The circumstances of the design of the battle cruisers "Derflinger" and "Tiger" are interesting primarily by the fact that before these ships, both the Germans and the British, in fact, created their battle cruisers "with their eyes closed", because neither one nor the other had some reliable information about similar enemy ships. So, for example, creating the Lion, the British were absolutely sure that the German battlecruisers of the Moltke type, armed with 10 280-mm guns, carried no more than 178 mm armor belts. It is clear that if it were so, "Lion" would have become a truly overwhelming response, but still the armor belt "Moltke" in its thickest part reached 178 mm, and 270 mm. However, when designing the Derflinger and Tiger, both the Germans and the British had a pretty good idea of what they would face in battle. One of the German shipbuilding engineers "at the most reasonable price" sold the Seydlitz blueprints to the British, but the Germans finally established that the newest British battlecruisers carry 343-mm guns, although they "missed" a little with the armor belt, believing that " Admiral Fischer's cats "carry 250 mm armor.
The history of the creation of the battle cruiser "Derflinger" began in April 1910, when the design bureau requested technical requirements for battleships and cruisers planned for construction under the 1911 program.
It stated that it is currently impossible to put forward such demands, because there are two, shall we say, extremely important innovations for the future of German military shipbuilding: these are three-gun turrets (!) And diesel engines (!!), but the study of the possibilities of their use will last until winter 1910
However, Vice-Admiral Pashen had a special opinion on this matter and indicated one obligatory innovation for the 1911 battle cruiser - the transition to the 305-mm caliber. Paschen quite rightly believed that the double difference in the weight of the shells ("302 kg versus 600 kg", obviously, the exact weight of the English 343-mm gun in Germany was not yet known) was completely unacceptable. Therefore, he considered it necessary to install 10 305-mm guns on the next battle cruiser, either in the center plane, or in a diagonal pattern a la Seydlitz. However, Paschen also advocated the installation of diesel engines (the author of this article is not entirely sure of the translation, but, probably, it was not about a complete replacement, but only about the installation of economic diesel engines).
Then Secretary of State von Tirpitz initiated a series of meetings on what the newest German ships should be, the first of which took place on May 11, 1910. Rear Admiral Gerdes, speaking on behalf of the armaments department, said that, according to research, German 280mm cannons will not be effective weapons at ranges of 8,000-10,000m (43-54kbt) against British battlecruisers with 250mm of armor. At the same time, the Rear Admiral reminded the meeting that the German battlecruisers, in fact, were intended not only and not so much against the British "classmates" as as a high-speed wing of the fleet. And in this capacity, they would have to meet with British battleships, the last series of which already had 305 mm side armor. Based on the foregoing, Gerdes made a quite obvious conclusion that the 280-mm caliber has outlived its usefulness: at the same time, the Rear Admiral indicated that replacing 10 280-mm guns with 8 305-mm will cause an increase in the weight of the artillery by only 36 tons.
Oddly enough, von Tirpitz completely disagreed with Gerdes. According to the Secretary of State, even if the battle began at 45-55 cables, the distance would be reduced very quickly, and there ten 280-mm guns would be more effective in comparison with eight 305-mm ones. Surprisingly, von Tirpitz supported Paschen, who had previously justified in his memorandum the need to switch to a twelve-inch caliber. Eleven inches were supported by the shipbuilding department. All this allowed von Tirpitz to announce that he was still stopping at the 280 mm caliber, despite the fact that the newest German dreadnoughts had already switched to 305 mm cannons. But even more important than weapons, he considers the need to change the power plant, namely, the transition from turbines to diesel. The construction of diesel battleships and battle cruisers under the 1911 program is what, according to the Secretary of State, it was necessary to strive with all our might, because this would allow the Kaiserlichmarin to take a huge step forward in comparison with the rest of the navies of the world.
In other words, at the first stages of development, the main responsible persons saw the future battle cruiser in Germany completely different from what it turned out to be in the end: they wanted to get a diesel ship with 280-mm artillery!
Fortunately, common sense gradually prevailed. The design bureau did not consider the options with 280-mm artillery optimal and "blew dust" from the projects of the 305-mm battle cruiser of the 1910 shipbuilding program. Then it was not possible (the 280-mm Seidlitz was laid down), but now the shipbuilders were more successful. The draft design of a four-turret battle cruiser with 305-mm artillery, created by the end of May, and, a month later, another, with the location of the towers in the center plane, finally found a path to von Tirpitz's heart: he no longer insisted on ten 280-mm guns …
However, the secretary of state continued to demand the installation of diesel engines, but here the issue was resolved by itself - in September 1910 it turned out that MAN was not yet able to create diesel engines for such large ships, so they had to return to turbines.
