Battleship Nikolay 1. Battleships
Of all the battleships of the Russian Empire, the Emperor Nicholas I turned out to be the least famous. On the one hand, this is understandable: the battleship was never completed, and no events befell it. However, this attitude towards it is largely undeserved, because the design of this ship was fraught with many peculiarities. And if it had been completed, it could have become the strongest Russian combat unit in the Black Sea theater of military operations. What was the last battleship of the Russian Empire?
Background and start of construction
After the loss of almost its entire fleet in the Russo-Japanese War, the Russian Empire was faced with the question of its revival, and at a qualitatively new level. By this time, evolution in shipbuilding had led to the emergence of a new type of battleship, called dreadnoughts after the firstborn. The new battleships were superior to squadron battleships in all respects, practically devaluing the value of fleets that did not have such ships. Naturally, the Russian naval command also intended to build dreadnoughts for the newly revived fleet. In 1909, construction began on four Sevastopol-class ships for the Baltic Fleet. When designing them, the experience of the Russian-Japanese War was taken into account as much as possible: the ships were well armed, had a high speed, the armor covered almost the entire side area, and the area of the superstructures was reduced to a minimum.
The Black Sea Fleet, which did not participate in the Russo-Japanese War, retained all its ships, qualitatively and quantitatively superior to its main enemy - the Turkish fleet. However, in 1909, Turkey began to renew its naval forces, ordering most of its new ships from overseas shipyards, as Japan had once done. In 1911, two dreadnoughts were ordered from England, named Reshad V (later Reshad) and Reshad-i-Khamiss. Each of these dreadnoughts was armed with ten 343 mm guns, making them the most powerful ships on the Black Sea.
In response to Turkish preparations, in May 1911, the Duma allocated funds for the construction of three dreadnoughts for the Black Sea. Before their construction began, considerable funds were allocated for the modernization of shipbuilding enterprises in the south of Russia. The Black Sea battleships were built according to an improved design of the Baltic battleships and received enhanced armor, reinforced mine artillery, and, at the same time, lower speed and cruising range than the prototype ships. The construction of new battleships for the Black Sea Fleet, named “Empress Maria”, “Empress Catherine II” and “Emperor Alexander III”, began in August-September 1912 (the official laying took place in the fall of 1911).
The battleship "Empress Maria" during the highest review in Sevastopol on May 12, 1916
Source: tsushima.su
Meanwhile, due to Turkey's financial collapse after the Balkan Wars, its shipbuilding slowed down sharply. "Reshad-i-Khamiss" was dismantled on the slipway, and construction of "Reshad V" was suspended until 1913. However, presenting the jewels of the deposed Sultan Abdul Hamid and land plots in Istanbul as collateral, the Turkish government decided to buy three more dreadnoughts, which were being built for the states of South America at private shipyards in the USA and England. The first was to be the Brazilian "Rio de Janeiro" (fourteen 305 mm guns, 27,500 tons), which received a new name - "Sultan Osman I". In addition, the Turks were negotiating the purchase of the Argentine ships Rivadavia and Moreno (twelve 305 mm guns, 28,000 tons). In addition, a promise was received from Germany to sell Turkey a Moltke-class battle cruiser (ten 280 mm guns, 22,600 tons) within a year.
As a result, by the beginning of the First World War, Turkey could field four modern battleships against the Black Sea Fleet, while Russian dreadnoughts could not become operational until 1915. Despite the fact that Russian diplomats managed to upset Turkey’s deal with Argentina, the situation on the Black Sea remained very tense, especially since news came to St. Petersburg about an order from England for another battleship for the Turkish fleet, named Fatih. In this alarming situation, a decision was made to urgently strengthen the Black Sea Fleet with new ships. 110 million rubles were allocated for the construction of a battleship, two cruisers, eight destroyers and six submarines. On June 24, 1914, the Tsar approved a new shipbuilding program, but the rush to build additional ships for the Black Sea Fleet was so great that by that time the battleship, named Emperor Nicholas I, had already been under construction for two weeks. As for the project of the new ship, the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding (GUK) began its development at the end of 1913.
Design
In appearance, the new battleship was not fundamentally different from the previously built Russian dreadnoughts of the Sevastopol and Empress Maria types. The general style characteristic of these ships - a low freeboard, four main caliber towers arranged linearly, a minimum of superstructures, two chimneys - was also preserved in the fourth Black Sea dreadnought. The theoretical design of the hull generally remained the same as its predecessors, however, the displacement of the new battleship was 4000 tons more, therefore, in order to achieve the design speed, the shape of the bow was changed based on the results of testing the model in the Experimental Pool. The measures taken would have made it possible to achieve a speed of 21 knots with the same machine and boiler installation as on the “Empresses”.
Sketch of the appearance of the battleship "Emperor Nicholas I" as of May 1916. The location of anti-aircraft guns is incorrect
In 1915, already during the construction of a new battleship, it became known that the newly built Empress Maria and Empress Catherine II were not seaworthy enough to operate in fresh weather. Their bow was buried in the water, making it difficult to fire from the bow turret and bow 130 mm guns. To correct this shortcoming, the GUK developed a project for a forecastle for Nicholas I, like on the Izmail-class battlecruisers. However, in the end, the new forecastle was abandoned, since its addition would increase displacement, bow trim and reduce the ship's speed. Instead of a forecastle, it was decided to build a folding bulwark in the bow of the battleship.
