In this series of articles, we will try to evaluate the project of domestic light cruisers of the Svetlana class, comparing it with similar ships of the world's leading fleets, and also figure out how justified the post-war completion of ships of this type was.
The history of the design and construction of the first domestic turbine light cruisers is described in great detail in the literature, and we will not repeat ourselves. But if someone wants to quickly refresh their memory, then perhaps the best way is to re-read the chapters from the book "Stalin's Guards Cruisers" by Alexander Chernyshev, which have already been posted on Topvar in separate articles.
We will consider the creation of light cruisers of the Svetlana type from a slightly different angle and will try to figure out why these cruisers were created in general and why they built ships of this class in other countries. By doing this, we will be able to assess how successful the shipbuilding engineers have been in their designs.
Unfortunately, the sources contain a lot of conflicting information about Svetlana. We will not try to dot all the "i" s, but nevertheless we will consider the main "oddities" in terms of the tactical and technical characteristics of cruisers, because without this the comparison with foreign ships cannot be correct.
It should be noted that the analogue of "Svetlana" in other fleets should not be considered any light cruisers, but only those that carried an armored belt. This was a fundamental difference from armored light cruisers. As the experience of the Russo-Japanese War (and not only it) has shown, the armored deck with bevels alone does not give the ship the required degree of protection. Of course, the armored deck is useful if only because it protects the cruiser's cars and boilers from shrapnel and other effects of shells exploding in the hull. But it does not at all interfere with the flow of water into the ship when the latter is damaged in the waterline area. The developers of the "carapace" armored deck assumed that since its bevels would be attached to the hull below sea level, a shell hitting the waterline or even slightly below would explode on the armor. And, although the side will be perforated, there will still be no serious flooding.
But that was the wrong point of view. As practice has shown, in this case, the armor from a strong blow and concussion moved away from the mounts, or "handed over" the mount of the armor plates at the side. In any case, armored cruisers received almost as extensive flooding as if the ship had no armor at all. Suffice it to recall the cruiser Varyag. He received four waterline hits on the port side.
As a result, the cruiser acquired such a "smart" roll that there could be no talk of any continuation of the battle.
By the way, the above photo is highly recommended for viewing to everyone who reproaches the Varyag commander V. F. Rudnev is that he did not go for the breakout again.
Cruisers whose sides are armored do not have such problems. They do not receive any serious flooding, rolls and do not lose speed when they receive hits at the waterline, unless they were hit by heavy shells, which the armor of cruisers cannot resist. Thus, the armored belt gives the light cruiser a fundamental advantage over its armored "brother", which is so significant that it makes one think about the allocation of "armored" light cruisers into a separate class of ships.
The Russian Svetlans received an armored side. In addition to the Russian Empire, "armored" light cruisers were built only by England, Germany and Austria-Hungary. It is surprising that each of the four countries had their own concept of light cruisers, and these concepts in no case completely coincided.
Domestic MGSh for light cruisers set the following tasks:
1. Intelligence.
2. Sentinel and guard service.
3. Actions against destroyers; support of their destroyers, participation in the development of success.
4. Single battle with the same type of enemy cruisers.
5. Placing minefields in enemy waters.
The primary task of the Russian cruiser was to serve with the squadron, protect it from enemy destroyers and launch their destroyers into the attack, but this does not mean that ships of this type should not have operated on communications at all. They were not cruisers in the classical sense of the word, because they were not intended for raiding in the oceans and remote sea areas. But at the same time, it was assumed that ships of the "Svetlana" type would participate in active mine laying and interrupt enemy navigation together with destroyers, ie. to act against enemy communications within the Baltic (and for the Black Sea series, respectively, the Black) Sea. The Svetlana-class cruisers were not conceived as "killer-cruisers", but it was assumed that in one-on-one combat, the domestic cruiser should still have an advantage or, at least, not be inferior to enemy ships of the same class.
The Austro-Hungarian concept was very close to the Russian concept. We can say that she repeated the Russian understanding of the light cruiser in everything with one exception - the Austro-Hungarians believed that "tanks do not fight with tanks" and counted exclusively destroyers as opponents for their cruisers. Well, if suddenly enemy cruisers did meet, then it was necessary to go under the protection of heavy ships. At the same time, the armor belt was just supposed to guarantee that an accidental projectile would not knock down the "Austrian" speed in retreat.
