So, in the previous articles of the series, we have identified the sources of problems and strengths of the Invincible-class battlecruisers. The weakness of booking was directly determined by the design traditions of British armored cruisers, which were originally intended to fight ocean raiders and had protection only against medium-caliber artillery. Nevertheless, at some point (when designing armored cruisers of the Duke of Edinburgh class), the British admirals decided that it would be a good idea to form a "fast wing" out of them to participate in a squadron battle against German battleships. And it cannot be said that this was a very bad idea, because at that time most of these battleships carried relatively weak 240-mm cannons, in their capabilities not too superior to the 203-mm guns of other countries, from which the British cruisers were more- less protected. But soon the Kaiserlichmarin was replenished with ships with 280-mm artillery, against which the armor of the Warriors and the Minotaurs no longer protected, and the British still retained the desire to use armored cruisers in a squadron battle. At the same time, for some reason, no one thought about the lack of armor. Thus, the weakness of the protection of the British battle cruisers is not an invention of D. Fisher, but a consequence of the Admiralty's policy pursued even before he became the first sea lord. This, however, does not diminish D. Fischer's responsibility for the peculiarities of his "cats". In October 1904, five days before this, in every respect, an extraordinary man received his highest post, the Braunschweig - a squadron battleship on which the Germans returned to the 280-mm main caliber - entered the German fleet. But D. Fisher did not react to this in any way, believing speed to be the best protection of an armored cruiser, and the British cruisers were quite fast.
If the weak armor of battle cruisers was not an invention of D. Fischer, then the use of the "battleship" 305-mm caliber on them should be credited to him, although he was prompted to do so by the news of Japanese armored cruisers with twelve-inch cannons. And the need to ensure a 25-knot speed followed from the Admiralty's assumptions that other countries had armored cruisers with a speed of 24 knots, which made 25 knots for the newest British ships of the same class a reasonable minimum.
The unsuccessful, almost "rhombic" arrangement of the main caliber guns, in which it was impossible to fire all eight guns on one side, was caused both by the desire to provide strong fire in the bow, stern and at sharp heading angles, which is very important for the cruiser, and the lack of understanding by the British features of artillery combat for 60-90 cables, i.e. the distances at which the battlecruisers actually fought in the First World War. During the design of the Invincibles, the British did not yet know how to shoot at 25-30 cables and believed that future naval battles would last for 30, maximum 40 cables, hardly further. I must say that the members of the Design Committee were not delighted with the inability of the new cruisers to use all the artillery on one target, but they did not find a way, while retaining the ship lines required to reach 25 knots, to place them differently - for example, to move the "traverse" towers to extremities.
Having finally decided on the main characteristics of the future battle cruiser - 8 * 305 guns, 25 knots, and booking "like the Minotaur" - the British began to design.
Reservation
Oddly enough, but the chief designer "did not obey" the technical task, which is why the armor protection, in comparison with the last armored cruisers of the "Minotaur" class, was significantly improved.
The backbone of the defense of the Invincible and the Minotaur was the 152 mm citadel. Here are just 152-mm armor belt "Minotaur" covered only the engine and boiler rooms (and at the same time - the artillery cellar of the towers of 190-mm guns, placed on the sides). In the bow and stern, the armor belt was closed by the same 152 mm traverse. Accordingly, the main weapon of the "Minotaur" - 234-mm turrets, were located outside the citadel, in the extremities, which were protected by only 102-mm armor in the bow and 76-mm - in the stern. At the same time, the Invincible's 152-mm armored belt covered all the turrets of the main caliber, only the aft one slightly "protruded" beyond the armored belt, but from its edge to the barbet of the tower were 152 mm traverse, smoothly turning into a 178 mm barbet. The front traverse was 178 mm thick. Thus, although the vertical booking of the citadels of the British cruisers was rather arbitrary, at least for the Invincible it protected all the turrets of the main caliber, which was an undoubted advantage. The fore end of the battle cruiser received 102 mm armor, but the stern end was not armored at all, which is perhaps the only drawback of the Invincible in comparison with the Minotaur. On the other hand, it is obvious that the savings obtained as a result of refusing to protect the stern (and 76 mm armor belt could only cover it from fragments of heavy shells), the British spent on strengthening the citadel, which looks quite reasonable.
