In the previous article, we considered the question of where the idea of building "battleships-cruisers" was born instead of full-fledged squadron battleships. These ships were planned for action on ocean communications, but with the possibility of a squadron battle against the German fleet: accordingly, the Naval Ministry saw German battleships in the Baltic and British battleships of the 2nd class in the Far East as their opponents.
Accordingly, in order to assess the battleships of the "Peresvet" type, a number of questions should be answered:
1) What did their admirals want to see? To do this, you do not need to analyze in detail the history of the design of "battleships-cruisers" of the "Peresvet" type, but you can go directly to their approved characteristics - it is important for us to know which ships the Naval Ministry ultimately wanted to receive for the above-stated goals.
2) What kind of battleships actually turned out? The desires of the admirals are one thing, but design miscalculations and the capabilities of the industry often lead to the fact that the actual performance characteristics and capabilities of the ships do not correspond to the planned characteristics at all.
3) How did the "paper" and real combat qualities of the "Peresvet" -type squadron battleships compare with their alleged opponents?
4) How correct were the admirals' plans? Indeed, unfortunately, it often happens that ships have to fight the wrong opponents and in a completely different situation than their creators imagined.
The first two ships of the series - "Peresvet" and "Oslyabya", were laid down in 1895, while it was assumed that they would become "improved" Rinauns ", so it would be logical to study how well it turned out. As for the German fleet, in the same 1895 the lead German squadron battleship Kaiser Friedrich III was laid down, in 1896 the next and the last three ships of this type were laid down in 1898 - simultaneously with Pobeda, the third Russian ship of the type Peresvet ". For the sake of fairness, we note that the "Victory" had significant differences from the lead ships of the series. It is difficult to say whether it is worth distinguishing Pobeda as a separate type, but, of course, this battleship should be compared not with the Rhinaun, but with the new British ships intended for service in the Far Eastern waters - we are talking about the Canopuses, a series of six ships was laid down in 1897-1898. and perhaps even the battleships Formidable (three ships were laid down in 1898).
Below (for reference) are the main performance characteristics of the battleships "Peresvet", "Kaiser Frederick III" and "Rhinaun", all the figures given in it we will analyze in detail below.
Armament
The most powerful main caliber of the Russian battleship. The Russian 254-mm / 45 cannon can hardly be called successful, it turned out to be over-lightened, because of which it was necessary to reduce the muzzle velocity for the battleships "Peresvet" and "Oslyabya" ("Victory received other guns, but more on that later). Nevertheless, the Peresvet's guns sent a 225.2 kg projectile into flight with an initial speed of 693 m / s, while the high-explosive projectile contained 6.7 kg of pyroxylin.
The British 254-m / 32 cannon fired a shell of similar weight (227 kg), but only reported 622 m / sec., Unfortunately, the amount of explosives in the shells is unknown. As for the German 240-mm artillery system, it is a very amazing sight. Its caliber is slightly less than that of the English and Russian cannons, but the weight of the projectile is only 140 kg. The German armor-piercing projectile did not carry explosives at all (!), It was a steel blank with an armor-piercing cap. The second type of projectile still contained 2.8 kg of explosives. At the same time, the rate of fire of all the above-described guns was probably at about the same level, although formally the Russian 254-mm shot once every 45 seconds, the German one - once a minute, the English one - once every two minutes.
The average caliber of the Russian battleship is roughly the same as that of the British; both ships have five six-inch guns in a salvo. The eleventh Russian six-inch gun was capable of firing only directly at the nose: this gave Peresvet the opportunity to zero in on escaping transports (high-speed ocean steamers could easily try to get away from the Russian cruiser) without using the main caliber, and thus was useful, but in a battle with an equal the enemy was of little use to her. Against this background, the 18 (!) 150-mm guns of the German battleship amaze the imagination - in an onboard salvo, he had almost twice as many such guns than in a Russian or English battleship - nine against five. True, the German ship could fire from 9 150-mm cannons in a very narrow sector - 22 degrees (79-101 degrees, where 90 degrees is the traverse of the ship).
As for mine-action artillery, it is, perhaps, the Russian ship is somewhat redundant, especially since the calibers of 75-88 mm were still weak against modern destroyers, and the main benefit of such guns was that their gunners could replace the wounded and killed. artillerymen at guns of larger calibers.
