Line cruisers such as "Ishmael." H. 4
In previous articles we looked at history design, especially weapons and armored battle cruisers such as "Izmail", now try to assess the fighting qualities of these ships in general.
I must say that this is very difficult to do.
On the one hand, if you compare "Izmail" with its foreign "colleagues", it turns out that the domestic ship is very much "on horseback". Officially, the Russian ships laid 6 December 1912, so that their closest counterparts should be considered "Tiger" in England (laid in June 1912 g) and "Lutz" in Germany (laid 15 May 1912 g) - you can, of course, take " Hindenburg ", but generally speaking the difference between them is not too great.
So, with all the shortcomings of twelve Russian 356-mm guns described by us, even with the initial speed of the 731 projectile, m / s, they certainly surpass the 8 * 343-mm gun of the English battle cruiser Tiger in their firepower. It goes without saying that the domestic 747,8 kg projectile was much more powerful than the English 635-kg “heavy”, but the difference in the initial speed between them was not too large (759 m / s for the British gun) and for the muzzle energy the English 13,5-inch the artillery system was losing Russian by about 9%. In other words, not only did Izmail outperform the Tiger in the number of main-caliber shafts one and a half times, so his guns were individually more powerful.
If we compare the "Ishmael" with his German "same age" on the tab - the battle cruiser "Hindenburg", then the gap is even greater. With all the undoubted merits of the German 305-mm cannon, its projectile weighed only 405,5 kg, and although the Krupp artillery system gave it a very high speed 855 m / s, it still lost to the domestic 356-mm gun by almost 35%. And there were only eight guns on the Hindenburg, against a dozen of Ishmael.
As for booking, this nomination "Izmail" occupied an honorable second place - behind the Derflinger and Izmail battlecruisers, without a doubt, was significantly superior to "Tiger". Of course, the advantage of less than 9 mm in the thickness of the Izmail armor belt is hardly significant, but behind him the citadel of the domestic ship was covered with 50 mm armor reassembly, which goes into 75 mm bevel, while the Tiger had no such bulkhead at all, and the bevel was only 25,4 mm thick. True, the Tiger artillery grains received box-shaped booking 50,8 mm thick, which, perhaps, together with 25,4 mm bevel, probably corresponded to the Russian 75 mm bevel, but the British cruiser’s engine and boiler rooms did not have such protection. The 229 mm armor of the English cruiser, as well as the Russian, defended the board to the middle deck, but the "Izmail" armor fell to 1,636 m in the water, and the "Tiger" - only 0,69 m. However, for the last 0,83 m Russian the belt had a bevel, and the British ship had a separate 229 mm belt under the 76 mm belt, which defended the submarine at the height of 1,15 m.
However, the main drawback of the British 229 mm armor belt was that it was too short and did not protect the bow and stern towers of the main caliber - there the board of the Tiger protected only 127 mm armor (while the thickness of the barbet behind it was only 76 mm). The Russian 237,5 mm armor was much longer, and protected the board in front of all four 356-mm towers.
The main caliber of Ishmael also had better protection - 305 mm front of the towers, 247,5 mm barbet against 229 mm of Tiger armor, and the only thing that the British battle cruiser had the advantage of was the upper belt and the protection of casemates (152-mm against 100 mm ). Ishmael's horizontal protection — the 37,5 mm upper and 60 mm average decks — of course significantly exceeded those of the Tiger, which had one 25,4 mm thickness of armored deck. True, the forecastle deck and the upper linear cruiser of the British Cruiser had increased to 25,4 mm, but in general, this, of course, did not provide the armor resistance of the horizontal protection of “Izmail”. The “Ishmael” conning tower had a wall thickness of 400 mm, “Tiger” - 254 mm.
As for the “Luttsov”, then, oddly enough, although in terms of booking, “Izmail” was inferior to him, it cannot be said that the defense of the domestic ship was completely incomparable. The height of the Lutzova armor belt was higher - 5,75 m versus 5,25 m, but at the same time 300 mm, the thickness of the “German” was only 2,2 m high, and the rest was only 270 mm, decreasing to the upper edge to 230 mm. Of course, the 237,5 mm armor of the Russian belt is still weaker, even with the above reservations, but the situation is somewhat improved by the 50 mm armor reassembly and the 75 mm bevel - Lyuttsova had a bevel thinner, only 50 mm, there was no armored partition at all.
Comparison of the thickness of armor barbets and towers, although not in favor of the Russian ship, but the difference is extremely small - the front of the tower at Izmail is even thicker (305 mm against 270 mm) barbet - thinner (247,5 mm against 260 mm), but thinner only half an inch, and thicker than, for example, the "Seidlitz" (230 mm). Ishmael’s horizontal protection is definitely better than Lutzow’s - 37,5 mm upper deck and 60 mm average is noticeably better than 25,4 mm upper and 30 (up to 50 mm in the main caliber towers) of the Lutzow. Therefore, we can state that the booking of “Izmail” was not only “somewhere between” “Tiger” and “Luttsovy”, but was much closer to the German battle cruiser than to the English one.
As for the power plants of the ships being compared, the maximum speed of the “Ishmael” at the rated power of the machines was to be 26,5 nodes, at the oversage - up to 28 nodes, that is, equal to that of the Derflinger type cruisers. “Tiger”, with its nominal 28,34 knots and “forced” 29,07 knots, had a definite speed advantage, but the language does not turn to call it significant.
From here it is very easy (and really want to!) To draw the following conclusion: occupying an intermediate position on booking, but surpassing their “same age” in armament, “Izmail”, without a doubt, in a real battle would be a much more dangerous opponent than “Lyuttsov” or "Tiger" - and if so, then the national naval thought deserves every possible approval.
However, this logic will, alas, be incorrect. And the reason is that, whatever one may say, the protection of a ship should be evaluated not from the point of view of “better or worse than this or that ship”, but from the position of matching the level of potential threats. And here, alas, the domestic project of the Izmail battlecruisers had nothing to boast about.
In the article “The battlecruisers' rivalry:“ Seidlitz ”vs.“ Queen Mary ”” we gave examples of how the British 343-mm projectiles pierced 230 mm “Seidlitz” armor at a distance of 70-84 cables. In one case (Jutland) at a distance of 7 for miles, a British ship broke through the 230 mm board, exploded when passing armor and its fragments pierced 30 mm barbet of the main caliber "Seydlitz" and caused a fire in the reloading compartment. In another case (Dogger Bank), the 8,4 mm barbet was broken from the 230 mile. In other words, the armor plates of the specified thickness did not even protect the German ship from the old ones, and in essence, the semi-armor shells of the British battle cruisers, whose detonators had almost no deceleration and undermined the ammunition when overcoming the armor plate or immediately behind it. But even such ammunition would appear to be quite capable of piercing 237,5 mm armor belts and 247,5 mm Barbet "Izmailov" at the main combat distances (70-75 cables). I would like to note that the barbets section between the upper and middle decks of Russian ships also looked vulnerable - it is doubtful that the 100 mm upper belt would detonate the 343-mm projectile, and by overcoming it only 147,5 barbet armor (or 122,5 mm barbet and 25,4 mm An armored overhaul would separate the British projectile from the transshipment compartments of the main caliber towers. True, Russian ships also had a “invulnerability band” - the fact is that the 247,5 mm barbet section did not end on the upper deck, but went down, closing part of the space between the upper and middle decks - in order to overcome the Russian defense on this section , the enemy shell had to pierce first either the 37,5 mm upper deck or the 100 mm upper armor armor, and only then meet with the 247,5 mm barbet armor. This “safety belt” probably protected “Ishmael” from being hit by 343-mm projectiles of the old model, the problem was only that from the entire height of the barbets, the meter with a small one was protected from the force. Below things were ... in something better, but in something not.
