In the previous article of the series, we examined the artillery systems that were in service with the British, German and Austro-Hungarian cruisers, and compared them with the domestic 130-mm / 55 cannon, which was going to arm light cruisers of the "Svetlana" type. Today we will compare the artillery power of the above cruisers.
Artillery
It is generally known that the Svetlana was to be armed with 15 130-mm / 55 arr. 1913 guns. In this case, ten guns were located on the upper deck of the ship, three guns - on the forecastle and two - on the stern superstructure. The location of the artillery was supposed to allow the concentration of very strong fire on the bow and stern of the ship, but questions immediately arise.
The fact is that the guns on the "Svetlana" were placed in their bulk on-board, in deck panel mounts and casemates: in theory, this provided firing directly on the course from nine guns, and in the stern - from six. As a rule, the installation of guns in this way still did not allow firing directly at the bow (stern), because the gases escaping from the barrel when fired damaged the sides and superstructures. This seems to be confirmed by A. Chernyshev, who writes in his monograph, with reference to the specification of 1913, that only a tank gun could shoot at the bow, and only two guns on the stern superstructure could shoot at the stern. The rest of the cannons, placed in deck mounts and casemates along the sides of the cruiser, could not fire straight ahead, but only 85 degrees from the traverse (that is, at an angle of at least 5 degrees to the ship's course).
Unfortunately, at the disposal of the author there is no specification referred to by A. Chernyshev, but there is a similar "Specification of the light cruiser for the Black Sea" Admiral Lazarev "built by the Society of Nikolaev factories and shipyards. On armor and artillery.”, And it says something completely different.
And if the artillery of the Black Sea cruisers was nevertheless assigned the task of firing directly along the course, then why was such a task not posed for the Baltic cruisers? This is extremely doubtful, and besides, in describing the design of the hull, A. Chernyshev himself gives information about special reinforcements and thickening of the plating "near the guns." And therefore there is every reason to assume that when designing cruisers of the "Svetlana" type, fire directly on the bow or stern was initially envisaged.
On the other hand, setting a task is one thing, but achieving its solution is quite another, so one can only guess whether the Svetlans could in fact develop such a strong fire on the bow and stern or not. But even if they could not, we still have to admit that cruisers of this type had extremely powerful fire at sharp bow and stern corners.
The fact is that a light cruiser very rarely has to catch up or retreat, having an enemy strictly on the bow (stern). This is due to the fact that in order to catch up with the enemy, it is necessary not to go directly to him, but to move along a course parallel to him, which is illustrated by the diagram below.
Suppose two ships (black and red) went towards each other until mutual detection (solid line), then black, seeing the enemy, turned around and lay down on the opposite course (dashed line). In this case, the red ship, in order to catch up with the black one, makes no sense to try to go directly to it (stroke), but should lie on a parallel course and catch up with the enemy on it (dotted line). And, since the "work" of light cruisers is associated with the need to catch up with someone (or run away from someone), the ability to concentrate fire on sharp bow and stern corners is very important for him, almost more important than the number of barrels in side salvo. This is often overlooked when comparing solely the mass of onboard volleys and evaluating the placement of guns only from the point of view of maximizing fire on board. This approach might be correct for a battleship, but a light cruiser is not a battleship and is not intended for battle in a line. But when leading destroyers, when performing reconnaissance functions, catching up with enemy ships or running away from them, it is much more important for a light cruiser to have strong fire at sharp bow and stern corners. That is why (and not at all due to the natural stupidity of the designers) we can regularly see on the light cruisers of the First World War pairs of guns in the bow or in the stern, located according to the method of the cruiser "Varyag".
Svetlana-class cruisers were very strong when it comes to fighting at sharp corners. So, at a target located 5 degrees from the course of the ship, five 130-mm / 55 guns could fire at the bow, and four at the stern. A target located at a course angle of 30 in the bow or stern came under fire from eight guns.
As we have already said, at the time of the laying of the Svetlan, the British were building two types of light cruisers: cruisers-scouts for service with squadrons, reconnaissance and leading destroyers and cruisers - the defenders of trade, the so-called "towns" (named after the names of English cities). Svetlana's peer scout was the Caroline-class cruisers, the first so-called C-class cruisers and the last "cities" - the Chatham-class cruisers of the Birkenhead subtype, which some researchers call the best light cruisers in England during the war.
Of the cruisers listed, Caroline was the smallest and carried the weakest weapons - 2-152-mm and 8-102-mm, and the location of the artillery was very original: the main weapon of the cruiser, both 152-mm guns, were located in the stern along the linear elevated scheme, six 102-mm guns were placed on the side and two on the ship's tank.
