On the quality of shooting of the Russian squadron in the battle of Tsushima
Recently on "VO" were published two articles "Tsushima. Accuracy Factors of Russian Artillery "and" Tsushima. Factors of Japanese Artillery Accuracy ”by respected Alexei Rytnik. In them, the author, having “shoveled” a huge amount of material, both from Russian and foreign sources, came to the conclusion that:
1) the Japanese fleet used a more advanced fire control technique than the Russian 2nd and 3rd Pacific squadrons;
2) the Japanese were well prepared for the decisive battle, intensively training the gunners on the eve of it, while the 2nd Pacific held the last caliber firing 4 months before the battle (Madagascar), and the last barrel firing more than a month (Cam Ranh).
As a result, the quality of Japanese shooting turned out to be excellent, and about the accuracy of the Russian one, the respected author spoke like this:
“Information about damage to Japanese ships received in the Tsushima battle suggests that Russian artillerymen, with the exception of one episode, were hit infrequently and irregularly. This exception was the first 15 minutes, during which Mikasa received 19 hits. By many indirect indications, it was possible to determine that the "author" of most of these hits was only one ship - "Prince Suvorov" - the only one on which they had mastered the determination of range by a rangefinder. "
It turns out that the Japanese were able to develop and organize a better centralized fire control system than the Russians in Tsushima, and thanks to this they won the battle.
But is it?
Unfortunately, I cannot agree with this thesis of the respected A. Rytnik for one simple, obvious reason. As you know, centralized fire control, carried out under the leadership of a senior artillery officer, provides an advantage in accuracy compared to decentralized, when plutongs (groups of guns) or even individual guns shoot independently, receiving data from rangefinders and calculating the necessary corrections at their own peril and risk.
This statement of mine is perfectly confirmed by the general history artillery work at sea (the widespread transition to centralized fire control), and the fact that in Tsushima, using such control for the first time, the Japanese, obviously, fired significantly better than in previous battles with the Russians fleet.
The catch lies in the fact that the Russian fleet practiced centralized control of the main form of firefighting, while the Japanese fired decentralized all the way to Tsushima. And nevertheless, in all cases of military clashes, the Japanese, with their decentralized, that is, a priori less accurate shooting, showed a better result than the Russian ships showed, controlling fire centrally. And this, in turn, tells us that the reasons for the better accuracy of the Japanese should not be sought in the special quality of centralized fire control.
Assessment of the accuracy of Russian and Japanese shooting in Tsushima
Alas, it is almost impossible. We know, albeit approximately, how many shells hit the Japanese ships (although there is no complete clarity here), but we do not know how many shells the Russian squadron used up. Even about the surviving ships, questions remain about the consumption of ammunition for the sunken ones - we, of course, do not know anything at all. For the Japanese, on the contrary, the ammunition consumption is known, but the number of hits on Russian ships is completely undetectable. Even for the surviving Eagle, the data are pretty contradictory, and almost nothing is known about the hits on the dead ships.
It seems to be a complete impasse. And yet, analyzing the statistics of the Tsushima battle, some conclusions can be drawn.
Hit statistics for Japanese armored ships
On the forum of the Tsushima website, the respected "realswat" (A. Danilov), using the reports of the commanders of "Mikasa", "Tokiwa", "Azuma", "Yakumo", as well as the "Medical description of the Tsushima battle" and other sources, compiled a chronology hits on the Japanese ships Togo and Kamimura. I allowed myself to slightly reformat his work, breaking down all three stages of the battle of the main forces into 10-minute intervals and adding, for reference, information about hits on Japanese ships, the time of which was not determined.
Notes:
1. The difference in Japanese and Russian time is accepted by me at 18 minutes.
2. The intervals are taken for full minutes, that is, if 14: 00–14: 09 is specified, then it includes hits on Japanese ships that occurred after 13 hours. 59 sec. and up to 00 hours 14 minutes. 09 sec. inclusive.
