The battleship of coastal defense "Admiral General Apraksin"
Appearance in the Russian fleet the battleship “General Admiral Apraksin”, which was widely known due to the extraordinary circumstances of his salvation in the harsh winter of 1899/1900, became possible as a result of the curious transformations of the five-year (1891 - 1895) plan for enhanced shipbuilding.
The original version of this plan, known in the literature as an intermediate program 1890 of the year, was introduced by Admiral N.M. Chihachev and approved by Emperor Alexander III 24 in November of this year. He envisioned the construction of 10 armored cruisers. However, as early as next year, the increase in the size and cost of armored ships of ocean navigation led the author of the program, N.M. Chikhachev, to the idea of replacing part of them with “small” armored ships, or “coastal armadillos”.
In the 1892 year, in addition to the allocated Poltava and Sisoy Veliky ships in St. Petersburg, the battleships Admiral Senyavin and Admiral Ushakov were laid down with a normal displacement of 4126 tons in the project, along with the allocated allocations. At the end of 1893 of the year when it became clear the actual size and cost of all the ships of the program, and it became clear that the limited capabilities of the St. Petersburg port do not allow it to be done in a timely manner, Admiral N. M. Chikhachev, refusing to have already ordered a battleship of the “Sisoy the Great” type and a cruiser “Rurik” ", P inyal decision on construction of the third battleship of coastal defense of the "Admiral Senyavin". Probably, the energetic manager of the Naval Ministry secured with the oral consent of the king and the general admiral. It is possible that such free execution of the highest predestinations of the 1890 of the year was without scandalous consequences only due to the change of government in the 1894 year, when the place of Alexander III who had died in Boz was replaced by his son, Nikolay II. Battleships of the “Admiral Senyavin” type were designed in 1889 — 1891 in the Maritime Technical Committee (ITC) under the guidance of the famous shipbuilder E. E. Gulyaev. During the construction of the first two ships on the stocks (1892 — 1894), practical drawings were compiled by the senior shipbuilder PP Mikhailov (the builder of “Senyavin”) and the senior assistant shipbuilder D.V. Skvortsov (observing the construction of "Ushakov"), At the same time significant changes were made to the initial draft. Therefore, Mikhailov and Skvortsov can be considered the “co-authors” of Gulyayev in the design of ships. The British firms “Models, Sons and Field” and “Humphreys Tennant and Co.” (suppliers of the main mechanisms for “Ushakov” and “Senyavin”), artillerymen of the ITC, mainly S.O. Makarov and A. .F. Brink (selection and design of large tools), as well as Putilov factory - supplier of tower installations with hydraulic drive. As a result, the battleships differed significantly from the original design in terms of the composition of weapons and the appearance of the armament, and differed in the design of the main machines (and height of the chimneys).
In December, 1893, simultaneously with the order to build the third coastal defense battleship, Admiral Chikhachev ordered that machines and boilers be ordered for him to the Franco-Russian plant in St. Petersburg, which was supposed to be manufactured according to the drawing of the “Ushakov” Modsley mechanisms. Therefore, the new ship, named "General-Admiral Apraksin", in many documents called the battleship of the type "Admiral Ushakov."
Preparatory work on the hull began in February 1894 of the year, and on October 12, the first poods of metal were set up on the slipway of the wooden slipway of the New Admiralty, which was released after launching the Sisoi the Great. The official bookmark of “General-Admiral Apraksin” was held on 20 in May of the following year, and D.V. Skvortsov, one of the most energetic and talented Russian naval engineers of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, became its builder.
It seemed that the construction of the third battleship of coastal defense according to the already completed and revised prototype drawings would not cause any particular difficulties and would not require an adjustment of the project. However, in practice, everything turned out differently just because of the additions of the 1891 project of the year, which caused an overload of the first two ships, and also because of the desire to improve the 254-mm tower system. In February 1895 of the year, DVSkvortsov computed the load of Admiral Ushakov, the draft of which in normal cargo exceeded the design load by 10 '/ 2 inches (0,27 m). In order to avoid overloading Admiral Apraksin General, the builder proposed reducing the thickness of all onboard armor by 1 inch (25,4 mm), “destroying 10-inch gun turrets by placing tools on barrels behind barbet and covering with spherical shields”, covering the shells and charges thick armor (barbets) and exercise using electric winches.
