Jewels of the Russian Imperial Navy. "Pearls" and "Emerald". Libava - Madagascar
Pearls
It should be noted that the “Pearl”, being the lead cruiser in the series, was always considered by the leadership of the Nevsky Plant as a priority ship, and with the start of the war, the builders' efforts were focused on it. Therefore, of course, "Pearl" was built and better, and was in the best technical condition at the time of leaving Libau. Nevertheless, he still failed to complete the test cycle, and was to be expected during the cruise of various ship-borne “childhood diseases”. In addition, there was another problem - non-technical nature. The fact is that the Russian Empire had difficulties with the crews - urgently commissioning and acquiring warships abroad, she simply did not have time to prepare the crews for them.
According to the report of the cruiser commander, on the ship entrusted to him 33% of the total number of crews were “spare lower ranks”, and another 20% - young sailors. In other words, “Pearls” went on a hike and a battle with more than 50% of unprepared crew who needed additional training. This, of course, does not mean that the other ships of the squadron were the same, but on the "Pearl" things were exactly that.
In general, the cruiser showed quite acceptable technical reliability, although the march began with embarrassment: at the very first stop at about. Langeland (Great Belt Strait) managed to drown the boat number XXUMX. When it was launched, the nasal cable broke off, causing the boat to hang on one davit, bent it, and then went under water. At the drowning site, the boats dropped a buoy, but they did not manage to find it. Then they decided to at least repair the bent davit, but alas, they did not succeed here, having drowned it also during an attempt to transfer to the floating master Kamchatka.
However, the only truly serious problem the ship encountered was the poor performance of the steering system, which was especially evident just before the arrival of “Pearls” in Madagascar: the cardan Hooke three times broke. The first time it happened when the squadron entered the Atlantic Ocean, again - October 14, and the third time November NN, on the way to Djibouti. And in the second and third time it turned out that the Hooke gimbal failed at the very moment when the electric drive did not work either. As a result, on October 18, the cruiser had to stop the cars for repairs, and on November 14, although the cars did not stop, the Pearl was forced to raise the “I can't be controlled”. Management had to be transferred to the steering compartment, where they were given commands by voice, after which the cruiser was able to return to service. This time, the fault was corrected within 18 hours.
Thus, the steering "Pearls" required special attention. The commander of the cruiser had to go on a number of preventive measures, among which were the purchase of spare parts, which often failed, in order to keep them on board the ship permanently. In addition, constant monitoring of the steering was organized, and all this gave a positive result. According to P.P. Levitsky: "... damage often happened before the arrival of the cruiser to Madagascar, but after that, everything was so well established that such cases of damage did not happen until the arrival of the cruiser in Vladivostok."
True, all of the above was related to the electric drive of the steering wheel - it worked very badly during the whole campaign, and did not act in the Tsushima battle. And besides, a significant steering accident had happened in Madagascar itself, but this was not related to the steering gears: the steering wheel feather was damaged. After one of the cruiser's exits from the parking at sea, a malfunction was discovered - apparently the ship did not respond well to changes in course. On examination, it turned out that the rivets holding the steering wheel rivets were riveted, which is why the steering frame was partially exposed. It took 9 days of hard work to fix the damage, according to P.P. Levitsky divers worked around the clock. They pulled the casing through the bolts, after which he came back to normal and there was no complaint about the steering pen up to Vladivostok itself.
As for the rest, as noted by the commander of the "Pearl" P.P. Levitsky, in his testimony of the Investigation Commission: “There was no damage to the boilers and mechanisms that were more or less serious and could interfere with the cruiser with a squadron or reduce its combat ability; the unimportant damages that occurred were corrected immediately by ship’s means. ”
A very interesting description of the ride quality of the “Pearl” given by its commander. In his words, “the normal deepening of the cruiser in full load” (actually, oddly enough, the ship’s normal displacement is hidden under this florid formulation) was, by specification, 16 feet and 4,75 inches, that is, roughly 5 meters. By the way , the sediment on the tests “Pearls” was 5,1 m. But on the hike, “Pearls” was constantly overloaded, so its sediment reached 18 feet (5,48 m), which was connected, first of all, with the cruiser overload with coal. Recall that in the normal displacement the weight of the coal should have been 360 t, and the total capacity of the coal pits was 535 t. However, the cruiser usually had an excess coal reserve - not only in the pits, but also in two command compartments and a saloon company, where just poured on the deck, as well as on the upper deck and the stoker, where the coal was stored in bags. But besides that, the ship also had other “above standard” cargoes necessary for long voyage — practical projectiles over full of ammunition, additional reserves of provisions, spare parts and other supplies.
