In the previous articles of the series, we found out that the Russian Svetlana-class cruisers were to become the strongest, protected and fastest light cruisers in the world: in terms of the aggregate combat qualities, they should have left competitors far behind. Of course, such results could not be achieved by mere design perfection. The payment for the "best" characteristics of domestic light cruisers was the displacement, which was 1, 3-2 times higher than that of the ships of the same class of Great Britain, Germany and Austria-Hungary.
The normal displacement of the Baltic Svetlans according to the project was 6,800 tons, but, most likely, at the time of laying it increased to 6,950 tons, while the largest of the foreign light cruisers, the Konigsberg, had only 5,440 tons, and the British "Danae" and "Caroline" had less than 5,000 tons.
The grandiose (for its class) dimensions of the Svetlan entailed two drawbacks. The first of these is a relatively short travel range. The fact is that the Svetlan's fuel reserves did not exceed those of other cruisers from other countries. As we have already said, the total fuel supply of the domestic cruiser was 1,167 tons (of which, most likely, 130 tons of coal). Pure oil "Caroline", "Danae" and "Chester" had, respectively, 916, 1,060 and 1,161 tons of fuel, and the German "Konigsberg" was the record-holder-fuel carrier - 500 tons of liquid fuel and 1,340 tons of coal, and in total - 1,840 tons. Accordingly, the range of the Russian cruisers was the smallest among their "classmates".
Of course, 3 350 or 3 3750 miles (data differ) at 14 nodes allowed the Svetlans to operate in the Baltic and Black Seas without any difficulty, but taking into account the fact that the Russian Empire was striving to create a “free sea power”, the cruising range “Svetlan”cannot be considered sufficient. In addition, it must be said that the cruising range is generally extremely underestimated by amateurs of naval history. Usually they remember about it only when assessing the capabilities of a ship to participate in raider operations somewhere in the ocean, but in fact, the cruising range is one of the most important indicators for a warship.
The fact is that the numerous thousands of miles indicated in the reference books can be traversed by a ship only at economic speed (usually 10-14 knots) and in the absence of combat damage. If you need to go faster, developing 20 knots, or generally at full speed, then the range drops significantly. And if the ship in battle receives serious damage to the pipes, then its boilers, losing traction, become much less economical. Combined with the need to maintain a high speed in combat, fuel consumption increases dramatically. Suffice it to recall the history of the battleship Tsesarevich, which in normal circumstances and at 12-knot speed consumed 76 tons of coal per day, but in the battle in the Yellow Sea consumed 600 tons of coal per day, which was primarily due to severely damaged pipes. Therefore, fuel reserves are an extremely important indicator for any ship commander, and the more they are, the better. Here you can remember the British admirals of the First World War. The low 305-mm belts of British superdreadnoughts at full displacement almost completely went under the water, but none of the British even thought to reduce their fuel reserves - battleships always left bases with a full supply of fuel.
But if fuel is so important, then why do designers save on fuel? It would seem that what is so difficult: add volume to the ship for additional fuel supplies? In fact, not everything is so simple. The fact is that the maximum speed of the ship, indicated in the terms of reference for its development, must be achieved at normal displacement, which includes half of the maximum fuel supply. Accordingly, if we want to add another 500 tons of fuel to the Svetlan's maximum reserve, then the normal displacement of the cruiser will increase by 250 tons of fuel - and this is just the beginning.
To accommodate additional reserves of fuel, it will be necessary to increase the size of the ship's hull, and hence its mass. The mass of the Svetlana's hull was 24.9% of its normal displacement, which means that in order to increase the fuel reserves by 250 tons, the hull will need to be weighted by 62 tons. The total overload relative to the initial project will be 312 tons, but with such an increase in mass, the power of the cruiser's machines will no longer be enough to provide it with 29.5 knots of maximum speed. As a result, the power of the power plant will need to be increased too, and if so, then its dimensions will grow, which means that the case will have to be increased again …
There is one more aspect. Previously, when coal was the fuel of a warship, it, in general, could be placed anywhere - it was even believed that it provides additional protection when enemy shells hit, so coal pits were often located above the ship's waterline. It goes without saying that such an approach is impossible with liquid fuel - hitting a shell even in an empty fuel tank can cause a violent explosion of oil vapors accumulated in it. Therefore, liquid fuel can be placed only in the hold, under the protection of an armored deck, and there, taking into account the need to place machines, boilers and artillery cellars, there is not too much free space.
Thus, increasing fuel reserves is not at all such an easy task as it might seem at first glance, and the reasons why the creators limited the Svetlan reserves to 1,167 tons are quite understandable and explainable.
The second drawback of domestic light cruisers was that their highest combat qualities were bought at a very high price - in the truest sense of the word.
The project provided that the cost of preparing for production and building one cruiser of the "Svetlana" type would amount to 8.3 million rubles, but this figure does not include the cost of armor, artillery and mines (mines probably meant torpedo armament). The armor produced by the Izhora plant cost the treasury 558,695 rubles. for one cruiser, but data on artillery and torpedoes, unfortunately, are not available.
