The cruiser "Varyag". Fight Chemulpo 27 January 1904 of the Year. Part of 5. Supervisory Commission
Before proceeding to the description of the misadventures of the Varyag team with the cruiser ship's mechanisms, let us pay a little attention to some features of the construction of a cruiser. The thing is that in two previous articles we looked at the problems of boilers and cruiser cars outside the general context of its construction: thus, highlighting the most controversial elements of its design, we didn’t consider the processes of creating a ship as a whole.
Without a doubt, the Kramp plant was one of the most modern shipbuilding enterprises in the world, but I must say that the contract period of 20 months for the construction of the "Varangian" was even too short for him. Recall that just in 1898 at the Kramp factory, the Kasagi cruiser was completed for the Japanese fleet. Laid down in February 1897, it was delivered to the customer in October 1898, that is, 20,5 months after the laying. At the same time, “Kasagi” was significantly smaller than the “Varyag” (4 tons versus 900 tons), and its power plant included cylindrical (fire tube) boilers, the production of which was long ago and thoroughly mastered.
And if Crump didn’t meet the 20 months, who built faster? Maybe England? Not at all - just in 1897-1898's. The Royal Navy received another series of armored cruisers of the 2 class Eclips. These were ships, obviously more modest characteristics than were supposed for Varyag - displacement within 5 700 t, speed of 18,5 nodes (19,5 ties was achieved only when forcing mechanisms) and armament from 5 * 152-mm and 6 * 120-mm guns . However, all 9 cruisers of this type were built much more than 20 months - for example, the Talbot, known to us, who witnessed the feat of Varyag, was laid on 5 in March 1894, and 15 in September, that is, more than 1896 months since bookmarking. The French have never been distinguished for their high construction speed: the same “D'Antrcasto” being slightly larger than the “Varyag” (up to 30 8 t) was built about five years, and the much smaller freen-type cruiser was 150-4 years. Russian shipbuilding, too, had nothing to boast about - we built Diana cruisers of four years old and more. German shipyards? The same "Askold" was built (counting from the moment it was laid down and before the fleet was handed over) of the 6 of the year and the 3 of the month, while at the same time being delivered, the ship had deficiencies that had to be eliminated later. "Bogatyr" was built 2,5 of the year and 2 months.
We see that the time limit for the construction of the cruiser set by Crump was on the limit (as it turned out, beyond the limits) of the possible. Strictly speaking, under these conditions, Charles Crump's proposal to build a cruiser for the Russian Imperial Navy under the Kasagi project was not alternative, because it was possible to keep within such a short time only when building a serial ship, which was Kasagi for Kramp. Of course, the Navy Ministry rejected this proposal - it wanted to get a completely different ship. As a result, C. Crump took up work that, if successfully completed, would set a record for construction speed, especially since the Americans had to use many new technologies for the Varyag.
But why did MTC insist on such an urgent construction? Obviously, besides the desire to get a powerful warship as soon as possible, there was also a desire to force a foreign supplier to give everything in full, similar to the one that made the Maritime Department put extremely high performance characteristics of the future cruiser into the competitive requirements. And here, according to the author, the root of the Varyag problems turned out to be. Recall the old joke. A sign hangs on the front door to the office, it says: “Our company can serve you: a) quickly; b) high quality; c) cheap. Choose any two options. ” At the same time, the Maritime Department, in fact, tried to force Charles Crump to serve him, choosing three options at once, and this could not lead to anything good.
Fairly accusing Crump of a number of shortcomings and erroneous technical decisions, we should not forget that the Marine Ministry in many ways also pushed him to this, because it was precisely “sturmovshchina” in terms of time, combined with extremely stringent requirements for tactical and technical characteristics, (at the initially low price for a cruiser) Charles Crump was obviously introduced into the temptation of adventurous decisions. Such an approach on the part of the Maritime Office was dangerous, and triple dangerous, if we recall that at the time of the contract neither the agreed draft of the cruiser, nor the detailed specifications in nature existed - all this was to be “settled down” as the contract proceeded. And the vagueness of the wording gave Charles Crump additional opportunities "for maneuver."
The author will risk claiming that if the Maritime Office, instead of “rushing horses,” would postpone the signing of the contract until the agreement with the crucian project by H. Crump, then in the contract, it would indicate a more or less realistic timeframe for its execution ( , 26-28 months), then, in the end, it would have gone to the Varyag for the benefit and the Russian Imperial fleet would have been replenished with a first-class and absolutely combat-ready cruiser.
Here, of course, it can be argued that Charles Crump was himself to blame for setting such dates - after all, it was he who originally initiated the "super-fast" construction of the cruiser, which (among other arguments) allowed the American to avoid participation in the competition. This is true - but the fact is that Charles Crump initially proposed to build Varyag under the Kasagi project, and he could easily cope with it in 20 months, and then the Navy insisted on a ship of a completely new project. However, the fact that Charles Crump nevertheless agreed without adjusting the timing in the direction of increasing, shows the adventurous nature of his nature.