Formally, between the middle and lower decks, the feed pipes were protected quite well - with a combination of 237,5 armor and splinterproof 50 mm armored reassembly. But ... as we can see, the British 343 mm shells were able to overcome 230-mm armor without any special problems, and it was unlikely that the 7,5 mm extras could fundamentally solve anything. On the other hand, the 1920 experiments of the year showed incontrovertibly that 305-356-mm guns reliably protected only 75 mm armor from the fragments. Thus, the British projectile, which exploded during the 237,5 mm breakdown of the main armor belt "Ishmael", had every chance to pierce the 50 mm mm armored assembly with its fragments, and there ... and, alas, the supply pipes of the Russian battle cruisers did not protect anything - the armored barbet, like this sadly ended on the middle deck. Nevertheless, and taking into account that the 50 mm bulkhead nevertheless took place under a large slope, and the supply pipe, even without having armor, was still steel and had some thickness, there are certain chances not to miss the red-hot fragments of the projectile offices at "Ishmael" were.
Worse is the other - the presence of a “window” in the protection of barbets. There was an angle at which the enemy projectile, breaking 100 mm upper armor, hit the 12 mm deck, naturally breaking through it - and then only 50 mm armor separated it from the reloading compartments of the towers of the main caliber
However, similar problems had the battleships and battlecruisers of other powers - in those years it was the norm that barbety inside the ship hull were defended "in aggregate", that is, their armor protection was only more or less sufficient when the enemy projectile flew flatly, hitting the armor belt and barbet behind him. The fact that the enemy projectile can fly more steeply, and hit the upper, weaker armor belt or deck, and then penetrate the weakly protected barbet, apparently tried not to think.
In essence, a truly reliable protection from 343-mm projectiles of the old model (not counting the meter-long “safety belt” of barbets between the upper and middle decks) provided only the space behind the 75 mm bevels. Here, yes, no matter how weak the 237,5 mm armor belt "Ishmael", he certainly would have made the British 13,5-inch projectile detonate in the process of its overcoming, and 75 mm bevel reliably protected from shrapnel. In this case, the Russian system of “spaced” armor really worked, providing confident protection against English projectiles ... just until the British had adopted the new, full-fledged “Greenboy” armor-piercing projectiles.
And again, someone may reproach the author of this article with a certain bias - how can this be so, because during many publications he explained the adequacy of protection of both the first Russian dreadnoughts and the first German battlecruisers with the very poor quality of the English armor-piercing shells, whose fuse is almost had a slowdown. Why is it different for Izmailov?
The answer is very simple - it all comes down to the construction time. Both Sevastopol and Empress Maria entered service at the start of World War I, in the 1914-1915 years. And if it had suddenly turned out that we would have fought in this war not against Germany, but against England, then our battleships would be confronted with super-dreadnoughts of the British armed with old 343-mm projectiles. The British received full-fledged 343-mm armor-piercing ammunition only at the end of the war.
But the fact is that the "Ishmaels", even by the most optimistic estimates and assumptions, could not have been put into operation before the end of 1916 - the beginning of 1917 and reached combat readiness for the fall of 1917, that is, just under the British " Grinboi. And for them, Izmailov’s protection was not a problem in any place - at the main distance in 70-75 cabling, they would easily have made a hole in 237,5 mm armor and would be torn off if they hit 75 mm bevel - 3-inch armor couldn’t transfer such “abuse” in principle, it was able to keep fragments of shells of such a caliber only if they exploded 1-1,5 m from it. And the explosion of the projectile on the armor led to a breach, and the space reserved would be affected not only by the fragments of the projectile, but also by the fragments of the armor shattered into smithereens.
In other words, despite the fact that the English 13,5-inch gun was inferior in its capabilities to the Russian 356-mm / 52 gun, even with the initial velocity of the projectile reduced to 731,5 m / s, it, being equipped with a high-quality armor-piercing projectile, is quite capable It was to overcome the armor protection "Izmail" even on the most "strong" of its sites. Alas, even a very good horizontal booking of the Russian ship did not guarantee absolute protection from the shells hit the deck.
The fact is that, as we wrote earlier, the scheme originally adopted for “Izmailov”, in which the upper armored deck was the thickest, was erroneous - shooting tests showed that 305-mm projectiles were broken when they hit the upper 37,5 mm , and the lower decks made their way both with the fragments of the shell itself, and with the armor of the broken deck. Accordingly, "Ishmael" received increased body armor - the top remained as it is, 37,5 mm, but the average was strengthened to 60 mm.
But what is interesting is that after the shelling of “Chesma”, one more tests were carried out, and they looked like that. A log house was made, on top of which 37,5 mm armor was laid, at the bottom - 50,8 mm. When hit with 470,9 kg of a high-explosive projectile, the upper armor plate was expectedly broken through, but its fragments of 50,8 mm could not penetrate the lower armor. However, even the two-inch armor could not hold the fragments of the projectile itself, they pierced 50,8 mm in four places. Accordingly, it can be assumed that 60 mm protection of the middle deck of the "Izmailov", if it could repel such a blow, then only at the limit of the possible. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the horizontal protection of the “Izmailov” was quite capable of withstanding the attacks of the German 305-mm armor-piercing and high-explosive shells, because the latter had a low explosive content: 26,4 kg for high-explosive, that is, the Russian bomb was the same caliber (61,5 kg). Probably, the decks of “Izmail” would also have kept the impact of the semi-subversive English 343-mm projectile (53,3 kg BB), although there are already questions. The British used a more powerful liddite as explosives, however, possessing greater explosiveness, apparently crushed the shell of the projectile into smaller fragments than trinitrotoluene, therefore, it is likely that the impact of the English debris and Russian high-explosive shells can be evaluated (by eye!) As approximately equal. But the blow of a high-explosive 343-mm projectile, "Ishmael", most likely would not have survived, because it had an 80,1 kg of explosives.
As for the hypothetical battle with “Lyuttsovy”, everything seems to be quite good for the Russian ship here - I must say that in terms of confronting 305-mm shells, Izmail’s defense was good enough. Recall that in a real battle, in Jutland, German shells of this caliber 229 mm English cruisers armor punched through the third time - from 9 recorded hits armor punched 4 projectile, while one of them (hitting the "Tiger" tower) completely destroyed moment of armor, did not explode and did not cause any damage. Analyzing the capabilities of the English 343-mm “greenboy”, we came to the conclusion that on the 70-75 cable “Luttsova” booking he was able to penetrate, albeit with difficulty (at angles of contact with the armor plate close to normal, that is, 90 hail) . The Russian 356-mm / 52 gun was more powerful, even with a reduced initial velocity of the projectile, and this seemed to indicate that it would have been even easier for the domestic fourteen-inch “suitcase” to overcome the German defense. All this suggests that in the 70-75 cable course, from the point of view of armor penetration, both the Russian and the German ships would be about equal conditions - their defense would be punched through by the enemy’s projectiles, albeit with difficulty. But taking into account the fact that Izmail had one and a half times more guns, and the armor ’action of the projectile was much higher (due to the greater mass of the projectile and higher content of explosives), the Russian battlecruiser in such a duel should have had an advantage.