3. From the calculations performed by A. Danilov, I removed the close breaks (14:02 next to Azuma, 15:22 - Tokiwa, 15:49 - Izumo), but I took into account the double hit to Asama as double (according to A. Danilov it is considered as single, but marked "double").
4. The first interval was 11 minutes, since the exact time of opening fire is not quite clear - 14:49 or 14:50. The last interval of the 1st phase was taken by me at 3 minutes, since it was then that it ended. The last interval of the 2nd phase was extended by me until 16:22, although it seems to have ended at 16:17 Russian time, nevertheless, the last hit in this phase (in "Asahi") dates back to 16:40 Japanese or 16: 22 Russian time.
5. Hits outside the combat phases - one 120-mm projectile hitting the Izumo, most likely, came from a Russian cruiser, with which the 2nd Japanese combat detachment collided at about this time. As for hitting the "Nissin" - here one can only assume an error in fixing the time of the hit, which, I must say, in general, on the "Nissin" were noted very carelessly. Of the 16 hits, the time was noted only in 7 cases, and in one case (in the third phase of the battle) three hits hit the cruiser within a minute - at 18:42 Russian time. That, against the background of the general statistics of hits, looks, to put it mildly, doubtful.
We state the facts
The Russian ships took aim very quickly, in no more than two or three minutes.
At 13:49 or 13:50 "Suvorov" opened fire, and already at 13:52 (14:10 Japanese) the first hit was recorded on "Mikasa". The next shell hit Mikasa two minutes later, at 13:54 and then until 14:01, followed by stable hits of one shell per minute. And then a real steel downpour fell on the flagship of H. Togo - at 14:02 he received 4 hits. But on this the peak was passed: at 14:03 - one hit, at 14:04 - two, at 14:05 - two, at 14:06 - one and at 14:07 another, nineteenth in a row. The next, twentieth hit, overtook Mikasa only 10 minutes later.
Thus, we can see that Russian fire on Mikasa reached its peak in the period from 14: 02-14: 05, that is, after 10-11 minutes of shooting at it, and after 15-16 minutes from the start of the battle the number of hits began to decline. But at the same time, the number of hits on other Japanese ships sharply increased - if not a single shell hit other Japanese ships in the first 10-11 minutes of firefight, then in the next "ten minutes", from 14:00 to 14:09, we already we see 7 hits. Moreover, if the first shells - a gap at the side of the "Azuma" and hitting the "Tokiwa", happened at 14:02, then the bulk of the hits (six in number) fell on the period from 14:05 to 14:09.
However, then the effectiveness of Russian fire dropped sharply - in ten-minute intervals of the next half hour (14: 10–14: 39), only 8 hit all Japanese ships; 6 and 5 shells, respectively. That is, 19 shells hit their targets in half an hour. In the future, the hits were reduced even more - during the next half hour of the 1st phase of the battle, the Russian ships managed to achieve only 16 hits.
In the second phase of the battle, our artillerymen could no longer oppose the enemy - in about 43 minutes of the battle there were only 10 hits recorded in time. And in the third phase, the battle finally turns into a beating - only 9 hits recorded in 1 hour and 20 minutes.
Of course, not all hits on Japanese ships are listed here, but only those whose time was recorded by the Japanese. In addition, as can be seen from the table, the battleships and armored cruisers of the 1st and 2nd combat detachments were hit by 50-59 shells, but we do not know how they were distributed during the battle.
The floor is given to "the captain of the evidence"
So, the first and most obvious conclusion is during the first 20–21 minutes. the Russian artillerymen demonstrated a high class of fire (which, again, was recognized by the British observers), but then “something went wrong,” and the effectiveness of our squadron's fire dropped sharply.
What happened?
Why did the number of hits on Japanese ships decrease?