Estimated appearance of the Emperor Nicholas I if it had been built with a forecastle. Drawing by A. Yu. Zaikin
Source: kreiser.unoforum.ru
Armament
Although the option of arming the ship with 356 mm guns was initially considered, its main weapons eventually became twelve 305 mm guns from the Obukhov plant with a 52-caliber barrel length - exactly the same as on previous Russian battleships. The main consideration in favor of such a composition of weapons was unification with already built battleships and the development of this artillery system by industry. In addition, this gun was the best in its class in a number of parameters (in particular, the relative length of the barrel) and had the heaviest projectile in its class (470.9 kg). The firing range of such a projectile at a maximum elevation angle of 25 degrees was 23,228 m, the initial velocity of the projectile was 762 m/s. The armor-piercing projectile contained 12.9 kg of explosives, the semi-armor-piercing projectile contained 48.4 kg, and the high-explosive projectile contained 58.8 kg. In terms of muzzle energy, this artillery system was comparable to a 343-mm gun with a barrel length of 45 calibers, which was the main weapon of the battleship Reshadie.
The guns on Nicholas I were mounted in four three-gun turrets arranged linearly - exactly the same as on previous Russian dreadnoughts. This placement of the towers ensured maximum sectors of fire on each side, while the cellars of each of the towers were as far as possible from each other. The design of the turrets also generally repeated the design of its predecessors, but some changes were made to it to reduce loading time and increase overall reliability. According to documents, the rate of fire was 2–2.5 rounds per minute, however, it is more appropriate to talk here not about the combat rate of fire, but about the loading time. The stock of shells was 100 for each gun.
The main caliber turret of the battleship "Emperor Alexander III", identical to the turrets of the "Emperor Nicholas I". There are 305 mm Model 1911 shells on the deck
Source: tsushima.su
Mine artillery was represented (as on its predecessors) by twenty 130-mm guns with a barrel length of 55 calibers, located in separate casemates under the upper deck, ten on each side (six of them could fire in the bow sectors of fire, since from this angle there was most likely attack by enemy destroyers). Thus, the densest fire was ensured in the most dangerous directions. The mass of the projectile was 33.5 kg, the supply of shells was 200 per gun.
According to the project, the anti-aircraft armament of “Nicholas I” consisted of four 63-mm guns located on the roofs of the end towers. During the war, due to the increased threat from the air, the idea arose to replace these guns with four new 102-mm anti-aircraft guns from the Obukhov plant. However, this plan remained on paper, since by the end of 1917 the new artillery system had not yet left the development stage.
The battleship's armament was complemented by four 450-mm underwater torpedo tubes.
Fire control system
The fire control system on "Nicholas I" was a central guidance system "model 1912". It was already installed on previous battleships and managed to become generally accepted for large artillery ships of the Russian fleet. Data on the distance to the enemy, his speed and heading angle from rangefinders and artillery sights came to the central post, where on their basis the vertical and horizontal aiming angles of their own guns were calculated (taking into account their own speed, heading angle, wind speed and other things). The resulting values of aiming angles were transmitted to the artillery dials of the guns, after which the gun crew brought the gun to the required angle.
After receiving reports from all gun crews participating in the salvo that the guns were loaded and aimed at the target, the senior artillery officer closed the electrical circuit and fired the salvo. Shooting was carried out only if there was no roll of the ship - this was “monitored” by a special device that closed the circuit. An adjustment crew was located on the closed top of the foremast, which monitored splashes from falling shells and transmitted information about the results of the salvo to the central post and the senior artillery officer. Already during the construction of “Nicholas I”, it was decided to equip its turret installations with its own rangefinders and counting devices, which would increase their autonomy and accuracy of artillery fire.
Booking
In 1913, experimental firing was carried out on the “excluded vessel No. 4” (former battleship “Chesma”) on the Black Sea. A compartment with structural and armor elements of battleships of the Sevastopol type was built into the aft part of its left side, and a conning tower was mounted on the deck. These experiments showed the weakness of the protection system of these ships, especially the distribution of deck armor thicknesses, which already in Soviet times, the chairman of the Scientific and Technical Committee of the Navy N. I. Ignatiev called completed "upside down". On the fourth Black Sea battleship, it was decided to significantly strengthen the ship’s protection from shells.
Fundamentally, the armor scheme of Nicholas I differed little from the protection scheme of previous Russian dreadnoughts. It was based on the principle of booking the maximum side area, which ensured protection of the ship from high-explosive shells (based on the experience of the Russian-Japanese War). However, compared to the battleships of the Sevastopol and Empress Maria class, the armor of the Nicholas I was significantly strengthened.