But we must not forget that if the domestic 305-mm / 52 obuhovka got into service with the present weapon "Doomsday" - a magnificent 470,9 kg armor-piercing projectile, a real masterpiece of artillery, the first domestic 356-mm projectiles, alas, were far from the desired level. In terms of their armor-piercing qualities, they even lost to the 305-mm "brethren". Yes, of course, later these shortcomings would be corrected, but ... when? It is possible, of course, that the shortcomings of the experimental batch of shells were immediately corrected, and the ships would initially receive a full-fledged ammunition for armament, but we cannot know for certain. And if “Ishmael” would have to fight with “non-conforming” shells, then his superiority over “Luttsov” has sharply decreased, and not the fact that it would have survived at all.
What happened if “Ishmael” was opposed not by “Lutz”, but by “Mackensen”? Alas, nothing good for the Russian ship. The newest German 350-mm cannon, oddly enough, had a choke energy of 0,4% (exactly four percentage points) lower than the 356-mm / 52 gun - the reason is that the German projectile was too lightweight (600 kg, initial speed - 815 m / s), and this meant that at a distance of 70-75 kbt armor penetration of the Russian and German artillery systems would be quite comparable, perhaps slightly lower than the German. However, the protection of the "Izmailov" is obviously weaker - being more or less sufficient from 305-mm shells, it was quite easily penetrated by 343-350 mm ammunition. Thus, "Ishmael" for "Mackensen" was a "glass cannon" - despite the one-and-a-half superiority in the number of barrels, most likely, in a duel with the brainchild of the "gloomy German genius", he would have received decisive damage faster than he could inflict .
In general, it can be stated that in the class of battle cruisers "Izmail" got an obvious advantage only over the "Luttsov", and even then - subject to the availability of high-quality armor-piercing shells on the Russian ship. A duel with "Congo", "Tiger" or "Ripalsom" would be a lottery, because if their defense was permeable to the guns of the domestic battlecruiser, then "Izmail" was quite vulnerable to their projectiles. However, Izmail had a few more chances to win in this lottery, due to the superiority in the number of trunks of the main caliber, as well as due to a good horizontal booking, which, apparently, could protect 343-mm projectile-proof shells from ( 356-mm shells "Congo" - it is doubtful, from the 381-mm guns "Ripalsa" could not defend absolutely for sure).
It seems to be not so bad - but we must not forget that the tactical purpose of Izmail was not to fight the enemy’s battlecruisers, but the role of the “fast wing” as part of the linear fleet. And here the 380-381-mm artillery of the English and German dreadnought did not at all leave the Ishmael a single chance.
Did our ancestors understand this? Apparently - yes, but the awareness of a completely inadequate protection came to them after the tests of "Chesma" in 1913, when the construction of the battle cruisers was already going on. Nevertheless, it was then that calculations were made, according to which it turned out that “Izmail” was an almost perfect combination of “sword and shield”, and almost any foreign battleship could successfully strike. Here is how LA describes the results of these calculations. Kuznetsov, in his own, will not be afraid of this word, the exemplary monograph "Ishmael" -line cruisers:
The first thing I would like to note is the erroneous data on the performance characteristics of foreign battleships, but this is quite explicable: in 1913, the exact data on these ships in MGS might not have been known. The second is much more important - it is obvious that these calculations were made taking into account the nameplate initial speed of domestic 356-mm shells (823 / sec), and not actually achieved (731,5 m / s), that is, the real armor penetration of the guns would be much lower than that that it is accepted in calculations, and this alone should nullify their value for our analysis. But the fact is that even ignoring the overpriced armor penetration, we are forced to state that MGS calculations are erroneous, and, apparently, are intended to mislead those who will get acquainted with their results.
The fact is that according to the test results of Chesma, the artillery department of the Main Command and Control Department (apparently, at that time it was headed by EA Berkalov) the calculations were carried out, the essence of which was to determine the armor penetration rate of 305, 356 and 406 mm shells in the distance in 70 cabel, depending on the course angle of the ship. In fact, there are some questions to the accuracy of these calculations (to which, perhaps, there are quite adequate answers, but, unfortunately, they are not cited in sources known to the author), but now it’s not important - no matter how the calculations were accurate, they were accepted by MGSH in 1913 g as a tool for determining the required level of booking future battleships as early as October 1913. Considering that the debate about booking "Izmailov" continued until November, the calculations by EA Berkalov at the time of the decision were known and already used MGSH.
The essence of these calculations was reduced to the following diagram.
The vertical axis represents the thickness of the pierced armor in the calibers of the projectile, and oblique lines represent the deviation from the normal. That is, when the deviation is equal to 0, the projectile enters the armored plate at an angle of 90 degrees, corrected by the angle of incidence of the projectile (which was 9-10 hail). In other words, with a deflection equal to 0, the projectile hit the slab at an angle of 90 in the horizontal plane and 80-81 in the vertical plane. When deviation in 20 hail, the angle of the projectile in the horizontal plane will be no longer 90, but 70 hail, etc.
We are interested in the graph under the number 2 (it denotes the possibility of armor-piercing shells, when the projectile overcomes the armor as a whole and explodes behind it). So, we see that the projectile, which got into the armor with zero deviation from the normal, is able to penetrate the armor with thickness 1,2 of its own caliber, for 305-mm it is 366 mm, for 356-mm - 427 mm, etc. But when deviating from the normal to 25 hail (the angle between the surface of the plate and the trajectory of the 65 hail), only in its own caliber, i.e. in 305 mm, 356 mm, etc.
So, for example, 241,3 mm armor belt, which was adopted for "Izmail" (why not honest 237,5 mm ?!), is roughly 0,79 caliber twelve-inch projectile. And the 317,5 mm armor belt adopted for the Kaiser is approximately 0,89 caliber for the 356-mm projectile. One glance at the presented diagram suggests that the German battleship is able to hit "Izmail" with a deviation from the normal 33 of a degree or less (that is, with course angle 57 degrees and more), while "Izmail" is able to perforate the enemy armor only when deviating from normals are 29 degrees and less (that is, on the course angle 61 hail or more). In other words, from the standpoint of armor penetration on various course corners, a battleship with 305-mm guns and 317,5 mm armor has at least a slight (approximately 4 degrees) advantage over a linear cruiser with 356-mm guns and 241,3 mm armor. However, the MGSH calculations claim that the advantage for “Izmail”! German 380-mm guns generally leave Ishmael deeply behind - they pierce 241,3 mm armor with a deviation from the normal of approximately 50 hail (that is, the 40 hail and more heading angle), the difference with Ishil 21-5 hail indicated in the calculations!