Germany. A distinctive feature of its concept was that of all the countries, it was the only one that provided for the destruction of enemy trade in ocean communications for its light cruisers. The Germans wanted to get a universal cruiser capable of serving with a squadron, and leading destroyers, and operating in the ocean, and, if necessary, to fight British ships of its class.
Unlike the Germans, the British preferred specialization to universalism, but some clarification is needed here. After the Russo-Japanese War, the British believed that, in addition to full-fledged armored cruisers, they would only need scout cruisers designed to lead destroyers and reconnaissance. The scouts were not assigned any other tasks (actions on communications or battles with enemy cruisers).
However, the famous John Arbuthnot Fisher, when he was the first sea lord, considered that the small cruisers had completely outlived theirs. The British admiral assumed that the light cruiser was too unstable an artillery platform and that large destroyers, which, due to their size, would not need leaders, would cope with the reconnaissance tasks. As for the battle with enemy cruisers, then, according to J. Fisher, this was a task for battle cruisers.
But this idea of Fischer was not crowned with success. An attempt to build a large destroyer (the famous "Swift" became it) led to the creation of a ship with a displacement of over 2,000 tons, which, nevertheless, in its capabilities, with the exception of speed, was inferior in everything to cruisers-scouts. And with the speed, everything was completely ambiguous, because, although the ship developed 35 knots, the fuel consumption was fantastic. Thus, the creation of a ship combining the functionality of a destroyer and a cruiser failed, and the British Navy returned to building scouts, and their tasks remained the same.
But later the British drew attention to the danger posed to their ocean transport routes from the increasingly numerous German light cruisers. Armored cruisers could not effectively counteract them, because they were relatively slow-moving, linear - because they turned out to be very expensive and could not be built as massively as earlier armored cruisers, and the scouts because they were too weak for this.
A way out was found in the creation of "defenders of trade" - light cruisers of the "town" (city) type, which had sufficient seaworthiness and firepower to counter the German cruisers in the ocean. At the same time, the British did not abandon the construction of cruisers-scouts, which, in the end, received an armored belt and powerful enough artillery, comparable to that of the "cities". We can say that the two lines of British cruiser construction, "cities" and scouts, eventually merged into a single type of high-speed, armored and well-armed light cruiser.
The Russian Svetlans were founded in 1913. For comparison, we will take the following light cruisers:
1. "Konigsberg", Germany. The best Kaiser's light cruisers, the first of which was laid down in 1914 and which were laid down until 1916 inclusive. Strictly speaking, it would be more correct to choose a cruiser of the "Wittelsbach" class, because by the date of the bookmark it is "the same age" as the "Svetlana", but, in the end, the difference per year is not only that great.
2. Chester, Great Britain. The last representative of the British "cities", founded in 1914.
3. "Caroline" - a "descendant" of cruisers-scouts and the first representative of the light cruisers of the "C" type, revered in the English fleet quite successful. They were also laid in 1914.
4. "Danae", Great Britain. The most advanced light cruiser in Great Britain during the First World War, the first of which was laid down in 1916. Of course, it is not the same age as Svetlana in terms of the laying date, but it is still interesting to consider the ideas of Svetlana against the background of the British cruiser that absorbed the military experience.
5. "Admiral Spaun", Austria-Hungary. I must say that this cruiser is completely unsuitable for comparison with the ships listed above. It was laid much earlier than all of them, in 1908, and 5-6 years for the then pace of scientific and technological progress in naval affairs, this is a whole era. But this is the only type of armored light cruiser of Austria-Hungary (and also one of the most successful light cruisers in the world at the time of entry into service), so we will not ignore it.
The main tactical and technical characteristics of cruisers are shown in the table below.
The values in brackets for the displacement of the Svetlana-class cruisers arose for the simple reason that the displacement of this cruiser is not entirely clear. Often for "Svetlan" 6800 tons of normal and 7200 tons of full displacement are indicated, but these figures cause a certain doubt, and the sources, alas, are enchantingly confusing the matter.
