It is very difficult to describe the design of Project 68-K cruisers and compare them with foreign "classmates": the problem is that Soviet ships were designed according to pre-war views and concepts, but when Hitlerite Germany attacked the USSR, their creation was frozen. They were being completed already in the post-war period and according to a modernized project, which was very different from the pre-war one. Therefore, we will do this: we will give a description of the pre-war design of the ship (i.e. project 68) and compare it with foreign ships of pre-war construction and those that were laid down at the beginning of the war. Then we will study the changes that the ship's design underwent in the post-war years, and compare it with foreign cruisers of the 50s.
Main artillery
One of the biggest problems that arose during the creation of the Soviet "Big Fleet" was the chronic delay in the development of artillery systems for ships under construction - all the more pleasant because the main caliber of Project 68 cruisers escaped such a misfortune. The terms of reference for the design of the 152-mm / 57 artillery system B-38 was approved on 1938-29-09, i.e. about a year before the cruisers were laid down. The first sample of the gun was created at the beginning of 1940, in the period June-September 1940, it was tested with two different liner designs. The tests were carried out routinely, one of the two liners was chosen, and in the same 1940 the B-38 gun was recommended for mass production, which began before the war. Before the war, 13 guns were handed over (according to other sources - several dozen), which managed to take part in the Great Patriotic War, but they had to shoot at the Nazi troops not from ships, but from railway installations.
Interestingly, initially, the B-38's ballistic solutions were tested not on a prototype, but on a specially re-barreled domestic 180-mm cannon - this approach made it possible to test the technical solutions embedded in the artillery system faster and cheaper than when creating a prototype from scratch. In the case of the B-38, for example, only a year passed from the beginning of the design to the testing of the re-barreled gun (the tests took place in 1939). This could not have been discussed in detail, if not for one nuance: in a similar test of the ballistics of the 180-mm cannon, the future B-1-K, a 203-mm / 45 artillery system was used from tsarist times. Of course, in our time, speculation began on the topic that the Soviet 180-mm B-1-K and B-1-P are nothing more than slightly modernized 203-mm cannons, although, of course, a cursory acquaintance with ballistics and design is enough. both guns to see the fallacy of such an opinion. And one can only rejoice that the fact that the re-barreled 180-mm artillery system was used in the design of the B-38 is unknown to the general public - after all, it could easily have been agreed that Soviet cruisers in the 50s fired from slightly altered eight-inch Vickers rifles!
In general, the B-38 turned out to be a very successful cannon, which was created for the cruisers of Project 68 and entered service with the ships of the next 68-bis series without any changes. The gun had record ballistics and had significant advantages over 152-155 mm artillery systems in the world.
Of course, it should be borne in mind that all foreign guns were developed in the period from 1930 to 1935, but, nevertheless, at the time of its appearance, the B-38 was the clear favorite among six-inch artillery systems. We can also say that the experience of creating 180-mm guns B-1-K and B-1-P was fully implemented. The pressure in the bore of the B-38 corresponded to that of its 180-mm "ancestor", and was 3200 kg / cm 2, but the survivability of the domestic 152-mm gun, although inferior to the American and British artillery systems, was superior to that of the B-1 -P (320 shots. Intensive combat) and was 450 shots. It should be borne in mind that, like the B-1-P, the new gun was equipped with various types of charges. As a result, gunners could shoot, giving the projectile either a record 950 m / s initial velocity, or saving the barrel resource of 800 m / s. - it can be assumed, by analogy with the 180 mm B-1-P, that the use of a lightweight charge increased the resource of the B-38 at least twice. The weight of all types of projectiles (armor-piercing, semi-armor-piercing, high-explosive) was unified and amounted to 55 kg, as a result of which, when firing, it was possible to change the type of projectile at will, without making additional amendments to the sight. Also noteworthy is the high content of explosives in domestic shells - in almost all cases, foreign shells are inferior in this parameter. The only exceptions are the American high-explosive projectile (the same 6 kg of explosives as the Soviet one) and the Japanese armor-piercing, whose explosive charge is by as much as 50 grams superior to the domestic "armor-piercing".
