In this article we will take a look at the history of the design of the latest British armored cruisers (which, in fact, should be considered the Invincible), in order to understand the reasons for the emergence of the 305-mm caliber and the somewhat strange layout of its placement. The thing is that, contrary to popular belief, D. Fisher, the "father" of the British dreadnought fleet, came to understand the need for 305-mm guns and the concept of "all-big-gun" ("only big guns") for armored cruisers far not right away.
So, in 1902, John Arbuthnot Fisher, who served at that time as the commander of the Mediterranean Fleet, proposed projects of the new battleship "Inaccessible" and the armored cruiser "Inaccessible", created by him together with the engineer Gard. Around the time that Fisher and Gard were developing the aforementioned ships, Sir Andrew Noble published a theoretical justification for the advantages of 254mm guns over 305mm as the main caliber for battleships. Sir Andrew, of course, appealed for a higher rate of fire, but also for a smaller 254 mm gun mass, due to which a battleship of the same displacement could receive more 254 mm barrels compared to 305 mm. This argumentation seemed to D. Fischer extremely convincing, so he offered 254-mm guns for his battleship. Judging by O. Parks' data, the "Inaccessible" did not immediately become an "all-big-gun" ship, and it can be assumed that at first it had weapons similar to the one proposed by Sir Andrew, i.e. eight 254 mm with a dozen 152 mm. However, D. Fischer soon abandoned the intermediate caliber, increasing the number of 254-mm guns to 16, while the anti-mine caliber was supposed to be 102-mm guns.
As for the armored cruiser "Inaccessible", a mixed artillery of 254-mm and 190-mm guns was envisaged for it. Although the sources did not say this directly, it was most likely supposed to install only four 254-mm cannons, i.e. fewer of them than on a battleship: but the speed of the new ship was to significantly surpass any armored cruiser in the world. As for the booking, the requirements for the new ship indicated:
"The protection of all weapons must withstand the shelling of 203-mm melinite shells."
As a matter of fact, even 75-102 mm of armor is enough for such protection, moreover, we are talking only about the protection of artillery, and nothing is said about the hull, chimneys, and cabin. In general, the above phrase can be interpreted as you like, but not in terms of strengthening the booking of British armored cruisers.
It can be assumed that the design of the armored cruiser D. Fischer was strongly influenced by the battleships Swiftshur and Triamph.
These two ships were built for Chile, which was striving to equalize forces with Argentina, just at that time ordering in Italy the fifth and sixth armored cruiser of the "Garibaldi" class: these were "Mitra" and "Roca", later renamed "Rivadavia" and " Moreno ", but eventually became" Nissin "and" Kasuga ". I must say that the Italian cruisers were very good for their time, but the British, at the request of the Chileans, prepared a completely furious response. "Constituion" and "Libertad" (the Chileans, who were experiencing difficulties with money, eventually lost them to the British, who renamed them "Swiftshur" and "Triamph") were a type of lightweight and high-speed battleship with a normal displacement of 12,175 tons. Their characteristics are 4 * 254-mm and 14 * 190-mm guns with 178-mm armor belt and a speed of up to 20 knots, probably struck D. Fischer's imagination. Firstly, they confirmed the correctness of some of Sir E. Noble's calculations, and secondly, despite the fact that the dimensions were even smaller than the largest British armored cruisers (Good Hoop - 13,920 tons), the latter could hardly withstand “Libertad "even together. The only drawback of these ships from the point of view of D. Fischer could only be a low speed for an armored cruiser.
At the same time, the views of the British Admiralty on the use of armored cruisers have also undergone changes. If the ships of the types "Cressy", "Drake", "Kent" and "Devonshire" were created in order to protect British communications from the raids of French armored cruisers, then additional tasks were set for subsequent types of cruisers. As the famous British historian O. Parks writes:
"In addition to performing direct cruising duties, with heavier weapons and protection, it was supposed to be used as a high-speed wing in the line fleet, oriented against the German" lightweight battleships "of the Kaiser, Wittelsbach and Braunschweig classes."
In 1902, the main builder in Great Britain was replaced: Philip Watts, the creator of such interesting and famous ships as Esmeralda and O'Higgins, came to White's place. Much was expected of him.