Let us recall how the construction of the cruiser Varyag was organized. To this end, an observing commission was sent to the USA, which was to:
1. Compilation of final specifications, where it was necessary to “introduce everything that is recognized as necessary for the battleship and the cruiser in all their official positions”;
2. “To resolve all issues related to the construction, procurement and arming of ordered ships definitively,” but, naturally, within the limits approved by the manager of the Marine Ministry of programs for designing the MTC. Here, in fact, there was a serious limitation in the work of the commission - a lot of issues that required a speedy resolution, it could not take on its own, without the sanction of the ITC. As we will see later, this (theoretically correct) requirement still had negative consequences.
In addition, the supervising commission could not decide with its authority on over-contract payments and was obliged to send activity reports to ITC every two weeks. The composition of the commission:
1. Captain of the 1 rank M.A. Danilevsky - Chairman of the Commission, participant in the war for the liberation of the Balkan peoples from the Turkish yoke in 1877 — 1878, served as a senior officer on the battleship Chesma, and for the last three years he commanded the gunboat Zaporozhets;
2. Junior shipbuilder P.E. Chernigovsky - watching ship engineer. Before the appointment, he built the gunboats “Gilyak”, “Donets” and “Manjour”;
3. Senior Mechanical Engineer A.I. Frontskevich - mechanic;
4. Lieutenant P.P. Macedonian. - the miner.
Captains V.I. were in charge of the artillery. Petrov and V.A. Alekseev (on electrical engineering of tower installations) - both graduates of the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy. Later, the commission was supplemented by artillery lieutenant colonel M. I. Barkhotkin and mechanical engineer M. K. Borovsky. In addition, the two commissioners were included in the commission. These were the first assistants of civil engineers, usually recruited from competent workers. The "pointers" were able to independently read the drawings and directly monitored the progress of the work. Interestingly, the purpose of their arrival was not only control functions, but also a desire to learn from foreign experience - they were obliged to study the work of American shipyards and, later, upon returning to Russia, train others and establish similar ones.
The supervisory commission arrived at the 13 plant on June 1898 g and ... Charles Crump immediately brought down a host of complaints and "practical offers". The American industrialist stated that it was impossible to build a cruiser with the required parameters, and that it was necessary:
1. Reduce coal reserves;
2. Remove two 152-mm guns;
3. Reduce the number of the team, while reducing the machine command to the number that allows you to go only by an economic move (!);
4. Allow the ship to supply additional steam to the cylinders of medium and low pressure during tests.
In other words, the tactics of C. Crump is absolutely clear - having received a contract for promises to build a super-cruiser, super-fast and cheap, he immediately “forgot” about his promises and began (quite, by the way, justified!) To prove that such a cruiser cannot be built. M.A. Danilevsky quite reasonably met him - by refusing all requirements, he agreed to increase the displacement from 6 000 t to 6 400 - 6 500 t, but before the forcing of the boilers during the tests, a compromise was reached - the cruiser had to be tested without forcing the machines, but it was allowed to open hatches of the stoker departments and pump air there, but with an excess of pressure not more than 25 mm Hg.
Thus, despite the differences, it can be said that the beginning of the work of the monitoring commission with Charles Crump was quite fruitful. Alas, in the future everything went awry.
The blame for this was mutual. Often, Charles Crump for unclear reasons delayed the materials requested from him - this was the case, for example, with torpedo tubes. The fact is that under the terms of the contract they were to be produced in Russia, but this required drawings of the side and decks in the locations, but the Americans did not want to provide them. M.A. Danilevsky was forced to "shake out" these drawings from Charles C. Crump's specialists for a whole month. But the reverse is also true - often there were questions that the observing commission did not have the right to decide on its own, but had to coordinate with the ITC. The MTC often and unreasonably delayed its decision. It is clear that Charles Crump, being put in a tight timeframe contract, could not wait for MTK’s response for months and continued to build, and the monitoring commission couldn’t stop it (and cause its own power, thereby causing additional costs associated with such a delay). . And how was MA Danilevsky guess what decision will the ITC ultimately take?
Canonical became story on booking reservation for "Varyag". When it came time to place an order for the supply of armor (and the delay in this matter could not be allowed, as it would have delayed the construction), it turned out that C. Crump did not intend to order its production from extra soft nickel steel, because, although she was the best option for armored cruiser, but has not yet been used on US ships. Accordingly, a loophole in the contract (in the Russian text it was said that the armor should correspond to the best world models, and considered the main English - that the best models used by the US Navy) allowed Crump to avoid using better, but more expensive armor.
Naturally, MA Danilevsky couldn’t allow such a thing, but he couldn’t agree with Charles H. Kramp on additional payment for extra light nickel steel armor, too - it was out of his authority. Therefore, he needed to get approval from "above" and this, of course, took time. Accordingly, the deadlines are starting to tighten even more, and then a new question arises - Charles Crump proposes to rivet the ship’s armored deck from two layers of slabs.
Such a decision significantly weakens the protection of the ship, since two plates, even if riveted, are inferior in armor resistance of one plate of the same thickness. But Charles Crump appeals to the fact that the double-layer fastening of the armor and its rigid ligation with the body kit will allow it to participate in ensuring the overall strength of the body, which cannot be achieved by using single-layer armor. A serious question and MA Danilevsky requests MTC. But MTK (and they, apart from Varyag, also build 70 ships, both in Russia and abroad), they seem to make an absolutely logical decision to wait for the drawings of the cruiser from Charles Crump to make a competent conclusion. And no one plans to submit drawings in time and is not going to, but the decision on armor must be made immediately!