It is known that the cost of artillery armament of the Black Sea dreadnoughts of the "Empress Maria" type was 2,480,765 rubles, but this amount did not include the cost of artillery fire control devices. Taking this figure as a basis, we, perhaps, will not be too mistaken, having determined "by eye" the cost of mine and artillery weapons together with the MSA for Svetlana at about 700 thousand rubles. If our assumption is correct, then the total cost of the cruiser, including artillery and armor, will be 9,558,675 rubles. - such we will accept it for comparison. Unfortunately, the author does not have data on the cost of German and Austro-Hungarian cruisers, so you will have to confine yourself to the British "Caroline" and "Danae"
Unfortunately, a simple translation of the Svetlana's value into pounds sterling and comparing the resulting amount with the cost of British cruisers will not give anything. The fact is that we are trying to understand how much the price of Svetlana-class cruisers exceeds the cost of light cruisers from other countries due to their large size, mass of armor, the amount of artillery and other technical characteristics. At the same time, many other factors influence the cost of building warships in different countries. So, for example, pricing in different countries can vary significantly, because the same costs in one country will be included in the price of the ship, but not in another, and will be paid separately.
In addition, it would not be a mistake to assume that the more industrially developed countries will have a lower cost of building warships, simply because of production excellence and greater labor efficiency. These factors had a significant impact on the cost of ships even within the same country, when the same type of warships were built at different shipyards. For example, the cost of the Catherine II Black Sea dreadnought ordered by the Society of Nikolaev Plants and Shipyards (ONZiV) was 8.07% higher than that of the Empress Maria and Emperor Alexander III, built at the Russian Shipbuilding Shipyard. Society (RSO). At the same time, the main influence on such a difference in price was due to the fact that the Izhora plant did not have sufficient production capacity to supply ONZiV armor of its own production, which made it necessary to purchase much more expensive products from the Mariupol plant.
In order to separate the flies from the cutlets, let's compare the prices of two dreadnought battleships, laid down at the same time, in 1911 - the British King George V and the Russian Empress Maria. The cost of the "Empress" was 27,658,365.9 rubles. The exchange rate of the British pound sterling (p.st.) in 1911 was 9.4575 rubles. Accordingly, "Empress Mary" was worth 2,924,490.18 pounds sterling, while the average cost of "King George V" was 1,980,000 pounds sterling. The normal displacement of the Russian dreadnought is 23,873 tons, the British - 23,368 tons, therefore a "battleship" ton of displacement in the Russian Empire cost £ 122.5 (RUB 1,158.56), and in Great Britain - £ 84.73 … or 801, 35 rubles. It turns out that in Russia the construction of ships cost almost 1, 45 times more?
Probably, nevertheless, it is not so. If we open the "Most Subject Report of the Naval Ministry for 1914", we will see rather strange data. The total cost of battleships of the "Sevastopol" type is indicated at 29,353,451 rubles, while for battle cruisers of the "Izmail" type, according to the Report, it is 30,593,345 rubles. That is, the cost of these ships is almost equal, while the displacement differs by almost one and a half times! The cost of one ton of displacement "Izmailov" is 99, 53 pounds sterling. or 941.33 rubles, which, of course, is still more than a ton of a British battleship, but by a very reasonable 17.5%. How could this happen? Perhaps the answer is that Russian shipyards required large investments to create ships of new classes, such as dreadnoughts - it was necessary to rebuild the stocks, create new workshops and workshops for the latest boilers, turbines, etc., because before that the domestic shipbuilding industry was building only steam armadillos are almost half the size. And if we assume that the cost of the first series of Baltic and Black Sea ships included the costs of preparing for production (while the Ishmaels would have been built "on everything ready-made"), then such a difference in cost is understandable. This version has indirect confirmation also in the fact that in the era of battleships, the cost of building the latter, although it was, often, more expensive than the construction of similar ships at foreign shipyards, but still not one and a half times, but by the same 15-20%. Similar considerations are relevant for the first Russian turbine light cruisers.
The total cost of the Svetlana-class cruiser has been determined by us at the level of 9,558,675 rubles, or 904,961, 67 pounds sterling. (at the rate of the pound sterling for 1913). But we can assume that if a cruiser of this type had been laid down at British shipyards, then it would have cost the treasury much cheaper - in proportion to how a ton of displacement of the King George V dreadnought is cheaper than a ton of Empress Mary, that is, about 1, 45 times. Accordingly, if a cruiser of this type were ordered in England, then its cost would be 625,937.05 pounds. Art.
And here is the cost of British ships of the same class:
Cruiser Scout Caroline - £ 300,000
Cruiser "town" "Birmingham" - 356,000 pounds sterling. The author remembers that in this cycle the Chester was chosen for comparison with the Svetlana, but unfortunately it was not possible to find its value. At the same time, "Birmingham" belongs to the "Chat" type, the subtype of which was "Chester", i.e. it is the cruiser closest in design to the Chester among all British ships.
And, finally, the light cruiser Danae, which is closest to Svetlana in terms of its capabilities. It cost the British crown £ 840,182, but in post-war prices, and during the First World War, the British pound inflation exceeded 112%. In prices of 1913, "Danae" was worth 396,256.19 pounds sterling.