Watts found himself in a rather interesting situation: by the time he took office, the British armored cruisers did not possess artillery powerful enough to fight raiders, nor armor that could ensure the combat stability of ships in a squadron battle. Watts has always been inclined to maximize the firepower of ships, and his cruisers receive very strong weapons: the first series, the Duke of Edinburgh and Black Prince, developed in 1902 and laid down in 1903, receive six 234-mm cannons of the main caliber, instead of four 190 mm on the Devonshire or two 234 mm on the Drake. Alas, at the same time, the booking remains approximately the same as before: for some unknown reason, the British believed that their armored cruisers would have enough armor that protects against 152-mm armor-piercing projectiles. To be precise, the British considered protection from 152-mm steel shells sufficient for their armored cruisers, but this definition most likely meant armor-piercing.
Thus, in 1902, a very interesting situation developed in Great Britain. John Arbuthnot Fisher is often and rightly criticized for neglecting armor protection in favor of firepower and speed in his battlecruiser designs. But in fairness, it should be said that such an approach was by no means his invention and that in England at the beginning of the century it was accepted everywhere. In the same 1902, the difference between the ideas of Fisher and the British Admiralty was only in the fact that the higher naval hierarchies of Great Britain, having weakly armed and insufficiently armored armored cruisers, preferred to dramatically increase their armament, without losing speed and leaving the reservation at the same level. And "Jackie" Fisher, taking as a basis the "Swiftshur", with its very powerful armament, preferred to weaken the booking and at the expense of it increase the speed. In any case, both Fischer and the Admiralty came to the same type of armored cruiser - fast enough, with powerful weapons, but weak, armor protecting only from medium-caliber artillery.
Nevertheless, D. Fischer's ideas were much more progressive than those held by the Admiralty:
1) Although the armored cruiser proposed by D. Fischer was not the embodiment of the concept of "only big guns", it was nevertheless unified in terms of the main caliber with the corresponding battleship. That is, the "Inaccessible" carried the same main caliber as the "Inaccessible", yielding to it only in the number of barrels.
2) D. Fischer offered turbines and oil boilers for the armored cruiser.
On the other hand, of course, D. Fisher contained a number of completely unjustified, albeit rather amusing, innovations - for example, telescopic chimneys and the abandonment of masts (only a radio stand).
However, in the future, D. Fisher and engineer Gard took a "step back", bringing their project closer to the Watts ships - they abandoned the 254-mm caliber in favor of the 234-mm, since this British gun was very successful, and, in their opinion, the increase the power of the 254 mm cannon did not compensate for the increase in weight. Now the armored cruiser proposed by them was a ship with a normal displacement of 14,000 tons with oil heating or 15,000 tons with coal. The armament was 4 * 234-mm and 12 * 190-mm in two-gun turrets, the power of the mechanisms was at least 35,000 hp, and the speed was supposed to reach 25 knots. By the way, where did this speed come from - 25 knots? O. Parks writes about this:
"Since the foreign armored cruisers had a speed of 24 knots, we had to have 25 knots."
Here are just what armored cruisers and whose powers could develop such a speed? In France, only ships of the type "Waldeck Rousseau" (23, 1-23, 9 knots) possessed something similar, but they were laid down at the end of 1905 and 1906, and of course, in 1903-1904 they could not know about them. "Leon Gambetta" had a speed of no more than 22, 5 knots, and for armored cruisers in other countries it was even lower. So we can only assume that the British, setting such a high bar for speed, were the victims of some kind of misinformation.
Of course, with such armament and the speed of free weight, there was no longer enough to strengthen the armor - the cruiser received a 152-mm belt, standard for British ships of this class (it is unclear how the extremities were armored). But the most unusual in the project was, of course, the placement of artillery weapons.
In this seemingly absurd scheme, the position of D. Fischer is clearly manifested, who in his "Memoirs" pointed out:
“I am a champion of End-on-Fire fire, in my opinion, fire on one side is sheer stupidity. Delay in pursuit of the enemy by deviating at least one atom from the direct course, in my opinion, is the height of absurdity."
It should be noted that if for battleships such a point of view can hardly be considered correct and at least controversial, then for cruisers the fire at sharp bow and stern corners is really extremely important, and perhaps just as important as the side salvo. Cruisers essentially have to catch up or run away from the enemy a lot. As Rear Admiral Prince Louis Battenberg quite rightly noted:
“On most French ships and our newest battleships and cruisers, firing directly at the bow and stern is limited by the fact that the line of fire practically cannot cross the center plane in the bow and stern. Consequently, in the event of a chase, even with a course straight ahead, the slightest deviation from the course will close each of the guns located not midships. The arrangement of weapons proposed by Mr. Gard is most remarkable from this point of view, since the bow and stern turrets of 7, 5 d (190-mm, hereinafter - approx. Tomorrow) guns from each side can cross the center line of fire, approximately by 25 degrees deviating from the bow and stern line - this means that both during the pursuit and during the retreat, the bow guns can actually be used (10 out of 16)."
