbette of the bow (1st) tower, it lasted only until the middle of the barbet of the 3rd tower, leaving the fourth completely unprotected. At the same time, "oblique" traverses covering the barbettes of the 1st and 3rd towers also departed from the edges of the upper, 152 mm armor belt.
And, finally, a casemate was located above the upper armor belt, which was even shorter than the upper armor belt. Its thickness at the side was 152 mm, while from the stern it was closed by a 102 mm traverse, passing perpendicular to the axis of the ship in the area of the aft conning tower, and in the nose 152 mm of the casemate armor plates, again at an angle to the center plane of the ship, were connected to the barbet 2- oh tower, adjoining it approximately in the middle of its length. The casemate itself was divided along the axis of the ship by a 51 mm armored bulkhead, and the guns in it were separated by 38 mm armored walls, which, however, did not reach the middle of the hull.
The Rivendzhi also had anti-torpedo bulkheads running along the sides along the 152-330 mm sections of the main armor belt, that is, from the 38 mm bow to the stern of the same thickness. In height, the anti-torpedo bulkhead ran from the bottom of the ship to the middle deck, that is, even slightly above the waterline. Where this bulkhead was located behind 152-330 mm armor belt, its thickness was 25.4 mm, below - 38 mm. In addition, chimneys had vertical armor protection - 25 mm from the main armored deck and to the roof of the casemates, above, to the base of the chimney - 38 mm.
As for the horizontal protection of Rivenge-class battleships, the ships of this type had 5 decks: forecastle deck, upper, main, middle and lower, and they all had some kind of booking in one area or another, so all this will be described not so easy. The location of the decks is indicated in the above diagram of the ship's armor protection, and we will describe its horizontal protection, moving along it from top to bottom.
According to some reports, the forecastle deck was not armored anywhere, with the exception of the area on which it was also the roof of the casemate of 152-mm guns, and there it consisted of 25.4 mm armor plates. It turns out that the specified protection "Rivendzhi" received from the 2nd tower of the main caliber to the aft conning tower. However, according to other sources, the forecastle deck had protection outside the casemate - in the bow, up to the 1st tower of the main caliber 19 mm, in the stern, to the barbet of the third tower, 25 mm (this is shown in the diagram from the book of O. Parks)
Below was the upper deck - it was the "floor" of the casemate and ran over the upper 152 mm belt, continuing, of course, further into the bow and stern of the ship. But it was armored only on an area limited by 152 mm belts and traverses, that is, from the 1st to the 4th turrets of the main caliber, inclusive. Its thickness was variable, ranging from 25, 4 to 31, 7-38 mm, unfortunately, it was not possible to figure out exactly where the booking was differentiated.
Well, then we move on to the basis of the Rivendzhey's horizontal armor protection - the main armored deck. Its horizontal part passed at the level of the upper deck (at the level of the upper edge of 152-330 mm of the armor belt) along its entire length, and had a thickness of 50, 8 mm above the ammunition storage facilities and above the engine rooms, but the boiler rooms, apparently, were protected only 25.4 mm armor. The horizontal section of the armored deck was connected to the lower edge of the main armor belt by bevels that had a thickness of 50.8 mm throughout the citadel. Thus, the ship was armored along the entire length of 152-330 mm of the armor belt, from the bow 38 mm traverse to the stern. But behind them, in the stern and in the bow up to 102 mm of traverses, the main deck did not have bevels and was armored from side to side by 25.4 mm. Further from 102 mm of traverses to the stem and sternpost, the upper deck of the Rivendzhey was not armored.
The middle deck was armored in the stern, above the cellars of the 4th tower and aft torpedo tubes (25, 4 mm), between 38 mm and 102 mm with a traverse - 50, 8 mm, beyond 102 mm with a traverse towards the stern post (above the steering) 76- 102 mm. The lower one - on the contrary, only in the nose, from the barbette of the 1st tower and almost to the stem - 25.4 mm.
In general, the following happened. Above the boiler rooms, the total horizontal protection reached 82.5 mm (25.4 mm forecastle deck, 32 mm upper deck and 25.4 mm main deck). The most durable horizontal protection was above the cellars - basically, the same 82.5 mm (31.7 mm of the upper deck and 50.8 mm of the main deck), but in the area of the aft tower - 107.9 mm (also 25.4 mm of the average decks), and the engine rooms had the same protection for about half of their length, only there, instead of the middle deck, additional protection was created by the "roof" of the casemate - 25.4 mm forecastle deck. Over the steering devices, the protection was 76-102 mm.