The answer, in essence, is obvious - the effectiveness of Russian shooting fell as a result of the Japanese fire. This, by the way, was the opinion of the Japanese themselves. K. Abo, who served as a senior artillery officer on the Mikasa in the Battle of Tsushima, later in his lecture to the officers of the Royal Navy, pointed out:
“Captain Slade has already said in his lecture that you can protect your ship by covering the enemy ship with strong fire and suppressing its means of fire.
In the first stage of the Tsushima battle, the Russian squadron, which opened heavy fire from about 6500 yards, inflicted relatively heavy damage on Mikasa in just a few minutes: the main topmast was shot down, one 6-inch and two 12-pounder guns were temporarily disabled , many holes were made in pipes, etc. But as soon as our ships opened fire, and the accuracy of hits began to gradually increase, the strength of enemy fire began to decrease accordingly.
And in the final stage of the same battle, when the main detachment of Togo was fighting the enemy squadron, many of our ships concentrated their fire on the lead Borodino, and then the Orel, the next ship in the ranks, began to effectively hit Mikasa. Some shells exploded, hitting the side, others fell into the water at the very side, so much so that the roof of the navigator's cabin (Monkey Island) was soaked several times with fountains of spray, causing significant inconvenience, since it was often necessary to wipe the lenses of rangefinders and binoculars flooded with water. Because of this, "Mikasa" transferred fire from "Borodino" to "Oryol", after 10-15 minutes of firing, the "Eagle" fire began to gradually weaken, and after that there was no longer a shower from the fountains of splashes, no shell hits.
In the first stage of the Tsushima battle, the Russian squadron, which opened heavy fire from about 6500 yards, inflicted relatively heavy damage on Mikasa in just a few minutes: the main topmast was shot down, one 6-inch and two 12-pounder guns were temporarily disabled , many holes were made in pipes, etc. But as soon as our ships opened fire, and the accuracy of hits began to gradually increase, the strength of enemy fire began to decrease accordingly.
And in the final stage of the same battle, when the main detachment of Togo was fighting the enemy squadron, many of our ships concentrated their fire on the lead Borodino, and then the Orel, the next ship in the ranks, began to effectively hit Mikasa. Some shells exploded, hitting the side, others fell into the water at the very side, so much so that the roof of the navigator's cabin (Monkey Island) was soaked several times with fountains of spray, causing significant inconvenience, since it was often necessary to wipe the lenses of rangefinders and binoculars flooded with water. Because of this, "Mikasa" transferred fire from "Borodino" to "Oryol", after 10-15 minutes of firing, the "Eagle" fire began to gradually weaken, and after that there was no longer a shower from the fountains of splashes, no shell hits.
What immediately catches your eye?
K. Abo talks about the very accurate shooting of the "Eagle" in the final stage of the battle, accompanied by a number of hits, and there is no reason not to trust him. But if we look at the chronology of hits on the Japanese flagship, we will see only 2 hits in it - a 152-mm projectile at 18:06 and a 305-mm shell at 18:25, which is completely at odds with the words of K. Abo. From this, it can be assumed that more shells hit Mikasa than 31 shells recorded in time.
Another option: this passage in the lecture is another evidence of the truth of the famous proverb "lies like an eyewitness." That is, there were no hits, and K. Abo, conscientiously mistaken, took for them something else, for example - close fall of shells. In that case, this episode will remind us that the Japanese testimony should be treated with caution - they were also prone to errors in their reports.
On the accuracy and efficiency of Japanese shooting at the beginning of the Battle of Tsushima
It is well known that at the very first stage, the two flagships of the 2nd Pacific Squadron - Suvorov and Oslyabya - received the greatest "attention" of the Japanese artillerymen. At the same time, we can safely say that in the first 10 minutes of the battle, Oslyabya had multiple hits, as this is confirmed by both the data of the Japanese and Russian observers (the testimony of midshipman Shcherbachev 4th, report of the corps of fleet navigators Colonel Osipov). These hits caused some decrease in artillery, since, apparently, the 254-mm nasal turret was damaged even before 14:00. But, apparently, the ability to conduct some well-aimed fire with the battleship was lost somewhere between 14: 12-14: 15.