In general, the MGSH calculation regarding the “Izmaili” could be true only if it was considered that the German cannons are much ... no, not even that: MUCH weaker than the domestic artillery systems of the same caliber in terms of armor penetration. But why would MGSH think so?
But this is not all. Making calculations on 241,3 mm armor at fairly sharp course angles (30 hail), MGS specialists somehow “missed” the fact that such battles for Izmailov were extremely dangerous due to the extreme weakness of the reservation of the traverses. What is for enemy 100 mm heavy armor shells covering the space between the forecastle deck and the upper deck? And how would you evaluate the armor resistance of the space between the upper and middle decks, which "defended" as much as two partitions with a thickness of 25 mm each separated by 8,4 m?
As long as “Ishmael” was holding the enemy off-beam (that is, under the 90 degree angle) and close to this, such “beam” did not create critical vulnerability, especially since in order to get to the beam, you would have to penetrate 100 mm armor board But as soon as the ship turned its nose towards the enemy, the real gates to the depth of the battle cruiser were opened to the latter. For example, there was such a “wonderful” trajectory in which the projectile that hit the forecastle on the deck pierced it in the unarmored part, then 25 mm vertical hole “traverses” and directly beat the nose tower in 147,5 mm. The only consolation was that the deck steel here was thickened to 36 mm, but ... still it was not armor, but ordinary shipbuilding steel.
So, we conclude that the MGS specialists were rare profane and in vain ate their own bread? This is doubtful, and, according to the author of this article, the most likely version of conscious disinformation. What for?
The fact is that at the end of 1913 g it was obvious that the war was already on the threshold and could flare up at any moment. But the Baltic Fleet was completely unprepared for it - to create a full-fledged and efficient squadron, it was considered necessary to have two brigades on the 4 battleship and one brigade of battle cruisers, while in fact the fleet was soon to receive the 4 Sevastopol and that's it. That is, the battlecruisers were needed like air, and any measures that would increase the time period for the construction of the “Izmailov” were to become for MGSH as a sharp knife in the heart.
At the same time, the Marine Ministry was offered projects for the radical restructuring of these ships (for example, the project of MV Bubnov), which had three global shortcomings. The first of these was that the defense of "Izmail" was turned into a "trishkin caftan" - some parts of the ship were booked, but others were critically weakened, which, of course, was unacceptable. The second problem was even more acute - such modifications required a lot of time for implementation.
Well, for example, the project of Vice-Admiral M.V. Bubnova assumed equipping cruisers with armor belts in 305 mm. This, of course, looked great - if you just forget that the maximum thickness of armor plates of the right size, which could be produced by plants of the Russian Empire, was only 273 mm. That is, it was necessary either to modernize production, or to switch to smaller slabs, which also created a number of technical problems that could not be solved in a single step. Or his proposal to increase the thickness of the armor of the towers to 406 mm is a good thing, only three-gun turrets would have to be redesigned, because the additional armor is the weight of the rotating part of the tower, which was not planned and under which the capacities of the corresponding tower-rotating mechanisms were not calculated.
And finally, the third problem was that the reinforcement of the reservation was achieved at the cost of speed, so that "Ishmael" essentially turned from a battle cruiser to a dreadnought, which the admirals did not want at all. They were well aware that high speed would give the Ishmaels the opportunity to act even in conditions of superiority of the enemy fleet, because if necessary, the battlecruisers would be able to "retreat to previously prepared positions."
In general, MGSH obviously preferred to have 4 powerful and high-speed, though not very well-protected battlecruisers in the fleet in the impending war, than the 4 improved (but still not perfect) ship after it. From the perspective of today, it was quite correct. Nevertheless, the basis of the German Hochseeflotte was battleships and battlecruisers with 280-305-mm artillery, and against such guns, Izmailov armor was relatively well protected.
Nevertheless, such projects required notifying the tsar-father, who the fleet loved, but did not understand him very well and could well be tempted by the formal improvement of the performance characteristics. Accordingly, the hypothesis of the author of this article is that the comparison of "Ishmael" with the battleships of France, Germany and England was made in order to convince everyone that in their present form the ships are quite combat-ready and formidable for any opponent - although in fact, of course, there was nothing like that.
In fact, the "Ishmaels" were a type of heavily armed high-speed ship, whose booking was well protected from projectiles up to 305-mm inclusive. Nevertheless, for any ship with guns from 343-mm and above, “Izmail” was a completely “accessible” target, and no tricks with course angles could solve anything here. As a matter of fact, if someone took these course angles seriously, then one would have expected a mandatory reinforcement of the traverses that would have to be “shown” to the enemy at such angles, but this was not done.
Due to a design error, the real 356-mm / 52 TTX guns turned out to be much lower than expected, and therefore Izmail actually had no advantage over any battleship equipped with 10-mm guns, and only ships with 12-mm guns and above significantly exceeded it. Fewer barrels here were fully offset by increased armor penetration and the shells power. But at the same time, "Izmail" in booking was inferior to almost all dreadnoughts with guns of caliber 356-mm and above. Yes, he surpassed most of them in speed, but in this case it gave only one advantage - to escape from the battlefield in time.
We have to admit that “Ishmael”, in case of its construction, would categorically lose any 356-mm dreadnought in some free-maneuver zones, and even succumbed to some “305-mm” battleships (Koenig and Kaiser). This does not mean that he could not fight the latter, moreover, most likely, in a duel with the same Koenig, Izmail would have been successful due to superiority in artillery, but the battle with the same Iron Duke was for “ Ishmael is deadly, and the Queen Elizabeth or Bayern would just tear the Russian battlecruiser into pieces.
If by some miracle, a brigade of Izmail-class battlecruisers was at our disposal at the beginning of World War I, then these would be extremely useful and timely ships capable of providing many active operations. Possessing superiority in speed, very powerful weapons for 1914-1915 and acceptable against 280-305-mm German guns booking, they could completely dominate the Baltic Sea, and in order to counteract this, the Germans would need much more numerous forces. In this case, the "Ishmaels" could escape from the enemy dreadnoughts, if there were more of those, and the battlecruisers who could catch up with them, in a battle with the four "Ishmaels", did not shine at all.
However, under no circumstances did the “Ishmaels” succeed by the beginning of the First World War, they should have been put into operation later, in the era of super-dreadnoughts armed with 356-406-mm artillery, which the Russian battlecruisers could not resist successfully . And this, unfortunately, does not allow us to consider battle cruisers of the “Izmail” type as a great success of Russian naval thought.
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I must say that this is very difficult to do.
On the one hand, if you compare "Izmail" with its foreign "colleagues", it turns out that the domestic ship is very much "on horseback". Officially, the Russian ships laid 6 December 1912, so that their closest counterparts should be considered "Tiger" in England (laid in June 1912 g) and "Lutz" in Germany (laid 15 May 1912 g) - you can, of course, take " Hindenburg ", but generally speaking the difference between them is not too great.