I must say that such protection had, on the one hand, much in common with the previous British "capital" ships, and on the other, it was very different from them. The common thing was in the "patchwork" scheme, when seemingly acceptable thicknesses were smeared over several decks. The difference was in the unusually high location of the main armored deck - if earlier its horizontal part barely rose above the waterline, then for Rivenge-class battleships it passed at the level of the main deck, that is, at the level of the upper edge of the main armor belt, 2.44 m above the structural level. waterline.
Such an innovation can hardly be called a great success of British designers, and the point was this. We have already discussed the vulnerability of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, which was a consequence of the differentiated thickness of its main armor belt: the problem was that the enemy projectile, piercing the armor plate where its thickness was 152 mm, "flew" into the armored deck of some 25.4mm thick.
Such protection could not repel either the fragments of a large-caliber projectile, or, even more so, the projectile itself - but the latter had good chances to pierce both the 152 mm belt and the 25.4 mm deck and enter the engine or boiler room as a whole - or explode when the armor deck breaks.
So, on Rivenge, the designers had the opportunity to largely get rid of this drawback, due to the fact that its main armor belt has 330 mm along the entire height of the armor plate. If the armor deck had remained at a height like that of the Queen Elizabeth, then in order to get to the 25, 4-50, 8 mm deck, the projectile needed to overcome 330 mm of armor, not 152 mm. Of course, the projectile could have hit the upper armor belt, which had only 152 mm, but the fact is that in the case we described, it would be located high enough above the main armor deck, and the projectile hit directly into it would be much less likely. Of course, a projectile, breaking through the upper armor belt, could simply explode inside the ship, and in this case, 25, 4-50, 8 mm horizontal armor plates had not so many chances to reflect its fragments, but still, even in this case, they would pass through the protected premises only fragments, moreover, those that have significantly lost their kinetic energy. So the scale of the damage they inflicted would still be incomparable with the situation when a heavy projectile exploded directly on the deck, or even passed it as a whole.
However, the Rivenge designers did not leave the armored deck at the height characteristic of the Queen Elizabeth - they raised it above the waterline to the level of the upper deck. The result was the following - at the level of the main armor belt, the protection of the Rivenge, which included 330 mm of the armor belt and 50.8 mm of the bevel of the armor deck, significantly exceeded that of the Queen Elizabeth, which had armor plate of variable thickness 203-330-152 mm (below up) and 25.4 mm bevel and deck by slab. However, above 330 mm of belt, Rivenge-class battleships received the same "window" in protection that their predecessors had - an enemy projectile, breaking through 152 mm of the upper armored belt, could well hit the horizontal part of the armored deck with a thickness of 25, 4-50, 8 mm.
In other words, instead of destroying the vulnerability of the Queen Elizabeth-class battleships, the designers of the Rivendjes, simply put, raised her one "floor" (one deck) higher. As for the protection of other critical structural elements, their booking differed little from that of the battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class.
The 381 mm turrets had a 330 mm forehead, 280 mm side plates and a 114 mm roof. (The Queen Elizabeth turrets may have only had 229mm side armor plates and most certainly had a 108mm roof). The barbets of the towers were an extremely complex articulated structure with protection from 102 to 254 mm. So, for example, the barbette of the 4th, aft tower above the upper deck, and in the interval between the upper and the main deck, where the armor belt was completely absent, had 254 mm armor on the sides, 229 mm in the stern direction and 178 mm on the rear side, facing the 3rd tower. Below, between the main and middle decks, where there was a 152 mm armor belt, the thickness of the barbet was 152 mm from the sides and aft, but 102 mm in the part facing the 3rd tower. In general, we can state both the desire of the British to reduce the mass of barbets in every possible way, and the fact that they have gone too far on this path - even a 254 mm barbet looks frankly weak protection.
The conning tower had a 280 mm wall and a 152 mm shaft descending down to the central post. The aft conning tower (torpedo firing control post) had, respectively, 152 and 102 mm.