Result - M.A. Danilevsky, not having a direct ban on ITC, ultimately accepts the proposal of Charles Crump. Well, later, MTC, having understood the arguments of Charles Crump, makes an unconditional conclusion that the only real reason why this shipbuilder insisted on double-layer armor was “Crump’s desire to simplify and cheapen the work on the production of an armor deck, bearing in mind punching holes where they need to be drilled. ” Now, the MTC prohibits making the armor deck of two layers and ... still has to approve the decision of C. Krump, since he has already placed all the necessary orders.
Without a doubt, C. Crump has demonstrated in this matter the turnover on the verge of cheating. However, he got away with it only because of the slow organization of control over his activities, and here the fault lies with the Navy Department. We see that the MTC did not want to make decisions before receiving the corresponding cruiser drawings, but they were not submitted on time - and why? It is possible, of course, that Charles Crump was well aware of the consequences of their transfer and that the MTC, seeing that the entire American argument is the essence of the excuse, does not authorize a double-layer armor deck, which will lead Charles Crump to incur additional costs. But it was only part of the problem.
The second part was that Vice-Admiral VP intervened again. Verkhovsky (the one who pushed through the installation of the Nikloss boilers bypassing the MTC and who signed the contract with Charles Crump). This time V.P. Verkhovsky ... instructed the Russian naval attache in the USA, D.F. Deadvaguo to negotiate and work with Charles Crump on the supply of armor from the harmonization of technical characteristics to the conclusion of contracts with Carnegie factories. All anything, but df Mertvago was supposed to do this bypassing the observation committee and MA Danilevsky!
We will not speculate about the reasons that prompted the vice-admiral to such a decision - there could be anything, including good intentions, a bribe, or protection of the honor of his uniform, so there’s no need to guess. But it was difficult to think of a way in which it was possible to undermine the authority of M.A. Danilevsky in the eyes of Charles Crump. Of course, this could not but affect the attitude of the latter to the requirements of the monitoring commission. Often, its members could not get answers to the simplest questions for long weeks (“up to a month of tireless reminders”).
Bottom line - C. Crump ceased to reckon with the monitoring commission so much that he ordered the Nicloss boilers without her knowledge, not to mention presenting the technical conditions to its members, which he had to do before ordering the boilers. The same story happened with the insurance company - the work was in full swing, but there were no insurance policies. Such serious breaches of the contract gave rise to MA Danilevsky refused to refuse C. Crump in the first tranche of payments for the ship - and then an open war had already begun, a representative of C. Crump went to Russia to complain about the intolerable conditions that MA Danilevsky created for him. For example, the American categorically did not like the refusal of MA Danilevsky extend the contract period for the construction of a cruiser, if the armor supplied to him by another American plant turns out to be a rejection. On the one hand, it seems to be true - how could Charles Crump be responsible for the marriage of another producer not subordinate to him? But if you look, it turns out that MA Danilevsky did not like the contract of C. Crump with the supplier of armor, under the condition of which it was possible to delay the supply, which, of course, was wrong. Apparently, without being able to put pressure on C. Krump in another way, MA Danilevsky refused to increase the term of construction, in case the armor would be of poor quality.
According to the results, MA Danilevsky was recalled from America, and E.N. arrived in his place in December 1898. Shhensnovich (later - commander of the squadron battleship Retvizan). And again, on the one hand, it is easy to blame Charles Crump for everything, and to count the chairman of the monitoring commission as “innocently injured”. But it will be wrong, because with all the positive qualities of MA. Danilevsky, he, apparently, was unable to organize the normal work of the commission. And the point here was not in Charles Crampe, but in the fact that he simply did not trust his subordinates and tried to control their every step, not allowing them to work and make decisions on their own. As a result, the head of the Navy Department, Admiral Tyrtov was forced to note:
After the change of the chairman of the monitoring commission, the situation as a whole stabilized: E.N. Schensnovich was very demanding, no less than MA Danilevsky, but still could somehow find a common language with Charles Crump. The “dual power” was terminated - the Navy department confirmed the powers of the supervising commission, and banned D.F. Dead or interfere with or replace her work. But new difficulties arose - E.N. Schensnovich quickly found out that the members of the commission at his disposal were completely inadequate for the implementation of full-fledged supervision of construction. This was especially true of the mechanical part.
At the Kramp plant, four steam engines were simultaneously assembled (two for the Varyag and two for the Retvizan squadron battleship), while, of course, all this happened in different places at the same time (the parts were processed in different workshops). Parallel to this, drawings were made (which had to be checked), tests were conducted on which it was necessary to attend ... And only one person had to look at all this — AI Frontskevich, who, moreover, was to travel to the factories of contractors of Charles Crump, and supervise the work on the boilers of ships. Not only that - the observing commission kept a very lively workflow, the number of incoming and outgoing documents reached 200 per month, and this does not take into account the need to translate from English to Russian specifications for the hull and mechanisms of both ships before sending them to St. Petersburg. So nobody could remove the “writings” from the only mechanic. It got to the point that the supply of the Nikloss boilers had to be dealt with by the artilleryman VA Alekseev! Of course, E.N. Schensnovich asked to send people to him, but alas, they did not hurry in Petersburg, and the measures taken by the chairman of the monitoring commission, who managed to involve outsiders in its work (for example, qualified émigré worker P. Keleinikov, a former master of the monket workshop of the Obukhovsky plant, who worked for Crump's factory) could not drastically improve the situation. Subsequently, an assistant senior engineer-mechanic M.K. Borovsky, but this did not close the question completely.