So, with all the shortcomings of twelve Russian 356-mm guns described by us, even with the initial speed of the 731 projectile, m / s, they certainly surpass the 8 * 343-mm gun of the English battle cruiser Tiger in their firepower. It goes without saying that the domestic 747,8 kg projectile was much more powerful than the English 635-kg “heavy”, but the difference in the initial speed between them was not too large (759 m / s for the British gun) and for the muzzle energy the English 13,5-inch the artillery system was losing Russian by about 9%. In other words, not only did Izmail outperform the Tiger in the number of main-caliber shafts one and a half times, so his guns were individually more powerful.
If we compare the "Ishmael" with his German "same age" on the tab - the battle cruiser "Hindenburg", then the gap is even greater. With all the undoubted merits of the German 305-mm cannon, its projectile weighed only 405,5 kg, and although the Krupp artillery system gave it a very high speed 855 m / s, it still lost to the domestic 356-mm gun by almost 35%. And there were only eight guns on the Hindenburg, against a dozen of Ishmael.
As for booking, this nomination "Izmail" occupied an honorable second place - behind the Derflinger and Izmail battlecruisers, without a doubt, was significantly superior to "Tiger". Of course, the advantage of less than 9 mm in the thickness of the Izmail armor belt is hardly significant, but behind him the citadel of the domestic ship was covered with 50 mm armor reassembly, which goes into 75 mm bevel, while the Tiger had no such bulkhead at all, and the bevel was only 25,4 mm thick. True, the Tiger artillery grains received box-shaped booking 50,8 mm thick, which, perhaps, together with 25,4 mm bevel, probably corresponded to the Russian 75 mm bevel, but the British cruiser’s engine and boiler rooms did not have such protection. The 229 mm armor of the English cruiser, as well as the Russian, defended the board to the middle deck, but the "Izmail" armor fell to 1,636 m in the water, and the "Tiger" - only 0,69 m. However, for the last 0,83 m Russian the belt had a bevel, and the British ship had a separate 229 mm belt under the 76 mm belt, which defended the submarine at the height of 1,15 m.
However, the main drawback of the British 229 mm armor belt was that it was too short and did not protect the bow and stern towers of the main caliber - there the board of the Tiger protected only 127 mm armor (while the thickness of the barbet behind it was only 76 mm). The Russian 237,5 mm armor was much longer, and protected the board in front of all four 356-mm towers.
The main caliber of Ishmael also had better protection - 305 mm front of the towers, 247,5 mm barbet against 229 mm of Tiger armor, and the only thing that the British battle cruiser had the advantage of was the upper belt and the protection of casemates (152-mm against 100 mm ). Ishmael's horizontal protection — the 37,5 mm upper and 60 mm average decks — of course significantly exceeded those of the Tiger, which had one 25,4 mm thickness of armored deck. True, the forecastle deck and the upper linear cruiser of the British Cruiser had increased to 25,4 mm, but in general, this, of course, did not provide the armor resistance of the horizontal protection of “Izmail”. The “Ishmael” conning tower had a wall thickness of 400 mm, “Tiger” - 254 mm.
As for the “Luttsov”, then, oddly enough, although in terms of booking, “Izmail” was inferior to him, it cannot be said that the defense of the domestic ship was completely incomparable. The height of the Lutzova armor belt was higher - 5,75 m versus 5,25 m, but at the same time 300 mm, the thickness of the “German” was only 2,2 m high, and the rest was only 270 mm, decreasing to the upper edge to 230 mm. Of course, the 237,5 mm armor of the Russian belt is still weaker, even with the above reservations, but the situation is somewhat improved by the 50 mm armor reassembly and the 75 mm bevel - Lyuttsova had a bevel thinner, only 50 mm, there was no armored partition at all.
Comparison of the thickness of armor barbets and towers, although not in favor of the Russian ship, but the difference is extremely small - the front of the tower at Izmail is even thicker (305 mm against 270 mm) barbet - thinner (247,5 mm against 260 mm), but thinner only half an inch, and thicker than, for example, the "Seidlitz" (230 mm). Ishmael’s horizontal protection is definitely better than Lutzow’s - 37,5 mm upper deck and 60 mm average is noticeably better than 25,4 mm upper and 30 (up to 50 mm in the main caliber towers) of the Lutzow. Therefore, we can state that the booking of “Izmail” was not only “somewhere between” “Tiger” and “Luttsovy”, but was much closer to the German battle cruiser than to the English one.
As for the power plants of the ships being compared, the maximum speed of the “Ishmael” at the rated power of the machines was to be 26,5 nodes, at the oversage - up to 28 nodes, that is, equal to that of the Derflinger type cruisers. “Tiger”, with its nominal 28,34 knots and “forced” 29,07 knots, had a definite speed advantage, but the language does not turn to call it significant.
From here it is very easy (and really want to!) To draw the following conclusion: occupying an intermediate position on booking, but surpassing their “same age” in armament, “Izmail”, without a doubt, in a real battle would be a much more dangerous opponent than “Lyuttsov” or "Tiger" - and if so, then the national naval thought deserves every possible approval.
However, this logic will, alas, be incorrect. And the reason is that, whatever one may say, the protection of a ship should be evaluated not from the point of view of “better or worse than this or that ship”, but from the position of matching the level of potential threats. And here, alas, the domestic project of the Izmail battlecruisers had nothing to boast about.
In the article “The battlecruisers' rivalry:“ Seidlitz ”vs.“ Queen Mary ”” we gave examples of how the British 343-mm projectiles pierced 230 mm “Seidlitz” armor at a distance of 70-84 cables. In one case (Jutland) at a distance of 7 for miles, a British ship broke through the 230 mm board, exploded when passing armor and its fragments pierced 30 mm barbet of the main caliber "Seydlitz" and caused a fire in the reloading compartment. In another case (Dogger Bank), the 8,4 mm barbet was broken from the 230 mile. In other words, the armor plates of the specified thickness did not even protect the German ship from the old ones, and in essence, the semi-armor shells of the British battle cruisers, whose detonators had almost no deceleration and undermined the ammunition when overcoming the armor plate or immediately behind it. But even such ammunition would appear to be quite capable of piercing 237,5 mm armor belts and 247,5 mm Barbet "Izmailov" at the main combat distances (70-75 cables). I would like to note that the barbets section between the upper and middle decks of Russian ships also looked vulnerable - it is doubtful that the 100 mm upper belt would detonate the 343-mm projectile, and by overcoming it only 147,5 barbet armor (or 122,5 mm barbet and 25,4 mm An armored overhaul would separate the British projectile from the transshipment compartments of the main caliber towers. True, Russian ships also had a “invulnerability band” - the fact is that the 247,5 mm barbet section did not end on the upper deck, but went down, closing part of the space between the upper and middle decks - in order to overcome the Russian defense on this section , the enemy shell had to pierce first either the 37,5 mm upper deck or the 100 mm upper armor armor, and only then meet with the 247,5 mm barbet armor. This “safety belt” probably protected “Ishmael” from being hit by 343-mm projectiles of the old model, the problem was only that from the entire height of the barbets, the meter with a small one was protected from the force. Below things were ... in something better, but in something not.