Even earlier, July 15, 1894, the MTK gunners, led by Rear Admiral S.O. Makarov, for the first time in terms of the design of two-gun installations of 254-mm guns, first put forward the requirements to ensure the loading speed of each gun no more than 1,5 minutes and the elevation angle 35 °. The design of such plants with hydraulic drive by three plants (for the rostislav battleship) in the autumn of the same year showed the possibility of providing the specified parameters. However, in February 1895, MTK, also for the first time, chose a more promising approach for the Apraksin towers - an electric drive with similar loading speeds and elevation angles, but with a decrease in the thickness of the vertical armor of the tower to 7 inches (178 mm), barbetas - to 6 (152 mm) and roofs up to 1,25 inches (about 32 mm). The total mass of the turret with armor protection should not exceed 255 t.
In June, according to the results of competitive design, 1895 ordered an order for tower installations for “General-Admiral Apraksin” to give to the Putilov plant, although the design of the Metal Plant, which developed electric drives from 1892, had “the same merit”. Probably, the Metal Plant had the best chances for the successful execution of the order, but asked for a higher price. Somewhat earlier, the electric tower mechanisms were also chosen for the battleship Rostislav (the order was for the Obukhov Plant), and later similar towers were ordered for the battleships Oslyabya and Peresvet. Therefore, it was the Rostislav and the General-Admiral Apraksin (and not the battleships of the Peresvet type) that became the first ships in the Russian fleet with electric tower installations. At the same time, for the last battleship in order to reduce the overloading of the MTK in April — May, 1895 approved the installation of one 254-mm gun in the aft turret instead of two. Putilov plant pledged to pass both towers "Apraksina" by the end of September 1897 year.
Thus, MTC rejected Skvortsov’s proposal to replace the towers with barbets and cut the number of large-caliber guns by a quarter. In order to compensate for the increased weight of the new towers in comparison with the hydraulic ones, it was decided to reduce the onboard booking by 1,5 inches.
By the beginning of the year 1896, DV Skvortsov brought the Apraksin readiness on the hull to 54,5%. The ship was launched on 30 on April 1896 of the year, and the first test of the machines was in the autumn of 1897. The manufacture of the main mechanisms at the Franco-Russian Plant was led by the engineers P.L. One and A.G. Arkhipov, who were present at the tests of Modsley's machines at the Admiral Ushakov. The sea trials of General Admiral Apraksin ended in the autumn of 1898, and experienced shooting from the 254-mm towers did not happen until next August.
The normal displacement of General Admiral Apraksin was 4438 t (according to the design of the prototype — 4126 t) with the greatest length of 86,5 m (GVL - 84,6 m), width 15,9 and average draft of 5,5 m.
The load of the battleship was distributed as follows: the hull lined with armor, practical items, systems, devices and supplies - 2040 t (46,0% of normal displacement, the body itself accounted for about 1226 t or 29,7%), booking - 812 t (18,4%) , artillery armament - 486 t (11%), mine - 85 t (1,9%), machines and boilers with water - 657 t (14,8%), normal coal stock - 214т (4,8%), boats, anchors, chains - 80 t (1,8%), team with baggage - 60 t (1,3%).
The displacement of a ship with a full supply of coal (400 tons) reached 4624 tons.
The apraksin corps trigger mass (nose draft - 1,93 m, stern - 3,1 m) did not exceed 1500 t. In peacetime, the battleship displacement was about 4500 t, and in the morning of the first day of the Tsushima battle (14 May 1905 of the year) with 446 t coal weight and about 200 t of fresh water “Apraksin” with an average draft of about 5,86 m had a displacement of 4810 t.