Thus, the main armor belt, extending from the first to the fourth main caliber turret, had a thickness of 270 mm (on Baltic battleships - 225 mm). The armored belt consisted of vertically arranged plates 5.2 m high and 2.4 m wide, the thickness of which gradually decreased to 125 mm towards the lower edge. On Nicholas I, considerable attention was paid to the strength of the fastening of the main armor belt plates to each other. As it turned out, the system used on the Sevastopol-class battleships for attaching armor plates to the hull skin (without a wooden lining) did not provide the required level of protection. Even in cases where a heavy projectile did not penetrate the armor, the shock caused by its impact caused the armor plates to shift relative to each other, tearing the skin, resulting in the integrity of the side being compromised. On “Nicholas I” the joints of the armor plates were located exactly on the hull frames, in addition, the plates were fastened together using internal dowels according to the “double dovetail” pattern. All this made it possible to significantly increase the strength of the main armor belt, essentially turning it into a single monolithic slab.
Reservation scheme for the battleship "Emperor Nicholas I"
Source: wunderwaffe.narod.ru
At the bow and stern, the plates of the main belt were connected by armored traverses 150 mm thick, creating a citadel that protected all the vital parts of the ship - engine and boiler rooms, ammunition magazines, control posts and auxiliary mechanisms. At the top, the armored belt was covered by a main armored deck 63 mm thick, on top of which was an upper deck made of steel sheets 35 mm thick. Thus, Nicholas I corrected a serious mistake in the design of previous Russian battleships, when the thickest armored deck was located at the top, and thinner decks were located below it. As a result, a shell falling from above pierced the upper armored deck, and its fragments and fragments of heavy armored plates easily pierced the underlying thin decks. In other words, if previously the horizontal protection on Russian dreadnoughts was located “upside down,” now it has been returned to the correct position.
The protection of the citadel was not limited to external armor. Inside the ship, at a distance of 3–4.5 m behind the main armor belt, there was an internal armor belt made of 75 mm Krupp steel. Its main function was protection from fragments of heavy shells and spalling of the main belt armor plates. Compared to the 50-mm uncemented slabs used on the Sevastopol and Empress Maria, the strength of the internal belt on the Nicholas I was 120% higher.
Cross-section of the battleship "Emperor Nicholas I" along the 75th frame, indicating the reservation
Source: wunderwaffe.narod.ru
Above the main armored belt, the outer side from the stem to the stern beam was protected by a thin belt of uncemented slabs 75 mm thick. Its function was to protect the side from damage caused by high-explosive shells. On the predecessors of “Nicholas I” (“Sevastopol” and “Empress Maria”) its thickness was 125 and 100 mm, respectively. By reducing the thickness of this protection element, it was possible to save significant weight and strengthen the armor of the main belt. Outside the citadel, the hull also had protection: from the bow beam to the stem there was a belt of Krupp plates 200 and 100 mm thick. Above it there was another belt of slabs 100 mm thick. The stern outside the citadel was protected by a 175 mm thick belt, on top of which there was a 35 mm deck, and below there was a 63 mm thick deck.
The main caliber turrets and their barbettes, which were truly the “Achilles heel” of previous dreadnoughts, finally received powerful protection. The frontal plates of the towers had a thickness of 300 mm, the walls and roof were 200 mm thick. The barbette armor received adequate protection with a thickness of 300 mm above the level of the upper deck and 225–250 mm in the space between the upper and middle decks. The conning tower was protected on the sides by 400 mm plates, and the roof thickness was 250 mm.
In general, it can be argued that the level of reservation of “Nicholas I” was very high. The weight of the armor protection was 9454 tons, or 33.9% of the displacement (for comparison, the weight of the armor on the Empress Catherine II was 6878 tons, or 28.8% of the displacement). Thus, the specific weight of the armor was close to that of the then German dreadnoughts, which were the best in the world in this parameter.
Alas, “Nicholas I” had a weak point - it was poorly protected from underwater explosions. If a torpedo hits, the energy of its explosion would be resisted only by the outer and inner lining of the side, as well as the layer of coal in the coal pits behind it. The bulkhead separating the coal pits from the boiler rooms and engine rooms was only 10 mm thick and would not have been able to contain fragments of the destroyed side and explosion products. According to calculations, the detonation of 80–100 kg of TNT would lead to the flooding of large internal volumes of the ship. Alas, such an underestimation of the power of rapidly developing torpedo weapons was, to one degree or another, characteristic of almost all fleets of that time, with the exception of the German one.
Machine-boiler plant
The machine-boiler installation for the fourth Black Sea battleship completely repeated the design of the installation for the battleship Empress Catherine II, but developed slightly more power due to the optimization of some parameters.
The boiler plant consisted of twenty Yarrow-type boilers, which had previously been used on all Russian dreadnoughts and were well mastered by industry. The main fuel was coal, but the possibility of simultaneous injection of oil through nozzles located in the upper part of the furnace was allowed. The boilers were located in two groups - bow (8 boilers) and stern (12 boilers). The pressure of the generated steam was 17.5 atm.
Six turbines of the Parsons system were located in three compartments (two onboard and one in the middle). In the left side compartment there was a forward high-pressure turbine and a reverse high-pressure turbine, which rotated the left outer shaft. In the right side compartment, turbines were located in the same pattern, rotating the right outer shaft. The middle compartment contained one forward/reverse low-pressure turbine on each of two internal shafts. The total power of the power plant was about 30,000 liters. s., full speed – 21 knots, economic speed – 12 knots. The fuel supply was 650 tons, which allowed the ship to travel at maximum speed for 12 hours.