Power plant and PTZ
Strictly speaking, before proceeding to the description of the vehicles and boilers of the Rivenge-class battleships, we should talk about their anti-torpedo protection, but if we do this, then some of the nuances of the PTZ will not be clear, so we will talk about it in this section. …
The history of the Rivendzhey power plant is akin to a good detective story. Initially, the British wanted to get a ship capable of reaching 21.5-knot speed on afterburner - calculations showed that in a normal displacement of 25,500 tons (this is how the British saw the future battleship), a power plant with a capacity of 31,000 hp would be quite enough for this. At the same time, it was decided to abandon pure oil heating, using boilers capable of operating on both oil and coal. This decision, on the one hand, looks like a form of retrograde, but on the other hand, it had very good reasons. Firstly, apparently, such boilers were cheaper, and secondly, coal pits were then considered an important element of the ship's protection, and thirdly, the Rivendjam still had to operate in a single formation with the "coal" battleships of the previous series, where the advantage was pure -Oil ships could not be realized. There was also an important "fourth": there was no oil in England itself, so any interruptions in its supply would have a negative impact on the combat capability of the fleet - it seemed reckless to make it completely dependent on imports. Oddly enough, this was a very weighty consideration - despite the fact that during the First World War the Hochseeflotte was so unable to challenge the dominance of the Royal Navy, in 1917 there was a shortage of oil in the metropolis.
Thus, it was decided to install boilers on mixed heating, as for the power of the machines, it remained unchanged, even when the displacement of the future "Rivendzha" during the design "crawled" up - the admirals preferred to reduce the maximum speed by half a knot, then there are up to 21 knots, leaving the power plant in its original form.
However, then John Fisher returned to the Admiralty, and all of the above plans flew to tar-tarras. In January 1915, D. Fischer insisted on pure oil heating of the boilers, as it turned out, small changes were enough for the power plant's capacity to grow to 40,000 hp. In this case, the speed of the future "Rivendzhey" was to increase to 23 knots. This is how they were ultimately built.
Nevertheless, the "23-knot" battleships "Rivendzhi" never became. Their displacement grew rapidly - starting from 25,500 tons, it very quickly turned into 25,800 tons, and then somehow imperceptibly turned into 27,970 - 28,000 tons. However, given the increase in machine power, this was not critical, because the speed 21 knots, which the admirals agreed to, remained quite achievable. But another problem arose.
The fact is that, as we have already said, the coal pits, in addition to the fuel storage, were also an element of the ship's constructive protection, which it has now lost. According to the project, the width of the Rivendzhey was less than that of the battleships Queen Elizabeth, while the British believed that the coal pits could reduce the thickness of the anti-torpedo bulkhead - it was only 25, 4-38 mm versus 50, 8 mm on the Queen Elizabeth”And it was obvious that in terms of anti-torpedo protection, the Rivendzhi would be inferior to their predecessors. This, of course, was considered unacceptable.
Of course, it would have been possible to simply increase the thickness of the anti-torpedo bulkhead, but the British took a different path. For some time they experimented with the Chatam Raft, which was a midsection section of a warship designed for full-scale tests of the impact of underwater explosions on the hull. These experiences convinced them of the usefulness of boules.
It must be said that of the entire series of battleships of the "R" type, only one "Ramillis" received the boule during the construction process - it was decided to equip the other four ships with them in October 1917, after they entered service. Unfortunately, we have to admit that there is very little information on the boules, and what we have is very contradictory.
The location of the boules is clearly visible in the diagram below, but it should be noted that the Royal Oak is depicted on it as of 1937.
A. A. Mikhailov writes that the boules added 2.13 m to the battleship's width, but it is not clear from the context, both or each: but most likely, this is still the width of one boule. Also, the respected author reports that the mass of the boules was 2,500 tons, but this is extremely doubtful, because he himself claims in the appendices that the normal displacement of the Royal Sovereign after commissioning was 27,970 tons, and after the installation of the boules - 29,560 tons. For Rivendzh, 28,000 and 29,560 tons, respectively, are indicated, that is, the mass of the boules on these ships was no more than 1,590 tons. True, for the Ramillis, the normal displacement is indicated much higher, 30,300 tons, which suggests the mass of boules is 2,300 tons or a little more. We can only assume that the design of the boules that were installed on the "Ramillis" and on the rest of the ships of the series differed. Although another option is possible - in order to ensure the unsinkability of the ship, the British completed the boules with steel pipes with sealed ends, it was assumed that this would reduce shrapnel damage and give the ship additional buoyancy. The mass of these pipes on one battleship was 773 tons. If we assume that the rest of the ships of the series received boules without these pipes (which were an extremely dubious innovation), then a decrease in the mass of boules to 1,590 tons looks logical, but this is nothing more than a guess. But on the whole, it should be admitted that the installation of boules on the Rivendzhi provided them with the best protection from underwater explosions among all British battleships.