Of course, the combination of an initial speed of 950 m / s and fifty-five kilograms of mass gave the domestic B-38 the best armor penetration rates among all foreign guns of this caliber. In addition, it should be borne in mind that the large spread of 47, 5-50, 8 kg shells of American and British guns, which have a relatively low muzzle velocity (812-841 m / s), made it difficult to zero in at long distances, while the Japanese 155- mm gun, which has ballistics similar to the B-38, demonstrated even better accuracy at a distance of about 20,000 m than the heavier Japanese 200-mm guns. There is also (alas, unconfirmed) data that the B-38 firing accuracy at a distance of 70-100 kbt was slightly inferior to the 180-mm B-1-P, and all this together suggests that at the indicated distances the gunners of the Project 68 cruisers should not had no problems with zeroing.
The technical design of the MK-5 three-gun turret for Project 68 cruisers was created before the war. It was assumed that the Starokramatorsky plant named after V. I. Ordzhonikidze, on which a special tower shop was built for this: the production of an experimental tower began there, but before the start of the war they did not have time to make it, and later they built it according to an improved project.
This time, each B-38 received its own cradle and individual vertical guidance. The distance between the axes of the barrels of the guns was 1450 mm, which corresponded to the American turret mounts (1400 mm), but was less than that of the British turrets (1980 mm). But it should be borne in mind that the shooting methods adopted in the Red Army Navy (double ledge) required a simultaneous firing of only one gun per tower, thus, this indicator was not so important for Soviet cruisers as for their British “colleagues” forced from - for a large spread, shoot with full volleys. Loading was carried out at a single elevation angle of 8 degrees, but even with this in mind, the maximum rate of fire reached 7.5 rds / min. Some sources indicate 4, 8-7, 5 rds / min, which probably corresponds to the maximum rate of fire at the limiting elevation angles and angles close to the loading angle.
In general, the following can be stated: in the creation of six-inch guns in the world, 2 trends were observed. The first (the British and Americans) assumed a relatively light projectile at a moderate initial velocity, which gave the guns a high rate of fire, so necessary to counter enemy destroyers, but made it difficult to hit targets at long distances. The second approach (the Japanese) was to create a cannon of record performance characteristics in terms of mass and projectile speed, which achieved good accuracy at long ranges, but due to the relatively low rate of fire, the effectiveness of firing at high-speed targets decreased. The USSR preferred the third (and, to be honest, rather impudent) way - an artillery system, which will have the advantages of both options, without having their disadvantages. Surprisingly, the Soviet designers succeeded in everything: the evidence of this is the long and flawless service of the 152-mm / 57 B-38 cannons in the USSR Navy.
As for the main caliber fire control devices, we can only state that at the time of the laying of the Project 68 cruisers, no cruiser in the world had anything like it. Moreover, the LMS of many heavy cruisers categorically did not reach the Soviet standard.
In the previous cycle, in the article “Cruisers of the project 26 and 26 bis. Part 4. And a little more about artillery”we talked about the CCD cruisers of the 26-bis project, which turned out to be extremely progressive for their time. But they still had one, very significant drawback - the only command and rangefinder station (KDP), although it was equipped with as many as three rangefinders at once. Well, the project 68 cruisers received not just two control gearboxes (albeit with two rangefinders each), but also two central fire control posts. Thus, not only duplication was provided, which was extremely useful in case of combat damage, but also the ability to distribute fire on two targets (aft towers - one each, bow, respectively, on the second) without losing the quality of control. It is difficult to say how useful this could be, but, in any case, it is better to have the opportunity than not to have it. In addition, if the control tower of the cruiser "Kirov" was located 26 meters above the sea surface, then due to the abandonment of the mast in favor of a tower-like superstructure on the cruisers of the "Maxim Gorky" type, this figure dropped to 20 m, but on the cruisers of the 68 project, the control board was "returned "To a height of 25 m. Of course, the fact that the higher the location of the control tower, the greater the distance to which the latter is able to adjust the fire, does not need comments.
