Battleship "Sevastopol": history, weapons, commanders

Ship construction

On June 3, 1909, simultaneously at the Admiralty Shipyard and the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg, celebrations were held to mark the laying of several ships at once. These ships were intended for the military needs of the Russian Imperial Navy. Among them was the battleship Sevastopol. It was launched on June 16, 1911. It was the lead ship of a whole series of ships.

Soon after its launch, work on the battleship almost completely stopped. The reason for the delay: the lack of equipment, weapons and mechanisms intended for installation, which should have arrived at the shipyard. They continued to complete the construction of the ship only six months later. Throughout 1912, only hull work was carried out at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg, including the installation of the main armor side belts, as well as boring and forming the foundation for the turret installations. In addition, it was necessary to urgently equip artillery magazines according to revised drawings, since in 1911 new types of 305-mm shells were adopted for service.

The year 1913 saw the bulk of all outfitting work on the battleship Sevastopol. During this period, the installation of the hull and armor on the ship was completely completed, the upper deck was covered with wooden flooring, masts, bridges, chimneys and conning towers were installed. Equipment for power plants was also loaded onto the ship. For the next six months, the plant was busy installing the missing systems and devices. This work included the assembly of 305 mm tower installations. At the same time, the ship was being prepared for sea trials.

Latest testing and configuration

In parallel with the battleship Sevastopol, other ships were built. When ready, they were moved to Kronstadt for sea trials. The power plant was the first to operate at Sevastopol. On September 27, 1914, the ship's engine crew was able to maintain a power of 32,950 hp for three whole hours, abandoning the forced operation mode. With. The turbine rotation speed reached 260 rpm, which is 950 hp. With. more design. The speed of the battleship then was 19 knots, the draft was 9.14 meters, and the displacement was 25,300 tons.

When the battleships entered service, their staffing was identical - 31 officers, 28 conductors, 1,066 lower ranks. The first commander of Sevastopol was Anatoly Ivanovich Bestuzhev-Ryumin. He led the ship's crew from 1911 to 1915.

Commanders

• Bestuzhev-Ryumin, Anatoly Ivanovich -1911-1915.
• Ivanov, Leonid Leontyevich -1915-1916.
• Vladislavlev, Petr Petrovich -1916-1917.
• Wilken, Pavel Viktorovich -1917-1918.
• Stavitsky, Sergei Petrovich -1918;1919-1920..
• Vonlyarlyarsky, Konstantin Vladimirovich -1919.
• Beletsky, Yakov Ivanovich -1921.
• Karpinsky, Boris Andreevich -1921.
• Bologov, Nikolai Alexandrovich -1921.
• Samoilov, Konstantin Ivanovich -1924-1930
• Kadatsky-Rudnev, Ivan Nikitich -1930.
• Letavet, Alexander Ivanovich -1930-1932.
• Salmin, Evgeny Ivanovich -1932-1933.
• Puga, Anton Yakovlevich -1934-1937.
• Chelpanov, Fedor Ivanovich -1937.
• Leer Alexander Fedorovich -1937-1938.
• Chelpanov, Fedor Ivanovich -1938-1939.
• Kravchenko, Fedor Ivanovich -1939-1942.
• Zinoviev, Yuri Konstantinovich -1942-1944.
• Romanov, Mikhail Fedorovich -1944-1947.
• Belyaev, Boris Pavlovich -1947-1949.
• Uvarov, Pyotr Vasilievich -1949-1951.
• Lobov, Semyon Mikhailovich -1951-1953.
• Korovkin, Vasily Alexandrovich -1953-1957.

Battleship armament: main gun

This artillery, developed by the designers of the Obukhov plant, included twelve 305-mm rifled guns. They were housed in four turret installations, which were arranged in such a way as to be able to fire abeam ±65°. The piston valves for the guns were designed by the British.

The artillery ammunition capacity was 100 rounds per barrel. It was housed in several turret cellars, each of which was divided into two parts. Air refrigerators of the Westinghouse-Leblanc system maintained a constant temperature in them, fluctuating between 15-25 ⁰C. The range of gun ammunition was quite diverse: armor-piercing, high-explosive and semi-armor-piercing shells, as well as shrapnel. In addition, there were steel cast iron cannonballs on board the ship, which were used for practical shooting training.

Mine and torpedo weapons

The battleship's mine-anti-mine artillery consisted of sixteen 120-mm rifled guns with piston bolts, all of the same British type. The rate of fire of the guns is seven rounds per minute. They were placed on special pedestal installations, which allowed them to be vertically aimed in the range from -10 to 20⁰.

The standard ammunition of mine-caliber artillery included shots with shrapnel, illumination, high-explosive and so-called “diving” shells. They were designed to destroy enemy submarines. Initially, the ammunition load consisted of 250 rounds per barrel, and a little later it was increased to 300.

The Sevastopol's torpedo armament consisted of four 450 mm caliber underwater onboard vehicles. These fixed installations were equipped with ammunition: there were three torpedoes per unit. Projectiles of the 45-12 model had a weight of 100 kg and a firing range of 2 km at a speed of 43 knots, or could hit a target at a distance of up to 6 km, but with less rapidity - 28 knots. In general, the torpedo tube was rarely used. It was intended only for the ship's self-defense in those rare cases when the artillery failed.