Having decided for himself the issue of the need to switch to the 305-mm caliber, von Tirpitz continued to be a supporter of ten guns on the battle cruiser, and therefore, at a meeting on September 1, 1910, he proposed to revise existing projects in order to add a fifth turret of 305-mm guns … But it was not possible to do this - the displacement of the ship was growing too much. We stopped at four towers, but the question of their placement arose - as a result, the meeting came to the conclusion that the arrangement of the four towers in a linearly elevated scheme (that is, as in the Derflinger) has a preference, but only if the second tower can fire over the first, and the third, respectively, over the fourth. In this case, it will be possible to concentrate heavy fire on the bow / stern - but if shooting over the tower is impossible, then you should return to the diagonal scheme and place the towers like they were installed at the "Von der Tann".
Further design of the ship went quite smoothly, along the path of consistent improvement of the project. In general, we can say the following - having created "Von der Tann", the Germans made a qualitative leap, but the ships of the Moltke and Seidlitz series that followed it represented the evolutionary development of the first full-fledged German battle cruiser. By creating the "Derflinger" the Germans, one might say, have created the next generation of German ships of this class.
Frame
The Derflinger's hull was distinguished by several innovations, and the first of them was a longitudinal set, first used by the Germans on heavy warships. This design provided acceptable strength while saving weight. Probably for this reason, the distance between the spacings has decreased - instead of the classic for the German fleet of 1, 2 m, this distance on the Derflinger was 0, 64 m. In all previous articles of the cycle we did not pay attention to such details, but the fact is that in foreign literature (and not only in it), the length or location of one or another structural element (for example, an armored belt) is often measured by spacing, so this difference between the Derflinger and other German ships should be known.
The ship had a large metacentric height, and this had its advantages - for example, when turning, the roll angle was relatively small, so that the lower edge of the armor belt did not come out of the water, exposing the unprotected side. But there was also an important drawback - a short rolling period, which would make it much less smooth in comparison with the same ship with a lower metacentric height. At the same time, the qualities of a warship as an artillery platform are largely determined by the smoothness of rolling - it is clear that the less its influence, the easier it is to direct the guns to the target. Therefore, "Derflinger" was equipped with a roll stabilization system - Fram cisterns. In principle, it was put on battle cruisers before, but, as far as one can understand the descriptions in the sources, it was not used for its intended purpose on the Seidlitz, but it seemed to work on the Derflinger.
If you look at the photographs or drawings of "Derflinger" and "Seydlitz", then the first one looks more low-sided, but this is not so - the depth of the "Derflinger" amidships was 14.75 m, which with an average draft of 9.38 m (9, 2 m - bow, 9, 56 m - stern) gave a depth above the waterline of 5, 37 m. At "Seydlitz" the depth of the midship was 13, 88 m, draft forward / stern - 9, 3/9, 1 m, respectively, the average draft is 9, 2 m and the depth above the waterline is 4, 68 m, that is, even less than that of the Derflinger. Obviously, this is a slight visual deception - the fact is that the Seydlitz had a forecastle, to which was adjoined by a casemate located on the upper deck. As a result, the Seydlitz casemate is visually perceived as part of the side, while in the deprived Derflinger forecastle, the casemate looks like a separate superstructure that has nothing to do with the side height.
But the "Derflinger" did not have a forecastle - in order to lighten the hull structures, instead of it, the deck rise to the bow and stern was used, which gave battle cruisers of this type a very beautiful and memorable silhouette. True, it is not a fact that added seaworthiness (we will talk about this below), but in any case, such an indicator as the freeboard height at the stem of the Derflinger was almost not inferior to that of the Seydlitz - 7, 7 m versus 8 m.
Reservation
Derflinger's vertical booking has been traditionally powerful. Only the last 4.5 meters of the stern were unprotected by armor - from them towards the bow for 33.3 m, the side was protected by 100 mm armor, which was close to the citadel. The citadel itself, 121.5 m long, consisted of a 300 mm section with a height of 2.2 m, of which 40 cm were under the waterline, and to the lower edge the thickness of the armor plates traditionally decreased to 150 mm.
Above 300 mm of the section, the board in height by 3550 mm was protected by 270 mm of armor, only to the upper edge the thickness fell to 230 mm. Thus, the total height of the Derflinger's armored side in the citadel area was 5,750 mm, of which 400 mm were below the waterline. Of course, the citadel traditionally covered not only boiler rooms and engine rooms, but also the cellars of 305 mm towers, including the outer ones. From the citadel to the nose for 19, 2 m, the side was armored with 120 mm plates and then to the stem - 100 mm.
The citadel was closed by traverses, 226-260 mm thick in the bow and 200-250 mm in the stern, while at the end of the 100 mm belt in the stern (as we said above, it left about 4.5 m of the side unprotected), 100 mm traverses were installed.