Despite the extremely difficult working conditions, the commission nevertheless brought many benefits: for example, the mechanic A.I. Frontskevich revealed that the high-pressure cylinder had been defective and was able to achieve its replacement, while the experts of C. Krump claimed that the cylinder was quite benign. M.K. Immediately upon arrival, Borovsky went to look at the manufacture of Nikloss boilers - when he arrived at the factory he rejected 600 tubes made in violation of technical conditions and which did not correspond to the drawings or reference samples provided by Nikloss - fortunately prudent M.K. Borovsky was able to get them in France and bring them with him. The Americans tried to prove that they did everything correctly, and only after the demonstration of the standard they were forced to admit that they were wrong - it was only then that it turned out that they also had reference samples ...
The only miner of the supervising commission was overwhelmed with cases “to the very crown” - the fact is that the Varyag was electrified to a much greater degree than the ships that Charles Crump had built before, and with the orders of electrical mechanisms many difficulties arose, sometimes unclear . So, for example, since Charles Crump was able to articulate the use of fans when testing a cruiser (to force air into the stoker), he managed to distribute the electricity so that the rotation of these fans was allocated power in 416 horsepower. It could not have any practical significance, because in combat conditions the manhole covers would be closed, and the necessary pressure could be provided with less power — this “maneuver” was undertaken solely in order to achieve contract speed.
A complete mismatch of the company's ideas about the required overall strength of the case was revealed: the stresses in it instead of the kgS / cm790 allowed by the Russian 2 rules exceeded 1100 kgf / cm2. C. Krump managed to include in the calculations of the strength of the hull even the wooden flooring of the upper deck ...
But at the same time one should not think that the observing commission had to “fight” exclusively with Charles Crump. It should be understood that during the construction of the Varyag, the well-established mechanism of American shipbuilding collided with the domestic one ... let's say, slowness. E.N. Schensnovich noted that low prices for American industrialists are obtained if they make a large order: we are talking about large quantities of the same type of products, which made it possible to extract the benefits provided by high-volume production. But such orders were not completely combined with MTK's favorite “entertainment” to make permanent changes to the ship's design. In addition, if the observing commission often could not get an answer from C. Crump, and this complicated the process of coordination with the ITC, the opposite was true: very often, Charles Crump had to wait weeks for ITC to answer the reasonable and important questions. On another issue, the consideration was so demanding that the supervising commission, in order not to cause delays in construction, was forced to give an answer itself, and then it turned out that MTC decided differently. Some (and perfectly sensible) proposals of the observing commission (for example, the provision of armor shields for standing guns) of the MTC were rejected. Sometimes MTK made non-optimal decisions - for example, when it turned out that the gases of the 152-mm guns located in the forecastle would affect the calculation of the six-inch nasal pair, there was a proposal to protect them with special screens on the false-board (although this limited the firing angles), but MTK demanded to move them closer to the centerline of the ship, that is, move closer to each other. The observing commission quite reasonably objected to this that such a decision would complicate the work of the calculations and further restrict the angles of the shelling of the guns than the bulwark, but only managed to convince the MTC that for such a design change Charles Crump canceled the orders made earlier.
Without a doubt, Charles Crump repeatedly proposed solutions that worsen the quality of the cruiser, but simplify the fulfillment of contractual obligations for the American industrialist. Admiral Tyrtov, manager of the maritime ministry, wrote:
He was echoed by the naval attache D.F. Mertvago, to whom, by the will of V.P. Verkhovsky had to take part in negotiations with Charles Crump (“The Commission will have to work with subtle cunning”). But this does not mean that any proposal by the Americans is devoid of meaning, and it must be perceived as hostile. So, for example, it is known that Charles Crump offered to install and build Retvizan tower installations in the United States, arguing that American tower installations are better than Russians, since they were tested in battle in the most crushing victories known in the annals of modern naval battles. . To this, the Marine Department manager replied: “The Spaniards did not have projectiles, and the coastal batteries were equipped with guns of the past century. Against such an enemy it is not surprising to be the winner. ”
All this, of course, is correct, and this episode is usually viewed as another attempt by Charles Crump to earn extra money on an additional order, which is harmful to the Russian Imperial Navy. But here's what MA wrote about this. Danilevsky, who can be suspected of anything, but not in the commitment to an American businessman:
In general, all of the above indicates that Charles Crump, no doubt, was primarily focused not on creating the most effective warship, but on formally fulfilling the contract. At the same time, alas, the Maritime Office, despite the measures taken, also failed to create a truly effective system of interaction with the American industrialist and control of its activities.
Продолжение следует ...