During the First World War

In the spring and summer of 1915, the ships “Sevastopol”, “Poltava”, “Petropavlovsk” and the battleship “Gangut” went to sea with the aim of thoroughly mastering the ships by their crews. Then, maneuvers with artillery firing were carried out on the territory of the Central Position. In July–August of the same year, the enemy command decided to conduct a test raid operation. The German squadron, which included two dreadnought battleships, having created a combat situation, was able to successfully force the Irbe mine and artillery position of the Russian fleet and stay in the Gulf of Riga for three whole days.

When enemy ships left these waters, the Baltic Fleet had to re-install minefields. On August 14, the crews of “Gangut” and “Sevastopol” took part in these works. In addition, nine more destroyers were involved. Cover was then provided by battleships and two cruisers - Bogatyr and Oleg. It should be noted that the operation was carried out during a severe storm, but, despite all the difficulties, 310 mines were successfully installed.

Footnotes [edit]

1. McLaughlin, page 207
2. McLaughlin, pp. 208, 224-25
3. ^ ab McLaughlin, pp. 220–21
4. ↑
   Gardiner and Gray, p. 303
5. McLaughlin, pp. 207, 299-303
6. McLaughlin, page 324
7. Jump up
   ↑ McLaughlin, pp. 227, 324, 338
8. McLaughlin, pp. 344-45
9. ^ a b McLaughlin, p. 345
10. Friedman, Norman (2008). Naval Firepower: Battleship Guns and Artillery in the Dreadnought Age
    . Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. p. 278. ISBN 978-1-59114-555-4.
11. McLaughlin, pp. 345-46
12. ^ a b McLaughlin, p. 407
13. ↑ ab Rohwer, pp. 111, 119
14. ↑
    Jonathan Trigg,
    Death on the Don: The Destruction of Germany's Allies on the Eastern Front
    . The History Press, 2013, pp. 81–82, ISBN 9780750951890
15. ^ abcde McLaughlin, page 402
16. Rover, pp. 133, 135-36
17. Rover, pp. 149, 153
18. McLaughlin, page 227

Damage to the vessel

The next morning, the ships of the Russian fleet, breaking into groups, set off along the strategic channel to Helsingfors. The width of the passage was 108 meters. At this time, the ships experienced slight rolling and pitching, because a strong wind was blowing (about 5 points). Somewhere at 10:45 a.m., the battleship Sevastopol, under the command of Bestuzhev-Ryumin, unexpectedly hit the ground three times. The last shock was very strong, after which the ship stopped. However, not even a few minutes had passed before the ship, backing up, managed to get off the ground without resorting to outside help.

Following it, the battleship Gangut hit the ground. The reason for this was windy weather, as a result of which some of the milestones were blown away. Of these two ships, the Sevastopol suffered the most, since the lower section of its stem was crushed, and the damage to the bottom extended to the second tower, capturing three outer plating belts on each side.

During the inspection of the battleship, in addition to numerous cracks and dents, two holes were discovered. As a result of this, the ship took in at least 350 tons of water, which flooded most of the double-bottom space located in the area of ​​the bow boiler rooms. Such serious damage took about a month and a half to correct. All repair work was carried out on the dock area in Kronstadt.

During the First World War, Sevastopol was damaged two more times. This time the keel beam and bottom frame with plating were repaired. Such accidents, as the naval leadership believed, were the result of difficulties that arose with controlling the ship in conditions of excessive cramped conditions in the eastern part of the Baltic Sea. The size of the ships in this series was impressive, so they needed more space. In addition, on October 17 of the same year, a half-charge of a 305-mm gun fell onto the deck of the battleship while loading ammunition and ignited. The fire was quickly extinguished, but there were no casualties. Then four people were injured, and one died, having received severe burns.

Sevastopol-class battleships: success or failure? Part 1

The first dreadnoughts of the Russian Imperial Navy, the Baltic Sevastopols, received the most controversial characteristics in the Russian-language press.
But if in some publications the authors called them perhaps the best in the world, today it is widely believed that the Sevastopol-class battleships were a deafening failure of domestic design thought and industry. There is also an opinion that it was design miscalculations that did not allow the Sevastopol to be launched into the sea, which is why they stood behind the central minefield throughout the war. In this article I will try to figure out how fair the listed assessments of this type of battleship are, and at the same time I will try to sort out the most well-known myths associated with the first Russian dreadnoughts.

Artillery

If there is something on which all (or almost all) domestic sources agree, it is the high assessment of the main caliber artillery of the Sevastopol-class battleships. And with good reason - the power of a dozen twelve-inch guns is amazing. After all, if we look at the ships laid down in other countries at the same time as the Sevastopols, we will see that... the Sevastopols were laid down in June 1909. At this time, Germany was building the recently laid down (October 1908 - March 1909) dreadnoughts of the Ostfriesland class (a total of eight 12-inch guns in a broadside) and was preparing to lay down Kaiser-class battleships, formally capable of firing 10 twelve-inch guns on board . But due to the unfortunate location, the middle turrets could fire on one side only in a very narrow sector, so the German dreadnoughts could only record 10 twelve-inch guns in a broadside salvo only with a very big stretch. And this despite the fact that the Kaiser series was laid out from December 1909 to January 1911.