Unfortunately, the author could not find sources that could shed light on the question of how the CSC of the Project 68 cruisers (and their automatic firing guns) differed from those that were on the cruisers of the 26-bis project. There is only the name of the PUS "Motiv-G", but it should be borne in mind that even if the fire control devices completely duplicated the project 26-bis, then even then the quality of fire control of cruisers like "Chapaev" could try to challenge only the most "advanced" cruiser level "Admiral Hipper".
Thus, the capabilities of the main caliber of Soviet cruisers were superior to those of any 152-mm cruiser in the world.
Long-range anti-aircraft artillery (ZKDB).
In Project 68, it was decided to abandon 100-mm deck mounts in favor of two-gun turrets of the same caliber. This solution should be recognized, of course, progressive, if only because the towers have special hoists that deliver shells and charges (or unitary cartridges) directly to the guns, which (in theory) can provide a slightly better rate of fire - and yet it is for an anti-aircraft gun is perhaps the most important characteristic. It was planned to install four turrets, which, in comparison with the 26-bis cruisers, increased the number of barrels from 6 to 8 and thereby brought the number of barrels of the ZKDB to the "international standard": usually on pre-war cruisers (both light and heavy) there were four " sparks "100-127 mm.
At first, it was supposed to install the MZ-14 towers, which were developed for battleships of the "Soviet Union" type (project 23), but soon they came to the conclusion that they were too heavy. Therefore, it was decided to make a lightweight version for light cruisers, which received the code B-54 - its mass was supposed to be 41, 9 tons, compared to 69, 7 tons of the MZ-14. The swinging part of the new 100-mm cannon was tested in February-March 1941 and, being in NIMAP, took part in the Great Patriotic War, and the tower itself (without firing) passed factory tests at the Bolshevik plant. But after the war, work on the B-54 was curtailed in favor of more advanced installations.
It is extremely difficult to give any characteristics to the B-54 - according to the project, this installation was in no way inferior, and in some parameters even surpassed the guns of a similar caliber in other countries, but the same could be said about the ill-fated B-34 … but as a result, the artillery system was completely unsuitable for effective anti-aircraft firing. The only thing that can be said for sure is that in understanding what kind of medium-caliber anti-aircraft guns are needed for light cruisers, our sailors kept up with the times, not outstripping, but not lagging behind world trends. If we compare the ZKDB project 68 with cruisers of foreign powers, then the four Soviet tower installations look better than the "British standard" - four deck 102-mm twin pairs, which were installed on the "Towns" and on light cruisers of the "Fiji" class. True, at Belfast and Edinburgh, their number was increased to six, but due to the unfortunate location of the ammunition storage facilities, the effectiveness of these installations was very low - they simply did not have time to supply enough shells. The eight 127mm / 38s of the last two Brooklyns were slightly better, and the Clevelands '12 127mm barrels were much better, but it must be admitted that the Clevelands' long-range anti-aircraft battery was ahead of its time. Thus, the capabilities of the ZKDB of the Soviet cruiser were somewhat superior to those of the British, but much inferior to the American light cruisers.
Anti-aircraft guns and machine guns
Here, the cruisers of Project 68 also differ for the better from their contemporaries - six paired 37-mm assault rifles 66-K (the double-barreled version of the 70-K, which was widely used on the ships of the USSR during the Second World War), looked more preferable than a pair of four-barreled "pom-poms" British light cruisers "Fiji", or four four-barreled 28-mm "Chicago pianos" "Brooklyns", or even four "sparks" 40-mm "Beaufors" of the first light cruisers of the Cleveland class, laid down, by the way, a year later than ships of the type Chapaev. However, in all fairness, it should be noted that American ships had 20-mm "Erlikons", which had no analogues on the Soviet ship. These anti-aircraft guns were not provided for in the initial project, but the cruisers entered the fleet with them - the first two Clevelands received 13 single-barreled installations. On subsequent Clevelands, anti-aircraft weapons were strengthened, but given the fact that ships of this type entered service starting in the fall of 1942, and during their completion, combat experience was already used, it would be more correct to compare them with the post-war modernization of 68-K, and not with a pre-war project.