But back to the power plant. As we said earlier, the switch to oil heating, coupled with some turbine improvements, led to a dramatic increase in the power plant's capacity. Unfortunately, there is no way to say exactly how this growth affected the speed of ships. The problem is that all the Rivenge-class battleships entered the Royal Navy during the war, and their sea trials were carried out according to an abbreviated program, and not in the way that was customary before the war.
In fact, we only have data on the tests of the battleships Rivenge and Ramilles, and the first at the time of their conduct did not have bullets. However, both battleships on trials had not normal, but full, or close to this, displacement, and showed:
"Rivenge" (no boules) - speed reached 21.9 knots. with a power of 42,650 hp, the displacement was 30,750 tons.
"Ramillis" (with boules) - 21.5 knots. with a power of 42 383 hp and a displacement of 33,000 tons.
Calculation according to the formula, using the Admiralty coefficient, suggests that these ships in their normal displacement could count on 22, 4 and 21, 9 knots.accordingly, that is, the installation of boules "ate" no more than half a node, and this is very similar to the truth. But in any case, even without taking into account the boules, and despite the fact that all the battleships of the Rivenge type had the power of the power plant during tests exceeding the planned 40,000 hp, they did not reach the planned 23 knots.
And, again, it should be understood that all of the above speeds are achieved by boosting the turbines. Without it, the Rivendj's speed was apparently 1-1.5 knots less than the maximum. It is not entirely clear where O. Parks got the data that in normal displacement and without forcing the mechanisms, battleships of this type developed no more than 19, 7-20, 4 knots, but these figures are certainly similar to the truth. And it is clear that after several years of operation, they decreased even more.
Therefore, we can say that D. Fisher's decision to transfer "Rivendzhi" to oil heating, and to increase the capacity from 31,000 to 40,000 hp. was completely justified - we can say that it saved battleships of this type. With the old power plant, the British could no longer increase the ship's displacement from the originally planned one, so the battleships turned out to be much less perfect than in reality, and the speed would still be at the level of the minimum acceptable values. Setting the same booleans would most likely be unacceptable.
The fuel reserve of the Rivenge-class battleships was 3,400 tons of oil and 160 tons of coal, the cruising range, unfortunately, is unknown.
In general, the following can be said about battleships of the Rivenge class. In fact, even before the creation of the 15-inch (381-mm) gun, the British began building high-speed battleships carrying such guns - at that time they were the most powerful artillery systems in the world. Subsequently, the British embarked on a course of creating a fleet of "15-inch" battleships, which is very clearly visible in their pre-war programs. So, according to the 1912 program, 5 ships of the Queen Elizabeth type were laid down - their construction marked a change in the views of the British, who no longer believed that British battle cruisers could successfully play the role of a "fast wing" in a linear battle. Now the Admiralty believed that this role would be able to perform "25-knot" battleships, whose speed, although it does not reach the battle cruiser, but significantly exceeds the standard "21-knot" ships of the line. However, this did not mean at all that the British were going to abandon the "21-knot" battleships, and according to the 1913 program, five "21-knot" Rivenge-class dreadnoughts stood on the slipway.
The program of the next year, 1914, provided for the creation of another battleship of the Queen Elizabeth type and three - of the Rivenge type, and upon its completion the Royal Navy would have 8 "standard" and 6 high-speed battleships armed with 15-inch cannons, and it is not excluded, that the construction of "15-inch" battleships, albeit according to the adjusted designs, would have continued in 1915. However, the First World War intervened in the programs for building the fleet, and new construction of battleships was suspended and resumed already in the post-war years - of course, according to completely different projects.
We will not give now a detailed analysis of the Rivenge-class battleship project, we only note that it was originally created as a "budget" battleship, from which one can hardly expect much - and, nevertheless, these ships claimed the title of one of the strongest battleships the world. The main trump card of "Rivendzhey" was the super-powerful at that time 381-mm guns, which were supposed to provide them with an advantage over foreign peers of the same class. While designing the Rivenge-class ships, the British made great efforts to strengthen its protection against the ships of previous projects. Nevertheless, the result of their efforts can hardly be called ideal, since along with successful solutions, such as the boules, the British made a number of mistakes in the Rivendzhey's booking scheme. As a result, the Rivenge-class battleships, at the time of their creation, became the most heavily protected British battleships, but, without a doubt, changing the booking scheme could have done more.
P. S. The fate of the ships can be extremely bizarre: the battleship "Royal Soverin", one of the series of ships of the "R" type, served under the Soviet flag for almost five years, thus becoming the strongest battleship of the Russian Empire and the USSR.