Of course, it is extremely doubtful that such an unusual arrangement of artillery was applied in practice, and not only because of its novelty, but also for objective reasons: such a concentration of artillery in the extremities causes certain difficulties. In any case, D. Fischer & Gard's scheme was not accepted. Officially, the fleet did not want to switch to two-gun 190-mm towers - the Royal Navy, having suffered with the turrets of armored cruisers of the "Kent" type, did not want to see two-gun turrets on cruisers at all, but made an exception for 234-mm guns. In general, the last series of armored cruisers of Great Britain (type "Minotaur"), laid down at the very beginning of 1905, turned out to be much more traditional than the innovative project of D. Fisher.
However, by the end of 1904, several events took place that, in any case, devalued Fischer's project, primarily in the eyes of its creator.
First, the project of the battleship "Inaccessible" faced criticism of the 254-mm guns, and the reasoning was such that D. Fischer unconditionally sided with the 12-inch caliber. We will not go into details now, but note that from now on D. Fischer adhered to the point of view that:
"… with the same displacement, it is better to have six 12-in. (305-mm) guns firing simultaneously in one direction than ten 10-in. (254-mm)".
And secondly, just towards the end of 1904 in England it became known about the new Japanese "wunderwaffe" - armored cruisers of the "Tsukuba" type.
These ships, in fact, largely repeated the ideas of D. Fisher himself, expressed by him in the original version of "Inaccessible" and "Inaccessible". The Japanese armed their armored cruisers with the same main caliber as the battleships - 4 * 305-mm guns, while their speed, according to the British, was supposed to be 20.5 knots. It should be noted that even before the Japanese, in 1901, the "battleships-cruisers" "Regina Elena" were laid down in Italy: the Admiralty knew that these ships carried two 305-mm and twelve 203-mm guns, despite the fact that their speed, according to the British, should have been 22 knots.
Thus, at the end of 1904, Great Britain was faced with the fact that other countries began to build armored cruisers with a 305-mm main and 152-203-mm medium caliber. Given that the British, unlike the Germans, were never content with lighter guns than other countries, their next step was quite obvious. In order to surpass the Italian and Japanese ships in firepower, while maintaining the advantage in speed, there was only one rational solution - to build an all-big-gun cruiser armed with 305-mm artillery.
Consequently, the fact that the Invincible received a 305-mm gun … well, of course, D. Fischer's merit is all the same. But you need to understand that he came to the twelve-inch caliber on his cruisers not at all as a result of a glimpse of genius or creative inspiration, but under the influence of objective circumstances. In fact, we can say that England was forced to build armored cruisers with 305-mm artillery.
But here is what D. Fischer's merit is undeniable, so it is in "dragging" the "all-big-gun" concept onto the armored cruiser. The fact is that the concept of "only big guns" was still not obvious to many: so, for example, it was not shared by the chief builder F. Watts, who preferred mixed weapons of 305-mm and 234-mm guns, he was supported by Admiral May, controller Royal Navy.
At the end of 1904, D. Fisher received the post of First Sea Lord and organized the Design Committee, where the most knowledgeable and influential people are responsible for the design and construction of ships for the Royal Navy. D. Fischer "managed to" push through "the abandonment of medium-caliber artillery on battleships and armored cruisers: the committee members for the most part agreed on the need to arm the new armored cruiser with 6 or 8 305-mm cannons. But the next problem arose - how to place this artillery on the future ship? The history of the choice of the layout of the artillery on the Invincible is a bit anecdotal.
The fact is that the committee at its meetings considered many different options for the location of 305-mm artillery for an armored cruiser (knowing the extravagance of D. Fischer, one can assume that this was something extraordinary), but could not come to an agreement and the matter stalled. Meanwhile, one of the subordinates of the chief builder, engineer D. Narbett, who was responsible for the development of the details of the projects under consideration, repeatedly presented sketches of an armored cruiser to his boss F. Watts, armed with only 305-mm guns. But the chief builder categorically refused to submit them for consideration by the Design Committee.