Electricity was generated by four main turbogenerators with a power of 360 kW and two auxiliary generators with a power of 200 kW, each of which drove two dynamos - alternating and direct current. The voltage of the generated three-phase alternating current with a frequency of 50 Hz was 225 V. Consumers of direct current included gun turrets, a projectile supply system, searchlights and lighting lamps. Electric fans, air refrigerators, electric motors of fire control devices, ship workshops and other auxiliary mechanisms operated on alternating current.
Roll control system
Nicholas I was the first Russian battleship to be equipped with an active roll damping system. Calming the pitching was achieved by pouring water from special U-shaped tanks on one side into the tanks on the other. The dimensions of the tanks were calculated in such a way that the periods of oscillation of the water in them approximately corresponded to the period of natural oscillations of the ship. The tanks were to be located along the second and third artillery towers in the internal hold side compartments. The volume of water taken into them immediately before the battle was 740 tons. According to calculations, the use of a pitching calming system was supposed to reduce the average swing by about 50%, which doubled the expected percentage of hits on average.
Construction
The laying of the battleship on the slipway, vacated after the launching of the hull of the battleship Empress Catherine II, took place in Nikolaev on June 9, 1914. Construction was carried out by the private company Naval, which undertook to present the battleship for testing no later than March 1, 1917. Artillery, torpedo weapons, fire control devices and armor were supplied by the Naval Ministry and were not included in the cost of the 22.5 million contract.
After the outbreak of hostilities in August 1914, construction of the battleship slowed down somewhat. The reorientation of industry towards military lines, delays in deliveries from abroad and the re-ordering of some components from new contractors had an impact. In addition, the Turkish threat level was reduced due to the fact that the battleships Sultan Osman I and Reshadiye were requisitioned by the British for the duration of the war. However, during the autumn-winter of 1914, construction of the ship progressed quite quickly. By mid-spring 1915, the branches of the frames were brought to the level of the middle deck, and bulkheads were being installed in the hold. On April 15, the official laying ceremony took place, timed to coincide with the visit of the plant by Nicholas II.
However, disruptions in the supply of components continued to increase. The Izhora plant missed delivery deadlines for armor plates for the lower deck bevels, which delayed the launch of the hull, originally planned for October 1915. In addition, the workers of the Naval company were constantly transferred to the construction of cruisers and destroyers, as well as the completion of the Catherine II.
At the end of 1915, most of the upper deck armor was reordered from the Mariupol Armor Plant. There was hope to complete all work on the hull by the end of spring 1916, and launch it into the water in June. However, this deadline was also missed due to a long strike of workers at Naval in January-February 1916. As a result, the battleship was launched only on October 5.
1924-1936
20-130mm/L55 AU PMK B-7
"Emperor Alexander III"- battleship-dreadnought [ ] Russian Imperial Navy type "Empress Maria".
Story
Construction
Civil war
The death of the ship
In 1944, the Germans installed four guns on the Mius battery, on the island of Jersey in the English Channel, which is one of the fortified points of the Atlantic Wall. The Germans handed over three more guns to Finland for a battery being restored on the Hanko Peninsula. In September 1944, after the signing of an armistice agreement with Finland, the battery was returned to the USSR and was in service. And the guns stood on the Mius battery until their final dismantling in 1951.
The legacy of the battleship "Emperor Alexander III"
Main caliber towers
The design of the towers of the battleship "Emperor Alexander III" influenced the development of the designs of the towers of the new French battleships of the "Dunkirk" class.
Guns in Finland
The battleship's 12 305 mm guns were stored in the arsenal in Bizerte and were offered by the Germans in 1940 [ ] Finland, and after negotiations they were simply donated. But the Finns received only eight guns, which were used by Finland for coastal batteries on the islands of Makiluoto and Kuivisaari.
At the end of World War II, some of these guns were transferred to the Soviet Union and used to equip Soviet coastal batteries. Currently, one of the guns, mounted on a special railway chassis, is located in the Krasnaya Gorka fort, another is on display in the railway museum at the Warsaw Station in St. Petersburg, and the third is on display in the museum on Poklonnaya Hill in Moscow.
Guns on the Atlantic Wall
Four guns did not have time to arrive in Finland and were captured by the Germans, who used them to equip the Mirus battery of the Atlantic Wall.
A common misconception is that in 1957 two of these 305 mm guns were used in the filming of the adventure film The Guns of Navarone.
See also
Write a review of the article "Emperor Alexander III (battleship)"
Notes
Literature
- R. M. Melnikov. Battleships of the "Empress Maria" class.
- N. R. Gutan. From Sevastopol to Novorossiysk.
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Excerpt characterizing Emperor Alexander III (battleship)
“That would be good,” she said. “I didn’t want anything and I don’t want anything.”She threw her dog off her lap and straightened the folds of her dress.
