So, after a small lyrical digression on the topic of Japanese battle cruisers, we return to English shipbuilding, namely, to the circumstances of the creation of the Tiger, which became, so to speak, the "swan song" of the 343-mm British battle cruisers and their most perfect representative … And he was, in the opinion of the British, an extremely beautiful ship. As Moore wrote in Years of Resistance:
“Speed and beauty were bound together in him. The highest ideals of a harmonious and powerful ship were of the artistic nature of its designer. Wherever the ship appeared, wherever it went, it delighted the sailor's eye, and I know those who have traveled miles just to admire the beauty of its lines. It was the last warship to meet sailors' expectations of what a ship should look like, and it brilliantly embodied this ideal. Next to him, other battleships looked like floating factories. Each of those who served on it will remember the Tiger with pride and admiration for its beauty."
I must say that by the time the Tiger was designed, the British were gradually losing interest in battle cruisers. No matter what John Arbuthnot Fisher said about this, the weakness of the protection of these ships and the danger of opposing them to any ships with heavy guns became more and more obvious. Therefore, the 1911 shipbuilding program provided for the construction of only one ship of this type, which was supposed to be created as an improved version of the Queen Mary. However, the design of the Japanese "Congo" attracted great interest from the British, if only by virtue of the fact that it was the first non-British warship, armed with guns with a caliber of more than 305-mm.
Artillery
The same 343 mm / 45 guns that were installed on the Queen Mary were used as the main caliber. When firing, heavy 635 kg shells were used, the muzzle velocity of which, most likely, reached 760 m / s. However, under the influence of the Congo, the British finally placed the towers in a linearly elevated pattern. At the same time, two options for the location of the main caliber artillery were considered.
In one version, by analogy with the "Congo", it was supposed to place a third tower between the boiler rooms and engine rooms. The second option involved placing the stern towers side by side, by analogy with the bow towers. The first option was chosen, but the reasons can only be guessed at. Most likely, the separation of the towers of the main caliber at a distance, excluding their incapacitation by one projectile (as happened with the Seidlitz), played a role. tower on the fourth, obviously, reduced to a minimum and generally negligible. Be that as it may, the Tiger towers were placed according to the Congo scheme.
Mine artillery was also improved: the Tiger became the first British battle cruiser to receive a 152-mm cannon. A series of battleships of the Iron Duke class (also the first), built simultaneously with the Tiger, were armed with guns of the same caliber. It must be said that confusion and hesitation reigned in England with regard to the anti-mine weapons of heavy ships. D. Fischer believed that the smallest caliber would be enough for ships, relying on the rate of fire. On the other hand, the officers of the fleet were already creeping in reasonable doubts that the rate of fire alone would be sufficient. So, Admiral Mark Kerr suggested using main-caliber guns with shrapnel shells to repel destroyer attacks, but later changed his mind in favor of 152-mm caliber based on the following considerations:
1. Despite the advantages of the main caliber guns when firing at destroyers (we are talking about centralized fire control), their distraction from the main target in battle is unacceptable;
2. Columns of water from falling 152-mm shells will make it difficult to target enemy gunners and, possibly, disable telescopic sighting lines;
3. The Japanese spoke extremely well of the "anti-mine-bearing" qualities of the six-inch artillery;
4. All other dreadnoughts in the country prefer a larger than 102mm caliber.
As can be understood from the sources, the final decision was made on April 12, 1912, during a lengthy committee meeting of representatives of the Navy's artillery weapons department. In essence, it radically changed the concept of mine action artillery in the British fleet.
Previously, it was assumed that ships should be equipped with as many relatively small-caliber guns as possible, and it would be quite normal to place them openly and not be protected by armor. The main thing is not to keep the calculations at these guns all the time, they were supposed to be protected by armor and go to the guns only when there was a threat of a torpedo attack. A large number of rapid-fire guns required numerous calculations, but then the British came to the "brilliant" conclusion - since during the artillery battle some of the openly standing mine-action artillery guns would be destroyed, half of the staff of the crews would be enough to provide the remaining with a sufficient number of servants. In other words, the British battle cruisers, having 16 openly standing 102-mm, also had eight crews for them.