It must be said that the placement of the main caliber "in the rear" was contrary to all the traditions of British shipbuilding. But the British believed that battles with light cruisers would be fought in retreat, and 102-mm cannons would be better suited for attacking destroyers, and that was quite reasonable. Nevertheless, "Caroline" is expected to lose to "Svetlana" in absolutely everything - theoretically, 4 102-mm guns can work in the bow against 9 130-mm, in the stern - 2 152-mm and 2 102-mm against 6 130-mm. On sharp bow heading angles, the British cruiser would have fought with three, hardly four 102-mm guns against 5 130-mm, at the stern - 2 152-mm and 1 102-mm against 5 130-mm from the Russian cruiser. The British side salvo involved 2 152-mm and 4 102-mm guns against 8 130-mm guns of the Svetlana. The weight of the Caroline's side salvo is 151.52 kg versus the Svetlana's 294.88 kg, that is, according to this indicator, the Russian cruiser surpasses the Caroline by 1.95 times. The mass of explosive in one onboard salvo of the Svetlana is 37.68 kg, that of the Caroline is only 15.28 kg, here the superiority of the Russian ship's artillery is even more noticeable - 2.47 times.
The light cruiser "Chester" had more powerful artillery, which was placed much more traditional than on the "Caroline" - one 140-mm on the tank and poop, and eight 140-mm along the sides. This theoretically made it possible to fire directly at the bow and stern from three guns, at sharp course stern or bow corners - from two, maximum three, but gave a very decent side salvo of seven 140-mm guns. In terms of the weight of the side salvo, the Chester was almost equal to the Svetlana, 260.4 kg versus 294.88 kg, but due to the relatively low content of explosives in the shells, it lost much in its mass in the side salvo - 16.8 kg versus 37, 68 kg., Or 2, 24 times.
It is interesting that in terms of the mass of explosives in an onboard salvo, the much larger Chester almost did not surpass the Caroline with its 15, 28 kg.
The cruiser Danae, with its seven 152-mm guns, is a completely different matter.
On this ship, the running and retired guns were placed in a linear-elevated scheme, and the other two were not on the side, but in the middle of the hull, as a result of which all six took part in the side salvo of six six-inch guns. This gave almost equal to the "Svetlana" indicators of the mass of an onboard salvo (271, 8 kg) and explosives in an onboard salvo (36 kg), but … at what cost? At the sharp bow and stern corners of the British cruiser, only two guns could fire.
As for the German "Königsberg", the Germans tried to provide for this project not only an onboard salvo of maximum force, but also powerful fire at sharp heading angles.
As a result, with a total of 8 150-mm cannons, in theory, directly into the bow and stern, "Konigsberg" could shoot four guns, at sharp bow and stern corners - three, and in the side salvo - five. Accordingly, the German cruisers had an impressive mass of an onboard salvo of 226.5 kg, but still 1, 3 times inferior to the Svetlana, and a not so impressive mass of explosives in an onboard salvo of 20 kg (roughly, since the exact mass of explosives in the German 150- mm shells, the author still does not know). According to this parameter (roughly) "Konigsberg" was inferior to "Svetlana" by 1, 88 times.
The most catastrophic was the lag of the Austro-Hungarian cruiser Admiral Spaun. With only seven 100-mm guns, the latter could fire at the bow and stern from 4 and 3 guns, respectively, at sharp bow corners - 3 guns, aft - 2, and in a side salvo - only four. The mass of the onboard salvo was some 55 kg.
In general, it can be stated that the domestic "Svetlana" in its artillery armament significantly surpassed the best cruisers of Great Britain and Germany, not to mention Austria-Hungary. At least somewhat equal to "Svetlana" can be considered only the cruisers of the "Danae" type, but they, laid down in 1916, entered already in fact after the war. In addition, the approximate parity in the onboard salvo from the "Danae" was "bought" due to the rather dubious refusal of some kind of strong fire at the sharp bow and stern corners, where two six-inch British guns with their salvo mass of 90.6 kg and the content Explosives in a salvo of 12 kg were completely lost against the background of five 130-mm Russian cannons with their salvo mass of 184.3 kg and an explosive mass in a salvo of 23.55 kg.
