In 1906, the Finn mine cruiser, built with funds from voluntary donations, entered the Russian fleet. He was destined for a long and eventful military fate. Its history, like a drop of water, reflected the history of the country. Having begun its combat activities with the suppression of the uprising in Sveaborg in 1906, the ship then, from 1914 to 1917, passed the crucible of the First World War: tirelessly carried the arduous patrol and patrol service, constantly participated in night campaigns, laying mines on enemy shores. But the mine cruiser (which by that time had become a destroyer) gained the greatest fame and glory during the Civil War. In August 1917, the destroyer crew adopted a resolution transferring all power to the Soviets. In October, the ship participates in the Battle of Moonsund, then in hostilities in the Irbinsky Strait and on the Kassar reach. In April 1918, the Finn, among other Soviet ships, makes the famous multi-day Ice cruise from Helsingfors to Kronstadt. For the ship, he is also remembered by the fact that the transition had to be made without a commander, without a navigator, with only a third of the crew. In September 1918, a new unique passage - consisting of several Baltic ships along the lake and river route to the mouth of the Volga. In 1919-1920. the ship participates in the defense of Astrakhan. The fates of his two sisterships were no less saturated with combat events. These ships will be discussed below.
Continuing the program of accelerated construction of mine cruisers, the Special Committee for Strengthening the Navy on voluntary donations signed on March 20, 1904 a contract with the board of the Helsingfors Society "Sandvik Ship Dock and Mechanical Plant" for the construction of two ships with a total cost of 1 million 440 thousand rubles. With deadlines for January 1 and February 1, 1905. Four days later, a similar agreement, providing for the construction of two mine cruisers in the amount of 1 million 448 thousand rubles, was signed with the board of the "Society of Putilov Plants", which had a developed shipbuilding department. The Putilov Plant undertook to hand over the ships to the customer on March 1 and April 1, 1905. The main naval headquarters still hoped to use the hastily built mine cruisers in the climax of the Russo-Japanese War.
This time, the developer of the design documentation for the ship, which was named "a steam yacht with a displacement of 570 tons" for secrecy purposes, was the long-term partner of the Maritime Ministry - F. Schihau's plant in Elbing. The 350-ton destroyers built there earlier were distinguished by their high speed and good seaworthiness. The same plant took up the manufacture of boilers and mechanisms for all four ships, which were named in honor of the most generous donors. So, the cruisers under construction in Helsingfors began to be called "Emir of Bukhara" (Emir Abdul-Ahad contributed the largest amount of 1 million rubles to the fund of the Special Committee) and "Finn" (the Finnish Senate collected 1 million marks, that is, 333,297 rubles.), in St. Petersburg - "Moskvityanin" (Moscow province gave 996,167 rubles) and "Volunteer", named in honor of "other voluntary donors." All ships on September 11, 1904 were enlisted in the lists of the fleet.
Having received sets of drawings for the hull from Germany, the factories in June began to lay out the plaza, prepare the parts for the set and cladding. In connection with wartime, the laying ceremony for these mine cruisers was very modest, especially since mortgage boards were not even provided for for them. The lead cruiser "Emir Bukharsky" was launched on December 30, 1904 in Helsingfors. On March 22 of the following year, the Finn was launched. The laconic name of the last ship was subsequently established in the fleet for all mine cruisers of this type.
According to the "hull specification", the ship had a displacement of 570 tons and was supposed to have a speed of 25 knots. In the bow there was a wheelhouse made of 3-mm steel, a machine telegraph, a steering wheel with steam and manual drives were installed here. The command bridge towered above the wheelhouse and galley. During construction, the bridge and the conning tower with control devices were slightly increased, replacing part of the steel sheets with copper ones to reduce the deviation of the compasses. Control of the ship was duplicated by a spare manual drive, which was located together with the machine telegraph on an elevated platform in the stern. A small steam spire and a cat-beam were intended for the recoil and lifting of Inglefield's two anchors. Rescue equipment: two boats, which were replaced by motor whaleboats before the First World War (one on each ship); each crew member was provided with Kebke canvas life jackets. Drainage system: ejectors in boiler rooms and engine rooms, in living quarters, hand pumps on decks, as well as a centrifugal pump in the engine room for pumping water from the hold.
In four boiler rooms there were two small (bow) and two large (aft) boilers of the Schulz-Thornicroft system, with a working pressure of 16 atm. The normal stock of coal was 140 tons, the reinforced one - 172 tons. The contract capacity of the two main steam engines of triple expansion was determined at 6500 liters. with. at 315 rpm. Armament and ammunition were supplied by the Naval Department; the factories produced devices for receiving mine and artillery weapons, which included three surface 45-cm mine vehicles, two 75-mm and six 57-mm guns, and four Maxim machine guns on the "sea machine".