The horizontal protection included two "layers". The armor belts of both cruisers reached their upper edges to the main deck, which at the Minotaur was protected by as much as 18 mm armor within the citadel and 25 mm outside it. At "Invincible" - exactly the opposite, over the citadel was installed 25 mm armor and 19 mm - in the bow end, and the stern was not completely protected. At the same time, over the areas of the cellars of the first three towers (except for the stern), as well as over the central post, the armored deck thickened to 50 mm - however, it is unclear whether this additional protection was originally installed, or whether we are talking about the state of the ships after the Battle of Jutland. The author of the article is inclined to believe that the 50 mm protection was originally.
The armored (lower) deck of both cruisers was located at the waterline (horizontal part) and had identical thicknesses within the citadel - 38 mm in the horizontal part and 50 mm bevels going to the lower edges of the armor belt plates. But the "Invincible" in the nose continued exactly the same armored deck, but in the "Minotaur" in the bow with bevels of the same thickness, the horizontal part had only 18 mm. In the stern, the slopes and the horizontal part of the armored deck of the Invincible had protection increased to 63.5 mm, which, in fact, only covered the steering gear. For the "Minotaur" - it is unclear, probably the horizontal part was protected by 38 mm armor, and the bevels - either 50 or 38 m, but taking into account the vertical 76 mm armor belt, the stern was still better protected.
But on the other hand, on the Invincibles, local booking of the cellars was applied - from the side they received 63.5 mm bulkheads. True, only from the side - from shells that pierced the armored deck along the ship's hull, these bulkheads did not protect. The British themselves saw in them protection from underwater explosions, i.e. torpedoes, because there was no serious PTZ on the Invincibles.
Thus, in order to hit the engine room or boiler room of the "Minotaur" or "Invincible", the enemy projectile would have to overcome the 152 mm belt and 50 mm bevel. But in order for the projectile to "reach" the artillery cellars of the Invincibles' main caliber towers in combat on parallel courses, it had to penetrate not only 152 m side and 50 mm bevel, but also additional 63.5 mm protection.
At the same time, the cellars of 234-mm shells and charges of the "Minotaur" protected only 102 mm side and 50 m bevel (in the bow) and 76 mm side and 50 mm, or even 38 mm bevel.
But the towers and barbets had a similar vertical protection of 178 mm, while the barbets of the specified thickness reached the main deck. The only exception here was a part of the barbet of the stern tower of the "Invincible", not covered by a 152 mm traverse - it retained the thickness of 178 mm up to the armored deck). But below the main deck, the barbets lost much in defense. In the interval between the main and armored decks, the 234 mm barbets of the Minotaur towers had 76 mm (bow) and 178-102 mm (aft), and the 190 mm barbets of the towers had 50 mm. In the Invincibles, all the barbets between these decks were only 50 mm thick. However, the protection of these parts of the barbets from the flat fire of the "Minotaur" and "Invincible" was quite comparable. In order to hit the feed pipe of the bow tower, the projectile had to penetrate 102 mm of side armor and 76 mm of barbet at the "Minotaur", in total - 178 mm of armor, and at "Invincible" - 152 mm side or 178 mm of traverse and, after that, 50 mm barbet, i.e. cumulative protection was 203-228 mm. The Minotaur's stern feed pipe was better protected - 76 mm side and 102-178 barbet, that is, in total 178-254 m of armor, for Invincible - 178 mm or 152 mm traverse + 50 mm barbet, i.e. 178-203 mm.
Interestingly, all sources in unison asserted the complete insufficiency of the horizontal armor of British battle cruisers. From the source and the source, the dialogue between the captain Mark Kerr, the commander of the Invincible being completed and the chief builder Philip Watts, which took place in 1909, "wanders":
“… When the construction of the Invincible on Mystery was being completed, Philip Watts visited him to see Kerr. Among other issues discussed, Kerr drew Watts' attention to the fact that, in his opinion, the distance at which "battles will be fought, or one way or another, starts at 15,000 yards (just over 74 cables)", and that "a shell fired from such a distance will pass over the armored barbet (here Kerr meant the armored belt - author's note) and pierce the deck "and explode," falling straight down into the ammunition cellar, resulting in an explosion that will destroy the ship"
According to Kerr, Watts replied that he was "aware of this danger," but:
"The requirements of the Admiralty provided only protection from flat fire at a distance of approximately 9,000 yards (about 45 cables - approx. Auth.)", At which the projectile has a flat trajectory and hits the ship with a slight angle to the horizontal plane, and "with the greatest limiting displacement of about 17,000 tons, the lack of sufficient weight did not allow him to increase the thickness of the deck armor, despite the understanding of the danger of mounted fire with large-caliber projectiles at a distance of 15,000 yards and more."