In France, Sevastopol has no peers - the Third Republic laid down its first dreadnought, Courbet, only in September 1910, but it also had only 10 guns in its broadside.

In the USA, in March 1909, two Florida-class dreadnoughts were laid down, all with the same 10 twelve-inch guns (in fairness, it must be said that the location of the turrets on American and French battleships allowed full fire with 10 guns in a salvo, unlike the German Kaisers) ), but the Wyomings, which had a dozen 12-inch guns, were laid down only in 1910 (January-February).

And even the Lady of the Seas, England, a month after the laying of the domestic Sevastopol, began the construction of two Colossus-class dreadnoughts - all with the same ten 12-inch guns.

Only the Italians laid down, almost simultaneously with the Sevastopols, their famous Dante Alighieri, which, like the Russian dreadnoughts, had four three-gun turrets of twelve-inch guns capable of firing from all 12 of its barrels on board.

On the one hand, it would seem that ten guns or twelve are not too much of a difference. But in fact, a dozen guns gave the ship a certain advantage. In those days, it was believed that for effective shooting it was necessary to fire in at least four-gun salvoes, and where a battleship with 8 guns could fire two four-gun salvoes, and a battleship with ten guns could fire two five-gun salvoes, battleships of the Sevastopol class were capable of firing three four-gun salvo. There was such a practice as shooting with a ledge - when a battleship fired a four-gun salvo and immediately, without waiting for it to fall, another one (adjusted for a range of, say, 500 meters). Accordingly, the chief gunner had the opportunity to evaluate the fall of two of his salvos at once relative to the enemy ship - This made it easier for him to adjust the sights of the guns. And here the difference between eight and ten guns on a ship is not very significant - a ten-gun battleship could fire five-gun salvoes instead of four guns, which were easier to observe, but that’s all. Well, domestic battleships had the opportunity to fire in a double ledge - three four-gun salvoes, which greatly facilitated the adjustment of fire. It is clear what advantages fast zeroing gives a ship.

Thus, the dozen guns of the domestic battleship, in addition to an increase in firepower relative to the 8-10-gun imported dreadnoughts, also gave it the opportunity to quickly take aim at the enemy.

But that's not all. In addition to the superiority in the number of barrels and potentially faster zeroing, the artillery of the first Russian dreadnoughts is also supported by the impeccable material part, namely the wonderful Obukhov 305-mm/52 guns (the number after the line is the barrel length in calibers) and the heavy ones developed for them 470.9 kg Model 1911 shells

Almost all sources sing hosannas to our twelve-inchers in unison - and deservedly so. It is possible that this domestic artillery system was at that time the most formidable twelve-inch gun in the world.

Although it is quite difficult to compare Russian guns with their foreign competitors.

The British armed their first dreadnoughts and battlecruisers with 305 mm/45 Mark X guns. It was a good artillery system, firing a projectile weighing 386 kg with an initial speed of 831 m/sec, but still the British wanted more. And rightly so, because their main opponents, the Germans, created an artillery masterpiece, the 305 mm/50 SK L/50 cannon. It was significantly better than the English Mark 10 - it accelerated a 405 kg projectile to a speed of 855 m/sec. The British did not know the characteristics of Krupp’s newest product, but believed that they must obviously outperform any competitors. However, the attempt to create a fifty-caliber cannon was not particularly successful: things were not going well with long-barreled artillery in England. Formally, the new British 305-mm/50 came very close to its German counterpart - 386-389.8 kg shells accelerated to 865 m/sec, but the gun was still considered a failure. There was no significant increase in armor penetration (although, in my opinion, English shells should be blamed for this), but the gun turned out to be heavier, and the barrel vibrated considerably when fired, reducing the accuracy of shooting. But the longer the gun barrel, the higher the initial velocity of the projectile can be achieved, and the improvement of the 305 mm/45 English guns has already reached its limit. And since the British did not have long-barreled guns, the British took a different path, returning to 45-caliber barrels, but increasing the caliber of the guns to 343 mm... Surprisingly, it was the failure of the British to create a powerful and high-quality 305 mm artillery system largely predetermined their transition to a larger caliber than 305 mm. There would be no happiness, but misfortune would help.

The Russian 305-mm/52 artillery system was initially created according to the concept of “light projectile - high initial velocity.” It was assumed that our gun would fire 331.7 kg projectiles with an initial speed of 950 m/sec. However, it soon became clear that such a concept was completely flawed: although at a short distance a light projectile accelerated to an unimaginable speed would have superiority in armor penetration over heavier and slower English and German projectiles, but with increasing combat distance this superiority was quickly lost - the heavy projectile was slower lost speed than a light one, and taking into account the fact that a heavy projectile also had greater power... They tried to correct the mistake by creating a super-powerful 470.9-kg projectile, which had no equal in either the German or English fleets, but everything has its own price - the Russian artillery system could fire such shells only with an initial speed of 763 m/sec.

Today, “on the Internet,” the low speed of the Russian projectile is often reproached for our twelve-inch gun and they prove using armor penetration formulas (including the famous Marr formula) that the German SK L/50 had greater armor penetration than the Obukhov 305-mm/52 . According to the formulas, maybe it is so. But the thing is...