But a drop wears away the stone, and one day F. Watts, being probably in a particularly good mood, nevertheless took D. Narbett's drawings with a promise to present them to the Committee. Just on that day, due to some mistake, the meeting turned out to be without an agenda, so that the members of the committee could only disperse. At that moment, F. Watts pulled out D. Narbett's drawings, and D. Fischer seized on it so as not to disrupt the meeting. After reviewing the sketches presented, the members of the Committee chose the layout of the artillery for both the battleship and the armored cruiser from those presented by D. Narbett.
True, for the armored cruiser, the first option was considered "A" - the project for the placement of artillery, presented by D. Fisher and Gard.
It was rejected due to the linearly elevated location of the aft towers, which was then still feared, and the excessively low side depth in the stern. Next, we considered option "B"
It was abandoned due to doubts about the seaworthiness of the ship, which has two heavy 305-mm towers on the bow across the centerline of the ship. In addition, the weakness of the side salvo was noted. What about project "C"
He was also accused of poor seaworthiness, although in this case the two bow towers were strongly displaced towards the center of the ship. In addition, the weakness of the fire in the stern was noted (only one 305-mm turret) and this option was quickly abandoned. But the "D" scheme was considered optimal by the committee members, since it provided strong fire both on board and directly along the bow, as well as on sharp bow corners
An addition to this scheme was the diagonal arrangement of two "traverse" (ie located on the sides in the center of the hull) turrets of the main caliber, but the reasons for this decision are unclear.
One glance at the diagram suggests that the British expected an eight-gun salvo in a narrow, roughly 30-degree sector. But sources claim that the British initially did not want anything like that, and assumed that the traverse tower could shoot on the opposite side only if the other traverse tower was disabled. But there is an interesting nuance here.
In the battle of the Falklands, the British tried to fire eight guns on board, but quickly found that the rumble and muzzle gas effects on the tower closest to the enemy prevented it from firing. It was then that it was noted that shooting from the traverse tower to the opposite side is possible only if the tower closest to the enemy is disabled. Accordingly, it is quite possible to assume that initially the Committee still counted on firing from eight guns, but in practice this turned out to be unattainable.
Subsequently, the "E" project was slightly improved - by lengthening the forecastle aft in order to raise the traverse towers above sea level.
It was she who became the final for the battle cruisers of the Invincible class.
It is also interesting that when choosing armament schemes, the committee members discussed options for placing all the guns in the center plane, as well as spreading the traverse towers closer to the extremities in order to still provide an onboard salvo of eight guns, as was later done on New -Ziland "and the German" Von der Tann ".
But the first option was abandoned due to very weak longitudinal fire - only one two-gun turret could "work" in the bow, stern and at sharp heading angles, which was considered unacceptable. As for the separation of the towers to the extremities, the committee recognized the usefulness of such an innovation, but did not see the possibility of displacing the towers without changing the contours of the ship, and they were needed to achieve a 25-knot speed.
From the standpoint of today, the layout of the Invincible artillery is considered unsuccessful and, of course, this is true. Based on the results of the practice of the First World War, an unambiguous conclusion was made that for effective zeroing, you need to have at least eight guns on board, while zeroing should have been carried out with half-volleys, i.e. four guns (the rest are being reloaded at this time). The use of less than four guns in the "half-salvo" made it difficult to determine the place where the shells fell and, accordingly, to adjust the fire. The Invincible could only fire six guns in one direction, so it could fire only three-gun sighting volleys, or it could shoot in full volleys, which delayed the sighting. The creators of the Russian and German dreadnoughts knew all this very well before the First World War.
Why didn't the members of the Design Committee take this into account?
The thing is that the tactics of artillery combat were greatly influenced by the Russo-Japanese War, which demonstrated, among other things, the ability to conduct effective fire (in fact, with great reservations, but nevertheless) at a distance of 70 cables. At the same time, according to pre-war views, ships were supposed to fight at a distance of no more than 10-15 cables.
So, in order to understand why "Invincible" turned out the way it turned out, we must remember that D. Fischer came to the concept of "all-big-gun" long before the Russo-Japanese war. His first creations, the Dreadnought and Invincible, were developed during this war, when it was not yet possible to comprehend and draw conclusions from its battles. Suffice it to recall that the Battle of Tsushima took place on May 27-28, 1905 (according to the new style), and the main drawings and detailed study of the Invincible were ready on June 22, 1905, that is, all the main decisions on it were made much earlier. And these decisions were made on the basis of the pre-war practices of the British fleet, and by no means on the basis of an analysis of the battles at Shantung and Tsushima.
What were these practices?
Previous articles in the series:
Errors of British shipbuilding. Battle cruiser Invincible.