Formally, between the middle and lower decks, the feed pipes were protected quite well - with a combination of 237,5 armor and splinterproof 50 mm armored reassembly. But ... as we can see, the British 343 mm shells were able to overcome 230-mm armor without any special problems, and it was unlikely that the 7,5 mm extras could fundamentally solve anything. On the other hand, the 1920 experiments of the year showed incontrovertibly that 305-356-mm guns reliably protected only 75 mm armor from the fragments. Thus, the British projectile, which exploded during the 237,5 mm breakdown of the main armor belt "Ishmael", had every chance to pierce the 50 mm mm armored assembly with its fragments, and there ... and, alas, the supply pipes of the Russian battle cruisers did not protect anything - the armored barbet, like this sadly ended on the middle deck. Nevertheless, and taking into account that the 50 mm bulkhead nevertheless took place under a large slope, and the supply pipe, even without having armor, was still steel and had some thickness, there are certain chances not to miss the red-hot fragments of the projectile offices at "Ishmael" were.
Worse is the other - the presence of a “window” in the protection of barbets. There was an angle at which the enemy projectile, breaking 100 mm upper armor, hit the 12 mm deck, naturally breaking through it - and then only 50 mm armor separated it from the reloading compartments of the towers of the main caliber
However, similar problems had the battleships and battlecruisers of other powers - in those years it was the norm that barbety inside the ship hull were defended "in aggregate", that is, their armor protection was only more or less sufficient when the enemy projectile flew flatly, hitting the armor belt and barbet behind him. The fact that the enemy projectile can fly more steeply, and hit the upper, weaker armor belt or deck, and then penetrate the weakly protected barbet, apparently tried not to think.
In essence, a truly reliable protection from 343-mm projectiles of the old model (not counting the meter-long “safety belt” of barbets between the upper and middle decks) provided only the space behind the 75 mm bevels. Here, yes, no matter how weak the 237,5 mm armor belt "Ishmael", he certainly would have made the British 13,5-inch projectile detonate in the process of its overcoming, and 75 mm bevel reliably protected from shrapnel. In this case, the Russian system of “spaced” armor really worked, providing confident protection against English projectiles ... just until the British had adopted the new, full-fledged “Greenboy” armor-piercing projectiles.
And again, someone may reproach the author of this article with a certain bias - how can this be so, because during many publications he explained the adequacy of protection of both the first Russian dreadnoughts and the first German battlecruisers with the very poor quality of the English armor-piercing shells, whose fuse is almost had a slowdown. Why is it different for Izmailov?
The answer is very simple - it all comes down to the construction time. Both Sevastopol and Empress Maria entered service at the start of World War I, in the 1914-1915 years. And if it had suddenly turned out that we would have fought in this war not against Germany, but against England, then our battleships would be confronted with super-dreadnoughts of the British armed with old 343-mm projectiles. The British received full-fledged 343-mm armor-piercing ammunition only at the end of the war.
But the fact is that the "Ishmaels", even by the most optimistic estimates and assumptions, could not have been put into operation before the end of 1916 - the beginning of 1917 and reached combat readiness for the fall of 1917, that is, just under the British " Grinboi. And for them, Izmailov’s protection was not a problem in any place - at the main distance in 70-75 cabling, they would easily have made a hole in 237,5 mm armor and would be torn off if they hit 75 mm bevel - 3-inch armor couldn’t transfer such “abuse” in principle, it was able to keep fragments of shells of such a caliber only if they exploded 1-1,5 m from it. And the explosion of the projectile on the armor led to a breach, and the space reserved would be affected not only by the fragments of the projectile, but also by the fragments of the armor shattered into smithereens.
In other words, despite the fact that the English 13,5-inch gun was inferior in its capabilities to the Russian 356-mm / 52 gun, even with the initial velocity of the projectile reduced to 731,5 m / s, it, being equipped with a high-quality armor-piercing projectile, is quite capable It was to overcome the armor protection "Izmail" even on the most "strong" of its sites. Alas, even a very good horizontal booking of the Russian ship did not guarantee absolute protection from the shells hit the deck.
The fact is that, as we wrote earlier, the scheme originally adopted for “Izmailov”, in which the upper armored deck was the thickest, was erroneous - shooting tests showed that 305-mm projectiles were broken when they hit the upper 37,5 mm , and the lower decks made their way both with the fragments of the shell itself, and with the armor of the broken deck. Accordingly, "Ishmael" received increased body armor - the top remained as it is, 37,5 mm, but the average was strengthened to 60 mm.
But what is interesting is that after the shelling of “Chesma”, one more tests were carried out, and they looked like that. A log house was made, on top of which 37,5 mm armor was laid, at the bottom - 50,8 mm. When hit with 470,9 kg of a high-explosive projectile, the upper armor plate was expectedly broken through, but its fragments of 50,8 mm could not penetrate the lower armor. However, even the two-inch armor could not hold the fragments of the projectile itself, they pierced 50,8 mm in four places. Accordingly, it can be assumed that 60 mm protection of the middle deck of the "Izmailov", if it could repel such a blow, then only at the limit of the possible. Accordingly, it can be assumed that the horizontal protection of the “Izmailov” was quite capable of withstanding the attacks of the German 305-mm armor-piercing and high-explosive shells, because the latter had a low explosive content: 26,4 kg for high-explosive, that is, the Russian bomb was the same caliber (61,5 kg). Probably, the decks of “Izmail” would also have kept the impact of the semi-subversive English 343-mm projectile (53,3 kg BB), although there are already questions. The British used a more powerful liddite as explosives, however, possessing greater explosiveness, apparently crushed the shell of the projectile into smaller fragments than trinitrotoluene, therefore, it is likely that the impact of the English debris and Russian high-explosive shells can be evaluated (by eye!) As approximately equal. But the blow of a high-explosive 343-mm projectile, "Ishmael", most likely would not have survived, because it had an 80,1 kg of explosives.
As for the hypothetical battle with “Lyuttsovy”, everything seems to be quite good for the Russian ship here - I must say that in terms of confronting 305-mm shells, Izmail’s defense was good enough. Recall that in a real battle, in Jutland, German shells of this caliber 229 mm English cruisers armor punched through the third time - from 9 recorded hits armor punched 4 projectile, while one of them (hitting the "Tiger" tower) completely destroyed moment of armor, did not explode and did not cause any damage. Analyzing the capabilities of the English 343-mm “greenboy”, we came to the conclusion that on the 70-75 cable “Luttsova” booking he was able to penetrate, albeit with difficulty (at angles of contact with the armor plate close to normal, that is, 90 hail) . The Russian 356-mm / 52 gun was more powerful, even with a reduced initial velocity of the projectile, and this seemed to indicate that it would have been even easier for the domestic fourteen-inch “suitcase” to overcome the German defense. All this suggests that in the 70-75 cable course, from the point of view of armor penetration, both the Russian and the German ships would be about equal conditions - their defense would be punched through by the enemy’s projectiles, albeit with difficulty. But taking into account the fact that Izmail had one and a half times more guns, and the armor ’action of the projectile was much higher (due to the greater mass of the projectile and higher content of explosives), the Russian battlecruiser in such a duel should have had an advantage.