However, the situation has now changed. First, observation of the maneuvers of the Kaiser's fleet convinced the British that a torpedo attack was henceforth an indispensable element of the battle of battleships. The point here, of course, is not so much that the Kaiserlichmarines were reinforced by numerous high-speed destroyers (at a speed of up to 32 knots), but that the Germans were constantly practicing the tactics of using them in battle of linear forces. This, combined with poor visibility conditions in the North Sea, led to the fact that the calculations could no longer be kept away from the guns, since a torpedo attack could be expected at any moment. The high speed of the new destroyers, coupled with the improved characteristics of the torpedoes, led to the fact that the crews could simply not have time for the guns. At the same time, the experience of hostilities in the Russo-Japanese War irrefutably testified to the huge losses of the crews serving the guns unprotected by armor.
As a result, it was decided to place a smaller number of guns on the ships (12 instead of 16), but at the same time place them in a protected casemate and "supply" each gun with its own crew (and not half the staff). It was assumed that this would not reduce the number of barrels when repelling a torpedo attack, since, obviously, the chances of "surviving" this attack from a protected gun are much higher than from an open one. In addition, the reduction in the number of guns compensated at least slightly for the added weight from the installation of larger caliber guns.
In addition to all the above reasons, it was also taken into account that the 152-mm cannon is the smallest artillery system in caliber, capable of one hit of a projectile with a liddite filling, if not sink, then severely damage the attacking destroyer or make it impossible to move, that is, disrupt a torpedo attack … Strictly speaking, a six-inch shell really could cause such damage, although it did not guarantee this, but shells of a smaller caliber had practically no chances to stop the destroyer "with one blow" at all.
Due to the above considerations, "Tiger" received a dozen 152-mm / 45 Mk. VII guns, which had separate loading and fired 45.4 kg shells with an initial speed of 773 m / s. The firing range was 79 cables. Ammunition included 200 rounds per barrel, including 50 semi-armor-piercing and 150 high-explosive. Subsequently, however, it was reduced to 120 shells per gun, including 30 semi-armor-piercing, 72 high-explosive and 18 high-explosive tracer shells.
At the same time, as we said earlier, before the Tiger on British battlecruisers, mine artillery was placed in the bow and stern superstructures, while the guns placed in the bow superstructure, only on the Queen Mary received fragmentation protection (during construction), and the guns in the aft superstructure on all cruisers were open. On the Tiger, the 152-mm battery was housed in a protected casemate, the floor of which was the upper deck, and the ceiling was the forecastle deck.
On the one hand, one could say that the average artillery of the "Tiger" approached in its capabilities the batteries of 150-mm guns of German heavy ships, but this was not the case. The fact is that by installing six-inch cannons and protecting them with armor "in the style and likeness" of the Germans, the British retained a very unsuccessful system for placing artillery cellars and supplying ammunition to them. The fact is that the Germans on their ships distributed artillery cellars of 150-mm guns in such a way that the feed mechanism from one cellar provided the supply of shells and charges for one, maximum two 150-mm guns. At the same time, the British concentrated 152-mm artillery cellars in the bow and stern of the ship, from where they were fed into special ammunition supply corridors, and already there, loaded onto special elevators and suspended arbors, they were fed to the guns. The danger of such a design was "excellently" demonstrated by the German armored cruiser Blucher, which lost almost half of its combat capability after a single large-caliber British shell hit such a corridor (although the Germans moved 210-mm shells of the main caliber and charges to them in it).
"Tiger" received two 76, 2-mm anti-aircraft guns during construction, in addition, the battle cruiser had four more 47-mm guns, but the torpedo armament was doubled - instead of two 533-mm torpedo tubes on the previous battle cruisers "Tiger "Had four such devices with ammunition load of 20 torpedoes.