This meant that if the British Admiralty had a choice of what type of cruiser to build, they could lay four Svetlana-class cruisers, or six Danae-class cruisers, while also saving over 126,000 pounds.. st. Well, Caroline could have built two ships instead of one Svetlana and still save more than £ 25,000.
Thus, we can state that the desire to create the "very-very" light cruisers cost the Russian Empire very dearly. How justified was the construction of such ships?
Of course, from the abstract positions of the war at sea in 1914-1918, the Svetlana-class cruisers should be considered redundant. But taking into account the specific tasks of the Russian Imperial Navy, such a reproach is hardly deserved by them.
In the Baltic, the fleet had to operate, constantly fearing the fast and powerful ships of the Hochseeflotte, so every dispatch of old cruisers to the middle of the Baltic or to the German shores was fraught with mortal risk. The German fleet had high-speed dreadnoughts and battle cruisers, which the Russian cruisers could not win in battle and from which they could not get away: the ships of the Bayan and Rurik types, having a speed within 21 knots, lost in speed even to some hochseeflotte battleships. Of course, the Germans kept their fleet in the North Sea, in anticipation of a grandiose fight with the Grand Fleet, but they could transfer two or three large ships by the Kiel Canal at any moment, and this was more than enough for the Russian cruisers. And the same can be said about Russian destroyers - the bulk of ships of this type had a speed of up to 25 knots, that is, they could always be intercepted and destroyed by German light cruisers.
Thus, the situation was rather unpleasant for the Russians - it seemed that there were cruisers with destroyers, and the enemy did not hold large forces in the Baltic, but nevertheless, any operations were extremely dangerous. Under these conditions, the presence of several light cruisers by the Russians, equivalent to the German ones, would allow (at least in theory) to wage a naval war more efficiently than it actually was, but in this case a certain caution would have to be observed. After all, the meeting with the light cruisers of the Germans led to a decisive battle with an equal enemy, and in this case, even if successful, our ships probably received heavy damage, after which it was easy to intercept and destroy them on the retreat.
The Svetlana-class cruisers are quite another matter. Being in the aggregate of their fighting qualities significantly stronger than the German cruisers, they fully responded to the maxim: "To be stronger than those who are faster and faster than those who are stronger." The Svetlans were not, of course, the prototype of a heavy cruiser, but they could well occupy its niche in the Baltic. Meeting "Svetlana" with any German ships up to and including a light cruiser did not bode well for the Germans, despite the fact that even 150-mm German guns had little chance of damaging the "Svetlana" so as to knock it down. Thus, with proper use, cruisers of the "Svetlana" type could bring a lot of benefit, periodically arranging raids on the German or German coastline and intercepting steamers carrying goods from Sweden to Germany.
And the same can be said about the Black Sea. One of the most important tasks of the Russian fleet in this theater was to stop shipping from Zunguldak to Istanbul, but this route passed dangerously close to the Bosphorus. A very similar situation developed here: destroyers with steam engines could be intercepted and destroyed by Breslau, and the cruisers Cahul and Memory of Mercury by Goeben. Accordingly, in order to cover these ships, the main forces of the Black Sea Fleet had to be constantly brought to sea, naturally, this greatly complicated the blockade. At the same time, the presence of the Svetlan would have made it possible to suppress Turkish shipping in this area even with the forces of one cruiser - it could leave the Goeben, and destroy the Breslau.
Consequently, the surplus power of the Svetlan was in demand both in the Black Sea and in the Baltic theater of operations - ships of this type in terms of their performance characteristics could well occupy the tactical niche of heavy cruisers, which, in the absence of comparable ships from the Germans, gave us a lot of tactical advantages. Of course, the achievement of these advantages "cost a pretty penny" and the question whether it would not be better to set up a larger number of conventional light cruisers for the same money remains controversial. But - only reasoning within the limits of the First World War.
And on it, as you know, the story does not end at all. And the victorious countries at the end of the war and immediately after it continued to design and lay the first generations of post-war cruisers. At the same time, the new ships were much larger and stronger than the bulk of military-built cruisers.
The same British, having created very advanced cruisers of the Danae type (the so-called D-type), immediately began building a new E-type, which was an all-improved Danae, whose normal displacement now reached 7,550 tons (subsequently increased up to 8 100 t). In 1918-1920, the USA laid down a very original "Omaha", which had a standard displacement of 7,250-7,300 tons. The Japanese responded to this with three series of their light cruisers, whose total displacement increased from 7,700 tons ("Kuma") to 8,097 tons ("Sendai"). These ships were much stronger and faster than the bulk of the cruisers that fought in the First World War. Compared to the new cruisers, the same Chester and Caroline were outdated.
But this cannot be said about the Svetlana, and the “fault” is precisely its huge, by the standards of the First World War, displacement and extreme characteristics for that time. Therefore, in the next article, which concludes the cycle, we will consider the characteristics of the Svetlana as of the date of their actual construction and the capabilities of these ships at the beginning of World War II.