As for the machine guns, it was planned to install four double-barreled 12, 7-mm machine guns on the project 68 cruisers, and this was quite consistent with the British light cruisers "Belfast" and "Fiji" (two or three four-barreled installations of 12, 7-mm machine guns of the older model), but on the American cruisers of the Cleveland class there were no machine guns - they were replaced by the Oerlikons.
In general, the anti-aircraft armament of Project 68 was very noticeably superior to that of the British cruisers, but inferior to the American Clevelands.
Other armament (two three-pipe 533-mm torpedo tubes and 2 reconnaissance seaplanes) corresponded to the ships of the 26-bis project, and corresponded to a reasonable minimum for a light cruiser.
Reservation
In a nutshell: among other light cruisers in the world, the protection of Project 68 ships was the best, with the possible exception of the British light cruiser Belfast. But, since such a pretentious statement is unlikely to suit dear readers, we will give a more detailed description.
The sides of the Chapaev-class cruisers were protected by a 133-meter 100-mm armor belt with a height of 3.3 m, completely covering not only the engine and boiler rooms, central posts, but also the turret compartments of all four MK-5 main caliber. On the cruisers of projects 26 and 26 bis, the armor belt provided protection of approximately the same length, but was 30 mm thinner and 30 cm lower (height - 3 m). The stern traverse had the same thickness as the armored belt - 100 mm, but the bow was even thicker - 120 mm, and on top of this, in every respect, a powerful citadel was covered by the same 50 mm armored deck as on the Maxim Gorky-class cruisers. But the hull of the ships of the project 26 and 26 bis was protected exclusively by the citadel, while the project 68 had a reservation outside it. The sides of the new cruisers from the main armor belt to the stem were protected by 20 mm armor plates of the same height as the main armor belt. In addition, there was a 20 mm armored deck from the barbette of tower No. 1 to the bow (but not to the stem). The tiller compartment, as on the Maksim Gorky-class cruisers, was covered from the sides and from above by 30 mm armor plates.
The main caliber artillery received very strong armor: the forehead of the towers was 175 mm, the side plates were 65 mm, the roof was 75 mm, and the barbets were 130 mm. Of all the foreign cruisers, only American ones had comparable protection, but in the latter, the barbet did not reach the armored deck: a narrow 76 mm feed pipe went down from it, thereby leaving an unprotected area in the turret areas. This, combined with an extremely strange decision to store ammunition (shells) directly in the barbet, greatly reduced the actual protection of the main caliber, despite the formally powerful armor.
The conning tower of Soviet cruisers was protected by 130 mm vertical and 70 mm horizontal armor, in addition, the tower-like mast and many posts in the superstructures had 10 mm anti-splinter armor. The KDP (13 mm) and anti-aircraft gun turrets, in which the frontal sheet and feed pipes had 20 mm, had the rest - the same 10 mm, had slightly better protection.
It is interesting to compare the booking level of the Chapaev and the pre-war foreign cruisers, and those that were laid in the initial period of the war.
The most adequate booking looks like "Belfast", but, unfortunately, sources give conflicting data on the type of armor of the British cruiser. Some argue that the ship was protected exclusively by homogeneous, uncemented armor, while others argue that the Belfast's turret frontal plates and belts were protected by stronger, cemented armor plates. The Soviet project 68 was protected by homogeneous armor: accordingly, in the first case, the "Englishman", having a developed 114 mm armor belt, against the 100 mm Soviet cruiser, has a slight superiority, but if those who write about cemented armor are right, then the advantage of the British ship becomes very significant … In addition, the horizontal protection of the Belfast, whose 51 mm armored deck was thickened in the areas of the turrets of the main caliber up to 76 mm, was also superior to that of the Chapaev.