On December 15, 1904, Siemens and Halske received an order for the manufacture of wireless telegraph stations of the Telefunken system, at a price of 4546 rubles. per set. The radio station was placed in a special wheelhouse behind the bow chimney, because of which the mine apparatus had to be deployed with a shovel in the stern. Additional hull work and the manufacture of spare parts for mechanisms supplied by the Shikhau plant in a very limited quantity, increased the cost of the ships from 35 to 52 thousand rubles. For the "Emir of Bukhara" the first campaign began on May 15, 1905. Eight days earlier, the Moskvityanin was launched, and on May 29, the Volunteer was launched. July 1, "moored at the Sandvik Dock," joined the Finn campaign. Exactly one month later, during a trial test in the Gulf of Finland, "Emir Bukharsky" showed 6422 hp at the power of the mechanisms. the average full speed is 25, 3 knots (the highest is 25, 41). On August 4, "Finn" showed 26.03 knots (in some runs 26, 16), with a power of 6391 hp. During the testing period, excessive coal consumption (1, 15 kg / hp h.) Was revealed, in comparison with mine cruisers of the "Ukraine" type (0, 7-0, 8 kg / hp h.), Due to " throwing a large amount of coal into the furnaces at rather significant and irregular intervals”.
While still at the wall of the Putilov shipyard, the Moskvityanin entered the campaign on August 27, but due to the fault of the Shikhau company, the delivery of the ships under construction in St. Petersburg was delayed for almost a year. They were presented for tests with incompletely finished mechanisms; fuel consumption measurements were disrupted under various pretexts. After a categorical demand from the acceptance committee, the company replaced the machine command on the Moskvityanin, but it was only on June 20, 1906 that he was finally able to enter the acceptance tests. With the power of the mechanisms of 6512 liters. with. the average full speed was 25.75, and the maximum speed in some runs was 25.94 knots. Two days later, also in Helsingfors, the "Volunteer" was delivered to the customer (25, 9 knots at 6760 hp). According to the test results, the cruising range of mine cruisers at full speed reached 635 miles ("Emir Bukhara"), with an economic 17-knot speed - 1150 miles ("Finn"); under two cauldrons, they could go at a speed of 12 knots.
Tests of power plants confirmed the rationality of the novelty used for the first time - separate elbows of the main steam line were connected "on lentils" (a kind of prototype of modern bellows expansion joints), which were also recommended on subsequent types of mine vessels. Although water often entered the cylinders when the machines were reversing, there were no steam separators. Shihau refused to eliminate this serious drawback, referring to the fact that separators are allegedly not needed for Schulz-Thornycroft boilers.
The tests showed good maneuvering properties of the main mechanisms: the cars were transferred from full forward to reverse in just 30 seconds. The seaworthiness of these ships cannot be assessed so unambiguously. Following against the wave, "the cruiser did not accept the water with a tank," and the crests of the waves flew onto the deck only behind the wheelhouse, and in the backstay and on the forewind the ships had significant yaw (up to 12 °); when the sea state exceeded 5 points, alternating propellers were noticed on the same courses. When heading to the backstay, the roll was moderate, but, having received a roll to the leeward side, the ship straightened very slowly.
In the campaign of 1905, the new ships, together with the cruisers of the "Ukraine" type, formed the Practical detachment of mine cruisers. The following year, these ships were included in the Practical Detachment for the Defense of the Baltic Coast, while they were not fully manned. However, during the three-month voyage, their crews did a significant job. Thus, the "Emir of Bukhara" showed excellent shooting with Whitehead's mines; the greatest range achieved in radio communications between the Finn, the Emir of Bukharsky and the Almaz messenger ship was 48 miles. Calculations of the maximum mine capacity of mine cruisers and destroyers of the Practical Detachment, carried out in the summer of 1906, at the initiative of the General Staff of the Naval Forces, showed that ships of the Finn class, while maintaining a 15-inch (38, 1 cm) metacentric height and "without compromising seaworthiness", could take on the upper deck 20 min of the barrage, while the type "Ukraine" - only eight.