Without a doubt, the Kramp plant was one of the most modern shipbuilding enterprises in the world, but I must say that the contract period of 20 months for the construction of the "Varangian" was even too short for him. Recall that just in 1898 at the Kramp factory, the Kasagi cruiser was completed for the Japanese fleet. Laid down in February 1897, it was delivered to the customer in October 1898, that is, 20,5 months after the laying. At the same time, “Kasagi” was significantly smaller than the “Varyag” (4 tons versus 900 tons), and its power plant included cylindrical (fire tube) boilers, the production of which was long ago and thoroughly mastered.
And if Crump didn’t meet the 20 months, who built faster? Maybe England? Not at all - just in 1897-1898's. The Royal Navy received another series of armored cruisers of the 2 class Eclips. These were ships, obviously more modest characteristics than were supposed for Varyag - displacement within 5 700 t, speed of 18,5 nodes (19,5 ties was achieved only when forcing mechanisms) and armament from 5 * 152-mm and 6 * 120-mm guns . However, all 9 cruisers of this type were built much more than 20 months - for example, the Talbot, known to us, who witnessed the feat of Varyag, was laid on 5 in March 1894, and 15 in September, that is, more than 1896 months since bookmarking. The French have never been distinguished for their high construction speed: the same “D'Antrcasto” being slightly larger than the “Varyag” (up to 30 8 t) was built about five years, and the much smaller freen-type cruiser was 150-4 years. Russian shipbuilding, too, had nothing to boast about - we built Diana cruisers of four years old and more. German shipyards? The same "Askold" was built (counting from the moment it was laid down and before the fleet was handed over) of the 6 of the year and the 3 of the month, while at the same time being delivered, the ship had deficiencies that had to be eliminated later. "Bogatyr" was built 2,5 of the year and 2 months.
We see that the time limit for the construction of the cruiser set by Crump was on the limit (as it turned out, beyond the limits) of the possible. Strictly speaking, under these conditions, Charles Crump's proposal to build a cruiser for the Russian Imperial Navy under the Kasagi project was not alternative, because it was possible to keep within such a short time only when building a serial ship, which was Kasagi for Kramp. Of course, the Navy Ministry rejected this proposal - it wanted to get a completely different ship. As a result, C. Crump took up work that, if successfully completed, would set a record for construction speed, especially since the Americans had to use many new technologies for the Varyag.
But why did MTC insist on such an urgent construction? Obviously, besides the desire to get a powerful warship as soon as possible, there was also a desire to force a foreign supplier to give everything in full, similar to the one that made the Maritime Department put extremely high performance characteristics of the future cruiser into the competitive requirements. And here, according to the author, the root of the Varyag problems turned out to be. Recall the old joke. A sign hangs on the front door to the office, it says: “Our company can serve you: a) quickly; b) high quality; c) cheap. Choose any two options. ” At the same time, the Maritime Department, in fact, tried to force Charles Crump to serve him, choosing three options at once, and this could not lead to anything good.
Fairly accusing Crump of a number of shortcomings and erroneous technical decisions, we should not forget that the Marine Ministry in many ways also pushed him to this, because it was precisely “sturmovshchina” in terms of time, combined with extremely stringent requirements for tactical and technical characteristics, (at the initially low price for a cruiser) Charles Crump was obviously introduced into the temptation of adventurous decisions. Such an approach on the part of the Maritime Office was dangerous, and triple dangerous, if we recall that at the time of the contract neither the agreed draft of the cruiser, nor the detailed specifications in nature existed - all this was to be “settled down” as the contract proceeded. And the vagueness of the wording gave Charles Crump additional opportunities "for maneuver."
The author will risk claiming that if the Maritime Office, instead of “rushing horses,” would postpone the signing of the contract until the agreement with the crucian project by H. Crump, then in the contract, it would indicate a more or less realistic timeframe for its execution ( , 26-28 months), then, in the end, it would have gone to the Varyag for the benefit and the Russian Imperial fleet would have been replenished with a first-class and absolutely combat-ready cruiser.
Here, of course, it can be argued that Charles Crump was himself to blame for setting such dates - after all, it was he who originally initiated the "super-fast" construction of the cruiser, which (among other arguments) allowed the American to avoid participation in the competition. This is true - but the fact is that Charles Crump initially proposed to build Varyag under the Kasagi project, and he could easily cope with it in 20 months, and then the Navy insisted on a ship of a completely new project. However, the fact that Charles Crump nevertheless agreed without adjusting the timing in the direction of increasing, shows the adventurous nature of his nature.
Let us recall how the construction of the cruiser Varyag was organized. To this end, an observing commission was sent to the USA, which was to:
1. Compilation of final specifications, where it was necessary to “introduce everything that is recognized as necessary for the battleship and the cruiser in all their official positions”;
2. “To resolve all issues related to the construction, procurement and arming of ordered ships definitively,” but, naturally, within the limits approved by the manager of the Marine Ministry of programs for designing the MTC. Here, in fact, there was a serious limitation in the work of the commission - a lot of issues that required a speedy resolution, it could not take on its own, without the sanction of the ITC. As we will see later, this (theoretically correct) requirement still had negative consequences.