However, at sharp heading angles, the protection of the British cruiser (63 mm traverse) was not good at all, and was almost twice as low as the 68 project (100-120 mm), and in addition, despite the fact that the armor of the Belfast towers and barbets turned out to be the best among British cruisers, it was still weak (25-50 mm barbets) and was much inferior to the Soviet cruiser. The anti-fragmentation armor of the bow to the stem also gave the latter certain advantages. If, nevertheless, the 114 mm armor belt of the "Englishman" was cemented, then the protection of "Chapaev" and "Belfast" is approximately equal - both ships have certain advantages and disadvantages and it is not easy to determine the leader, but if the British cruisers were protected by homogeneous armor - the advantage is for the Soviet ship. However, Great Britain built only two ships of the "Belfast" class, later laying down a large series of light cruisers of the "Fiji" class, which, in general, should be considered the British peer of Project 68. And the "Fiji", being a smaller and cheaper "Belfast", carried almost half the armor than the Soviet cruisers and, of course, were much inferior to the latter in defense.
As for the American light cruisers, their protection scheme seems extremely dubious. We have already described it earlier, using the example of the Brooklyn-class cruisers, and now we will only repeat the main points - the Brooklyn citadel was more powerful than that of Project 68 - it was 4, 2 m high (versus 3, 3 for a Soviet cruiser) for 2, 84 m had a thickness of 127 mm, then it thinned towards the lower edge to 82.5 mm. From above, the citadel was protected by a 50 mm deck, whose thickness to the sides was reduced to 44.5 mm. But the length of this citadel was only about a third of the ship (no more than 56 m) against the 133 m of the Soviet cruiser. Outside the citadel, in the bow, the hull had a narrow (less than one interdeck space) underwater armor belt 51 mm thick, on top of which lay the same 44, 5-50 mm deck. The only function of the bow armor outside the citadel was to protect the artillery cellars: the participation of both the armor belt and the armored deck in ensuring survivability was completely insignificant, if not negligible, since both were below the waterline. Thus, both the shells and bombs that hit the Brooklyn's bow were capable of destroying the unprotected hull structures, causing extensive flooding over the armored deck. Moreover, the "underwater" armored deck when hit by bombs, if it could withstand their impact, it still initiated the detonation of ammunition at a level below the waterline, ie. in fact, doing everything to ensure that the ship received underwater holes.
The stern of the Brooklyn-class cruisers was not protected at all - inside the hull there was a long, but not wide box, starting from the citadel and covering the artillery cellars of the aft towers of the main caliber. This "box" had 120 mm of vertical armor and 50 mm on top. Thus, despite the fact that the cellars received quite adequate protection, most of the stern was not covered at all by anything - neither an armored belt, nor an armored deck. In general, thanks to the extravagant booking scheme, and despite the fact that the total mass of the Brooklyn's armor practically corresponded to that of the Belfast, the protection of American light cruisers cannot be considered satisfactory.
Here the question may arise - why was it necessary to remember the Brooklyn at all, if the more modern light cruisers Cleveland are the "peer" of the domestic project 68 in terms of design and bookmark time? The problem is that "more modern" does not mean "better" at all: the armor protection of the Clevelands was the same as the Brooklyn scheme, but it was worsened in comparison with the prototype. If the mass of the Brooklyn's armor was 1798 tons, then the Cleveland's - only 1568 tons, of course, the decrease in the number of main caliber towers from five to four played a role in this, which made it possible to save the mass of the barbet (the armor of the rotating parts of the towers in the total mass of the armor was not included). But, in addition, the height of the "Clevelands" citadel, while maintaining the same thickness, was reduced from 4, 2 to 2, 7 m.
In view of the above, it can be argued that the armor protection of light cruisers of the Brooklyn type (and even more so - Cleveland) turned out to be much worse than Project 68.