The logic here is very simple - at 13:56 "Oslyabya" received the first hit of a 305-mm projectile (before that, shells of smaller calibers hit it), but, according to the descriptions of D. B. Pokhvistnev and M. P. Sablin who served on the "Oslyab" , this did not cause significant roll and trim. However, one more or even two large-caliber shells, hitting at 14:12, led to a rapid increase in both, which is why, closer to 14:20, Oslyabya was sitting in the water up to the haws with a roll towards the enemy reaching 12 –15 deg. Obviously, in such a position, it was no longer possible to conduct accurate fire on the enemy.
With Suvorov, everything is somewhat more complicated.
The commander of the Mikasa was sure that he had shot at the Russian flagship at 13:53 (14:11 Japanese time), but this is hardly true. Absolutely all sources, both ours and Japanese, indicate that the Japanese opened fire later than the Russians, officially - at 13:52 (14:10 Japanese), that is, with a delay of 2-3 minutes. And all our sources indicate that the first salvoes of the Japanese did not hit.
So, Z.P. Rozhdestvensky argued that
"The Japanese were shooting for about 10 minutes: at first only fragments and splashes from shells bursting into the water hit, but already at 2 o'clock the enemy began to hit continuously."
V.I.Semenov points out the same in his memoirs. Flag captain of the headquarters of the squadron commander Clapier de Colong in the testimony of the Commission of Inquiry stated:
After two or three undershoots and overflights, the enemy took aim, and fast, in large numbers, one after another, hits concentrated in the nose and at the conning tower of the Suvorov.
Most likely, it was like this: on the "Mikas" they believed that they had shot in the first minute of firing, but in fact, the first two or three volleys did not cover, the third or fourth lay under the side of the "Suvorov", next to the bridge, which caused the warrant officer to be wounded Tsereteli, and it all took a few minutes, but further hits followed.
Be that as it may, both our and the Japanese reports agree on one thing - at approximately 14:00 "Suvorov" has already received a considerable number of hits and burned strongly. At the same time, there is no information that artillery was out of order on it, but the conditions for fire control have deteriorated significantly. Clapier-de Colong pointed out:
“Smoke and flames from the bursting of shells and frequent fires of close objects make it impossible to see through the openings of the wheelhouse what is being done around. Only in fits and starts can sometimes separate parts of the horizon be seen. There was no way to lead any correct observations, and even in the desired definite direction. "
Obviously, such interference should have had an extremely negative effect on the centralized fire control, carried out from the conning tower. And at 14:11 this department was destroyed. Clapier-de-Colong testified:
“2 hours 11 minutes. Wounded in the conning tower - the ship's senior artillery officer, Lieutenant Vladimirsky - who was standing at the left rangefinder; he went to bandaging; Rangefinder Barr and Stroud crashed, he was replaced by the right, and he became Colonel K. More. Ar. Bersenev. Less than a minute later, Colonel Bersenev was killed by a shrapnel in the head; he was replaced by the lower rank of the rangefinder, the rangefinder. "
About who got into Mikasa at 13: 49-14: 10
Article "On the shooting of the battleship" Eagle "in the outset of the Tsushima battle" I came to the conclusion that only 4 battleships of the Borodino and Oslyabya types could hit the Japanese flagship during the indicated period, despite the fact that the Eagle delayed for several minutes with the opening of fire. All of these five warships from 13:49 to 14:10 remained operational, but there are some nuances here.
Initially, Suvorov was in the best conditions for shooting at the Japanese flagship - it was closest to Mikasa, the Suvorov's artillerymen were not bad, and the distance was determined more or less correctly. Because of this, I would not be surprised at all that most of the 6 hits to Mikasa in the first 10 minutes of the battle belonged to Suvorov. But, as mentioned above, the peak of the effectiveness of Russian fire on Mikasa fell on the period from 14:02 to 14:05, and by this time, due to fires and smoke, centralized fire control on the ship was extremely difficult.