Reservation
As we said earlier, the booking of two battle cruisers of the "Lion" class and the third - "Queen Mary" did not have any fundamental differences and, in general, repeated each other. However, the Japanese, when creating the "Congo", went to the introduction of three fundamental innovations, which were not on the battle cruisers of the British:
1. Armored casemate for anti-mine guns;
2. A strip of 76-mm armor under the main armor belt, which protects the ship from being hit by "diving" shells (that is, those that fell into the water near the side of the ship and, passing under water, hit it in the side below the armor belt);
3. The increased area of the main armor belt, thanks to which it protected not only the engine and boiler rooms, but also the feed pipes and ammunition storage of the main caliber turrets. The price for this was the reduction in the thickness of the armor belt from 229 to 203 mm.
The British themselves believed that the armor protection of the Congo was superior to that of the Lion, but at the same time only two of the three Japanese innovations were introduced to the Tiger. We already talked about the appearance on the last 343-mm British battle cruiser of a casemate for 152-mm guns, and in addition, 76 mm underwater protection was introduced on it, and it looked like this. At the "Lion", with a normal displacement of 229 mm, the armor belt was submerged in the water at 0, 91 m. At the "Tiger" - only by 0, 69 m, but below it there was a 76 mm armor belt in height (or should it be written here - depth?) 1, 15 m, and he covered not only the engine and boiler rooms, but also the areas of the towers of the main caliber. In general, such a belt looked like a very reasonable solution, increasing the protection of the ship.
But alas, the main innovation of the Japanese shipbuilders, namely the extension of the citadel's length to the main caliber towers, even if this led to a slight decrease in its thickness, the British ignored. On the one hand, they could be understood, because even 229 mm, in general, gave more or less good protection only against 280-mm shells and, to a limited extent, against 305-mm shells, but on the other hand, the rejection of the Japanese scheme led to the fact that the board in the areas of the supply pipes and ammunition cellars was protected by only 127 mm of armor plates. Taking into account the fact that the barbets of the Tiger's main caliber turrets were 203-229 mm thick only above the side protected by the armor, the supply pipes were protected from enemy shells by 127 mm armor and 76 mm barbet.
On the one hand, it seems that in the aggregate, such protection had the same 203 mm of armor, but in reality this was not the case, because the spaced armor loses in terms of its "armor protection" to the monolithic one (until certain thicknesses are reached, approximately 305 mm. German 280- mm projectile, hitting this area of the side, effortlessly pierced the 127-mm armor plate and, even if it exploded after hitting the barbet, it would still break it with the combined energy of the explosion and impact, filling the feed pipe with hot gases, flame, shell fragments and In other words, at the main battle distances (70-75 kbt), the barbets of the Tiger's main caliber turrets, one might say, did not have protection against any German heavy shells. "In comparison with the armor of the" Lion "and" Queen Mary. " but everywhere behind them was only a 76mm barbet, and the Tiger's ammunition stores were every bit as vulnerable as those of its 343mm predecessors.
Other vertical armor protection "Tiger", in general, is very little different from that of "Queen Mary". We only note that the total length of the armor belt along the waterline (including the 127 mm and 102 mm sections) of the Tiger is higher - only the very “tips” of the bow and stern remained unprotected (9, 2 m and 7, 9 m, respectively). The casemate had 152 mm protection, in the stern it was closed with a 102-mm traverse, and a 127-mm armor belt of the same height went forward from it to the barbet of the first tower. From here, the 127-mm armor plates were located at an angle, converging on the nose-facing edge of the barbette of the first tower. The towers apparently had the same protection as the Queen Mary, that is, 229 mm frontal and side plates, a 203 mm rear plate and a roof with a thickness of 82-108 mm, on the reverse bevels - 64 mm. Some sources indicate a roof thickness of 64-82 mm, but this is doubtful, because it is completely unclear why the British would weaken the protection of the ship's main weapon. The conning tower had the same 254 mm of armor protection, but the torpedo firing control cabin located in the stern received reinforcement - 152 mm of armor instead of 76 mm. On the sides, the artillery cellars were covered with screens up to 64 mm thick.
Unfortunately, the author of this article does not have any detailed description of the Tiger's horizontal booking, but based on the available data, it looks like this - within the armored side there was an armored deck, which both in the horizontal part and on the bevels had the same thickness 25.4 mm. Only outside the armored side in the bow, the thickness of the armored deck increased to 76 mm.