“This is gratitude, this is appreciation for the people who sacrificed everything for him,” she said. - Wonderful! Very good! I don't need anything, prince.
“Yes, but you are not alone, you have sisters,” answered Prince Vasily.
But the princess did not listen to him.
“Yes, I knew this for a long time, but I forgot that except baseness, deception, envy, intrigue, except ingratitude, the blackest ingratitude, I could expect nothing in this house...
– Do you know or don’t know where this will is? - asked Prince Vasily with an even greater twitching of his cheeks than before.
– Yes, I was stupid, I still believed in people and loved them and sacrificed myself. And only those who are vile and nasty succeed. I know whose intrigue it is.
The princess wanted to get up, but the prince held her hand. The princess had the appearance of a person who had suddenly become disillusioned with the entire human race; she looked angrily at her interlocutor.
“There is still time, my friend.” You remember, Katisha, that all this happened by accident, in a moment of anger, illness, and then forgotten. Our duty, my dear, is to correct his mistake, to make his last moments easier by preventing him from committing this injustice, not letting him die in the thoughts that he made those people unhappy...
“Those people who sacrificed everything for him,” the princess picked up, trying to get up again, but the prince did not let her in, “which he never knew how to appreciate.” No, mon cousin,” she added with a sigh, “I will remember that in this world one cannot expect a reward, that in this world there is neither honor nor justice.” In this world you have to be cunning and evil.
- Well, voyons, [listen,] calm down; I know your beautiful heart.
- No, I have an evil heart.
“I know your heart,” the prince repeated, “I value your friendship and would like you to have the same opinion of me.” Calm down and parlons raison, [let's talk properly] while there is time - maybe a day, maybe an hour; tell me everything you know about the will, and, most importantly, where it is: you must know. We will now take it and show it to the count. He probably already forgot about it and wants to destroy it. You understand that my only desire is to sacredly fulfill his will; I just came here then. I'm only here to help him and you.
– Now I understand everything. I know whose intrigue it is. “I know,” said the princess.
- That’s not the point, my soul.
- This is your protegee, [favorite,] your dear princess Drubetskaya, Anna Mikhailovna, whom I would not want to have as a maid, this vile, disgusting woman.
– Ne perdons point de temps. [Let's not waste time.]
- Ax, don't talk! Last winter she infiltrated here and said such nasty things, such nasty things to the Count about all of us, especially Sophie - I cannot repeat it - that the Count became ill and did not want to see us for two weeks. At this time, I know that he wrote this vile, vile paper; but I thought that this paper meant nothing.
– Nous y voila, [That’s the point.] why didn’t you tell me anything before?
– In the mosaic briefcase that he keeps under his pillow. “Now I know,” said the princess without answering. “Yes, if there is a sin behind me, a great sin, then it is hatred of this scoundrel,” the princess almost shouted, completely changed. - And why is she rubbing herself in here? But I will tell her everything, everything. The time will come!
While such conversations took place in the reception room and in the princess's rooms, the carriage with Pierre (who was sent for) and Anna Mikhailovna (who found it necessary to go with him) drove into the courtyard of Count Bezukhy. When the wheels of the carriage sounded softly on the straw spread under the windows, Anna Mikhailovna, turning to her companion with comforting words, was convinced that he was sleeping in the corner of the carriage, and woke him up. Having woken up, Pierre followed Anna Mikhailovna out of the carriage and then only thought about the meeting with his dying father that awaited him. He noticed that they drove up not to the front entrance, but to the back entrance. While he was getting off the step, two people in bourgeois clothes hurriedly ran away from the entrance into the shadow of the wall. Pausing, Pierre saw several more similar people in the shadows of the house on both sides. But neither Anna Mikhailovna, nor the footman, nor the coachman, who could not help but see these people, paid no attention to them. Therefore, this is so necessary, Pierre decided to himself and followed Anna Mikhailovna. Anna Mikhailovna walked with hasty steps up the dimly lit narrow stone staircase, calling to Pierre, who was lagging behind her, who, although he did not understand why he had to go to the count at all, and even less why he had to go up the back stairs, but , judging by the confidence and haste of Anna Mikhailovna, he decided to himself that this was necessary. Halfway up the stairs, they were almost knocked down by some people with buckets, who, clattering with their boots, ran towards them. These people pressed against the wall to let Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna through, and did not show the slightest surprise at the sight of them.
– Are there half princesses here? – Anna Mikhailovna asked one of them...
“Here,” the footman answered in a bold, loud voice, as if now everything was possible, “the door is on the left, mother.”
“Maybe the count didn’t call me,” Pierre said as he walked out onto the platform, “I would have gone to my place.”
Anna Mikhailovna stopped to catch up with Pierre.
- Ah, mon ami! - she said with the same gesture as in the morning with her son, touching his hand: - croyez, que je souffre autant, que vous, mais soyez homme. [Believe me, I suffer no less than you, but be a man.]
- Right, I'll go? - asked Pierre, looking affectionately through his glasses at Anna Mikhailovna.