On average, according to the commander of the cruiser, P.P. Levitsky, the draft of “Pearl” was aiming for 17,5 feet (5,33 m). Assuming that the design draft of the cruiser in 5 m corresponded to the normal displacement in 3 177 t (as given in the “Emerald” balance sheet), and taking into account the fact that it was tested in displacement 3 250 t and draft 5,1 m, then we can assume that the overload on 7,3 t. caused an increase in precipitation on 1 cm. According to some data, for the Novik armored cruiser this figure was slightly more than 6 t. If the above calculation is correct, then the draft in 5,33 m (17,5 ft.) corresponded to the displacement of 3 418 t., which was at 168 t more displacement, with tary "Pearls" came to the test. Thus, we can say that the indicated PP. Levitsky draft approximately corresponded to the full displacement of the cruiser.
So, according to the commander of "Pearls", with such an overload: "I had to increase the number of revolutions of the onboard machines at 6-7 revolutions (which corresponds to the loss of speed at the 1 node) against the number of revolutions that corresponded to the normal depth of the cruiser." Such a result, achieved not on the dimensional mile, but in the combat campaign, in daily operation, and even on a ship that did not pass the full test cycle and the associated fine-tuning, should be considered brilliant.
Surprisingly, the case was unexpectedly affected. The storage of coal on the upper deck led to its deflection, from which 120-mm guns on the waist (probably, we are talking about four installations, located between the main and main masts) became tightly turned in a horizontal plane.
The rest of the movement "Pearls" from Libau to Madagascar was not of particular interest. In the infamous "Hull incident" the cruiser did not take part. Upon arrival in Tangier 21 October, the squadron split. The old battleships Sisoi the Great and Navarin, accompanied by the armored cruisers Svetlana, Almaz and Zhemchug, went to Madagascar through the Mediterranean Sea and the Suez Canal on the same day, following the destroyers of the squadron that had left the same route earlier. They were commanded by Rear Admiral Dmitry Gustavovich von Felkerszam, who had previously held a flag on the Oslyabya battleship. The main forces, including the 1 armored detachment, Oslaby and the big cruisers lingered in Tangier for two days, after which they moved around Africa.
Both groups subsequently came to Madagascar almost simultaneously, although they did not join immediately. There were no special adventures on the road, except perhaps for some incident on Crete: the English press claimed that as a result of the violent binge of the Russian sailors, 15 inhabitants of this island were killed. The Russian consul clarified that a certain clarification of relations, common in the port city, did take place, but was promptly settled by the arrived non-commissioned officers and the local police. Of course, without any killing, and the claims of the “receiving” party, caused by damage to the property, were fully satisfied with a check for 240 francs.
"Emerald"
The contract concluded with the Nevsky Plant for the construction of two cruisers for the Russian Imperial Navy implied that the first cruiser would be delivered in 28 months, and the second - in 36 months. after all the basic drawings have been received and the specification has been approved. In fact, it was decided to consider this date as 1 of June 1901, and if the deadlines could be maintained, then Pearl, which was built as the head, would be transferred to 1903 for testing in October, and the next one, Emerald. in June, 1904. But, in fact, alas, the Nevsky Plant did not cope with the contract terms, so the construction of both ships was delayed. Yet, by the beginning of the war, Pearls, which had been built earlier and whose deadlines for delivery to the fleet were tougher, were obviously more ready than the Emerald.
Of course, after the start of the war, the Nevsky Plant focused its efforts on the completion of Pearls, and, alas, to the detriment of Emerald. We have already said that as a result of this, the Emerald was completed with the construction of later Pearls, and that a lot of it was not completed. Not only that "Emerald" did not have time to go with the main forces of the squadron, so many of the auxiliary mechanisms had to be brought in during the march, some of them were adopted only in Madagascar, some were not commissioned at all.
But, unfortunately, we have to admit that the concentration of efforts on “Pearl” affected not only the degree of technical readiness, but also the quality of construction work on the “Emerald”. The list of faults that the cruiser had to face considerably exceeded that of the Pearl. But first things first.
"Emerald" left 3 on November 1904 in Libau in the "Catching up" squad and the first stop was made in the same place where the ships of the 2 Pacific squadron, that is, Fr. Langeland. The latter “distinguished himself” with a strange “inhospitableness” to the Russian 2-class cruisers: “Pearl” drowned a boat and a davit there, and “Emerald”, however, did not drown anything, but in search of a place for loading coal went too far into Danish waters. The reason for this was heavy snow, because of which visibility was limited, but this did not prevent the Danish torpedo boat to send the Emerald back home.
Due to poor weather conditions, coal was accepted less than planned, but another problem was found on the way to England - the lack of boiler water, as the desalination plants could not cope. "Catching up with the detachment", in addition to the cruisers "Oleg", "Emerald" and the five destroyers, was also composed of two auxiliary cruisers and training ship "Ocean", which had fresh water reserves. However, in the process of transferring water to the Emerald, made in the stormy sea, the whale boat number 2, the left shot, the wrenches and the 100 perly hawks were lost, and it turned out that the cruiser managed to wind a fishing net on one of the screws.