The armored deck within the citadel had 30 mm in the horizontal part, however, in the areas of the towers of the main caliber, it thickened to 50 mm - the bevels had the same thickness (50 mm). Outside the citadel, the armored deck was located below the waterline and had a thickness of 80 mm at the stern and 50 mm at the bow.
In addition to, in fact, armor, a certain protection was the upper deck (20-25 mm thick), as well as the roof of the casemates, which had a variable armor thickness of 30-50 mm (unfortunately, the author could not figure out where exactly 50 mm was).
The armor protection of the artillery was once again reinforced: the forehead of the Derflinger's turrets was protected by 270 mm armor (for the Seydlitz - 250 mm), the sides - 225 mm (200), the sloping front part of the roof - 110 mm (100), the horizontal part of the roof - 80 mm (70). The thickness of the barbets increased from 230 to 260 mm in the same places where the barbet was behind the armor belt, its thickness decreased to 60 mm (30 mm for the Seydlitz). The attentive reader will remember that "Seydlitz" had 80 mm sections of barbets, but they were beyond the 150 mm armor of the casemate, while the "Derflinger" barbets were not protected by casemates. The casemates were protected by 150 mm armor, inside them the guns were separated from each other by 20 mm longitudinal bulkheads. In addition, the 150 mm guns had 80 mm shields.
Reservation of the bow conning tower in comparison with the "Seidlitz" was also somewhat increased: 300-350 mm of the wall and 150 mm of the roof against 250-350 mm and 80 mm, respectively. The protection of the aft deckhouse remained unchanged - 200 mm of the wall and 50 mm of the roof. The anti-torpedo bulkhead was 45 mm thick (versus 30-50 mm for Seidlitz).
In general, if, without going into details, you quickly run through the thickness of the Derflinger's armor, it may seem that its protection is only slightly superior to that of the Seydlitz. But this is absolutely not the case - in fact, "Derflinger" received, let's not be afraid of this word, a cardinal increase in booking.
Here, for example, take the citadel of battle cruisers: its length at Derflinger only slightly exceeded that of Seydlitz - 121 m versus 117 m. cruisers, then 230 mm at Seidlitz and 270 mm (down to 230 mm at the top edge) at Derflinger. But…
Reservation "Seydlitz" consisted of two rows of armor plates located along the side, one of which (the main armor belt) had a thickness of 300 mm with a decrease to 150 mm along the lower edge and up to 230 mm - along the top. Above the armor plates of the main armor belt was the second row of upper armor plates (the Germans called the second armor belt "citadel"). But with Derflinger, it was not at all like that. His armor plates were rotated 90 degrees, they were located not horizontally, but vertically. That is, both the 300 mm section and the 270 mm section with their bevels to the lower edge up to 150 mm and on the upper edge up to 230 mm were one monolithic armor plate, and they were not connected to each other "end-to-end", as before, but by the method, very reminiscent of the domestic "dovetail", when one armor plate with its edges entered the grooves of others. With such an arrangement and fastening of armor plates, the strength of the armor protection was significantly higher than that of the "Seidlz".
But the most important thing was different - as we said earlier, the Seydlitz (and other battle cruisers in Germany) had one very vulnerable spot - their thickest part of the armor belt did not reach the level of the horizontal armored deck. For example, the 300 mm armored belt "Seydlitz" with a normal displacement rose above the water by 1, 4 m, while the horizontal section of the armored deck was located at a height of 1, 6 m above the waterline. Accordingly, there was a significant section of the side, when hit by an enemy shell hitting 230 mm armor belt and then hitting 30 mm armor deck. And this section, of course, was much wider than the 20-centimeter difference, because, as you know, shells hit the side not strictly parallel to the surface of the water, but at an angle to it.
But at "Derflinger" this section was significantly reduced, because the height of 300 mm of armor protection increased from 1.8 m to 2.2 m, of which 1.8 m were above the water. That is, the border of the 300 mm section was not 20 cm lower, but 20 cm above the level of the horizontal armored deck. As a result, where to destroy the boiler rooms and engine rooms of "Seydlitz" it was enough to pierce 230 mm side and 30 mm bevel, Derflinger protected 300 mm (in the worst case - 270 mm) armor and 50 mm bevel, because the bevels compared with "Seidlitz" were also strengthened.
Artillery
[/center]
The Derflinger has finally received the 305mm SK L / 50, which has been installed on Hochseeflotte dreadnoughts since Helgoland. For their time, these were extremely powerful guns, firing 405 kg shells with an initial speed of 875 m / s. Of course, you have to pay for everything - the German gun could withstand 200 rounds, and that was not too much. On the other hand, the British 343-mm cannon with a "heavy" projectile had a resource of 220 rounds.