- Ah, mon ami, oubliez les torts qu"on a pu avoir envers vous, pensez que c"est votre pere... peut etre a l"agonie. - She sighed. - Je vous ai tout de suite aime comme mon fils. Fiez vous a moi, Pierre. [Forget, my friend, what was wronged against you. Remember that this is your father... Maybe in agony. I immediately loved you like a son. Trust me, Pierre. I will not forget your interests.]
Pierre did not understand anything; again it seemed to him even more strongly that all this should be so, and he obediently followed Anna Mikhailovna, who was already opening the door.
The door opened into the front and back. An old servant of the princesses sat in the corner and knitted a stocking. Pierre had never been to this half, did not even imagine the existence of such chambers. Anna Mikhailovna asked the girl who was ahead of them, with a decanter on a tray (calling her sweet and darling) about the health of the princesses and dragged Pierre further along the stone corridor. From the corridor, the first door to the left led to the princesses' living rooms. The maid, with the decanter, in a hurry (as everything was done in a hurry at that moment in this house) did not close the door, and Pierre and Anna Mikhailovna, passing by, involuntarily looked into the room where the eldest princess and Prince Vasily. Seeing those passing by, Prince Vasily made an impatient movement and leaned back; The princess jumped up and with a desperate gesture slammed the door with all her might, closing it.
This gesture was so unlike the princess’s usual calmness, the fear expressed on Prince Vasily’s face was so uncharacteristic of his importance that Pierre stopped, questioningly, through his glasses, looked at his leader.
Anna Mikhailovna did not express surprise, she only smiled slightly and sighed, as if showing that she had expected all this.
“Soyez homme, mon ami, c"est moi qui veillerai a vos interets, [Be a man, my friend, I will look after your interests.] - she said in response to his gaze and walked even faster down the corridor.
Pierre did not understand what the matter was, and even less what veiller a vos interets meant, [to look after your interests,] but he understood that all this should be so. They walked through the corridor into a dimly lit hall adjacent to the count's reception room. It was one of those cold and luxurious rooms that Pierre knew from the front porch. But even in this room, in the middle, there was an empty bathtub and water was spilled on the carpet. A servant and a clerk with a censer came out to meet them on tiptoe, not paying attention to them. They entered a reception room familiar to Pierre with two Italian windows, access to the winter garden, with a large bust and a full-length portrait of Catherine. All the same people, in almost the same positions, sat whispering in the waiting room. Everyone fell silent and looked back at Anna Mikhailovna who had entered, with her tear-stained, pale face, and at the fat, big Pierre, who, with his head down, obediently followed her.
Anna Mikhailovna's face expressed the consciousness that the decisive moment had arrived; She, with the manner of a businesslike St. Petersburg lady, entered the room, not letting Pierre go, even bolder than in the morning. She felt that since she was leading the one whom the dying man wanted to see, her reception was guaranteed. Having quickly glanced at everyone who was in the room, and noticing the count's confessor, she, not only bending over, but suddenly becoming smaller in stature, swam up to the confessor with a shallow amble and respectfully accepted the blessing of one, then another clergyman.
“Thank God we made it,” she said to the clergyman, “all of us, my family, were so afraid.” This young man is the count’s son,” she added more quietly. - A terrible moment!
Having uttered these words, she approached the doctor.
“Cher docteur,” she told him, “ce jeune homme est le fils du comte... y a t il de l"espoir? [This young man is the son of a count... Is there hope?]
The doctor silently, with a quick movement, raised his eyes and shoulders upward. Anna Mikhailovna raised her shoulders and eyes with exactly the same movement, almost closing them, sighed and walked away from the doctor to Pierre. She turned especially respectfully and tenderly sadly to Pierre.
“Ayez confiance en Sa misericorde, [Trust in His mercy,”] she told him, showing him a sofa to sit down to wait for her, she silently walked towards the door that everyone was looking at, and following the barely audible sound of this door, disappeared behind it.
Pierre, having decided to obey his leader in everything, went to the sofa that she showed him. As soon as Anna Mikhailovna disappeared, he noticed that the glances of everyone in the room turned to him with more than curiosity and sympathy. He noticed that everyone was whispering, pointing at him with their eyes, as if with fear and even servility. He was shown respect that had never been shown before: a lady unknown to him, who was speaking with the clergy, stood up from her seat and invited him to sit down, the adjutant picked up the glove that Pierre had dropped and handed it to him; the doctors fell silent respectfully as he passed them, and stood aside to give him room. Pierre wanted to sit in another place first, so as not to embarrass the lady, he wanted to lift his glove himself and go around the doctors, who were not standing in the road at all; but he suddenly felt that this would be indecent, he felt that this night he was a person who was obliged to perform some terrible ritual expected by everyone, and that therefore he had to accept services from everyone. He silently accepted the glove from the adjutant, sat down in the lady’s place, placing his large hands on his symmetrically extended knees, in the naive pose of an Egyptian statue, and decided to himself that all this should be exactly like this and that he should do this evening in order not to to get lost and not do anything stupid, one should not act according to one’s own considerations, but one must submit oneself completely to the will of those who guided him.
When designing the Emperor Nicholas I, the fourth battleship for the Black Sea, the designers largely took into account the shortcomings of the Gangut. With the same main caliber artillery, it had significantly enhanced armor protection.