Power plant
Project 68 cruisers received practically the same boilers and turbines as the ships of the previous project 26-bis. Their location in the ship's hull (three boilers, a turbine, three boilers, a turbine) also repeated a similar arrangement 26-bis. And this was logical, because they do not look for good from good - not only did such an arrangement provide a sufficiently high survivability of the power plant, but it made it possible to significantly improve the survivability of the ship as a whole. This was due to the fact that due to the above location, the width of the boiler rooms and engine rooms of the Soviet cruisers was relatively small and much less than the width of the hull at their location. Although cruisers like Kirov and Maxim Gorky, strictly speaking, did not have anti-torpedo protection (PTZ), its role was successfully performed by many small pressurized compartments located along the sides, and the width of such an improvised PTZ reached 4, 1 meters.
The power of the cars remained the same - 110 thousand hp. and 126.5 thousand hp. afterburner - this was supposed to provide 33.5 knots of maximum speed (34.5 knots at afterburner). Although the speed of Project 68 was lower than that of Maxim Gorky, the superiority over foreign cruisers remained - Fiji could develop only 31.5 knots, light cruisers like Brooklyn and Cleveland - no more than 32.5 knots (some of them did not even reach 32 knots during testing), and Belfast, capable of developing 32.3 knots after modernization and increasing the ship's width by 1 m, could hardly give out more than 31 knots.
As for the cruising range, according to this parameter, the Soviet cruisers of Project 68 were traditionally inferior to foreign ships, although not as much as the ships of Project 26 and 26-bis. The English "Belfast" and the American cruisers had a comparable range of the order of 7800 - 8500 miles in economic progress, while for the Fiji class it barely exceeded 6500 miles. Ships of the "Chapayev" class were supposed to have a cruising range of 5500 miles on an economic run. But in fact, they were built, and despite the significant overload in comparison with the original project, it turned out to be higher, reaching 6360 miles and even more. Accordingly, it would not be a mistake to assume that the actual range of the Project 68 cruisers according to the pre-war project would have been even higher. Still, perhaps, it is worth noting that the Soviet cruisers had a slightly higher economic speed (17-18 knots) in comparison with the British and American cruisers (respectively, 14-15 knots and even 13 knots for "Fiji").
The hull of Project 68 resembled the hulls of ships of previous types - the same elongated forecastle almost to the middle of the ship's length (40% of the hull length). However, unlike the "Kirov" and "Maxim Gorky", the depth was reduced to 7, 9 m in the bow (against 13, 38 m of the cruiser "Kirov") and only 4, 6 m amidships and aft (respectively, 10, 1m). It was assumed that such a height would be sufficient to ensure acceptable seaworthiness, but such calculations were not confirmed. The bow of the Project 68 ships turned out to be quite "wet": in fresh weather and in a storm, the bow towers turned to the stern to avoid overwhelming.
However, in fairness it should be noted that the British "Towns" from flooding suffered no less.
But here's what is interesting - despite the decrease in the hull, the parameters of stability and unsinkability of the cruisers of project 68, according to calculations, surpassed not only the ships of projects 26 and 26-bis, but even of project 83, that is …. the heavy cruiser Luttsov sold to us by Germany! We can, of course, say that the paper will endure everything, but then it would not hurt to remember that, according to the pre-war calculations of unsinkability, the cruiser Kirov could not survive an explosion on a bottom mine containing explosives equivalent to 910 kg of TNT. When 9 adjacent compartments were flooded (according to calculations, the ship could withstand the flooding of no more than three large ones), Kirov should have died on the spot, but this did not happen.
Unfortunately, the author of this article was unable to find "firing tables" for the domestic 152-mm / 57 B-38 cannons, therefore, it is not possible to analyze the armor penetration at various distances. But in order to assess the pre-war project 68, this is not required.