But we must not forget that if the domestic 305-mm / 52 obuhovka got into service with the present weapon "Doomsday" - a magnificent 470,9 kg armor-piercing projectile, a real masterpiece of artillery, the first domestic 356-mm projectiles, alas, were far from the desired level. In terms of their armor-piercing qualities, they even lost to the 305-mm "brethren". Yes, of course, later these shortcomings would be corrected, but ... when? It is possible, of course, that the shortcomings of the experimental batch of shells were immediately corrected, and the ships would initially receive a full-fledged ammunition for armament, but we cannot know for certain. And if “Ishmael” would have to fight with “non-conforming” shells, then his superiority over “Luttsov” has sharply decreased, and not the fact that it would have survived at all.
What happened if “Ishmael” was opposed not by “Lutz”, but by “Mackensen”? Alas, nothing good for the Russian ship. The newest German 350-mm cannon, oddly enough, had a choke energy of 0,4% (exactly four percentage points) lower than the 356-mm / 52 gun - the reason is that the German projectile was too lightweight (600 kg, initial speed - 815 m / s), and this meant that at a distance of 70-75 kbt armor penetration of the Russian and German artillery systems would be quite comparable, perhaps slightly lower than the German. However, the protection of the "Izmailov" is obviously weaker - being more or less sufficient from 305-mm shells, it was quite easily penetrated by 343-350 mm ammunition. Thus, "Ishmael" for "Mackensen" was a "glass cannon" - despite the one-and-a-half superiority in the number of barrels, most likely, in a duel with the brainchild of the "gloomy German genius", he would have received decisive damage faster than he could inflict .
In general, it can be stated that in the class of battle cruisers "Izmail" got an obvious advantage only over the "Luttsov", and even then - subject to the availability of high-quality armor-piercing shells on the Russian ship. A duel with "Congo", "Tiger" or "Ripalsom" would be a lottery, because if their defense was permeable to the guns of the domestic battlecruiser, then "Izmail" was quite vulnerable to their projectiles. However, Izmail had a few more chances to win in this lottery, due to the superiority in the number of trunks of the main caliber, as well as due to a good horizontal booking, which, apparently, could protect 343-mm projectile-proof shells from ( 356-mm shells "Congo" - it is doubtful, from the 381-mm guns "Ripalsa" could not defend absolutely for sure).
The battle cruiser Navarin (in the background is the Borodino hull)
It seems to be not so bad - but we must not forget that the tactical purpose of Izmail was not to fight the enemy’s battlecruisers, but the role of the “fast wing” as part of the linear fleet. And here the 380-381-mm artillery of the English and German dreadnought did not at all leave the Ishmael a single chance.
Did our ancestors understand this? Apparently - yes, but the awareness of a completely inadequate protection came to them after the tests of "Chesma" in 1913, when the construction of the battle cruisers was already going on. Nevertheless, it was then that calculations were made, according to which it turned out that “Izmail” was an almost perfect combination of “sword and shield”, and almost any foreign battleship could successfully strike. Here is how LA describes the results of these calculations. Kuznetsov, in his own, will not be afraid of this word, the exemplary monograph "Ishmael" -line cruisers:
"... m MGSH even considered the hypothetical fights of the armored cruiser" Izmail "(with 241,3 mm side belt on course corners 30-90 hail) with a number of foreign battleships: the French Normandy, the German Kaiser and König, and the English Iron Duke. As a result of the calculations made by the staff of the headquarters, the following became clear: during the fight with the first (12 * 343-mm guns, 317,5 mm belt, 21,5 knots speed) the Russian cruiser had considerable freedom to maneuver and, possessing a large stroke, pierced his armor at all meeting angles, and distance advantage could exceed 20 kb; in the collision with the second (10 * 305-mm guns, 317,5 mm armor, speed 21 knots) advantages in freedom of maneuvering, armor penetration at different angles and tactical speed also remained with "Izmail", with a fight with the third (8 * 380-mm guns , 317,5 mm belt, 25 knots) freedom of maneuvering, though insignificant, (5-8 hail) remained behind the German ship, but Russian took priority in tactical speed and number of guns; Similarly, with the British battleship (10 * 343-mm guns, 343 mm belt, speed 21 knots), taking into account the advantages of the armored cruiser in the course and angles of attack (tactical speed), the superiority of his opponent could be less than the above 5 -8 hail.
The first thing I would like to note is the erroneous data on the performance characteristics of foreign battleships, but this is quite explicable: in 1913, the exact data on these ships in MGS might not have been known. The second is much more important - it is obvious that these calculations were made taking into account the nameplate initial speed of domestic 356-mm shells (823 / sec), and not actually achieved (731,5 m / s), that is, the real armor penetration of the guns would be much lower than that that it is accepted in calculations, and this alone should nullify their value for our analysis. But the fact is that even ignoring the overpriced armor penetration, we are forced to state that MGS calculations are erroneous, and, apparently, are intended to mislead those who will get acquainted with their results.
The fact is that according to the test results of Chesma, the artillery department of the Main Command and Control Department (apparently, at that time it was headed by EA Berkalov) the calculations were carried out, the essence of which was to determine the armor penetration rate of 305, 356 and 406 mm shells in the distance in 70 cabel, depending on the course angle of the ship. In fact, there are some questions to the accuracy of these calculations (to which, perhaps, there are quite adequate answers, but, unfortunately, they are not cited in sources known to the author), but now it’s not important - no matter how the calculations were accurate, they were accepted by MGSH in 1913 g as a tool for determining the required level of booking future battleships as early as October 1913. Considering that the debate about booking "Izmailov" continued until November, the calculations by EA Berkalov at the time of the decision were known and already used MGSH.
The essence of these calculations was reduced to the following diagram.
The vertical axis represents the thickness of the pierced armor in the calibers of the projectile, and oblique lines represent the deviation from the normal. That is, when the deviation is equal to 0, the projectile enters the armored plate at an angle of 90 degrees, corrected by the angle of incidence of the projectile (which was 9-10 hail). In other words, with a deflection equal to 0, the projectile hit the slab at an angle of 90 in the horizontal plane and 80-81 in the vertical plane. When deviation in 20 hail, the angle of the projectile in the horizontal plane will be no longer 90, but 70 hail, etc.
We are interested in the graph under the number 2 (it denotes the possibility of armor-piercing shells, when the projectile overcomes the armor as a whole and explodes behind it). So, we see that the projectile, which got into the armor with zero deviation from the normal, is able to penetrate the armor with thickness 1,2 of its own caliber, for 305-mm it is 366 mm, for 356-mm - 427 mm, etc. But when deviating from the normal to 25 hail (the angle between the surface of the plate and the trajectory of the 65 hail), only in its own caliber, i.e. in 305 mm, 356 mm, etc.