Here the reader may be interested in why the comparison of fire performance is overlooked, i.e. mass of projectiles fired over a period of time? Is there a catch here? In fact, the author does not consider this indicator to be of any significance, and here is why: in order to compare the firing performance, you need to have an idea of the combat rate of fire of the guns, that is, their rate of fire, taking into account the actual time of their loading and, most importantly, making adjustments to aim. But usually reference books contain only the maximum values of the rate of fire, which are possible only under certain ideal-range conditions - ships cannot shoot at such a speed in battle. Nevertheless, let's calculate the fire performance, focusing on the maximum rate of fire:
1) "Svetlana": 2,359, 04 kg of shells and 301, 44 kg of explosives per minute
2) "Danae": 1 902, 6 kg of shells and 252 kg of explosives per minute
3) "Konigsberg": 1,585, 5 kg of shells and 140 kg of explosives per minute
4) "Caroline": 1,547, 04 kg of shells and 133, 2 kg of explosives per minute
The "Chester" stands apart - the fact is that for its 140-mm BL Mark I guns with its shells weighing slightly more than the domestic 130-mm and cartridge loading, a completely unrealistic rate of fire of 12 rounds / min is indicated. If this were the case, then Chester would have won against Svetlana in terms of the mass of shells fired per minute (3,124, 8 kg), but still inferior in terms of the mass of explosives fired per minute (201, 6 kg).
It should be remembered that for 152-mm guns, reference books indicate a rate of fire of 5-7 rds / min, for 130-mm guns - 5-8 rds / min, and only for 102-mm artillery with its unitary loading - 12-15 shots / min. In other words, the "Chester" clearly did not have a rate of fire of 12 rds / min. A similar "passport" rate of fire (12 rds / min) had 133-mm guns of the British during the Second World War, which had characteristics similar to 140-mm guns (a shell weighing 36 kg, separate loading) and were installed in much more advanced turret installations on battleships King George V and light cruisers Dido. But in practice, they did no more than 7-9 shots. / min.
MSA
Of course, the description of the capabilities of the artillery of light cruisers will be incomplete without mentioning their fire control systems (FCS). Unfortunately, there is very little Russian-language literature on fire control systems of the First World War era, the information in it is rather sparse, and in addition, there are certain doubts about their reliability, since the descriptions are often contradictory. All this is complicated by the fact that the author of this article is not an artilleryman, and therefore everything that has been said below may contain errors and should be interpreted as an opinion, and not as the ultimate truth. And one more note - the description offered to your attention is rather difficult for perception, and for those readers who do not want to delve into the specifics of the LMS, here the author strongly recommends to go directly to the last paragraph of the article.
What is an MSA for? It must provide centralized fire control and supply the gun crews with the necessary and sufficient information to defeat designated targets. To do this, in addition to indicating which ammunition to use and transmitting commands to open fire, the OMS must calculate and communicate to the gunners the angles of horizontal and vertical aiming of the guns.
But in order to correctly calculate these angles, it is required not only to determine the current position of the enemy ship in space relative to our ship, but also to be able to calculate the position of the enemy ship in the future. The data from the range finders are always late, since the moment of measuring the distance to the enemy always occurs before the report of the range finder about the distance he measured. You also need time to calculate the sight and give appropriate instructions to the calculations of the guns, the calculations also need time to set this sight and prepare for a volley, and the shells, alas, do not hit the target simultaneously with the shot - their flight time for several miles is 15-25 seconds or more. Therefore, naval gunners almost never shoot at an enemy ship - they shoot at the place where the enemy ship will be at the moment the shells fall.
In order to be able to predict the location of an enemy ship, you need to know a lot, including:
1) Distance and bearing to the enemy ship at the current time.
2) The courses and speeds of your ship and the target ship.
3) The magnitude of the change in distance (VIR) to the enemy and the magnitude of the change in bearing (VIR) to him.
For example, we know that the distance between our ship and the target is reduced by 5 cables per minute, and the bearing decreases at a speed of half a degree in the same minute, and now the enemy is 70 cables away from us at a heading angle of 20 degrees. Consequently, in a minute the enemy will be 65 cables away from us at a bearing of 19.5 degrees. Let's say that by this time we are ready to shoot. Knowing the course and speed of the enemy, as well as the flight time of the shells to him, it is not so difficult to calculate the point at which the enemy will be at the moment the shells fall.
Of course, in addition to being able to determine the position of the enemy at any moment in time, you also need to have an idea of the trajectory of your own projectiles, which is influenced by many factors - the shooting of the barrels, the temperature of the powder, the speed and direction of the wind … The more parameters the MSA takes into account, the more chances that we will give the correct corrections and the shells we fired will fly exactly to the point of the future location of the enemy ship that we calculated, and not somewhere to the side, closer or further.
Before the Russo-Japanese War, it was assumed that the fleets would fight on 7-15 cables, and in order to shoot at such distances, complex calculations were not needed. Therefore, the most advanced OMS of those years did not calculate anything at all, but were transmission mechanisms - the senior artilleryman set the distance and other data on the instruments in the conning tower, and the artillerymen at the guns saw the "settings" of the starart on special dials, determined the sight and pointed the gun independently … In addition, the starart could indicate the type of ammunition, give the command to open fire, switch to rapid fire and stop it.