In the Battle of Jutland, out of 7 shells in Jutland, those that hit the 229-mm armored belts of the battlecruisers Lion, Princess Royal and Tiger penetrated the armor of 3. Of course, it can be assumed that not all of these 7 shells were 305-mm, but , for example, two shells that hit the 229-mm armored belt of the Lion did not penetrate it, and these could only have been 305-mm German shells (for the Lion fired at the Lützow and König). At the same time, the distance between English and British ships fluctuated between 65-90 kbt. At the same time, both the Germans and the British walked in wake columns, having their opponents opposite, so it is hardly possible to blame the fact that the shells hit at sharp angles.

At the same time, the well-known shelling of the Chesma in 1913, when the armor elements of the Sevastopol-class battleships were reproduced on the old battleship, showed that 229 mm armor can be penetrated even by a high-explosive projectile already at an impact angle of 65 degrees at a range of 65 kbt, and at meeting angles close to 90 degrees, it penetrates a 229 mm plate even with 83 kbt! In this case, however, the explosion of the projectile occurs while overcoming the armor plate (which, in general, is natural for a high-explosive projectile), however, in the first case, a significant part of the high explosive was “brought” inside. What can we say about the 1911 model armor-piercing projectile? This one repeatedly punched holes in 254 mm armor (cabinet) at a distance of 83 kbt!

Obviously, if the Kaiser's ships had had Russian shells firing 470.9 kg Russian shells - out of 7 shells that hit the 229 mm armor belt of Admiral Fisher's cats, not 3 would have penetrated the armor, but much more, maybe all 7 shells. The thing is that armor penetration depends not only on the mass/caliber/initial velocity of the projectile, which the formulas take into account, but also on the quality and shape of this very projectile. Perhaps, if Russian and German cannons had been forced to fire shells of the same quality, the armor penetration of the German artillery system would have been higher, but taking into account the remarkable qualities of the Russian shell, it turned out that at the main battle distances of battleships of the First World War (70-90 kbt) The Russian cannon demonstrated better performance than the German one.

Thus, it would not be an exaggeration to say that the power of the main caliber artillery of the first Russian dreadnoughts was significantly superior to any 305-mm battleship of any country in the world.

“Excuse me! - a meticulous reader can say here. “Why did you, dear author, completely forget about the 343-mm British guns of the British super-dreadnoughts that plied the seas when the Russian Sevastopols were still being completed?!” I haven’t forgotten, dear reader, we will talk about them below.

As for the mine artillery, 16 one hundred twenty-millimeter Russian cannons provided ample protection against enemy destroyers. The only complaint was that the guns were placed too low above the water. But it should be borne in mind that the loading capacity of anti-mine caliber guns was the Achilles heel of many battleships of that time. The British radically resolved the issue by moving the guns to the superstructures, but this reduced their security, and they had to sacrifice caliber, limiting themselves to 76-102 mm guns. The value of such a decision is still questionable - according to the views of that time, destroyers attack ships that have already been damaged in an artillery battle, and the entire power of mine countermeasures artillery loses its meaning if it is disabled by that time.

But in addition to the quality of the artillery, the fire control system (FCS) became an extremely important element of the ship’s combat power. The scope of the article does not allow me to properly discuss this topic; I will only say that the management system in Russia was taken very seriously. By 1910, the Russian fleet had a very advanced Geisler system of the 1910 model, but still it could not be called a full-fledged control system. The development of the new OMS was entrusted to Erickson (in no case should this be considered a foreign development - the OMS was carried out by the Russian division of the company and Russian specialists). But alas, as of 1912, Erickson’s OMS was still not ready; the fear of being left without an OMS led to a parallel order to the English developer, Pollan. That one, alas, also did not have much time - as a result, the Sevastopol control system was a “hodgepodge” of the Geisler system of the 1910 model, into which individual devices from Erickson and Pollen were integrated. I wrote in some detail about battleship control systems here: https://alternathistory.org.ua/sistemy-upravleniya-korabelnoi-artilleriei-v-nachale-pmv-ili-voprosov-bolshe-chem-otvetov. Now I will limit myself to the statement that the British still had the best fire control system in the world, and ours was approximately at the level of the Germans. True, with one exception.

The German "Derflinger" had 7 (in words - seven) rangefinders. And they all measured the distance to the enemy, and the average value was entered into the automatic sight calculation machine. The domestic Sevastopols initially had only two rangefinders (there were also so-called Krylov rangefinders, but they were nothing more than improved Lujol-Myakishev micrometers and did not provide high-quality measurements at long distances).

On the one hand, it would seem that these rangefinders provided the Germans with quick shooting in Jutland, but is this so? The same "Derflinger" took aim only from the 6th salvo, and then, in general, by accident (in theory, the sixth salvo should have resulted in a flight, the main gunner of the "Derflinger" Hase tried to take the British into the fork, however, to his surprise, there was a cover). “Goeben”, in general, also did not show brilliant results. But we must take into account that the Germans still aimed better than the British; perhaps the German rangefinders have some merit in this. My opinion is this: despite some lag behind the British and (possibly) the Germans, the domestic fire control system installed on the Sevastopol was still quite competitive and did not give the “sworn friends” any decisive advantages. During the exercises, Sevastopol-class battleships took aim at targets at a distance of 70-90 kbt in an average of 6.8 minutes (the best result was 4.9 minutes), which was a very good result.