Above the armored deck there were 3 more decks, including the forecastle deck. The latter had a thickness of 25.4 mm, and only above the casemates had a thickening of up to 38 mm (in this case, only the roof of the casemate had such a thickness, but in the direction from it to the center plane of the ship, the deck thickness decreased to 25.4 mm). The main deck also had a thickness of 25.4 mm along its entire length and a thickening of up to 38 mm in the area of the casemates, according to the same principle as the forecastle. The thickness of the third deck is unknown and most likely insignificant.
Power plant
The Tiger's machines and boilers were different from those of the Lion and Queen Mary. On previous British ships steam was provided by 42 boilers grouped into seven boiler rooms, while on the Tiger there were 36 boilers in five compartments, so the length of the Tiger engine rooms was even slightly lower than that of the Lyon - 53.5 m against 57, 8 m respectively.
The rated power of the power plant continued to grow - from 70,000 hp. from "Lion" and 75,000 hp. Queen Mary now has up to 85,000 hp. It was assumed that with such a power, the Tiger would be guaranteed to develop 28 knots, and when boilers were forced up to 108,000 hp. - 30 knots. Alas, these hopes were justified only partially - during the tests, the battle cruiser without afterburner "dispersed" the boilers to 91,103 hp. and developed 28, 34 knots, but when forcing reached a slightly lower power of 104 635 hp, while its speed was only 29, 07 knots. Obviously, even if the Tiger's afterburner had reached 108 thousand hp, then the ship could not develop 30 knots either.
The stock of fuel in normal displacement was 100 tons less than that of the Queen Mary and amounted to 900 tons, including 450 tons of coal and 450 tons of oil. The maximum fuel reserve amounted to 3320 tons of coal and 3480 tons of oil, which significantly exceeded those of the "Lion" (3500 tons of coal and 1 135 tons of oil). Despite such significant reserves, the cruising range at 12 knots (even the calculated one!) Did not exceed 5,200 miles at 12 knots, which was due to the increased fuel consumption on the Tiger.
What can you say about the project of the battle cruiser "Tiger"? In fact, the British had an even faster (who would doubt it?), Equally heavily armed and very beautiful battle cruiser.
It is usually indicated that the Tiger had more solid armor protection than previous projects of British ships of the same class, but we see that in fact it differed very little from them and did not guarantee acceptable protection even against 280-mm German shells. Let's look at the weight summary of "Tiger" (the corresponding indicators of "Queen Mary" are indicated in parentheses):
Hull and ship systems - 9,770 (9,760) tons;
Reservation - 7 390 (6 995) tons;
Power plant - 5,900 (5,460) tons;
Armament with towers - 3 600 (3 380) tons;
Fuel - 900 (1,000) tons;
Crew and provisions - 840 (805) tons;
Displacement stock - 100 (100) t;
Total displacement - 28,500 (27,100) tons.
In fact, the increase in armor mass (by 395 tons) was spent mainly on the additional "underwater" 76 mm belt and casemate.
What about the last British 343mm battle cruiser? It can be stated that the nickname "wonderful mistake", which in the future the Italian sailors will "reward" the heavy cruiser "Bolzano", suits the "Tiger" no less.
At the time of the design of the Tiger, the British already had the opportunity to familiarize themselves with the drawings of the German battle cruiser Seydlitz and understood that the German ships opposing them had much stronger protection than previously thought. The British also understood the inadequacy of booking their own battle cruisers. When designing the Tiger, the British had the opportunity to build an even larger ship than before, that is, they had a displacement reserve that could be spent on something useful. But instead of significantly increasing the vertical or horizontal armor of the ship, the British took the path of improving, albeit important, but still secondary elements. They added half a speed knot, strengthened the caliber of mine-action artillery and protected it with armor, added torpedo tubes … In general, we can with good reason say that when creating the Tiger, British design and military thought gave a clear glitch and finally turned off the reasonable development paths of the battlecruiser class.