The torpedo armament of the German and British battleships is noticeably better, since more powerful 450-457-mm torpedoes are used, but only in the "Peresvet" is it in any way meaningful. It is not so rare for a cruiser to quickly sink a steamer detained by him for inspection, and here torpedo tubes come in handy, but for a linear battle they are completely useless.
In general, it is possible to diagnose the comparability of the artillery weapons of the Russian, British and German ships. "Peresvet" is stronger than the Englishman in the main caliber (the Russian 254-mm / 45 is about 23% more powerful), but this does not give the Russian ship an absolute advantage. But the German 240-mm cannons are much inferior to the "battleship-cruiser", which is to some extent offset by the advantage in the number of medium-caliber barrels.
Reservation
Interestingly, according to the booking scheme, "Peresvet" is a kind of intermediate option between "Kaiser Frederick III" and "Rhinaun".
The Germans "invested" in the armor belt: long (99.05 m), but very narrow (2.45 m), it was ultimately strong. The armored belt protected 4/5 of the ship's length (from the stem itself, only the stern remained uncovered) and consisted of 300 mm of Krupp armor for 61, 8 m, although the thickness decreased to 250, then 150 and 100 mm towards the bow. In this form, the German defense was "unkillable" not only for the 254-mm, but even for the most powerful 305-mm guns of foreign fleets. The armored deck was flat and touched the upper edges of the armored belt, the stern was protected by a semblance of a carapace deck, and all this had a fairly decent thickness for its time.
But above the armor belt, only the cabin and artillery were armored, and this was far from the best solution in terms of the ship's unsinkability. With a normal displacement, the armored belt "Kaiser Frederick III" was supposed to rise above the waterline by only 80 cm, and this was, of course, completely insufficient for any reliable protection of the side. Even in relatively calm water (excitement of 3-4 points), the wave height already reaches 0, 6-1, 5 m, and this is not counting the excitement from the movement of the ship. In other words, any damage to the side on top of the armor belt threatens with extensive flooding, and after all, an underwater hole can never be ruled out that can cause a roll and / or trim, as a result of which the upper edge of the armor belt will be under water and in this case flooding can become uncontrollable.
On the contrary, the citadel of the British "Rhinaun", created from Garvey's armor, was very short (64 m) and protected no more than 55% of its length. But on the other hand, it was high - in addition to the lower belt of 203-mm plates, there was also an upper 152-mm belt, as a result of which the side in the citadel area was armored to a height of 2, 8 m. With such a height of protection, there was no longer any reason to fear serious flooding inside citadel - from the stern and from the bow it was "closed" by powerful traverses.
The Rhinaun's reservation scheme became … not to say that revolutionary, but it was it that subsequently and for many years was used by the Royal Navy for its battleships. If earlier the armored deck was flat, now it was "attached" bevels, so that now it rested not on the upper, but on the lower edges of the armored belt.
All this created additional protection - the British believed that their 76 mm bevel, coupled with the coal in the pits, created protection equivalent to 150 mm of armor. Confidence is somewhat dubious, but nevertheless one cannot but agree that, even if not the thickest, but sloped armor, most likely, will be "too tough" for a shell that has nailed down the armor belt, which, moreover, will have a good chance of ricocheting at all from her. As for the extremities outside the citadel, then according to the plans of the British, the thick carapace deck, which goes under the waterline, coupled with a large number of small pressurized compartments, localize the flooding of the extremities. And, according to their calculations, even the destruction of the extremities will not lead to the death of the ship - keeping the whole citadel, it will still remain buoyant.
"Rinaun", 1901
In theory, it all looked great, but the practice of the Russo-Japanese war refuted these views. As it turned out, the beveled armored deck itself, without side armor, was poor protection - even in those cases when it was not pierced, cracks still appeared through which water got inside, and sometimes even a direct hit was enough for this, and a shell burst at the side of the ship. Such damage could, if not sink, then greatly reduce the speed and render the ship unusable - the armor belt did not protect almost half the length of the Rhinaun.
As for the reservation of "Peresvet", then, as mentioned above, it was somehow in the middle.