True, “on the Internet” I came across criticism of Russian fire control systems based on the firing of “Empress Catherine the Great” on the Black Sea, but there it should be borne in mind that both “Goeben” and “Breslau” did not fight correctly, but tried with all their might to escape , with a maneuver knocking down the aiming of our battleship, and the light cruiser also set up a smoke screen. All this would have affected the firing efficiency of the German ships, but they had absolutely nothing to do with this - they only thought about running away without looking back. At the same time, the firing distance was usually much greater than 90 kbt, and most importantly, the Black Sea dreadnoughts had ONLY the Geisler system mod. 1910, Erickson and Pollan instruments were not installed on these battleships. Therefore, it is in any case incorrect to compare the Black Sea “Maria” and the Baltic “Sevastopol” in terms of the quality of the control system.

Booking

If most sources speak in superlatives about the artillery armament of battleships of the Sevastopol class, the armor of our dreadnoughts traditionally seems weak and completely insufficient. The foreign press of those times generally compared Russian battleships with British battlecruisers of the Lion type, which had a 229-mm armored belt. Let's try to compare too.

Here is the booking scheme for the English “Fisher cat”:

And here is the Russian “Gangut”:

Since many of us don’t have the time with a magnifying glass in our hands to look for the thickness of armor on diagrams that are not very clearly drawn, I’ll take the liberty of commenting on the above. I take a diagram of the battleship "Gangut" along the midsection, draw a turret for it (don't shoot at the artist and don't throw empty bottles, he draws as best he can) and put down the thickness of the armor. After this, I use a red felt-tip pen to depict the most obvious flight trajectories of enemy shells:

And now a little analysis. Trajectory (1) - hit the turret, where the Gangut has 203 mm of armor, the Lion has 229 mm. The Englishman has the advantage. Trajectory (2) - hitting the barbette above the upper deck. “Gangut” has 152 mm, while “Lion” has the same 229 mm. Obviously, here the English battlecruiser is in the lead by a wide margin. Trajectory (3) - the shell penetrates the deck and crashes into the barbette below deck. At Gangut, the enemy shell will have to first overcome the upper armored deck (37.5 mm) and then 150 mm of the barbette. Even if you simply add up the total thickness of the armor, you get 187.5 mm, but you need to understand that the projectile hits the deck at a very unfavorable angle. The Englishman's upper deck is not armored at all, but the barbette below the deck is thinned to 203 mm. We diagnose approximate equality of protection.

Trajectory (4) - the projectile hits the side of the ship. The Gangut is protected from it by a 125 mm upper armor belt, a 37.5 mm armored bulkhead and a 76 mm barbette, and a total of 238.5 mm of armor; the Lion has no armor at all on the side in this place, so the projectile will meet the same barbette 203 mm - the Russian battleship has an advantage.

Trajectory (5) - the enemy shell will be hit by the tall main 225 mm armored belt of the Gangut, followed by a 50 mm armored bulkhead and then the same barbette, but alas, I don’t know whether it had armor at this level. I think it was at least an inch. However, even if not, 225 mm + 50 mm = 275 mm, while for the English battlecruiser everything is significantly worse.

Both the Russian and the Englishman have almost equal main armor belts - 225 mm and 229 mm. But the battleships of the Sevastopol class had an armored belt 5 m high, while the British battlecruiser had only 3.4 m. Therefore, where the Russian battleship had 225 mm of armor, the British battlecruiser had only six inches of armor. And the mighty 203-mm barbette behind it thinned down to just three inches. Total - 228 mm of armor for the British versus 275 mm + unknown armor for the Russian barbette.

But this is not so bad, and the trouble is that this calculation is correct only for the middle turret of a battlecruiser. After all, in addition to the thickness of the main armor belt, its height and length are important. Using the example of “Trajectory (4)” we have already seen what the insufficient height of the Lion’s main armor belt led to, but now it’s time to remember that if the 225 mm of the Russian dreadnought covered all 4 of its barbettes, then the English 229 mm protected only the engine and boiler rooms , and the middle turret, since it was squeezed between them... The bow and stern turrets of the Lion were covered not by six-inch, but only by five-inch armor - that is, the total thickness of the armor protecting the magazines did not exceed 203 mm, and in a small area of ​​the stern tower (where the five-inch belt was replaced by a four-inch one) and completely 178 mm!

Trajectory (6) - the Russian ship is protected by a 225 mm main armor belt and a 50 mm bevel, the British ship is protected by a 229 mm armor belt and a 25.4 mm bevel. The Russian battleship again has the advantage. True, the Englishman has 1.5-2.5 inch armored ammunition magazines, so we can say that in terms of protecting the magazines on this trajectory, the Gangut and the Lion are approximately equal, but the engine and boiler rooms of the Gangut “They are still somewhat better protected.

In general, the following conclusion suggests itself. The Russian battleship has weaker armor for the turrets and barbette above the upper deck, while everything below is armored the same or even significantly better than the English ship. I would venture to say that a Russian ship has significantly better protection than a British battlecruiser. Yes, the towers are weaker armored, but how fatal is this? As a rule, a direct hit from an enemy shell would render the turret silent, regardless of whether the armor was penetrated or not. Here, for example, is the case with the “Princess Royal” in Jutland - a German (and, according to Puzyrevsky, 305-mm) shell hits the 229-mm armor plate of the turret and... does not penetrate it. But the slab was pressed inward, and the tower became jammed.