In addition, the supervising commission could not decide with its authority on over-contract payments and was obliged to send activity reports to ITC every two weeks. The composition of the commission:
1. Captain of the 1 rank M.A. Danilevsky - Chairman of the Commission, participant in the war for the liberation of the Balkan peoples from the Turkish yoke in 1877 — 1878, served as a senior officer on the battleship Chesma, and for the last three years he commanded the gunboat Zaporozhets;
2. Junior shipbuilder P.E. Chernigovsky - watching ship engineer. Before the appointment, he built the gunboats “Gilyak”, “Donets” and “Manjour”;
3. Senior Mechanical Engineer A.I. Frontskevich - mechanic;
4. Lieutenant P.P. Macedonian. - the miner.
Captains V.I. were in charge of the artillery. Petrov and V.A. Alekseev (on electrical engineering of tower installations) - both graduates of the Mikhailovsky Artillery Academy. Later, the commission was supplemented by artillery lieutenant colonel M. I. Barkhotkin and mechanical engineer M. K. Borovsky. In addition, the two commissioners were included in the commission. These were the first assistants of civil engineers, usually recruited from competent workers. The "pointers" were able to independently read the drawings and directly monitored the progress of the work. Interestingly, the purpose of their arrival was not only control functions, but also a desire to learn from foreign experience - they were obliged to study the work of American shipyards and, later, upon returning to Russia, train others and establish similar ones.
The supervisory commission arrived at the 13 plant on June 1898 g and ... Charles Crump immediately brought down a host of complaints and "practical offers". The American industrialist stated that it was impossible to build a cruiser with the required parameters, and that it was necessary:
1. Reduce coal reserves;
2. Remove two 152-mm guns;
3. Reduce the number of the team, while reducing the machine command to the number that allows you to go only by an economic move (!);
4. Allow the ship to supply additional steam to the cylinders of medium and low pressure during tests.
In other words, the tactics of C. Crump is absolutely clear - having received a contract for promises to build a super-cruiser, super-fast and cheap, he immediately “forgot” about his promises and began (quite, by the way, justified!) To prove that such a cruiser cannot be built. M.A. Danilevsky quite reasonably met him - by refusing all requirements, he agreed to increase the displacement from 6 000 t to 6 400 - 6 500 t, but before the forcing of the boilers during the tests, a compromise was reached - the cruiser had to be tested without forcing the machines, but it was allowed to open hatches of the stoker departments and pump air there, but with an excess of pressure not more than 25 mm Hg.
Thus, despite the differences, it can be said that the beginning of the work of the monitoring commission with Charles Crump was quite fruitful. Alas, in the future everything went awry.
The blame for this was mutual. Often, Charles Crump for unclear reasons delayed the materials requested from him - this was the case, for example, with torpedo tubes. The fact is that under the terms of the contract they were to be produced in Russia, but this required drawings of the side and decks in the locations, but the Americans did not want to provide them. M.A. Danilevsky was forced to "shake out" these drawings from Charles C. Crump's specialists for a whole month. But the reverse is also true - often there were questions that the observing commission did not have the right to decide on its own, but had to coordinate with the ITC. The MTC often and unreasonably delayed its decision. It is clear that Charles Crump, being put in a tight timeframe contract, could not wait for MTK’s response for months and continued to build, and the monitoring commission couldn’t stop it (and cause its own power, thereby causing additional costs associated with such a delay). . And how was MA Danilevsky guess what decision will the ITC ultimately take?
Canonical became story on booking reservation for "Varyag". When it came time to place an order for the supply of armor (and the delay in this matter could not be allowed, as it would have delayed the construction), it turned out that C. Crump did not intend to order its production from extra soft nickel steel, because, although she was the best option for armored cruiser, but has not yet been used on US ships. Accordingly, a loophole in the contract (in the Russian text it was said that the armor should correspond to the best world models, and considered the main English - that the best models used by the US Navy) allowed Crump to avoid using better, but more expensive armor.
Naturally, MA Danilevsky couldn’t allow such a thing, but he couldn’t agree with Charles H. Kramp on additional payment for extra light nickel steel armor, too - it was out of his authority. Therefore, he needed to get approval from "above" and this, of course, took time. Accordingly, the deadlines are starting to tighten even more, and then a new question arises - Charles Crump proposes to rivet the ship’s armored deck from two layers of slabs.
Control armor plate, passed the test of shooting
Such a decision significantly weakens the protection of the ship, since two plates, even if riveted, are inferior in armor resistance of one plate of the same thickness. But Charles Crump appeals to the fact that the double-layer fastening of the armor and its rigid ligation with the body kit will allow it to participate in ensuring the overall strength of the body, which cannot be achieved by using single-layer armor. A serious question and MA Danilevsky requests MTC. But MTK (and they, apart from Varyag, also build 70 ships, both in Russia and abroad), they seem to make an absolutely logical decision to wait for the drawings of the cruiser from Charles Crump to make a competent conclusion. And no one plans to submit drawings in time and is not going to, but the decision on armor must be made immediately!
Result - M.A. Danilevsky, not having a direct ban on ITC, ultimately accepts the proposal of Charles Crump. Well, later, MTC, having understood the arguments of Charles Crump, makes an unconditional conclusion that the only real reason why this shipbuilder insisted on double-layer armor was “Crump’s desire to simplify and cheapen the work on the production of an armor deck, bearing in mind punching holes where they need to be drilled. ” Now, the MTC prohibits making the armor deck of two layers and ... still has to approve the decision of C. Krump, since he has already placed all the necessary orders.