The hull was assembled along a longitudinal system and divided into compartments by 24 transverse bulkheads. For the first time in Russia, it was planned to install an active pitch control system (to increase the accuracy of artillery fire). Reducing pitching was achieved by automatically transferring water from the tanks of one side to the tanks of the other.
The armor weight excluding turrets was 9417 tons. those. 34.5% of design displacement. But, in addition to quantity, quality improved: all armor plates (each 5.2 m high) were connected by vertical dovetail dowels, which turned the main belt into a monolithic shell. The belt protected the side of the ship from the middle deck and 1.75 m below the normal waterline, extending 2/3 of the battleship's length.
The bow and stern parts of the belt were connected by traverses. Together with the 63-mm armored deck, this created a closed citadel, inside which all the vital parts of the ship were located. Behind the belt there was a 75-mm bevel of the armored deck and the same longitudinal bulkhead. Anti-torpedo protection, unlike armor, was weak. The underwater explosion in the first phase was resisted by the outer and inner plating, supported by side stringers and transverse bulkheads, and then by coal pits.
The 305 mm guns were located in four three-gun turrets, as on its predecessors. The idea of replacing the 305 mm guns with 356 mm was discussed. The armor protection of the towers was very powerful: 300 mm front plate and barbette, 200 mm walls and roof, 300 mm rear plates. Mine-resistant 130-mm guns were placed in separate casemates under the upper deck. Anti-aircraft armament was to consist of four 102-mm cannons on the end towers.
The power plant exceeded the power of ships of the "Empress Maria" type by three thousand "horses".
The fate of the battleship turned out to be sad. In October 1916, she launched into the water, but never entered service.
On April 29, 1917, the battleship was renamed Democracy, and six months later, by a special decree of the Provisional Government, its construction was suspended “until a more favorable time.” The subsequent revolution, civil war and economic devastation in Russia made the completion of the dreadnought unrealistic. In January 1918, all work on it finally stopped.
For eleven years, a huge building of “Democracy” stood at the factory wall. It was planned to complete it according to an improved design, but in the end, on June 28, 1927, the battleship was sent in tow from Nikolaev to Sevastopol, and there it was dismantled within 18 months.
"Emperor Alexander III" was the third of the ships of the "Empress Maria" class - dreadnoughts launched in the Black Sea and intended to fight the fleet of Ottoman Turkey. It was named in honor of Emperor Alexander III, who inherited the throne after the death of his brother in 1881 ( in fact, Alexander’s brother, Nikolai Alexandrovich, died after a short illness - approx. lane). Although several attempts were also made on Alexander III's life, he died of natural causes in 1894. As a conservative, he reversed many of his father's reforms, which indirectly sparked revolutionary sentiment in Russia in the early 20th century. The design of the ship was an improved class of battleships "Gangut" (the ships belonging to which were built in the Baltics), but "Alexander" carried much heavier armor. This class of ships was equipped with twelve 12-inch guns ( 305 mm — approx. edit), placed on four platforms with three barrels each and distributed along the horizontal axis of the ship (they were in the same plane). With a displacement of twenty-four thousand tons, the ship could accelerate to twenty-two knots.
Due to rivalry with the Ottomans, the Black Sea Fleet remained the only Russian fleet that was not disbanded after the Russo-Japanese War. The Ottoman-ordered dreadnoughts Sultan Osman I and Reşadiye (later renamed Evk Ejinkort and Evk Erin) would have given the Turks decisive superiority over the five obsolete Russian battleships remaining in service. "Emperor Alexander III" and his two twins were supposed to solve this problem. After the start of the war, Great Britain captured both Turkish battleships, but the battle cruiser Goeben, transferred by the Germans, allowed the Turks to maintain their presence in the Black Sea. This meant that the situation was not too different from what the Russian command had expected.
Laid down in 1911, the Imperator Alexander III suffered from a series of problems during the design and production stages that slowed the ship's launch. The shortage of resources caused by the war delayed the completion of the work by a year. Additionally, to match Turkish forces, Russian authorities accelerated production of the two Alexander III twins, to the detriment of the Alexander itself. The launch of two battleships briefly provided the Russian fleet with superiority in the Black Sea, at least until the accidental explosion of the Empress Maria, which equalized the forces of the parties.
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The National Interest 02/16/2017The February Revolution of 1917 worsened the chaos. The Provisional Government gained control of "Imperator Alexander III" and renamed it "Will". Even though it was still not completed, the ship went to sea. However, at that time, neither the Provisional Government nor the Bolsheviks were able to consolidate their power in southern Ukraine, and a few months later Volya was appropriated by one of several independent Ukrainian governments that emerged after the revolution. Within a few more months, the Reichswehr's inexorable advance gave the Germans control over a large part of the Black Sea. According to the Treaty of Brest-Litovsk, Volia and its remaining twins passed to Germany. The revolutionary crew of Free Russia (as Empress Catherine was renamed) prepared to scuttle the ship, but she was captured by the Germans, renamed Volga, and commissioned into the German fleet on October 15, 1918, still unfinished. The Germans laid down their arms on November 11, 1918 and transferred the Volga to British control. The British did not want to leave the ship to the Bolsheviks, and therefore took it to Izmir under the flag of the Royal Navy.