Take, for example, a very detailed monograph by A. Chernyshov. "Guards cruisers of Stalin: Krasny Kavkaz, Krasny Krym, Chervona Ukraine". On page 16 in the table "Comparative characteristics of cruiser projects for the Black and Baltic Seas" we read that 6,800 tons is the normal displacement of Svetlana-class cruisers (Baltic). This is very similar to the truth and follows logically from the history of ship design. However, a page earlier, where the respected author gave the mass load of the cruiser "Svetlana", the normal displacement for some reason was calculated within 6950 tons. A little further, on page 69, the author apparently tried to somehow reconcile this discrepancy and indicated that 6 950 t is the normal displacement of the cruiser, and 6,800 is the standard displacement.
It is generally known that the standard displacement is the weight of a fully completed ship with a crew, but without supplies of fuel, lubricants and drinking water in tanks. Full displacement is equal to standard displacement plus full supplies of fuel, lubricants and drinking water, while normal displacement only takes into account half of such supplies.
In calculating the mass load of the cruiser "Svetlana" A. Chernyshov indicates the presence of 500 tons of fuel, therefore, it can be argued that with a normal displacement of 6,950 tons, the standard should be lower than 6,450 tons, but not 6,800 tons. the term "standard displacement" in military shipbuilding appeared only in 1922 as a result of the ratification of the Washington Maritime Agreement, and before that, normal and full displacement was widely used, but not standard and nothing of the kind can be contained in the documents of the Russian Empire.
The next mystery is the total displacement of the ship in the amount of 7,200 tons. It is only 400 tons more than the normal one (6,800 tons), although it should be at least 500 tons, since in the normal displacement the mass of fuel is 500 tons and it should be ½ full fuel supply. However, if we look at the fuel data, we find another tangle of contradictions.
A. Chernyshev on page 15 reports that in accordance with the draft design, the normal fuel supply was supposed to be 500 tons, including 130 tons of coal and 370 tons of oil. The total fuel supply was 1,167 tons (probably the same 130 tons of coal and 1,037 tons of oil). In this case, the total fuel supply differed from the normal one by 667 tons and one would expect a full displacement of 7,467 - 7,617 tons (with a normal displacement of 6,800 - 6,950 tons). Later, on page 64, A. Chernyshev points out that the above figures for fuel reserves are correct for the cruiser Profintern in 1928 (that is, for the completed Svetlana), but literally right there (on page 69) he refutes himself himself, reporting a full fuel supply of 1,290 tons for the initial project of Svetlana, 1,660 tons (!) for the Profintern in 1928, and only 950 tons (!!) for the cruiser Krasny Krym. But these three completely different cruisers are one and the same ship: the Svetlana laid down in 1913 was completed and handed over to the fleet in 1928 under the new name Profintern, which in 1939 was renamed Red Crimea!
What is the reason for such discrepancies? Most likely, after receiving the terms of reference, domestic engineers developed a draft design for a "Svetlana-class cruiser with a displacement of 6,800 tons." But in the future, as is often the case, as a more detailed project was developed, the ship's displacement went up. At the same time, it was being completed according to a modified project, with additional weapons and equipment, and, of course, its displacement increased even more.
In view of the above, we can assume that as of 1913, the normal and full displacement of the cruisers laid down in the Baltic was not 6,800 and 7,200 tons, respectively, but 6,950 and 7,617 tons, which was reflected in the table of performance characteristics of the compared cruisers.
Another mystery of our cruisers was their cruising range. Surprisingly, the fact is that reference books give values that differ at times! For example, the same A. Chernyshev gives for the "Krasniy Krym" only some 1,227-1,230 miles at 12 nodes, but for the "Profintern" and A. Chernyshov and I. F. Flowers point 3,350 miles at 14 knots! The answer here most likely lies in the fact that for the "Red Crimea" data are used as of 1944, when, due to the war and lack of proper care, the power plant "gave up".
According to the preliminary design, the Svetlana-class cruisers were designed for a range of 2,000 miles at a speed of 24 knots. Probably, something, as always, did not go according to plan, and the ship's displacement nevertheless increased during the design process, so 3750 miles for Svetlana and 3350 miles for Profintern at a speed of 14 knots look reasonable, if not underestimated.
We will come back to this issue when we compare the Svetlana's power plant with the power plant of foreign cruisers, but later. And the next article will be devoted to comparing the artillery of these cruisers.