During the armed uprising that broke out in July 1906 in Sveaborg, the command of the "Emir of Bukhara" tried to support the revolutionary garrison of the fortress. Subsequently, the naval court charged 12 sailors of this ship with "stolen revolver cartridges for action against the authorities and persuaded others not to shoot at the rebels, as a result of which the crew went out of control and refused to go to sea." However, the officers of the "Emir of Bukharsky" and "Finn", taught by the bitter experience of the "Potemkin", having received the news of the beginning of the uprising, reacted quickly and locked in the hold those sailors who were suspected of being unreliable, after which the ships took part in shelling the barracks where the rebels were. … It is worth noting that the "Emir of Bukharsky" fired exclusively with machine-gun fire, unable to harm the rebels who were hiding behind thick stone walls. On this mine cruiser, the sailors refused to shoot at the rebels. The sailor Melnik, who controlled the machine gun, opened fire only after two orders, but even after that he only fired upwards. “Finn” showed himself in a completely different way. He conducted active artillery and machine-gun fire, and in addition, it was from him that the landing of government troops was landed on the island, removing the red flag raised by the rebels.
In September 1907, mine cruisers were transferred to the destroyer class. In the winter of 1909/10, they underwent a major overhaul at the Creighton plant in St. Petersburg (formerly Okhtinskaya shipyard). Along with replacing the boiler tubes, instead of the previous artillery, two 102-mm guns were installed on each of them (range 55 cable, rate of fire 20 rounds per minute, ammunition load 167 rounds per barrel). Some increase in displacement ("Moskvityanin" up to 620, "Finn" up to 666 tons), entailed a decrease in the full speed ("Emir of Bukhara", for example, to 24, 5 knots). Radiotelegraph installations on destroyer destroyers (power 0.5 kW, communication range up to 75 miles, on Moskvityanin - Marconi systems, on the rest - Telefunken firms), in 1913 were replaced with more advanced ones. A station produced by the radiotelegraph plant of the Maritime Department with a capacity of 2.5 kW was installed at the Emir Bukharsky; on the rest - 0.8-kilowatt stations of the Eisenstein system. After the rearmament, the composition of the crew also changed: five officers, three conductors, 82 "lower ranks"; each ship could take up to 11 troops.
With the outbreak of World War II, destroyers joined active hostilities as part of the 1st and then the 5th mine divisions. In the winter of 1914-15, the "Emir Bukharsky", "Moskvityan" and "Volunteer" underwent another major overhaul at the Sandvik plant, the boilers were repaired on the "Finn" next winter, and an "air gun" was installed to "repel the attacks of airplanes and airships" from a 47 mm gun. One 40-mm Vickers gun was installed on the "Emir of Bukhara" and "Moskvityanin". Standing on the southern coast of the Irbensky Strait "Volunteer" (it provided the flooding of several Laibs on the coastal fairway) on August 8, 1916 blew up on a drifting mine and sank within seven minutes.
The revolutionary events of 1917 did not pass by the destroyer crews. In the days of July 1917, the commander of the Baltic Sea Fleet AV Razvozov characterized the mood of the sailors of the "Emir of Bukhara" as Bolshevik. At the end of August, the sailors of the Finn, together with the crews of the Mezen transport and the Narodovolets training ship, came up with resolutions on the transfer of power to the Soviets. After the Ice campaign in early April 1918, which took place in extremely difficult conditions, "Finn" and "Emir of Bukharsky" joined the guard detachment of the eastern and middle parts of the Neva, and "Moskvityanin" - into the "separate destroyer battalion" (Kronstadt). Providing for the actions of a detachment of minelayers, "Emir Bukharsky" on August 10, 1918 took part in setting up a minefield, which reliably covered the approaches to Petrograd.
In the summer of 1918, residents of the Volga towns and villages were surprised by the appearance on the Volga of naval warships unseen here. At the direction of V. I. Lenin, these ships, which belonged to the Baltic Fleet, were navigated along the Mariinsky water system and the Volga into the Caspian Sea. It was necessary to strengthen the Caspian and Volga flotillas, which were assigned a significant role in the fight against the interventionists and the White Guard, and in ensuring the defense of Astrakhan. For the defenders of the city besieged from all sides, the very fact of the ships of the Soviet flotilla entering the Caspian was extremely important. Despite the enemy blockade of the sea approaches to the Volga delta. Despite the triple advantage of the enemies surrounding Astrakhan, on land, at sea and in the air. And despite the assurances of the naval specialists of the flotilla headquarters that combat operations of its ships in the Caspian are impossible, since the flotilla did not have a single base outside the delta. On November 25, the Moskvityanin safely arrived in Astrakhan, and by the middle of December, the Finn. However, the "Emir of Bukharsky", lost in the ice, had to spend the winter near Saratov. Subsequently, the ships took an active part in hostilities as part of the Naval Detachment of the Astrakhan-Caspian Military Flotilla.