All this is actually so … and, at the same time, not so, because the same reproach can be addressed to any ship of those times. The Invincible had 25 mm of horizontal armor on the main deck and 38 mm on the armored deck, for a total of 63 mm, while the horizontal protection of the Dreadnought consisted of 19 mm on the main deck and 44 mm on the armored deck, i.e. in the aggregate, all the same 63 mm. The German "Nassau" had only one armored deck, in the horizontal part, which had 55 mm. True, the main deck had 45 mm armor, but only above the casemates (and, probably, around the bow and stern turrets of the main caliber), i.e. in fact, it was mostly unarmored.
None of these defenses could have helped against a quality 305mm projectile. If the 280-305-mm German armor-piercing "suitcase" fell into the 25 mm main deck, it usually crossed it without breaking - at least in most cases in the Battle of Jutland this was the case. Naturally, the 19 mm deck would have been overcome even more easily by the projectile. Having passed inside the citadel, the projectile could detonate, hitting the 38 mm deck. As shown by the shelling of "Chesma" Russian 305-mm armor-piercing shells mod.1911 g (470, 9 kg), 37, 5 mm of armor do not hold such a gap - a fairly large hole is formed, and the armor-plated space is affected by fragments of the broken armored deck and the projectile itself.
As for the German 55 mm armor, here it is worth recalling the post-war, already Soviet tests of 305-mm and 356-mm shells, which took place in 1920. As it turned out, even 75 mm armor "does not hold" a shell burst if it touched it: it can protect against the impact of a shock wave and fragments of a 305-mm projectile only if it exploded 1-1, 5 meters from the armor plate. Thus, a direct hit on the Nassau's armored deck also did not bode well for the German ship. It would be a different matter if the projectile first hit the roof of the casemate - 45 mm armor would most likely cause the projectile to detonate, then the 55 mm armored deck had a good chance of holding the fragments. Or at least a significant part of them.
Thus, the only thing that, perhaps, the horizontal armoring of the Invincibles was capable of was the non-passage of shells into the hold as a whole. Of course, the danger of being hit by red-hot fragments of engine rooms, boiler rooms and, of course, artillery cellars existed, but the chances of detonation of ammunition or ignition of gunpowder charges were still lower than when a shell burst directly in the cellar. But from penetration and bursting of a shell inside the barbets, the reservation of "Invincibles" did not completely protect.
As we have already said, the 25 mm deck did not prevent the projectile from penetrating into the citadel as a whole. But if, entering the citadel, a 280-305-mm projectile hit the British 50 mm barbet, it, of course, easily pierced it and exploded already inside the feed pipe, which was not at all good. In this case, the penetration of fire and the energy of the explosion into the cellars could be prevented by specially arranged dampers in the reloading compartment, but the Germans introduced this innovation only as a result of the battles at the Dogger Bank, the British did not have it in Jutland either.
Alas, the same could be said about the Dreadnought. A heavy projectile, breaking through a 19 mm deck, hit a 100 mm barbet - with absolutely the same result. And the "Nassau" was not completely protected from such troubles - in the area below the main deck, the barbets of its guns had "spotted" protection with armor thickness from a very impressive 200 mm to completely incomprehensible 50 mm (such armor was available in places where shells hit was considered unlikely, for example, the back of the barbet facing the middle of the ship).
Thus, we can talk about the weakness of the "Invincible" barbets between the main and armored decks as a key vulnerability of the project, but how could this be fixed? Unless, having abandoned the booking of the main deck (or significantly reducing its thickness), make barbets of the main caliber towers 178 mm thick all the way to the armored deck - but in this case, the already weak horizontal armor protection became completely conditional … And there were no other supplies. As we said above, when asked about the weakness of horizontal protection, Philip Watts reminded Kerr of the Admiralty's requirement to protect the ship from flat fire at a distance of about 45 cables. But the British 305-mm guns of the Nelson-class battleships, which were also installed on the Dreadnought and Invincible for 37 cables, pierced armor equal to their own caliber, i.e. 305 mm. Against this background, 152 mm armor belt with 50 mm bevels looked behind it … well, let's just say, such protection could help on 45 cables, perhaps by a miracle and if the projectile hits at a large angle to the armor, and even then it is unlikely. Vertical booking "Invincibles" allowed for something to hope except for 70-80 cables, but here the deck became extremely vulnerable.