So, for example, 241,3 mm armor belt, which was adopted for "Izmail" (why not honest 237,5 mm ?!), is roughly 0,79 caliber twelve-inch projectile. And the 317,5 mm armor belt adopted for the Kaiser is approximately 0,89 caliber for the 356-mm projectile. One glance at the presented diagram suggests that the German battleship is able to hit "Izmail" with a deviation from the normal 33 of a degree or less (that is, with course angle 57 degrees and more), while "Izmail" is able to perforate the enemy armor only when deviating from normals are 29 degrees and less (that is, on the course angle 61 hail or more). In other words, from the standpoint of armor penetration on various course corners, a battleship with 305-mm guns and 317,5 mm armor has at least a slight (approximately 4 degrees) advantage over a linear cruiser with 356-mm guns and 241,3 mm armor. However, the MGSH calculations claim that the advantage for “Izmail”! German 380-mm guns generally leave Ishmael deeply behind - they pierce 241,3 mm armor with a deviation from the normal of approximately 50 hail (that is, the 40 hail and more heading angle), the difference with Ishil 21-5 hail indicated in the calculations!
In general, the MGSH calculation regarding the “Izmaili” could be true only if it was considered that the German cannons are much ... no, not even that: MUCH weaker than the domestic artillery systems of the same caliber in terms of armor penetration. But why would MGSH think so?
But this is not all. Making calculations on 241,3 mm armor at fairly sharp course angles (30 hail), MGS specialists somehow “missed” the fact that such battles for Izmailov were extremely dangerous due to the extreme weakness of the reservation of the traverses. What is for enemy 100 mm heavy armor shells covering the space between the forecastle deck and the upper deck? And how would you evaluate the armor resistance of the space between the upper and middle decks, which "defended" as much as two partitions with a thickness of 25 mm each separated by 8,4 m?
As long as “Ishmael” was holding the enemy off-beam (that is, under the 90 degree angle) and close to this, such “beam” did not create critical vulnerability, especially since in order to get to the beam, you would have to penetrate 100 mm armor board But as soon as the ship turned its nose towards the enemy, the real gates to the depth of the battle cruiser were opened to the latter. For example, there was such a “wonderful” trajectory in which the projectile that hit the forecastle on the deck pierced it in the unarmored part, then 25 mm vertical hole “traverses” and directly beat the nose tower in 147,5 mm. The only consolation was that the deck steel here was thickened to 36 mm, but ... still it was not armor, but ordinary shipbuilding steel.
So, we conclude that the MGS specialists were rare profane and in vain ate their own bread? This is doubtful, and, according to the author of this article, the most likely version of conscious disinformation. What for?
The fact is that at the end of 1913 g it was obvious that the war was already on the threshold and could flare up at any moment. But the Baltic Fleet was completely unprepared for it - to create a full-fledged and efficient squadron, it was considered necessary to have two brigades on the 4 battleship and one brigade of battle cruisers, while in fact the fleet was soon to receive the 4 Sevastopol and that's it. That is, the battlecruisers were needed like air, and any measures that would increase the time period for the construction of the “Izmailov” were to become for MGSH as a sharp knife in the heart.
At the same time, the Marine Ministry was offered projects for the radical restructuring of these ships (for example, the project of MV Bubnov), which had three global shortcomings. The first of these was that the defense of "Izmail" was turned into a "trishkin caftan" - some parts of the ship were booked, but others were critically weakened, which, of course, was unacceptable. The second problem was even more acute - such modifications required a lot of time for implementation.
Well, for example, the project of Vice-Admiral M.V. Bubnova assumed equipping cruisers with armor belts in 305 mm. This, of course, looked great - if you just forget that the maximum thickness of armor plates of the right size, which could be produced by plants of the Russian Empire, was only 273 mm. That is, it was necessary either to modernize production, or to switch to smaller slabs, which also created a number of technical problems that could not be solved in a single step. Or his proposal to increase the thickness of the armor of the towers to 406 mm is a good thing, only three-gun turrets would have to be redesigned, because the additional armor is the weight of the rotating part of the tower, which was not planned and under which the capacities of the corresponding tower-rotating mechanisms were not calculated.
And finally, the third problem was that the reinforcement of the reservation was achieved at the cost of speed, so that "Ishmael" essentially turned from a battle cruiser to a dreadnought, which the admirals did not want at all. They were well aware that high speed would give the Ishmaels the opportunity to act even in conditions of superiority of the enemy fleet, because if necessary, the battlecruisers would be able to "retreat to previously prepared positions."
In general, MGSH obviously preferred to have 4 powerful and high-speed, though not very well-protected battlecruisers in the fleet in the impending war, than the 4 improved (but still not perfect) ship after it. From the perspective of today, it was quite correct. Nevertheless, the basis of the German Hochseeflotte was battleships and battlecruisers with 280-305-mm artillery, and against such guns, Izmailov armor was relatively well protected.
Nevertheless, such projects required notifying the tsar-father, who the fleet loved, but did not understand him very well and could well be tempted by the formal improvement of the performance characteristics. Accordingly, the hypothesis of the author of this article is that the comparison of "Ishmael" with the battleships of France, Germany and England was made in order to convince everyone that in their present form the ships are quite combat-ready and formidable for any opponent - although in fact, of course, there was nothing like that.
In fact, the "Ishmaels" were a type of heavily armed high-speed ship, whose booking was well protected from projectiles up to 305-mm inclusive. Nevertheless, for any ship with guns from 343-mm and above, “Izmail” was a completely “accessible” target, and no tricks with course angles could solve anything here. As a matter of fact, if someone took these course angles seriously, then one would have expected a mandatory reinforcement of the traverses that would have to be “shown” to the enemy at such angles, but this was not done.
Due to a design error, the real 356-mm / 52 TTX guns turned out to be much lower than expected, and therefore Izmail actually had no advantage over any battleship equipped with 10-mm guns, and only ships with 12-mm guns and above significantly exceeded it. Fewer barrels here were fully offset by increased armor penetration and the shells power. But at the same time, "Izmail" in booking was inferior to almost all dreadnoughts with guns of caliber 356-mm and above. Yes, he surpassed most of them in speed, but in this case it gave only one advantage - to escape from the battlefield in time.
We have to admit that “Ishmael”, in case of its construction, would categorically lose any 356-mm dreadnought in some free-maneuver zones, and even succumbed to some “305-mm” battleships (Koenig and Kaiser). This does not mean that he could not fight the latter, moreover, most likely, in a duel with the same Koenig, Izmail would have been successful due to superiority in artillery, but the battle with the same Iron Duke was for “ Ishmael is deadly, and the Queen Elizabeth or Bayern would just tear the Russian battlecruiser into pieces.
If by some miracle, a brigade of Izmail-class battlecruisers was at our disposal at the beginning of World War I, then these would be extremely useful and timely ships capable of providing many active operations. Possessing superiority in speed, very powerful weapons for 1914-1915 and acceptable against 280-305-mm German guns booking, they could completely dominate the Baltic Sea, and in order to counteract this, the Germans would need much more numerous forces. In this case, the "Ishmaels" could escape from the enemy dreadnoughts, if there were more of those, and the battlecruisers who could catch up with them, in a battle with the four "Ishmaels", did not shine at all.
However, under no circumstances did the “Ishmaels” succeed by the beginning of the First World War, they should have been put into operation later, in the era of super-dreadnoughts armed with 356-406-mm artillery, which the Russian battlecruisers could not resist successfully . And this, unfortunately, does not allow us to consider battle cruisers of the “Izmail” type as a great success of Russian naval thought.
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