But it turned out that the battle can be fought over much greater distances - 35-45 kbt and further, and here already centralized fire control turned out to be too difficult, since it required a lot of calculations, which were performed, in fact, manually. We needed mechanisms capable of making at least part of the calculations for the senior artilleryman, and at the beginning of the century, similar devices were created: let's start with the English fire control devices.
Probably the first (at least - of the common ones) was the Dumaresque calculator. This is an analog computing machine (AVM, in fact, all the calculating mechanisms in that period were analog), into which it was necessary to manually enter data on the courses and speeds of your ship and the target ship, bearing to the target ship, and based on these data, it was able to calculate the value of VIR and VIP. This was a significant help, but did not solve half of the problems facing the gunners. Around 1904, another simple but ingenious device appeared, called the Vickers dial. It was a dial on which the distance was displayed, and to which a motor was attached. It worked like this - when entering the initial distance and setting the VIR value, the motor began to rotate at the corresponding VIR speed, and thus the senior artilleryman could see the current distance to the enemy target ship at any time.
Of course, all this was not yet a full-fledged OMS, because it automated only part of the calculations: the artilleryman still had to calculate the same vertical and horizontal guidance angles himself. In addition, both of the above devices turned out to be completely useless if the change in the distance between the opponents was not a constant value (for example, in the first minute - 5 kbt, in the second - 6, in the third - 8, etc.), and this happened all the time at sea.
And, finally, much later than all the so-called "Dreyer's table" was created - the first British full-fledged fire control system.
Dreyer's table was extremely (for those times) automated - it was necessary to manually enter the course and speed of the enemy ship, but the distance to the enemy was entered directly by the range finder, that is, the senior artilleryman did not need to be distracted by this. But the course and speed of his own ship fell into Dreyer's table automatically, because it was connected to the gyrocompass and speedometer. The correction for the wind was automatically calculated, the initial data came directly from the anemometer and weather vane. Dumaresque's calculator was an integral part of Dreyer's table, but now VIR and VIP were not just calculated at some point, but these values were constantly monitored and predicted for the time required for the gunners. The vertical and horizontal guidance angles were also calculated automatically.
Interestingly, in addition to Dreyer (and the table was named after its creator), another Englishman, Pollen, was engaged in the development of the LMS, and, according to some reports, his brainchild provided much greater shooting accuracy. But Pollan's SLA was significantly more complex and, importantly, Dreyer was a reputable naval officer, and Pollan was just an incomprehensible civilian. As a result, the Royal Navy adopted Dreyer's table.
So, among the British light cruisers, only Danae-class cruisers received Dreyer's first world table. The rest, including Caroline and Chester, had at best only Dumaresque calculators with Vickers dials, and perhaps they didn't.
On Russian cruisers, artillery fire control devices from the Geisler and K model of 1910 were installed. Generally speaking, this LMS was intended for battleships, but it turned out to be very compact, as a result of which it was installed not only on cruisers, but even on destroyers of the Russian fleet. The system worked as follows.
The range finder, measuring the distance, set the appropriate value on a special device, the receiving device was located in the conning tower. The course and speed of the enemy ship was determined by observations, our own - on the basis of instruments that were not part of the OMS and were not connected to it. VIR and VIP were calculated manually, and entered into the device to transmit the height of the sight, and it already independently determined the necessary elevation angles for the guns and transmitted them to the calculations.
At the same time, as they say, with one click of the lever, corrections were established for the firing of guns, for the wind, for the temperature of the gunpowder, and in the future, when calculating the sight, the Geisler MSA constantly took into account these amendments.
That is, if we assume that the British light cruisers of the Chester and Caroline types were nevertheless equipped with a Dumaresque calculator and a Vickers dial, then VIR and VIP for them were calculated automatically. But the calculation of the sight had to be done manually, each time adjusting the calculation for numerous corrections, and then manually transferring the sight to the calculations of the guns. And "Geisler" arr. 1910 g manually it was necessary to count the VIR and VIP, but after that the system automatically and constantly showed the calculations of the guns the correct sight, taking into account numerous amendments.
Thus, it can be assumed that the LMS installed on the Svetlana was superior to devices of a similar purpose on the light cruisers of the Chester and Caroline types, but inferior to those on the Danae. As for the German LMS, very little is known about them, but the Germans themselves believed that their instruments were worse than those of the British. Therefore, it can be assumed that the FCS "Konigsberg" did not surpass, and perhaps inferior to that of the "Svetlana".