Without a doubt, C. Crump has demonstrated in this matter the turnover on the verge of cheating. However, he got away with it only because of the slow organization of control over his activities, and here the fault lies with the Navy Department. We see that the MTC did not want to make decisions before receiving the corresponding cruiser drawings, but they were not submitted on time - and why? It is possible, of course, that Charles Crump was well aware of the consequences of their transfer and that the MTC, seeing that the entire American argument is the essence of the excuse, does not authorize a double-layer armor deck, which will lead Charles Crump to incur additional costs. But it was only part of the problem.
The second part was that Vice-Admiral VP intervened again. Verkhovsky (the one who pushed through the installation of the Nikloss boilers bypassing the MTC and who signed the contract with Charles Crump). This time V.P. Verkhovsky ... instructed the Russian naval attache in the USA, D.F. Deadvaguo to negotiate and work with Charles Crump on the supply of armor from the harmonization of technical characteristics to the conclusion of contracts with Carnegie factories. All anything, but df Mertvago was supposed to do this bypassing the observation committee and MA Danilevsky!
We will not speculate about the reasons that prompted the vice-admiral to such a decision - there could be anything, including good intentions, a bribe, or protection of the honor of his uniform, so there’s no need to guess. But it was difficult to think of a way in which it was possible to undermine the authority of M.A. Danilevsky in the eyes of Charles Crump. Of course, this could not but affect the attitude of the latter to the requirements of the monitoring commission. Often, its members could not get answers to the simplest questions for long weeks (“up to a month of tireless reminders”).
Bottom line - C. Crump ceased to reckon with the monitoring commission so much that he ordered the Nicloss boilers without her knowledge, not to mention presenting the technical conditions to its members, which he had to do before ordering the boilers. The same story happened with the insurance company - the work was in full swing, but there were no insurance policies. Such serious breaches of the contract gave rise to MA Danilevsky refused to refuse C. Crump in the first tranche of payments for the ship - and then an open war had already begun, a representative of C. Crump went to Russia to complain about the intolerable conditions that MA Danilevsky created for him. For example, the American categorically did not like the refusal of MA Danilevsky extend the contract period for the construction of a cruiser, if the armor supplied to him by another American plant turns out to be a rejection. On the one hand, it seems to be true - how could Charles Crump be responsible for the marriage of another producer not subordinate to him? But if you look, it turns out that MA Danilevsky did not like the contract of C. Crump with the supplier of armor, under the condition of which it was possible to delay the supply, which, of course, was wrong. Apparently, without being able to put pressure on C. Krump in another way, MA Danilevsky refused to increase the term of construction, in case the armor would be of poor quality.
According to the results, MA Danilevsky was recalled from America, and E.N. arrived in his place in December 1898. Shhensnovich (later - commander of the squadron battleship Retvizan). And again, on the one hand, it is easy to blame Charles Crump for everything, and to count the chairman of the monitoring commission as “innocently injured”. But it will be wrong, because with all the positive qualities of MA. Danilevsky, he, apparently, was unable to organize the normal work of the commission. And the point here was not in Charles Crampe, but in the fact that he simply did not trust his subordinates and tried to control their every step, not allowing them to work and make decisions on their own. As a result, the head of the Navy Department, Admiral Tyrtov was forced to note:
“It should be regretted that with all the good qualities and knowledge, Captain Danilevsky has such a difficult and, I will say, suspicious character, the manifestation of which forced me to replace him with another chairman. But it is clear that Kramp should not look into his eyes, but rather be as careful and as exacting as possible with him, which, in my name, dictate to the captain of the first rank Shensnovich ”.
After the change of the chairman of the monitoring commission, the situation as a whole stabilized: E.N. Schensnovich was very demanding, no less than MA Danilevsky, but still could somehow find a common language with Charles Crump. The “dual power” was terminated - the Navy department confirmed the powers of the supervising commission, and banned D.F. Dead or interfere with or replace her work. But new difficulties arose - E.N. Schensnovich quickly found out that the members of the commission at his disposal were completely inadequate for the implementation of full-fledged supervision of construction. This was especially true of the mechanical part.
At the Kramp plant, four steam engines were simultaneously assembled (two for the Varyag and two for the Retvizan squadron battleship), while, of course, all this happened in different places at the same time (the parts were processed in different workshops). Parallel to this, drawings were made (which had to be checked), tests were conducted on which it was necessary to attend ... And only one person had to look at all this — AI Frontskevich, who, moreover, was to travel to the factories of contractors of Charles Crump, and supervise the work on the boilers of ships. Not only that - the observing commission kept a very lively workflow, the number of incoming and outgoing documents reached 200 per month, and this does not take into account the need to translate from English to Russian specifications for the hull and mechanisms of both ships before sending them to St. Petersburg. So nobody could remove the “writings” from the only mechanic. It got to the point that the supply of the Nikloss boilers had to be dealt with by the artilleryman VA Alekseev! Of course, E.N. Schensnovich asked to send people to him, but alas, they did not hurry in Petersburg, and the measures taken by the chairman of the monitoring commission, who managed to involve outsiders in its work (for example, qualified émigré worker P. Keleinikov, a former master of the monket workshop of the Obukhovsky plant, who worked for Crump's factory) could not drastically improve the situation. Subsequently, an assistant senior engineer-mechanic M.K. Borovsky, but this did not close the question completely.