In foreign sources, there is no consensus on how much the high-explosive German projectile weighed - 405 kg or 415 kg (the latter is indicated by G. Staff), but there are no discrepancies in the content of explosives in it - 26, 4 kg. The relatively low content of explosives in the German "land mine" is of some interest, but perhaps the explanation lies in the fact that the German projectile of this type was rather semi-armor-piercing than purely high-explosive. Its fuse had a slight deceleration, which would allow the projectile to detonate at the moment of passing through the armor - if the projectile hit, say, an unarmored side or superstructure, then it exploded 2-6 meters after breaking through a light barrier. The armor-piercing projectile was completed with 11, 5 kg of explosives.
The maximum elevation angle was 13.5 degrees, while a firing range of 19 100 m or about 103 cables was provided. Subsequently (after the Battle of Jutland) the angle was increased to 16 degrees, having received a range of 110 kbt. The ammunition load was slightly increased compared to the battlecruisers of the previous types and amounted to 90 rounds per gun, with 65 shells being armor-piercing and 25 high-explosive.
Medium caliber "Derflinger" was represented by twelve 150-mm SK L / 45, firing 45, 3 kg shells with an initial speed of 835 m / s. Initially, it was planned to install 14 such guns on the ship, but later, due to the need to allocate space for the Fram tanks, they were limited to 12 guns. In principle, the guns themselves were no different from the Seydlitz guns, and the crews (eight people) remained the same number, but there were changes in their “jobs”, which made the gunners perform their work somewhat differently than they had before - however, with the same result. The ammunition load was 160 shells per gun.
Anti-mine armament consisted of eight 88-mm SK L / 45, located behind the shields, another four 88-mm L / 45 cannons were anti-aircraft, the latter were located near the first pipe. Torpedo armament was represented by four 500-mm underwater vehicles, the ammunition load was 12 torpedoes.
Power plant
The fundamental difference from the previous German battle cruisers was that on the Derflinger, of the 18 Schulz-Thornycroft boilers, 14 were coal-fired, and the remaining 4 were oil. The Germans "resisted" the transition to oil for a very long time and their arguments were weighty: it was believed that placing oil on a ship was dangerous, while coal pits created additional protection, while Germany during the war could not count on replenishing pre-war oil reserves, which threatened her with a deficit. However, Derflinger's innovations required weight compensation, and the main reason why the newest battle cruiser received four boilers with oil heating was the desire to save on its displacement.
The Derflinger power plant had a rated power of 63,000 hp. In other words, despite the fact that the normal displacement of the Derflinger was supposed to be 26,600 tons, which is 1,612 tons more than the design displacement of the Seydlitz, the capacity of the power plant remained unchanged. Many sources indicate that "Derflinger" was designed for 26.5 knots, G. Staff claims that under 25.5 knots. It is difficult to say who is right here, because, on the one hand, a decrease in speed with an increase in displacement looks quite logical, but on the other hand, the Germans could have made additional efforts to maintain speed, such as optimizing the theoretical drawing, etc.
It is even more difficult to say what the Germans did in the end, because the Derflinger, alas, did not pass the prescribed test cycle. The fact is that the speed of large ships in Germany was traditionally determined on the Neurug measuring mile, which fully met all the requirements for such tests, but with the beginning of the war it was considered unsafe. As a result, "Derflinger" was sent to the Belte measured mile, where the sea depth was only 35 m. It is known that movement at shallow depths significantly reduces the speed of the ship and it is not surprising that, having given out the power of the machines 76,034 hp, The Derflinger reached only 25.8 knots. speed. Calculated, this result corresponded to 28 knots in "deep water". The Germans themselves considered the Derflinger-class battle cruisers to be the fastest of all built.
The total fuel supply was 3,500 tons of coal and 1,000 tons of oil. The estimated range in this case should have been:
3,100 miles at a speed of 24, 25 knots;
5,400 miles at 16 knots;
5,600 miles at 14 knots
The seaworthiness of the ship … here, I must say, there are questions. Of course, the Germans themselves spoke of her exclusively in an excellent degree. Nevertheless, the author of this article came across assertions that at full speed the Derflinger's stern was completely hidden under water, so that the sea water splashed at the barbets of the stern towers of the main caliber. In confirmation of this, in one of his monographs, V. B. Hubby gives an adorable photo of the cruiser stern:
Yet, apparently, the seaworthiness of the "Derflinger" was sufficient for operations in the North Sea, at least, no evidence to the contrary was found by the author.
In general, the following can be said about Derflinger. Despite the seemingly insignificant differences from the previous "Seydlitz" (the maximum thickness of the armor belt is the same 300 mm, the same power plant, guns, larger by an inch with a smaller number of them, the displacement is increased by only 1, 6 thousand tons) to the Germans managed to create not even significantly, but radically the best ship. "Derflinger" can be safely considered a representative of the next, second generation of German battlecruisers - well, we will make a comparison with her with British rivals a little later.