On the one hand, its citadel was much longer than the British battleship, reaching 95.5 m, but to the stern and to the bow, the thickness of the armor belt from the quite appropriate 229 mm of garve armor was reduced to 178 mm. Unlike the German battleship, which had a citadel of similar length, the "Peresvet" covered the middle part, leaving unprotected not only the stern, but also the bow. But, unlike the "Kaiser Frederick III", the Russian battleship had a second, upper armored belt. Unfortunately, unlike the Rhinaun, its role in ensuring unsinkability was much more modest. Of course, the 102-mm belt protected the middle part well from high-explosive shells. Throughout its entire length, one should not have feared the appearance of large holes in the hull above the main armor belt with the subsequent inflow of water, but this armor belt did not protect against water inflow through the bow and stern, and the point was this.
The citadel of the English battleship was closed from the bow and stern with solid traverses, which were a kind of wall at the full height of both the main and upper armored belts. Accordingly, the water that flooded the extremities could get inside the citadel only if the traverse armor was pierced. And at Peresvetov, the traverse of the upper armored belt did not dock with the armored deck along its entire width, which is why, if the extremity was damaged and water began to spill over the armored deck, the traverse of the upper belt could not prevent its spread.
Having studied the artillery and booking systems of the German, English and Russian ships, the following conclusions can be drawn:
The attack and defense of "Peresvet" and "Rinaun" are generally comparable. Their main armor belts, taking into account the bevels behind them, are completely indestructible for their main battery guns: Russian armor-piercing 254-mm shells were able to penetrate the British defense from less than 10 kb, and the same is true for British guns. The distances at which the upper belts of "Peresvet" and "Rinaun" were pierced are also not very different. The feed pipes of the Russian ship are thinner - 203 mm versus 254 mm for the British, but sources claim that in this place the Peresvet used Krupp's armor, not Harvey's, which equalizes their protection. At the same time, the Peresvet's guns themselves were better protected - the 203-mm tower walls against the 152-mm “cap” covering the Rhinaun's barbet guns, so the Russian battleship has certain advantages in protecting the main battery artillery. Taking into account the greater power of the domestic 254-mm gun, the superiority obviously belongs to the Russian ship, but nevertheless this does not give Peresvet a decisive advantage.
In connection with the rather high protection of both battleships to the effects of armor-piercing shells of caliber up to 254 mm inclusive, it would make sense to use high-explosive shells to defeat the enemy. In this case, the booking scheme of "Peresvet" turns out to be preferable, since its citadel protects a longer side length than the citadel of "Rhinaun" - both in absolute and relative terms.
As for the German battleship, its armor belt (300 mm of Krupp's armor) is completely impenetrable for a Russian projectile, even at close range. But the same can be said for the German battleship's 240mm cannon. V. B. Hubby gives the following data:
“A solid steel projectile (blank) with a length of 2, 4 calibers at a distance of 1000 m at an angle of encounter from 60 ° to 90 ° pierced a 600 mm plate of rolled iron armor, a 420 mm plate of compound armor and a 300 mm plate of surface hardened steel-nickel armor."
Steel-nickel armor plate 300 mm thick in terms of protection level is equivalent to approximately 250 mm of Garvey's armor. And if we assume that the German 240-mm cannon could penetrate such armor from just 1 kilometer (that is, less than 5.5 kbt), then the 229-mm armor belt "Peresvet" provided the Russian ship with absolute protection - not at all no worse than 300 mm Krupp armor from Russian cannons. The same applies to the 178 mm armor of the extremities of the "Peresvet" - taking into account the bevels of the armored deck behind them.
It should be remembered that the above-mentioned armor penetration was possessed by German armor-piercing blanks that did not contain explosives at all and, accordingly, had a meager armor-piercing effect. As for the shells containing explosives, they, as V. B. Hubby:
"When hitting a plate of hardened steel-and-nickel armor, a shell with a length of 2, 8 caliber with a bottom fuse mostly split."