Then it turned out that the available coal reserves would not be enough to reach Tangier: V.V. Khromov points out that the course was to blame, which turned out to be significantly lower than the calculated one. But it is not quite clear how correct this is, since he also indicates that at the previous site "Emerald" did not accept the full supply of fuel, and the coal obtained in Libava was of poor quality: "it gave a lot of smoke and was very hot." In addition, it should be taken into account and stormy weather.
The cruiser was constantly pursued by minor breakdowns, as a result of which by November 30, when Emerald arrived at the Court, it required very thorough repairs to the power plant. The latter included the replacement of the pipe of the circulation pump of the main refrigerator of the left machine and part of the water pipes of the boilers, the reassembly of machines and other work with boilers, pipelines and desalination plants. All this took about two weeks, subject to the availability of the necessary spare parts - they were ordered from the factory in Piraeus.
But later the cruiser still pursued trouble. The commander of the cruiser "Oleg", L.F. Dobrotvorsky, who was also the head of the “Catching up Detachment”, telegraphed to St. Petersburg: “There are many shortcomings on the Izumrud cruiser: the boilers flow, the electricity goes out, there is no running, the pipes flow and hover ... Generally, swimming with it is worse than with license plates destroyers. " Note that the doctor "Emerald", V.S. Kravchenko, diagnosed overworking the cruiser commander who had come to him for help, the reasons for which he considered, among other things, “the malfunction of the vessel, permanent damage” - and this happened during the exit to the Atlantic.
Vs Kravchenko pointed out that during the passage of the English Channel on the cruiser "practically did not work" desalinators, rivets fell out, the deck leaked, which could not be caulked in any way, the portholes opened and closed with great difficulty and there were many more similar trifles. According to his recollections, later, as a result of tests for a full stroke, which LF took the risk of arranging. Dobrotvorsky, "there were some warning signs in the car" (later it turned out that the main steam line had broken through).
It must be said that the Emerald was not the only ship that had technical problems - there were plenty of them on other ships of the detachment L.F. Dobrotvorsky. So, for example, an attempt to develop maximum speed ended for “Oleg” with the failure of several boilers, while the destroyers were in such poor condition, so three of the five ships had to interrupt the cruise: “Shrill”, “Rezvy” and “The Seer” return to Russia from the Mediterranean.
Nevertheless, some technical deficiencies were corrected on our own: for example, LF. Dobrotvorsky, extremely dissatisfied with the fact that "Emerald" constantly lacks fresh water, gathered a commission, including mechanics from all of its squad. According to the general opinion, the problem was not only, and maybe even not so much in the evaporators, as in the poor lapping of the feed filter valves and the loose connection of the pipe flanges in the boiler rooms, which made the consumption of boiler water excessive. As a result of the repair, it was possible to reduce it by half, to 34 tons of water per day.
It is also difficult to say how skilled the Emerald machine and boiler teams were, but it is known that the fleet experienced difficulties in completing the cruiser even with mechanical officers. Chief Inspector of the Mechanical Part in the Navy N.G. Nozikov noted that: “on the Emerald cruiser, the senior ship mechanic Semenyuk is an experienced and good mechanic, and his assistants, junior mechanical engineer Brailko and Smirnov, never sailed anywhere, they are unfamiliar with sea machines, the latter, moreover, almost blind, and ensign Shchepochenko-Pavlovsky was written off for drunkenness. " 2 new mechanics were appointed to the cruiser instead of Smirnov, and a drunk ensign, after which, according to A.A. Alliluyeva and M.A. Bogdanov, a number of faults in the mechanical part of "Emerald" was corrected.
From the testimony of the senior officer of the cruiser, the captain of the 2 rank Patton-Fanton-de-Verrion (there were such last names in our fleet), it follows that on the Emerald by the time the crew left 329, the crew had 70 young sailors and 36 - spare ones. Thus, counting on the staff number of the lower ranks, which the 273 man was supposed to put on the cruiser, it turns out a little over 13% spare and 25,6% young. In the aggregate, this constitutes 38,8% of all lower ranks, which of course seems to be very large, although things were even worse at Zhemchug - there were about 53% of the total number of lower ranks there that were young and spare.
At the end of this article, I would also like to note some of the nuances of the transition of "Pearls" and "Emerald" from Libava to Madagascar.