In terms of the aggregate fighting qualities, the light cruisers of Project 68 were supposed to surpass any light cruiser in the world. The British Belfast may have had some advantage in booking (which is very controversial), but it was inferior in firepower, fire control, air defense and speed. To compare the cruisers "Chapaev" and "Fiji", by and large, is incorrect: despite the fact that "Fiji" is "also a 12-oud" six-inch light cruiser, but it was created as a stripped-down "Belfast" in order to financial savings. Therefore, it turned out a priori worse than "Chapaev" - had the Soviet cruiser been completed according to the original project 68, it would have surpassed the Englishman in literally all parameters: gun power, armor, air defense and speed, but not only. The fact is that the war made its own adjustments to the development of light cruisers, and it became clear that the pre-war air defense of such ships is categorically insufficient and needs to be strengthened. But the Fiji-class cruisers were so tightly packed that they had almost no possibility of modernization - as a result, a somewhat decent increase in the anti-aircraft capabilities of ships of this series was provided only by removing one three-gun 152-mm turret. The "modernization stock" of the cruisers of Project 698 turned out to be much larger, which was shown by the completion of the same ships according to the improved Project 68-K.
The American "Brooklyn" had higher fire performance at short distances, but lost at medium and large, the air defense of the ships was comparable, the booking of the "Brooklyn" was definitely inferior to the project 68 (primarily due to errors in the distribution of armor), the speed was lower. The light cruisers Cleveland … represented a big mistake in American naval shipbuilding and probably the worst type of cruiser in the United States. Fortunately for the Americans, most of them were completed as small aircraft carriers, and in this capacity the ships were quite successful.
But how light cruisers … The removal of one 152-mm turret weakened the firepower for which the Brooklyn was famous, and the reduction in armor worsened the already poor protection. All this was done for the sake of strengthening the air defense: light cruisers of this type received an unprecedentedly powerful 12-gun battery 127-mm / 38 guns, deservedly considered the best naval anti-aircraft guns of the Second World War. Moreover, two-gun mounts were placed "rhombic", which, with 6 mounts, made it possible to fire four of them on any side - not a single light cruiser in the world had such capabilities. But the price for these advantages turned out to be too high: the ships of the Cleveland class were distinguished by an excessively large upper weight and, as a consequence, poor stability. This problem was obvious to the designers at the design stage of the ship, therefore, in order to lighten the upper weights, they intended to use … aluminum alloys in the construction of ship superstructures. But even the United States did not find such an amount of aluminum in wartime, so as a result, the superstructures were made from ordinary shipbuilding steel.
It is even difficult to say which option is worse: on the one hand, the tragedy of the Sheffield destroyer clearly demonstrated the danger of aluminum alloys in military shipbuilding, but on the other hand, the already not very stable cruisers received additional overload. But according to the original project, the Clevelands did not provide for the placement of anti-aircraft guns at all - only 12, 7-mm machine guns. But during the construction process, it became obvious that despite the most powerful 127-mm battery, automatic cannons were still needed - at first they were going to put 28-mm "Chicago pianos", but when the Clevelands were handed over to the fleet, they received 40-mm assault rifles, while their number on a number of cruisers of the series it reached 28. As a result, in order to somehow equalize the situation with stability from cruisers, it was necessary to remove catapults, conning towers and even tower rangefinders, put ballast in their holds, but this did not radically improve the situation.
In addition to stability problems, the ships did not have the best PTZ - only one aircraft torpedo that hit … not even in the middle of the group of compartments of the cruiser Houston's power plant, but in the extreme engine room No. 1 led to the complete flooding of the entire power plant and a complete loss of speed. Also, these ships were very disliked among sailors - due to the very large number of crews for a ship of the same size. Whereas the crew of the Brooklyn-class cruisers included 888 people (about the same number was on the British Belfast), the Clevelands' crew numbered as many as 1,255 people who were forced to exist in great cramped conditions.
And with all this, the actual air defense capabilities turned out to be not so great - ships of the Cleveland class were repeatedly hit by single kamikazes during the war, and Birmingham was unable to protect the aircraft carrier Princeton (converted from the Cleveland-class cruiser!) From impact the only Japanese bomber.
The service of the Cleveland-class cruisers became surprisingly short - at the end of the war (1946-47), cruisers of this type were massively withdrawn from the active fleet into reserve. Despite some advantages, the Americans did not succeed in cruisers of this type - it was another matter for the ships of the "Fargo" type that followed, laid down at the end of 1943. But these ships, which actually entered service after the war, we will not compare with the pre-war project 68, but with the modernized 68-K.