In general, the following can be said about protection - oddly enough, the British managed to make a big step forward on the Invincible compared to the armored cruisers of all previous projects, but, of course, the protection did not satisfy the requirements of squadron battle at all. Almost all of it, both horizontal and vertical, represented a continuous vulnerability, in which, nevertheless, the weakness of the armoring of barbets between the main and armored decks was especially prominent.
In the comments to the previous articles of this cycle, the opinion was repeatedly expressed that the protection of the Invincible should have been strengthened by increasing the displacement. This is undoubtedly true, but in this issue one cannot but take into account a certain inertia of thinking: the dogma that a cruiser cannot be larger than a battleship could not be overcome overnight.
In terms of size, Invincible was already amazing. As we said earlier, the British built their battleships and armored cruisers to match each other. The last British battleships of the "Lord Nelson" class had a normal displacement of 16,000 tons (16,090 tons "Lord Nelson" and 15,925 "Agamemnon"), and the corresponding armored cruisers "Minotaur" - 14 600 tons or 91, 25 % of the displacement of battleships. "Invincible" had a design normal displacement of 17,250 tons, "Dreadnought" - 17,900 tons, i.e. the battle cruiser was already almost equal to its corresponding battleship (96, 37%). And besides, it should be remembered that an increase in displacement, taking into account the requirement for a speed of 25 knots, would require a more powerful power plant, while at the time of laying the Invincible was the most powerful in the entire Royal Navy.
Artillery
The main caliber of the Invincible consisted of the reliable 305 mm / 45 Mk X guns. These guns were developed in 1903 and fired a 386 kg projectile with an initial speed of 831 m / s. At the time of their appearance, they had an approximate parity with the American 305-mm / 45 Mark 6, created in the same year and firing slightly heavier projectiles (394, 6 kg) with a slightly lower muzzle velocity (823 m / s). But the British cannon was colossally superior to the newest German 280-mm / 40 SK L / 40 guns, created just a year earlier for the battleships Braunschweig and Deutschland. France and Russia at that time still used twelve-inch guns, developed at the end of the last century, so here the advantage of the English artillery system was indisputable. For its time, the 305 mm / 45 Mk X was an excellent cannon, the only problem was that this time passed quickly. In the period 1906-1910, all the leading fleets of the world developed new 305-mm guns, which the British Mk X was inferior to in all respects: as a result, the Invincibles were opposed by German ships armed with 305-mm / 50 SK L / 50, firing 405.5 (high-explosive - 405, 9) kg shells with an initial speed of 855 m / s.
The range of the Invincibles' main caliber was determined not by the capabilities of the gun, but by the maximum elevation angle for which their mounts were designed. It was only 13.5 degrees, which provided a range of 80.7 cables, and only in 1915-1916, when the battlecruisers' ammunition load was replenished with new shells, the firing range reached 93.8 cables. Of course, the vertical elevation angle of 13.5 degrees is extremely small and is a disadvantage of the Invincible-class battlecruiser turrets, but how can we blame the British for this, who at the time of the tower's creation assumed that 40-45 cables was a very long distance for firing battle?
Thus, the "Invincibles" were armed with quite modern main-caliber cannons, but by the First World War they were already outdated. And although it was not the designers who were to blame, but technical progress, the British sailors had to fight a much better armed enemy.
As for the tower installations, everything is not so simple here. The same type "Invincible" "Inflexible" and "Indomiteable" received a standard hydraulic system for the Royal Navy: all the movement of the towers was provided by hydraulics. But on "Invincible", as an experiment, it was decided to install fully electric towers. It is interesting that the ship received towers of different designs from two different manufacturers: the bow and stern towers had Vickers design machines, and the side ones, also called traverse ones, by Armstrong. As a matter of fact, this alone could no longer be called the merits of the project …
I must say that the experiment ended in a deafening failure, but here, again, the manner of presentation of European historians is of interest. Here is how O. Parks writes about it:
“These units were experimental and the results were not so good as with the hydraulic system to warrant replacement. The devices were tested at the end of 1908, and after various experiments, the electrical mechanisms were replaced by hydraulic ones in 1914."