During the cruise, the cruisers were engaged in combat training, which was extremely important, since the ships did not undergo compulsory combat training prior to leaving Libau. So, for example, at Zhemchug, only one artillery exercise was conducted at Revel before going to sea: they shot at shields at anchor, at night. The second cruiser doctrine took place on November 5-6 in Souda Bay, for which the cruiser went to sea. On the first day, they were firing shots, using 300 37-mm and 180 47-mm practical shells. On the second day, the “main caliber” was already firing, albeit with a reduced powder charge - 60 120-mm, 90 47-mm projectiles and 700 machine-gun cartridges were spent.
Then, after leaving the Sudskaya Bay, on the road to Madagascar, they shot twice more. During the first shooting, 22 120-mm and 58 47-mm shells and some, alas, unknown quantity of machine-gun cartridges were spent. The following firing took place on December 10, fired on a shield of 37-mm cannons, nested in 120-mm gun barrels, thus 145 37-mm shells were spent. In addition, they shot from 47-mm guns, and perhaps from machine guns, but unfortunately, the consumption of shells and ammunition on them in the sources is not given.
As for the "Emerald", then it also carried out artillery exercises, but, unfortunately, the consumption of shells on them is unknown. According to the memoirs of the officers, all the artillery exercises were conducted three times, but according to the available data they were very energetic.
According to V.V. Khromova, 5 January 1905. The cruiser used up ammunition for auxiliary barrels and was forced to switch to the use of practical projectiles. Unfortunately, it is completely unknown how many of these cartridges were on the cruiser when he left the Baltic waters. But, in accordance with Circular 32 No. 8 of June 1904 (issued by the headquarters by order of ZP Rozhdestvensky), “for each gun with a caliber of 120-mm and above” it was laid “on 75 cartridges for 37-mm barrel training ". Accordingly, if we assume that the commander of the Emerald Baron V.N. Fersen executed this circular exactly, and given the fact that the cruiser had 8 * 120-mm guns, as of 5 in January, the cruiser used 600 37-mm shells, but the artillery exercises continued.
The head of the "pursuing squad" L.F. Dobrotvorsky in the testimony of the Investigation Commission indicated that during his independent voyage to Madagascar his detachment: “he passed in abundance the whole, appointed by order of the Commander of the 2 Pacific Squadron, a course of artillery exercises”. Of particular interest in this distance, which was conducted training in shooting. L.F. Dobrotvorsky reported:
The tone is really apologetic - it turns out that Z.P. Rozhestvensky ordered cruisers to train their gunners from long distances?
The seaworthiness of cruisers left much to be desired - the absence of onboard keels affected. This is how the ship's doctor V.S. Kravchenko state "Emerald" when the ship landed in a storm in the Bay of Biscay:
Of particular interest are the words of the doctor about the whaleboat, which sometimes went under water. The fact is that the whaleboats on “Pearl” type cruisers were located here (in the photo it is highlighted in red):
Obviously, in a storm, this type of cruiser got very much.
The problem with fresh water existed not only on the "Pearl" and "Emerald": it was, in general, among Russian ships, in general, ubiquitous. According to some reports, the problem was the design of desalination plants and refrigerators, whose performance in tropical latitudes significantly decreased. It is interesting that later on the ships of the 2 Pacific Infantry Squadron rainwater harvesting was organized, and in some cases it was possible to extract up to 25 tons of water per day.
And yet - a little about the real range of the course of domestic cruisers. Under the project, it was assumed that with coal reserves in 500 and “Pearls” or “Emerald” they would be able to overcome 5 000 miles, but such an assessment was overly optimistic. Repeated story with Novik: this cruiser also planned to reach a range of 5 000 miles, but in practice it was somewhere 3 200 miles, although, according to some other data, it could reach 3 430 miles.
On the one hand, “Pearls” and “Emerald” got uncoupling clutches, thanks to which the screws did not stop if the car was not under steam, but rotated by the oncoming flow of water. Thus, the screws did not inhibit the movement of the cruiser, going under a part of the machines, and this gave a savings in coal consumption in comparison with the "Novik", which had no such disconnectors. But on the other hand, the cruisers of the Nevsky Zavod were much heavier than the Novik, and this should have reduced their range in comparison with the latter.
According to calculations, apparently made on the basis of actual coal consumption data, the range of “Pearls” and “Emerald” should have been 3 520 miles with 535 t coal stock. But in practice, it turned out that “at one gas station” not only “Emerald”, but also “Oleg” could not overcome the 2 650 miles separating Madagascar from Djibouti, and they had to go to the German colony Dar es Salem.
But, again, it would be wrong to attribute such a result solely to the “voracity” of the power plants of domestic cruisers. The problem was also in the corner, that's what LF reported about him. Dobrotvorsky:
Of course, the talk was about the cruiser “Oleg”, commanded by LF Dobrotvorsky, but it is also obvious that the Emerald was also faced with similar problems.
To be continued ...
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