We can, of course, assume that, thanks to the correctly "captured" distance and amendments, the artillerymen of the Russian flagship battleship were able not only to support, but also to improve the achieved effectiveness of the fire, but there are no prerequisites for this. If the view from the conning tower of the Suvorov turned out to be limited, then what gives us reason to believe that it was better from the left bow sighting tower or the bow XNUMX-inch one? Yes, there is a good proverb: “logic is the enemy of the historian,” many historical events are essentially illogical. But on the basis of the available data, we have no reason to believe that most of the hits on the Mikasa were made by the Suvorov gunners.
And it is also extremely doubtful that the back of the 1st armored detachment, "Eagle", shot at the "Mikasa" well. On the ship, they made a big mistake in determining the distance, could not confirm it with the zeroing data, and switched to rapid fire.
Lieutenant Slavinsky testified:
"Rapid fire was opened at the same Mikaza with high-explosive shells, taking advantage of the distance received from the rangefinder station."
Obviously, such a fire on incorrect data could hardly lead to success. In addition, the Oryol fired at Mikasa only with part of its artillery - the aft 305-mm turrets and the left 152-mm turret fired at Iwate.
Therefore, it would not be a mistake to assume that in the first minutes of the battle Suvorov and, possibly, Oslyabya most effectively hit Mikasa. Then, at about 14:00, the Suvorov's firing accuracy dropped, and the bulk of the shells in the period until 14:05 were fired into the Japanese flagship by Alexander III and Borodino. After a quarter of an hour, the hits on Mikasa came to naught for the simplest reason - the lead Suvorov, due to observation problems, could no longer effectively shoot at the flagship H. Togo, and for the rest of the Mikasa ships it came out of the firing corners - the heading angle on it turned out to be too sharp.
It is more than likely that Z.P. Rozhestvensky's turns to the right, at 14:05 - by 2 rumba and at 14:10 - by another 4 rumba (22,5 and 45 degrees) were just supposed to not only interfere with the sighting of the Japanese , but also to bring their ships to a less acute course angle.
On the decline in the quality of Russian shooting in the period 14: 10-14: 19
The statistics of hitting Japanese ships in this case is simply surprisingly "telling". In the first 10 minutes of the battle, Russian shells hit only Mikasa, in the next 10 - Mikasu, and the armored cruisers of Kh. Kamimura, but in the next 10 minutes the focus shifted to the battleships of the 1st combat detachment and to the terminal Japanese armored cruisers - Asamu and Iwate.
Why did this happen?
It is quite probable that the leading Russian battleships in the period 14: 00-14: 09, following the pattern and likeness of the "Eagle", dispersed their fire. That is, when the Mikasa left the firing sectors of the aft towers of the Alexander III and Borodino, they transferred fire to the ships nearest to them, which, probably, were at that moment the cruiser Kh. Kamimura.
It is also possible that the hits on the armored cruisers are the merit of the remaining ships of the squadron approaching the "Togo Loop". Sisoy the Great at that time fired at Kasuga and Nissin and, quite possibly, achieved hits on the latter, since this ship has unrecorded hits. "Nakhimov", according to his artillery officer, failed to aim, as he did not see his own shells fall and ended up shooting according to rangefinder data, which, oddly enough, led to some success, since one of the shells that hit "Iwate" , defined by the Japanese as 203 mm. The second shell that hit him was 120-mm, so it can be assumed that it was either a shell from one of the coastal defense battleships, or (which seems more likely to me) a shell from an Emerald or Pearl, which were much closer to Japanese cruiser. Only Navarin remains, but it's hard to believe that in 10 minutes it managed to hit 3 or 4 Japanese ships.
"But why couldn't the ships of Nebogatov hit the armored cruisers?" - the dear reader may ask. I will answer this question a little later.