It would seem, well, what's wrong with that? We tried the new product, made sure that the electrician did not demonstrate significant advantages and that the game is not worth the candle today, and we returned to the old, proven solutions. Typical working moments … And here is a detailed description of the "not so good" electric actuators, compiled by A. Yu. Fetter:
“Defects in the electric drive first appeared already during the first tests of the guns, carried out near the Isle of Wight in October 1908. One or the other of the hundreds of contacts in each tower refused. Each malfunction delayed or completely stopped either the operation of the towers or the loading of the guns. The violent concussion that occurred every time the huge cannon was fired resulted in abrupt breaking forces in delicate electrical circuits, causing short circuits and ruptures in a complex maze of wires, contacts, generators, and the like. The situation was aggravated by the fact that it was extremely difficult to find the site of such damage."
The ship, of course, was immediately sent to the revision of the tower mechanisms, and only five months later, in March 1909, the Invincible again went to the tests of artillery. It turned out that the firms fixed the identified defects, but now the mechanisms of horizontal and vertical aiming of guns regularly failed. After that, the Invincible towers were examined by officials of the Admiralty and representatives of firms, and the examination revealed many flaws in the design of electric drives and all this required improvement. The ship returned for repair, but in the summer of the same year, numerous shortcomings came to light again.
O. Parks reports that the Invincible entered service in March 1908. But even in the summer of 1909, of its eight main-caliber guns, only four could fire, and even those with a completely different rate of fire that was recorded by them in passport. This situation was intolerable, and in August 1909, the Invincible was sent to the Portsmouth shipyard. It was assumed that by the third week of November the tower installations would be "brought to life", but it soon became clear that the timing was too optimistic that the work would be completed only before the new year, but even then the Invincible towers continued to "delight" sailors and developers with new defects … As a result, the ship was able to be fired with the main caliber only in February 1910. Needless to say, they also turned out to be a failure?
In March 1911, a final attempt was made to bring the electric drives up and running. The battle cruiser arrived in Portsmouth for a three-month repair, which both Vickers and Armstrong had to pay out of their own pockets. Alas, after these alterations, nothing worked as it should, and the Admiralty sadly stated:
“Project of electrical equipment for the operation of towers, etc. this ship is defective and it is unbelievable that it will ever be in such a condition to operate satisfactorily without redesign and replacement."
And this fiasco, this completely incompetent equipment O. Parks calls "not so good as to replace the hydraulic system" ?! The author of this article once again states: if in the domestic historiography of recent decades there has developed a manner of "repenting of all sins" looking for all sorts of shortcomings of domestic ships (aircraft, tanks, troop training, generals' abilities, etc.)etc.), then Western sources very often bypass their failures and mistakes, if not in silence, then retouch them, mentioning so that even the largest problems look like minor misunderstandings.
But back to Invincible. So, back in 1911, it became clear that it was impossible to bring to mind the electric towers of a battle cruiser - but only on March 20, 1912, at a meeting, the Admiralty decided to install time-tested hydraulic drives on the ship: it was believed that this work could be done in 6 months, but it the cost will be 150 thousand pounds sterling (after its completion, the cost of building the Invincible will overtake the Dreadnought) However, it turned out that the Lady of the Seas is in dire need of ships and Invincible will be forced to go to the Mediterranean to represent the interests of Great Britain. With completely unusable main caliber artillery.
It was only in December 1913 that the Invincible returned to Portsmouth, and finally got up for such a long-awaited renovation, which lasted six or eight months. But on the other hand, the battle cruiser finally got rid of electric drives and got the hydraulics familiar to British sailors: alas, the fact that the towers were originally created for electricity played a cruel joke with the ship. Of course, the cruiser finally gained combat capability, the new hydraulic drives worked, but how? Artillery Officer, Lieutenant Commander of the Invincible Barry Bingham recalled:
“There are accidents with fans and pipes that leak and continue to flow continuously. At my post in tower "A" or bow, I received two obligatory sets of outerwear, namely: an overalls for protection from dirt and a mac as a remedy for water from the valves, from which, as soon as pressure is applied, a stream is constantly gushing, comparable only with an endless shower."