By the way, what’s interesting is that when I wrote that out of seven German shells only three penetrated the 229-mm armor of British ships, I wrote only about hits in the armored belt. And if you count this tower, it turns out that only three armor penetrations out of eight? In fact, there was a ninth hit - in the 229-mm armor of the fourth turret of the battle cruiser Tiger. The shell did penetrate the armor, and... nothing happened. The effort expended to overcome the armor plate mutilated the shell - its unexploded remains, devoid of a “head” and a fuse, were found after the battle... In this case, the armor was broken, but what was the point of that? The 229 mm armor did not protect as badly as some people think... Generally speaking, there were cases when German 305 mm shells were held even by 150 mm armor. At the same time, the defeat of the tower, with or without penetration of the armor, in a number of cases caused a fire, which, if it penetrated into the cellars, could threaten the detonation of ammunition. But not always. For example, in the battle at Dogger Bank, a British shell did penetrate the barbette of the Seydlitz aft turret - there was a fire, both aft turrets were out of order, but there was no explosion. In Jutland, "Derflinger" and "Seydlitz" each lost 3 main-caliber turrets, including those with armor penetration, but the battlecruisers did not explode. The fact is that in the issue of detonation of cellars, the main role was played not by the thickness of the turret armor, but by the design of the turret compartments and the supply of ammunition to the guns - the Germans, after the Seydlitz experience at Dogger Bank, provided constructive protection against the penetration of fire into the cellars. And the British also had cases when breaking through the armor of towers was not accompanied by a disaster.

In other words, weak armor of the turrets and barbettes above the upper deck, of course, does not make the ship look good, but it also does not doom it to death. But below the upper deck, the Sevastopol-class battleships were much better protected than the British battlecruisers.

"So what? - the reader will ask me. “Just think, they found someone to compare it with - with an English battlecruiser, a generally recognized failure in terms of defense, because three such ships blew up in Jutland...”

Yes, but not so. If we reject the cliches imposed on us by widely circulated points of view, we will be surprised to discover that the same “Lyon” received 15 hits from the German main caliber in the Dogger Bank case, but had no intention of sinking or exploding. And 12 hits in Jutland did not become a tragedy for him. The Princess Royal “did not notice” eight hits in Jutland, and the Queen Mary, the only battlecruiser of this type that was lost, received 15-20 hits from the vaunted German shells. And the cause of the ship’s death was hits in the area of ​​the bow towers (and, apparently, the barbette of turret “B” was pierced), which was the cause of the explosion of ammunition, which tore the ship into two parts in the area of ​​the foremast... Explosion in turret “Q” , in essence, was already a misericord, a “blow of mercy” that finished off the ship. In other words, the British battle cruiser died from a blow to the place of its obvious weakness, where its cellars were covered by 203 mm of total armor. But if Sevastopol had been in its place, with its 275 mm (or even plus) total cellar protection, would it have exploded? Oh, some serious doubts are gnawing at me...

A word from the famous Tirpitz, seemingly the last person in this world interested in praising English battlecruisers:

“The advantage in battle of the Derflinger is characterized by the fact that it could penetrate the thickest armor of a British cruiser from a distance of 11,700 meters, and for this the British cruiser needed to approach a distance of 7,800 meters.”

But excuse me, the recommended 11,700 meters is just a little more than 63 cables! It seems that Tirpitz was right: already at distances of 70-80 kbt, German shells penetrated English 229 mm, at best, every other time! And what’s interesting is that the death of the Queen Mary is described as “sudden”, i.e., having “harnessed” a dozen and a half shells, the battle cruiser did not at all give the impression of a beaten trough, unable to continue the battle?

What about battlecruisers? The armored cruiser "Warrior" of the British, which fought with Admiral Hipper's squadron for 35 minutes, received 15 hits from 280- and 305-mm shells, but remained afloat for another 13 hours after that.

Need I remind you that the excellently protected Lützow was destroyed by 24 British shells, which turned her into a barely floating ruin?

The vast majority of people interested in the history of the fleet are quite happy with the common cliche that “German battle cruisers demonstrated miracles of survivability, while the British were worthless “eggshells armed with hammers.” But is this really so? Of course, the German cruisers were much better armored, but did this provide them with an overwhelming superiority in combat stability?

This is a rather complex question, and can only be answered by undertaking separate research. But the Russian dreadnoughts of the Sevastopol type, occupying an intermediate position in their armor between the British and German battlecruisers, were certainly not “whipping boys” with “worthless combat stability.”

The version about the unprecedented weakness of the armor of Russian dreadnoughts was born as a result of the shelling of the former Chesma, but... we must remember that the Chesma was fired at by perhaps the best 305-mm cannon in the world, probably with the best 305-mm projectile in the world. And then everything will immediately fall into place.

Based on the results of the shooting of “Chesma” (experimental vessel No. 4, if you will), the artillery department of the Main Directorate of Civil Aviation made an interesting conclusion: when a projectile and armor meet at an angle of 70 to 90 degrees (not counting the angle of incidence of the projectile), a Russian 305-mm projectile at a distance of 70 KBT penetrated 305-365 mm armor. And this despite the fact that only cases were counted when the shell penetrated the armor and exploded behind it - if we lower the requirements to the shell bursting at the moment of penetrating the armor, then the Russian shell at the same angles would penetrate 400-427 mm of armor...