Be that as it may, one thing is absolutely clear - after Z. P. Rozhestvensky's turn at 14:10 by 4 rumba to the right, the head Russian battleships fired not so much at Mikasa (one shell, however, he got), as at the following behind it to the enemy's battleships: at 14: 10-14: 19 hits get "Shikishima", "Fuji" and "Asahi". It is not clear who hit Asama and Iwate, I have an assumption that, in the case of Iwate, it was the merit of the Eagle gunners - the shell was 305-mm. However, the total number of hits recorded in time drops from 20 to 8.
Why?
First, in the period from 14:10 to 14:19, the fire of the five head Russian battleships weakened sharply. As I wrote above, by 14:00 the Suvorov was experiencing difficulties with observation, and at 14:11 the centralized fire control system was completely out of order. "Oslyabya" at 14: 12-14: 15 loses its combat effectiveness, although it went out of action a little later, at 14:20. In total, out of the 5 most efficient Russian ships, only 3 remain, but they had to shoot in a new direction, since they were transferring fire to the Japanese battleships.
And secondly, this adjustment was seriously hampered, as evidenced by both Russian and Japanese sources. Thus, the senior artillery officer of the "Eagle" testified:
“During the action against the enemy, the fires on the Suvorov and Alexander III matelots greatly interfered with our shooting. The smoke in a thick and long strip lay between us and the Japanese, hiding them from us and at the same time giving them the opportunity, measuring the distance along our flagpoles, to shoot at us, since the smoke was spreading close to us and did not block the masts. "
J. M. Campbell writes:
"... fog and smoke often worsened visibility, so, at about 14:15 (Russian time - Author's note), it was noted on the Togo detachment that only battle flags on the clotics of Russian ships were visible."
And so it turns out that the drop in the effectiveness of Russian fire is almost entirely on the Japanese conscience, with the exception, perhaps, of Oslyabi. In articles About the causes of the death of the squadron battleship "Oslyabya" и Two heroes. Why "Oslyabya" died in Tsushima, and "Peresvet" survived under Shantung I came to the conclusion that the blame for the rapid death of the Oslyabi was the disgusting quality of its construction, since the Peresvet, having received surprisingly similar damage in the battle in the Yellow Sea, did not lose its combat effectiveness and did not intend to go to the bottom at all.
However, in addition to Oslyabi, Japanese high-explosive shells disabled the centralized fire control system on the Suvorov and caused fires on it and the next Alexander III, which, in turn, made it much more difficult to zero in on Borodino and Eagle ".
Next "ten minutes" 14: 20-14: 29
Things got even worse - there were only 6 hits recorded in time.
Everything is clear here. At 14:20 Borodino rolls out of action. It is not known what happened on it, it may have interrupted the steering wheel or there was some kind of breakdown in the car or steering control, not related to combat damage. But in such a state, one cannot count on the accuracy of the fire, so it is not surprising that the firing quality of this battleship should have decreased. But the most important thing is that at 14:20 "Oslyabya" is out of order, and at 14:26 - "Suvorov". Of course, it is extremely doubtful that the heavily damaged, burning flagship of ZP Rozhdestvensky with the destroyed centralized fire control system could still inflict any damage on the ships of H. Togo or H. Kamimura, and this cannot be said for sure about the Oslyabyu.
But the problem was different - while our flagships of the 1st and 2nd armored detachments were kept in the ranks, they remained priority targets, and the Japanese concentrated fire on them at every opportunity. Now the Japanese could pay more "attention" to other warships of the 1st Armored Detachment, and this, of course, had the most negative effect on the effectiveness of their fire.
In other words, during these ten minutes the Russian squadron out of 5 of its best and most effective ships remained in service only 2 - "Emperor Alexander III" and "Eagle": and now the Japanese focused their fire on them.
Period from 14:30 to 14:39
Five hits. At this time, "Alexander III", who was at the head of the squadron, made an attempt to pass under the stern of the Japanese 1st combat detachment, turning directly into the enemy formation. Of course, the heroic battleship immediately came under fire from many Japanese ships.