Formally, a naval detachment of fifteen combat ships - seven destroyers, two destroyers, four armed steamers and other warships, which also had four fighter boats and eight airplanes - was included in the military river flotilla, which means in the defense system of Astrakhan, the Volga delta and sea approaches to the river mouth. However, neither the naval detachment nor the flotilla were entirely subordinate to the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army and acted at their own discretion. In practice, the situation boiled down to the fact that the naval detachment, although it left with the opening of navigation from Astrakhan to the delta, was actually inactive, defending in the roadstead near the Oranzhereiny fisheries, not far from the outlet to the sea.
That is why, in order to coordinate the actions of the army and flotilla, the Central Committee of the RCP (b) made an appropriate decision, according to which S. M. Kirov, the chairman of the revolutionary committee of the besieged city, the head of the Astrakhan Bolsheviks and the head of the political department of the Separate 11th Army, received all the rights of the special representative of the Central Committee of the party in the flotilla and at the same time became a member of the Revolutionary Military Council of the 11th Army. These were the details that preceded the departure from the Volga delta to the Caspian Sea of two groups of ships of the flotilla - a naval detachment and four auxiliary cruisers of the Southern River Detachment, which were armed raid steamers.
March 10, 1919 "Karl Liebknecht" (this name was given to "Finn" in February 1919) and "Moskvityanin" with the fire of their guns helped to suppress the revolt in Astrakhan. "Emir of Bukharsky", renamed in April of the same year in "Yakov Sverdlov", participated in the defense of Tsaritsyn. Due to the shallowing of the Volga, he then, together with three auxiliary cruisers, was sent for repair and wintering in the Paratsky backwater and returned to Astrakhan only in May 1920.
In May 1919, on the instructions of S. M. Kirov, who headed the defense of Astrakhan, "Karl Liebknecht" carried out a successful operation to capture the White Guard military steamer "Leila", which was carrying a military mission from Denikin to Kolchak. As a result of the successful execution of the operation, especially important documents fell into the hands of the command of the Red Army.
On May 21, 1919, the Moskvityanin stationed in Tubkaragan Bay survived a difficult battle with the British squadron, after which the destroyer, which had no progress, was subjected to numerous enemy air raids, as a result of which it sank on May 22. In January of the following year, the White Guards raised the ship and included it in their fleet in the Caspian. While evacuating from Petrovsk, the Whites, having planted the unrepaired Moskvityanin on the stones on March 28, 1920, shot it with naval artillery fire.
In June 1919, the destroyer "Karl Liebknecht" supported the actions of the ground forces of the Red Army in the battles in the Tsaritsyn area with the fire of its guns. The exploits of the torpedo boat in April and May 1920 are especially noted in history. On April 4, 1920, in the Tyubkaragan Bay area, the destroyer, together with a fighter boat, took a battle with two enemy auxiliary cruisers Milyutin and Opyt, which participated in the operation to evacuate a part of the White Army from Aleksandrovsky Fort. After a two-hour battle, the White Guard cruisers ceased fire on the destroyer and disappeared into the night. A number of documents mention that the battle was stopped after the Milyutin received serious damage to the stern. According to other sources, "Milyutin" was not damaged, and the battle was stopped due to darkness. Whatever the reason, the Reds used the results of the battle very successfully. "Karl Liebknecht" went to Fort Alexandrovsky and presented a demand for surrender to the White Guards. The landing of the seamen occupied the fort and captured 2 generals, 70 officers and more than 1000 Cossacks and captured large trophies of war. By order of the Revolutionary Military Council No. 192 of April 24, 1920, "Karl Liebknecht" was one of the first ships of the young Soviet republic for the courage and heroism of its crew to receive the highest award - the honorary Red Banner. During the Enzeli operation on May 18 of the same year, artillery fire from this destroyer and other ships of the Red Flotilla forced the British interventionists to leave the port. All ships captured by the whites, large stocks of property and military equipment were returned to the Soviet republic.
After the civil war, "Karl Liebknecht" and "Yakov Sverdlov" made up the 2nd destroyer battalion of the Caspian Sea Naval Forces. In December 1922, the ships were decommissioned from the fleet, and in June of the following year they were deposited. In July 1925, they were excluded from the lists of the fleet and scrapped at the end of the year. The name of the first of them was inherited by the destroyer Captain Belli, which was completed during the Soviet era, and the destroyer Novik, which entered service after long-term storage, inherited the name of the second.
The creation of the Finn-class mine cruisers was a further development of the concept of destroyer ships with increased displacement and enhanced artillery. Despite some shortcomings in terms of seaworthiness, these ships on the whole turned out to be successful and fully corresponded to the tasks assigned to them.