In general, if an alternative historical miracle happened, and the gunners of the German battle cruisers suddenly saw in front of them not six huge, high-sided English battle cruisers, but the low silhouettes of four Russian dreadnoughts spreading over the waves, then, I’m afraid, the Kaiser would reward for this battle Admiral Hipper posthumously. And the British certainly would not have been happy about replacing German battlecruisers with Russian battleships.

Of course, those same English dreadnoughts, not to mention the German dreadnoughts, carried much more powerful armor than the Russian Sevastopols. But would she help them in battle, that is the question.

Let's look at a hypothetical duel between the Russian Sevastopol and the British Orion. For the vast majority of those interested in the history of navies, the answer is obvious. Taking the reference book off the shelf and opening it to the right page, we read: the thickness of the Sevastopol’s side armor is 225 mm, and that of the Orion is as much as 305 mm! English and Russian shells have similar initial speeds - 759 m/sec and 763 m/sec, respectively, but an armor-piercing Russian shell weighs only 470.9 kg, and a British one - 635 kg! We close the directory and diagnose that a battle with the Orion would be a perverted form of suicide for the Russian battleship... That’s true, right?

But if you look at the Orion’s reservation more closely, then...

The armor of the towers is 280 mm, the barbettes are 229 mm. This is much better than the Russian 203 mm and 150 mm, but the British defense has practically no chance of holding the domestic armor-piercing projectile of the 1911 model at a distance of 70-80 kbt. In other words, at the main battle distances, the British artillery is completely vulnerable to Russian shells. Yes, the armor of the English towers is thicker, but what's the point?

The upper armor belt has a thickness of 203 mm, and this is better than the 125 mm side and 37.8 mm armored partition of the Russian battleship, but 8 inches is not a barrier to Russian shells. True, at this level the Englishman’s artillery is better protected; the British battleship has 178 mm of barbette, while the Russian has only 150 mm at the top and 76 mm below. But in subsequent series of battleships, the British abandoned the 178 mm barbette in favor of 76 mm, almost equaling the total armor thickness of Russian dreadnoughts.

And below the Englishman’s main armored belt. Here, it would seem, is the advantage of the English battleship! But no - and it’s not even that the British main armored belt is lower than that of the Gangut and has a height of 4.14 m versus 5 m, because 4.14 m is also not bad. It turns out that the main armored belt of the Orion itself consists of two armored belts. Moreover, only the lower one is 305 mm thick, and the upper one is 229 mm thick.

The fact of the matter is that reference books usually give the thickness of the armor, but not the height or area of ​​the main armor belt. And the imagination subconsciously believes that on battleships the heights and lengths of armored belts are approximately the same, and the English 305-mm armored belt is a priori given the palm. They forget that this armored belt does not reach even half the height of the Russian one... How much will such armor protect?

An analysis of the battles of the Russo-Japanese War shows that approximately 3% of the total number of shells that hit the ship hit the main armor belts of Russian and Japanese battleships (which roughly corresponded in height to the British Orion). In Jutland, the ratio was better - for example, only 3 out of 25 shells that hit dreadnoughts of this type, or 12%, hit the 2.28-meter belts of 330-mm armor of the English battleships of the Queen Elizabeth class. But the armored belts of the English battlecruisers “Lion”, “Princess Royal”, which had a height of 3.4 meters and “Tiger”, have already taken a quarter (25%) of the total number of hits. But the most important thing is to keep a 305-mm Russian armor-piercing projectile at a distance of 70-80 kbt, even if the 305-mm armor of the Orion could be able to do so, it would be two to three times later. But behind it there is practically nothing, just an inch (25.4 mm) bevel...

The conclusion from this comparison is as follows. Yes, the British battleship is better armored, but at a range of 70-80 kbt its protection is quite vulnerable to Russian 305-mm shells. Here, of course, a counter question arises - how does the armor of our battleships protect against English shells at the same distance?

But before we answer this question, it’s worth dwelling on probably the most common myth about Russian battleships.

To be continued…

Civil War

In 1918, a separate Treaty of Brest-Litovsk was signed, after which the First World War ended for Russia. However, hostilities stopped only against Germany, as a brutal fratricidal Civil War soon broke out. According to the agreements, the Baltic Fleet was obliged to leave its bases located in Finland, as well as demobilize a significant part of its personnel.

In mid-March of the same year, the first ships left Helsingfors. Among them was Sevastopol. The ships were escorted by two icebreakers – “Volynets” and “Ermak”. It is worth noting that the transition was carried out in the most difficult conditions, since the ships’ path ran through vast ice fields. In addition, the crew strength was only 20-40% of their regular strength. Despite all the difficulties, five days later the cruisers and battleships arrived in Kronstadt without serious damage.

In October 1919, six gun salvoes were fired at the Krasnoselskaya Upland from the battleship Sevastopol, which was stationed in the vicinity of Petrograd, or rather, near Gutuevsky Island. Then the shooting adjustment was carried out from the roof of the famous St. Isaac's Cathedral. The next day, in accordance with the request of the ground command, gun salvoes were fired again, after which the Red Army troops launched an attack on Petrograd.