Despite the extremely difficult working conditions, the commission nevertheless brought many benefits: for example, the mechanic A.I. Frontskevich revealed that the high-pressure cylinder had been defective and was able to achieve its replacement, while the experts of C. Krump claimed that the cylinder was quite benign. M.K. Immediately upon arrival, Borovsky went to look at the manufacture of Nikloss boilers - when he arrived at the factory he rejected 600 tubes made in violation of technical conditions and which did not correspond to the drawings or reference samples provided by Nikloss - fortunately prudent M.K. Borovsky was able to get them in France and bring them with him. The Americans tried to prove that they did everything correctly, and only after the demonstration of the standard they were forced to admit that they were wrong - it was only then that it turned out that they also had reference samples ...
The only miner of the supervising commission was overwhelmed with cases “to the very crown” - the fact is that the Varyag was electrified to a much greater degree than the ships that Charles Crump had built before, and with the orders of electrical mechanisms many difficulties arose, sometimes unclear . So, for example, since Charles Crump was able to articulate the use of fans when testing a cruiser (to force air into the stoker), he managed to distribute the electricity so that the rotation of these fans was allocated power in 416 horsepower. It could not have any practical significance, because in combat conditions the manhole covers would be closed, and the necessary pressure could be provided with less power — this “maneuver” was undertaken solely in order to achieve contract speed.
A complete mismatch of the company's ideas about the required overall strength of the case was revealed: the stresses in it instead of the kgS / cm790 allowed by the Russian 2 rules exceeded 1100 kgf / cm2. C. Krump managed to include in the calculations of the strength of the hull even the wooden flooring of the upper deck ...
But at the same time one should not think that the observing commission had to “fight” exclusively with Charles Crump. It should be understood that during the construction of the Varyag, the well-established mechanism of American shipbuilding collided with the domestic one ... let's say, slowness. E.N. Schensnovich noted that low prices for American industrialists are obtained if they make a large order: we are talking about large quantities of the same type of products, which made it possible to extract the benefits provided by high-volume production. But such orders were not completely combined with MTK's favorite “entertainment” to make permanent changes to the ship's design. In addition, if the observing commission often could not get an answer from C. Crump, and this complicated the process of coordination with the ITC, the opposite was true: very often, Charles Crump had to wait weeks for ITC to answer the reasonable and important questions. On another issue, the consideration was so demanding that the supervising commission, in order not to cause delays in construction, was forced to give an answer itself, and then it turned out that MTC decided differently. Some (and perfectly sensible) proposals of the observing commission (for example, the provision of armor shields for standing guns) of the MTC were rejected. Sometimes MTK made non-optimal decisions - for example, when it turned out that the gases of the 152-mm guns located in the forecastle would affect the calculation of the six-inch nasal pair, there was a proposal to protect them with special screens on the false-board (although this limited the firing angles), but MTK demanded to move them closer to the centerline of the ship, that is, move closer to each other. The observing commission quite reasonably objected to this that such a decision would complicate the work of the calculations and further restrict the angles of the shelling of the guns than the bulwark, but only managed to convince the MTC that for such a design change Charles Crump canceled the orders made earlier.
Without a doubt, Charles Crump repeatedly proposed solutions that worsen the quality of the cruiser, but simplify the fulfillment of contractual obligations for the American industrialist. Admiral Tyrtov, manager of the maritime ministry, wrote:
“According to Krump, everything is exaggerated here, and I fear that now, having signed a contract, he will demand a reduction in the weight of one thing, then the other, pleading that he cannot meet the requirements”
He was echoed by the naval attache D.F. Mertvago, to whom, by the will of V.P. Verkhovsky had to take part in negotiations with Charles Crump (“The Commission will have to work with subtle cunning”). But this does not mean that any proposal by the Americans is devoid of meaning, and it must be perceived as hostile. So, for example, it is known that Charles Crump offered to install and build Retvizan tower installations in the United States, arguing that American tower installations are better than Russians, since they were tested in battle in the most crushing victories known in the annals of modern naval battles. . To this, the Marine Department manager replied: “The Spaniards did not have projectiles, and the coastal batteries were equipped with guns of the past century. Against such an enemy it is not surprising to be the winner. ”
All this, of course, is correct, and this episode is usually viewed as another attempt by Charles Crump to earn extra money on an additional order, which is harmful to the Russian Imperial Navy. But here's what MA wrote about this. Danilevsky, who can be suspected of anything, but not in the commitment to an American businessman:
"The Yankees have on hand extensive electrical firms and a wide distribution of electrical engineering, far ahead in this respect not only what we have here in Russia, but throughout Western Europe, which serves to guarantee the dignity of those installations that Crump could make. "
In general, all of the above indicates that Charles Crump, no doubt, was primarily focused not on creating the most effective warship, but on formally fulfilling the contract. At the same time, alas, the Maritime Office, despite the measures taken, also failed to create a truly effective system of interaction with the American industrialist and control of its activities.
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