What happened on it - we do not know, but it was during this period of time that the centralized fire control system was destroyed on the Eagle.
On the survivability of the centralized fire control system (FCS) on Russian ships
We know for certain that in less than 20 minutes from the start of the battle, the Suvorov FCS was disabled. The Eagle, being the least bombarded of all the Borodino-class battleships in the 1st phase of the Tsushima battle, lost the FCS 40-50 minutes after the start of the battle.
The defeat of the MSA was carried out according to the same scenario. As a result of a close rupture or hit in the armored overhang above the viewing slot of the conning tower, fragments of Japanese shells, flying into these very cracks, killed and wounded officers and lower ranks in the conning tower, smashed range finders, disabled the devices with the help of which the transmission was carried out data to tools.
Taking into account the above, it is quite possible to assume that the OMS "Alexander III" or "Borodino", or maybe both of these battleships, which were subjected to weaker shelling during the first 50 minutes of the battle than the "Suvorov", but more powerful than the "Eagle", was also destroyed. And this, of course, could not but affect the accuracy of the shooting of these Russian ships.
On completion of the 1st phase
Although by the beginning of the fourth (Russian time) our squadron had not yet been defeated, it had already lost the ability to inflict any noticeable damage to the enemy. One of the best riflemen of the squadron, the battleship Oslyabya, sank, and at least two (but most likely all four) battleships of the Borodino class disabled centralized fire control systems. As for the other ships of the 2nd Pacific Squadron, the Nakhimov lost a significant part of its artillery. The nose turret of 203 mm guns was jammed, the right and aft 203 mm turrets could only be rotated manually, three 152 mm guns were destroyed by Japanese fire. Only Sisoy the Great and Navarin did not receive significant damage.
But what about the 3rd Pacific Squadron?
Alas, we can only say about her that she was present at the defeat of 2TOE. Neither Nebogatov's flagship, "Emperor Nicholas I", nor the battleships of the coastal defense received significant damage during the entire battle (unless the "Admiral Ushakov" sat down with its nose). But, despite the most favorable conditions of shooting, they almost did not hit the Japanese throughout the entire battle. One could understand why the ships of the 3rd Pacific Ocean could not hit during the 1st phase of the battle - they, being at the end of the Russian column, were too far from the Japanese formation.
But who prevented them from getting into the third phase of the battle on May 3, when the remnants of the squadron went in the following sequence: "Borodino", "Eagle", "Emperor Nicholas I", "Sisoy the Great", "Navarin", "Apraksin" and " Senyavin ”(“ Nakhimov ”and“ Ushakov ”were walking in the distance)?
And the Japanese were close, and were not under fire, and there was almost no combat damage, but the total number of shells that hit the Japanese ships in this period was scanty. If you look at the calibers, then among the hits and close explosions recorded in time (there were 84) 254-mm shells are not a single one, 120-mm - as many as 4 pieces, but the time of their hits hints that at least half of this number went to the Japanese from the "Pearl" and "Izumrud", 229-mm - one shell.
It is possible, of course, that there were hits from 152-mm and 305-mm guns of the "Emperor Nicholas I", but the general statistics of hits does not indicate this.
The most important features
Based on the above, it should be assumed that:
1. The basis of the combat power of the Russian squadron was made up of 4 squadron battleships of the Borodino and Oslyabya types.
2. The death of the Oslyabi due to the poor quality of the ship's construction, the failure of the Suvorov's centralized fire control systems and the fires that made it difficult for the 1st armored detachment to fire, led to a drop in the effectiveness of Russian fire after the first 20 minutes of the battle.
3. By the end of the 1st phase, most likely, the MSA on all the battleships of the Borodino type were out of action, the artillery on the Nakhimov was badly damaged, and thus, of the entire 2nd Pacific squadron, only “ Sisoy the Great "and" Navarin ", while the second had outdated artillery. All of the above led to a multiple decrease in the effectiveness of Russian shooting - if in the first phase every minute the Japanese received 0,74 hits taken into account in time, then in the second - only 2.