The gushing valves were found at the very first shooting, which took place after the completion of the repair of the Invincible. The next shooting took place on August 25, 1914 (the war has been almost a month). Junior Lieutenant Stewart, gun loading officer in tower A, described the hydraulics as follows:
"… anything that might not work properly in the hydraulic system did not work as it should."
In general, it can be stated that the result of an experiment with an electrician was that the first battle cruiser in the world actually did not have capable artillery for six and a half years of its service! By the way, be it said, the electric drives of the towers were not at all the transcendent pinnacle of human genius - they were used in both the American and Russian navies. So, for example, the towers of battleships of the "Andrey Pervozvanny" type were fully electrified and no problems with their operation were observed.
British shells of the main caliber … strictly speaking are not an advantage or disadvantage of a particular ship's project, and besides, they are worthy of a separate material, so we will mention their numerous "advantages" in the next, final article of the cycle.
The Invincible mine countermeasures were represented by sixteen 102-mm / 40 QF Mk. III, firing 11.3 kg (later - 14.1 kg) with a projectile with an initial speed of 722 (701) m / sec. For its time, this was a very rational decision. The fact is that in England for a long time 76-mm cannons were considered sufficient to repel attacks from destroyers. Even the Dreadnought received exactly the 76-mm anti-mine caliber and the Invincible, according to the project, was supposed to receive the same guns. But the Russo-Japanese war showed the fallacy of this decision, the British conducted experiments on the destroyer Skate in 1906 and were convinced of this for themselves. As a result, significantly more powerful 102-mm cannons were installed on the Invincible during the construction process. At the time the battle cruiser entered service, it was probably the optimal caliber for mine action artillery. However, closer to the First World War, destroyers increased dramatically in size and 102-mm guns were no longer enough to defeat them reliably. And again, as in the case of the 305-mm main caliber, it is not the developers who are to blame for their obsolescence, but the extraordinary pace of pre-war naval progress.
But if there are no complaints about the caliber and number of anti-mine artillery barrels, then their placement is rather doubtful. Eight guns were installed in superstructures, four in the bow and four in the stern, and it looked perfectly reasonable. But the other eight guns were located on the roofs of the turrets of the main caliber, and it is completely unclear how the British were going to organize the supply of shells there? After all, it is obvious that no one will store several dozen shells in anticipation of a mine attack on the roof of the tower, and if so, it is necessary to organize a very fast delivery of these shells when the need arises.
Power plant
Fully met all the expectations placed on her. It was expected that the ships will develop 25.5 knots with a power of 41,000 hp, but in fact the Invincible developed 46,500 hp and its speed was 26.64 knots. And this despite the fact that, judging by the draft given in the sources at the time of testing, the ship had a displacement greater than normal, and certainly in no case was it relieved. But the best performance "Invincible" showed, being transferred to the fleet, there was noted the achievement of 28 knots (which looks somewhat dubious, but nevertheless). In any case, at the time of entry into service "Invincible" became the fastest cruiser in the world. In addition to power, its power plant was distinguished by reliability and, on the whole, would deserve the highest praise, but …
The only drawback of the power plant was mixed heating. The fact is that, unlike the same German ships (of a later construction), the Invincibles did not have separate oil boilers. The design assumed that oil would be injected into coal-fired boilers through nozzles, that is, both coal and oil would burn simultaneously in the boilers of the battle cruisers. This scheme was used on ships of various countries, but the British did not work out here again. The liquid fuel injection design turned out to be very imperfect, required great skill from the stokers and was not mastered by the Royal Navy. For example, when trying to burn oil at the same time as coal in the battle near the Falkland Islands, the resulting clouds of thick black smoke interfered with the gunners of the Invincible and the gunners of other ships.
As a result, the use of oil on battlecruisers was abandoned altogether, but what were the consequences?
The total fuel reserve of the Invincible-class battlecruisers for all three ships did not differ significantly, for the Invincible itself it consisted of 3,000 tons of coal and 738 tons of oil. At the same time, the cruiser's cruising range was 6020 - 6 110 miles at a fifteen-knot course or 3 050-3 110 miles at 23 knots. The rejection of oil led to a drop in the range to 4,480-4,600 miles and 2,270-2,340 miles, respectively, which was not a good result for ships that were supposed to protect ocean communications. Armored cruisers of the "Minotaur" class had a range of 8,150 miles, though not fifteen, but only ten-knot.