In addition, without any advantage in rate of fire, the German 240-mm cannon was more than twice inferior to the Russian 254-mm gun in the power of the projectile: 2, 8 kg of explosives against 6, 7 kg, and therefore the chances of inflicting decisive damage from the German battleship are much less …
As for the numerous medium artillery, it did not show itself at all in real battles of armored ships. This applies not only to the Russo-Japanese War, but also to the Battle of Yalu, in which the Japanese were unable to inflict decisive damage on the Chinese battleships. During the battle in the Yellow Sea, the 1st Japanese combat detachment (4 battleships and 2 armored cruisers) fired 3,592 six-inch shells, or almost 600 shells, on the ship. Taking into account the fact that 40 guns could participate in an onboard salvo from the Japanese, it turns out that each Japanese six-inch gun fired on average almost 90 shells (the Russians had less). Taking this amount as a sample, we get that under similar conditions a German battleship from its 9 guns (on board) could release 810 shells. But the firing accuracy of six-inch guns was extremely low - with all conceivable assumptions in their favor, the Japanese provided no more than 2, 2% hits from guns of this caliber, but, most likely, the real percentage was still significantly lower. But even with an accuracy of 2, 2% of 810 shells fired by the German battleship will give only 18 hits.
At the same time, in the battle with the Kamimura cruisers, the Russian armored cruisers Russia and Thunderbolt, each of which received at least twice as many hits of not only 6-inch, but also 8-inch shells, were not at all going to sink or explode. although their protection was inferior to the Russian "battleship-cruisers". The battleship "Peresvet" itself, having received on July 28, 1904, one eight-inch and 10 six-inch shells reliably and another 10 shells of unknown caliber (of which the vast majority were probably six-inch), and in addition, 13 hits with heavier shells, is nevertheless capable was to continue the fight. Thus, we can safely say that the rate of German designers on a large number of medium artillery barrels to the detriment of the power of the main caliber was erroneous and a greater number of their 150-mm cannons will not ensure their success in the event of a hypothetical duel with the Russian "battleship-cruiser"
A small remark. Unfortunately, very often the analysis of the combat stability of warships of the era of the Russo-Japanese War is carried out by calculating the distance from which the main armor belt of the ship (and the bevel of the deck armor, if any) can be penetrated by the enemy's main caliber projectile. Having made such calculations for the compared ships, the resulting distances are compared and solemnly awarded the palm to the ship that has the largest one.
The logic of such calculations is clear. Of course, if our battleship is capable of penetrating an enemy armored belt with 25 kbt, and he is ours with only 15 kb, then we can safely shoot the enemy from a distance of 20-25 kb, but he will not be able to do anything to us. The enemy will be defeated, victory, of course, will be ours … Similar considerations sometimes cause serious passions on the forums: the ship was overloaded before the battle, its upper edge of the armor belt went under water, a disaster, the ship lost its combat effectiveness. But if it hadn't been overloaded, if the armor was about thirty or forty centimeters above sea level, then we would have …
Let's take a look at the booking scheme of the Japanese armored cruiser Asama.
It was a large ship, whose normal displacement (9,710 tons), although less, but still comparable to the same "Kaiser Friedrich III" (11,758 tons). And in the Tsushima battle, two Russian 305-mm shells hit the Japanese armored cruiser in the stern (the area where the shells hit is marked on the diagram). Their blow fell on the side over the armor belt and over the Asama's armored deck. It seems that nothing terrible should have happened, but, nevertheless, as a result of the rupture of one of these shells, "Asama" received extensive flooding and one and a half meter trim aft.
Now let's imagine what would have happened if the German Kaiser Friedrich III had received a similar hit. Yes, the same thing - at the point of impact, the battleship has no protection at all, except for the armored deck, i.e. it is protected even worse than "Asama". The German "Kaiser" will receive the same one and a half meter trim … And where in this case will be the vaunted German armor belt of 300 mm of excellent Krupp steel, which, according to the project, was supposed to rise 80 cm above the constructive waterline, but in fact was located somewhat lower?
The narrow armor belt of battleships of the era of the Russo-Japanese War, usually 1, 8-2, 5 meters high, even if it was thick and made of the most durable armor, still did not provide protection for the ship. Most of it was constantly under water: even according to the project, the height of the armor belt above the waterline was no more than a third of its height - 80-90 cm. the overwhelming majority of battleships of those years suffered to a different degree, so did the natural desire to have more coal on the ship for battle than it should be in the normal displacement. An interesting fact: during the First World War, British dreadnoughts went to sea exclusively in full load - the admirals were hardly happy that with such a load, the thickest belt armor of their battleships ended up under water, but they did not want to sacrifice fuel.