4. The ships of the 3rd Pacific Squadron demonstrated depressingly low firing accuracy throughout the battle on 14 May.
Conclusions
Some time ago, one of the key reasons for the defeat in the Battle of Tsushima was the poor quality of Russian shells. Today this statement is being revised - examples of successful Russian hits are given, when domestic shells pierced armor, exploded, inflicted heavy casualties, etc. All this, of course, is important and you need to know.
But along with this, you need to understand the following. Japanese shells, for all their shortcomings, set off fires in abundance, gave a lot of fragments, disabled the guns and fire control systems of our ships, while Russian shells did nothing of the kind. In other words, the Japanese landmines did an excellent job of suppressing the artillery power of our battleships, but our shells could not boast of anything like that.
In general, the Japanese, most likely, in the outset of the Tsushima battle fired more accurately than the Russians, although the Russian ships demonstrated a level of combat training unprecedented for the Russian Imperial Navy. But it can hardly be assumed that the Japanese bombarded our squadron with some unthinkable number of hits: it was not the quantity, but the fact that the action of the Japanese shells effectively suppressed our artillery, and our shells did not. In fact, only single Japanese guns were disabled by our shells, and even then - often only when they hit the gun mount directly. And I have no information that during the Tsushima battle the centralized fire control system of at least one Japanese ship was suppressed.
As a result, what happened happened. Both squadrons, so to speak, started well, but the Japanese managed to suppress the fire potential of our best ships, and we did not, after which, in fact, the battle turned into a beating.
A bit of an alternative
But what would have happened if the Japanese had fired not with "shimoza", but with some kind of shells closer to ours in quality, for example, equipped with black powder, as was customary among the British?
Let us imagine for a second that instead of the Oslyabi, a strong Peresvet is in the ranks of the second Pacific Ocean, and that Japanese fire did not cause fires that disturb us so much and did not disable the control system. The first 10 minutes we were targeting, then we were implementing the results of zeroing. Over the next 10 minutes, the Japanese ships received at least 20 hits. Why - at least? Because, in addition to the 81 hits recorded in time, the ships of H. Togo and H. Kamimura had 50-59 (or even more) unaccounted for. And if we assume that they hit proportionally accounted for, it turns out that in the period from 14:00 to 14:09 the Japanese were hit by up to 32–36 Russian shells!
What would happen to the Japanese battleships and armored cruisers if, during the sixty-three minutes remaining until the end of the 1st phase, approximately, our ships, without reducing the quality of fire, would drive in them another 202-226 shells, mainly 152-305-mm caliber, thereby bringing the total number of hits to almost three hundred?
Who would mourn for Tsushima today: us or the Japanese?
So what is it that the ideal projectile is a high-explosive one?
Of course not. The main shell of heavy artillery ships subsequently became precisely armor-piercing shells, and the same British, having relied on semi-armor-piercing ammunition, bitterly regretted this as a result of the Battle of Jutland. Against the background of excellent German "armor-piercing" the British "half-shells" looked very "sour".
But the problem is that our shells from the era of the Russo-Japanese War cannot be called excellent armor-piercing. Yes, they pierced armor, but only of moderate thickness, unable to reach the key mechanisms of Japanese ships. And our shells had too little explosive content to inflict decisive damage behind the armor on Japanese ships, where they did penetrate this armor.
Therefore, in spite of everything, one of the most important reasons for the Japanese victory in Tsushima was and remains the quality of the Japanese shells.
But nevertheless it should be noted that, although this cannot be said for sure, a number of indirect data indicate that the Japanese nevertheless surpassed even the best ships of Zinovy Petrovich Rozhestvensky in accuracy. Why?
To be continued ...
- Andrei from Chelyabinsk
- from the site tsushima.su
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