Mutiny in Kronstadt

The garrison of the city and the crews of some ships that were part of the Baltic Fleet took part in this armed action. It began with the fact that in Petrograd on February 24, 1921, spontaneous rallies and strikes of workers began to occur, at which a number of economic and political demands were put forward. The city committee of the RCP (b) regarded such unrest in factories and factories as a rebellion. Therefore, martial law was immediately introduced. It was these events that led to the uprising of the Kronstadt garrison.

On the fifth day of the mutiny, a meeting of the crews of the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol took place. It was decided to put forward demands regarding the re-election of the Soviets, the abolition of commissars, the granting of freedom to socialist parties and permission for free trade. On March 2, the crews of these ships, as well as several military units and commands of nearby island forts, refused to carry out orders from the central government. The Kronstadt rebellion lasted quite a long time. For two weeks, the ships “Sevastopol” and “Petropavlovsk” fired at the fort “Krasnoflotsky” (formerly “Krasnaya Gorka”), as well as the cities of Sestroretsk and Oranienbaum. In addition, the Tarkhovka, Lisiy Nos and Gorskaya railway stations, located in the northern part of the Gulf of Finland, came under fire. Then the battleships Petropavlovsk and Sevastopol spent about a thousand 120-mm and more than three hundred 305-mm shells each.

During the firing, some difficulties arose due to the fact that other ships, frozen solid in the ice, were too close to each other. It is worth noting that the shooting was carried out across squares, which had virtually no combat effectiveness. Many residential buildings were destroyed, a large number of civilians died, but the shells fired by the battleships had no effect on the supply of troops of the 7th Army, which were soon sent to storm Kronstadt. Despite all the firepower of the ships, they were never able to suppress the artillery located on the territory of the Krasnoflotsky fort. On the night of March 18, the crews of the ships had to capitulate, as the first units of the Red Army burst into the city directly across the ice.

Interwar time

There was also such a page in the history of the battleship when, after the tragic events in Kronstadt, the politicized command of the Baltic Fleet decided to rename the ship, since it was considered one of the symbols of the bloody rebellion. At that time, the closest holiday in Soviet Russia was the 50th anniversary of the Paris Commune. In this regard, an order was issued from the commander of the fleet, Kozhanov, to rename this ship. From now on it became known as the “Paris Commune”.

Four years later, several Soviet battleships, including the Sevastopol, took part in the squadron’s cruise to Kiel Bay. A few years later, the ship under the command of K. Samoilov made the transition from the Baltic to the Black Sea. The fact is that after the October Revolution and the subsequent Civil War, there was not a single battleship in the Black Sea Fleet. That is why “Paris Commune” (formerly “Sevastopol”) becomes its new flagship.

The ship took part in the filming of the film “Sailors” (1939). It was filmed by director Vladimir Brown at the Odessa Film Studio. This heroic adventure film tells the story of the feat of Soviet sailors who saved their comrades from certain death. The premiere of the film "Sailors" in 1939 was very successful. It was watched by 14.8 million viewers in the USSR.

Bibliography[edit]

• Gardiner, Robert; Gray, Randal, ed. (1985). Conway's Fighting Ships of the World: 1906–1921
  . Annapolis: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
• McLaughlin, Stephen (2003). Russian and Soviet battleships
  . Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-481-4.
• Rover, Jurgen (2005). Chronology of War at Sea 1939–1945: A Naval History of the Second World War
  (Third Revised Edition). Annapolis, MD: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-59114-119-2.

World War II

When Hitler launched a war against the Soviet Union on June 22, 1941, the ship was part of a squadron of the Black Sea Fleet. The commander of the battleship then was F. Kravchenko, captain of the 1st rank. In early November, the battleship Paris Commune took part in battles off the coast of Sevastopol. A month later, the battleship again approached the city in order to open fire on enemy troops. Thanks to him, 4 tractors, 13 tanks, 37 vehicles with military cargo, and 8 guns were destroyed.

On January 5, 1942, the battleship Paris Commune, leaving Novorossiysk, accompanied by the destroyer Boykiy, set off towards the Crimean coast in order to support with fire the soldiers of the 44th Army who had just landed there. In half an hour, about 170 shells were fired from the battleship.

In March of the same year, the ship entered the Kerch Strait. It was guarded by the destroyers Boykiy, Zheleznyakov and Tashkent. Several fire attacks were carried out from the battleship, during which 300 shells were fired at enemy fortifications located on the territory of the Kerch Peninsula. It was then that the sailors noticed that metal fragments began to fly off the gun barrels during the shots. This could only mean one thing - the ship’s weapons were extremely worn out. The Paris Commune had to return to Poti and immediately begin repairs.

By mid-April, all the main caliber barrels on the battleship, as well as optical instruments and elevators, had been replaced. Despite this, the active use of this battleship in further combat operations ended. True, the ship once again indirectly participated in the Novorossiysk landing operation, when in the fall of 1943 it was decided to remove several 120-mm guns from it and install them as a separate coastal battery called “Sevastopol”.

On the last day of May 1943, it was decided to return the battleship to its original name - Sevastopol. On November 5, 1943, a ship under the flag of Admiral F. Oktyabrsky set out on a raid on the heroically liberated city of Sevastopol.

External links [edit]

• Characteristics
• Short article with photo gallery