Of course, one can ask - why then was this narrow armor strip needed at all? In fact, she performed a rather important function, protecting the ship from heavy enemy shells hitting the waterline. Let us recall the "Retvizan" - just a couple of 120-mm shells, one of which hit the 51 mm armor of the bow (and caused a leak, since this thickness of armor was not absolute protection against a direct hit even with a medium-caliber shell), and the second formed an underwater hole of 2, 1 sq. m. led to the fact that the ship received about 500 tons of water. And this - when the ship was at anchor, and did not go at 13 knots in the battle line, but in the second case, water would enter the hull under high pressure, and it is not known whether the matter would be limited to only five hundred tons … But even at anchor to the crew It took the Retvizana a whole night to bring the battleship into a combat-ready state.
Of course, such hits in the battle of the beginning of the century could only be accidental - it was good to target the waterline in the times of Ushakov and Nakhimov, when the battle lines approached a pistol shot. Now, with an increase in distances up to several miles and a natural increase in the dispersion of shells, it became impossible to get into not only the waterline, but simply into some part of the ship at its own discretion. The task of the gunners was to get into the enemy ship, and where exactly the projectile would hit, only Lady Luck knew, and perhaps the theory of probability guessed. Taking into account the fact that at the distances of the firefight of those times, the angles of falling projectiles into the water were small, but at the same time in the water the projectile loses speed very quickly, the protection of the underwater part one and a half to two meters from the water surface looked highly appropriate. Our ancestors should not be considered fools - if they believed that the reservation of the freeboard above the waterline is more important than the underwater one, they would have done so - nothing prevented the armor belt from being buried under the water by the same 80-90 cm, thereby ensuring the height of the armored side above the water 1, 5 or more meters. Meanwhile, we see a completely opposite picture.
Thus, the main armor belt performed, of course, an important function - it protected the ship from underwater holes, which, especially during the battle, was extremely difficult to fight. Nevertheless, no matter how strong the main armor belt was, since it almost did not rise above the water, there was always a risk of damage to the unarmored side above it (or extremities not covered by armor), flooding with water and flooding of the interior, in which the main armor belt finally hid under water, and the spread of water inside the hull took on an uncontrollable character.
Therefore, an extremely important role in ensuring the unsinkability of the battleship was played by the second, upper armor belt, but only if it spread along the entire side. Of course, such belts, having, as a rule, no more than 102-152-mm thick, were not able to stop 254-305-mm armor-piercing shells (unless only in extremely successful cases), but they could reduce the size of the holes, so that those it was much easier to close up than when a shell hit the unarmored side. And besides, the upper belts were well protected from high-explosive shells of all calibers. And even if the combat damage nevertheless led to floods, in which the main armor belt went under water, the second armor belt continued to provide the ship's buoyancy.
From the point of view of ensuring the unsinkability of the ship, the protection of the squadron battleship "Tsesarevich" looked optimal, which had the main armor belt from the stem to the sternpost and the upper armor belt, somewhat thinner, also extending along the entire length of the hull.
Neither Rhinaun, nor Kaiser Frederick III, nor, alas, Peresvet possessed such perfect protection.
But it should be borne in mind that the most destructive weapon of the Russo-Japanese war was by no means armor-piercing, but high-explosive shells - without piercing armor, they nevertheless successfully knocked out enemy fire control systems and artillery, which was well demonstrated by the Japanese in Tsushima battle. It was difficult to drown the battleship with such shells, whose sides were protected by armor along its entire length, but they quickly enough brought the ship into an unusable state. At the same time, armor-piercing shells proved to be far from the best way - they, of course, pierced armor, but not all and not always. Perhaps the thickest armor plate that "submitted" to the Russian shell in that war had a thickness of 178 mm (while the shell as a whole did not pass inside the ship). The Japanese, on the other hand, have no confirmed penetrations of armor with a thickness of 75 mm and more, although there was a case of knocking out a plug in the 229 mm armored belt of the battleship Pobeda.
So all three ships: "Kaiser Frederick III", "Rhinaun" and "Peresvet" were very vulnerable to the effects of high-explosive shells, although the "Peresvet" with its long main armor belt and the presence of a second (albeit shorter) upper one still looked preferable the rest. At the same time, he had the most powerful main caliber artillery with a very powerful high-explosive projectile.
Thus, it can be stated that the admirals and designers were able to design ships whose combat power fully met the tasks set - they were not inferior to either the British battleship of the 2nd class, or the German squadron battleships, and even, perhaps, had some advantage over them.