In 1919, Britain, the United States, France and Japan set out to nip the Bolshevik revolution in the bud through a combination of direct intervention and support for the White movement. The British handed the Volga over to the Whites, who made the ship operational and renamed it General Alekseev in honor of the imperial and counter-revolutionary Russian general Mikhail Alekseev. “General Alekseev” bombarded the Bolshevik forces deployed on the Black Sea coast until the Reds crushed the Whites occupying Crimea in mid-1920. Fleeing Bolshevik tyranny, the General Alekseev led a battered fleet that sailed away from the Crimea and left the Black Sea in November 1920. Nicknamed the Wrangel Fleet (after the last white commander remaining in the region), it included the Alekseev, an outdated battleship, two cruisers, a dozen destroyers, four submarines and several small craft. In addition to the crews of the corresponding ships, the fleet could accommodate four and a half thousand refugees.
"General Alekseev" traveled to Bizerte, a French colony in Tunisia, where he was detained by the French until 1924, in which France officially abandoned its policy of containing the Soviet Union and recognized the Bolshevik government. France and the USSR could not reach an agreement regarding the return of the ship, partly due to its poor condition, and partly due to the French demand to pay the costs of its maintenance over the previous few years. The extent to which Alekseev's condition was inferior to that of other old Russian battleships in the Baltic is questionable, and with some probability the USSR could use it in the Black Sea. In any case, the General Alekseev remained with the French, who gradually dismantled it for scrap in Bizerte over the next decade.
Oddly enough, the story does not end there. In early 1940, France transferred the main Alekseev gun battery to Finland to counter the Soviet invasion. Eight guns reached their destination, four more were captured by the Germans after the invasion of Norway. The Germans installed them in coastal fortifications on the captured island of Guernsey. The Finns used six of their guns for coastal defense and as mobile artillery, eventually losing two of them to the Soviet Union, which in turn used them as coastal artillery until the 1990s. One gun platform and one gun remained with the Finns and were placed in the military museum.
The ship's design, with four gun platforms and a smooth deck, was a dead end and produced surprisingly ugly battleships. Considering that the Soviets failed to build a single battleship during the interwar period, it is difficult to judge how much the Alekseev and its sister ships influenced Soviet battleship production. However, the very fact that these hopelessly outdated battleships were built for the imperial fleet testifies to the direction in which the empire was moving before the revolution.
Robert Farley is a frequent contributor to The National Interest and is also the author of The Battleship Book. He is a senior lecturer at the Patterson School of Diplomacy and International Commerce at the University of Kentucky. His professional areas include military doctrine, national security and maritime affairs. He blogs at Lawyers, Guns and Money, Information Dissimination and The Diplomat.
InoSMI materials contain assessments exclusively of foreign media and do not reflect the position of the InoSMI editorial staff.
Externally, the project differed from ships of the "Empress Maria" type in that it had modified bow contours to reduce the bow wave that arose during the move, carried out at the suggestion of the head of the Shipbuilding Department of the State Administration, Lieutenant General P. F. Veshkurtsov. As a result of a number of measures to improve the project, Emperor Nicholas I became somewhat heavier and larger than the first three ships in the series. Total displacement increased to 27,830 tons; the greatest length was 182.4 m, width - 28.9 m, draft - 9 m.
Booking
The ship was unique in terms of armor, constructed as a result of experimental firing carried out in the Russian fleet on the full-scale compartment of a battleship. Such a compartment, which included side armor, armored decks, a casemate, internal structural protection with an armored bulkhead and a conning tower, was built according to the drawings of the Baltic battleship Sevastopol and built on one side into the hull of the battleship Chesma delivered to the port.
The very first test firing of the decommissioned battleship revealed a significant lack of armor for all ships of the project. The rigid supporting contour on which the armor plates were superimposed did not interfere with their deflection, as a result of which the thin skin behind the armor tore, forming a leak. This problem could be solved only by making the belt monolithic, that is, by tying the plates together so that they would not allow the projectile to push the plate inside the body. Therefore, a radical change in the design was undertaken - a monolithic armor belt appeared from plates connected by dowels of the “double dovetail” type (before this, keyed fastenings of armor plates were implemented on the Izmails)
Armament
The battleship was planned to be armed with 356-mm main battery artillery, but the project was revised under the pretext of the difficulty of supplying different-caliber artillery and the requisition by Great Britain of the Turkish battleship "Reshadiye" with a 13.5-inch (343-mm) main battery, so that the "Nicholas I" was equipped with the usual 305 -mm guns. The resulting displacement reserve (about 4,000 tons) was used to strengthen the armor - the thickness of the armor bevel and longitudinal torpedo armor bulkhead was increased to 75 mm, and the middle deck armor was increased to 63 mm, and the side bevels on the lower to 75 mm. By eliminating the aft conning tower, the armor of the forward conning tower (walls 400 mm, roof 250 mm), main battery artillery towers (front 300 mm, roof and side faces 200 mm) and elevators (300-225 mm) was strengthened.