The riveted hull of the ship with watertight bulkheads that reached the armored (battery) deck was subdivided into 15 main compartments. There were a double bottom throughout the 15 — 59 frames (10 double bottom watertight compartments). The studs, steering frame (3,5 t mass) and propeller shaft brackets were cast at the Obukhov plant. The drainage system, which included a trunk pipe with a diameter of 457 mm, was carried out at the Admiralty Izhora plants.
The armor protection included the main armor belt on the waterline with a length of 53,6 m and a width of 2,1 m (with immersion on 1,5 m) from the “welded” plates in the upper part of the 216 mm (9 plates in the middle of each side) and 165 mm (6) extreme plates). The armored citadel was closed by the bow (165 mm) and aft (152 mm) traverses, and the 38-mm armor deck (25.4-mm armor plates on the 12,7-mm steel flooring) was protected from above. Under the protection of the citadel were placed the main mechanisms and ammunition cellars. The fore and aft ends were partially protected by a car deck with a total thickness from 38 to 64 mm. The conning tower was formed by two 178-mm armor plates with the entrance to it through the hatch in the deck of the Spardek. The same armor defended turrets of large-caliber guns, the bases (barbety) for which were booked 152-mm plates.
The main mechanisms of the battleship included two vertical machines of triple expansion (cylinders with a diameter of 787, 1172 and 1723 mm) with a design capacity of 2500 hp. each (at 124 rpm) and four steam cylindrical boilers (working steam pressure 9,1 kgf / cm2). Five steam dynamos produced a constant current of voltage 100 B. Ten coal wells contained 400 tons of coal. In 1896 — 1897, “oil” (fuel oil) in an amount of about 33 tons was accepted as a coal pit between 37 and 34. A weekly stay of fuel oil in the pit revealed quite satisfactory tightness of vertical riveted joints, but around 240 kg of “oil” flowed into the next coal pit through the top due to leaks at the junction of the bulkhead with an armored deck. Conceived oil heating boilers on the Apraksin, like on some other Baltic battleships, were not actually used.
The installation of the main machines, boilers and smoke work on the ship was completed in November 1896, at the same time (November 18) the machines were tested in mooring trials. The vapor pressure in the three boilers brought to 7.7 kgf / cm2. shaft speeds up to 35 — 40 rpm. The sea trials of General Admiral Apraksin began only in the fall of 1897, when the battleship commanded by Captain 1, rank N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted his first campaign in a detachment of vessels designated for testing (flag of Rear Admiral VP Messer). However, all three factory tests (from 11 to 21 of October) failed: the machines developed power from just 3200 to 4300 hp, and the tests themselves had to be interrupted each time due to faults (knock on the cylinder, error in the drawing of the steam regulator, vapor pressure drop in boilers).
The reasons for this situation were that the board of the Franco-Russian Plant saw the poor quality of coal and the inexperience of factory firemen, but the following year, tests were repeatedly postponed due to various problems. Finally, 14 on October 1898 of the year on the official 6-hour test of the battleship machine developed the 4804 hp, and the average speed (in four runs on the measured mile) was only 14,47 knots (maximum 15,19 knots). The British prototype machines (“Ushakov”) at one time developed more than 5700 hp, having worked for almost 12 hours and ensured speed over 16 knots. Therefore, the Vice-Admiral PPTyrtov, the head of the Marine Ministry, ordered the Apraksin test to be repeated, which was done on October 20 of the same year after washing the steam pipes and receiving the coal.
This time, during 7 hours of full speed, the battleship showed an average speed of 15,07 knots with the total power of the 5763 machines hp. and the displacement (at the beginning of the test) 4152 t. Why the 16-nodal speed was not achieved is not entirely clear, but the ministry’s management assessed the results as “brilliant”, and in a number of documents it was noted that the maximum speed reached 17 knots, which in principle could be with such a significant excess of the design capacity.
The estimated cruising range of the Apraksin with a full (15 knots) course at a normal (214 tonnes) stock of coal reached 648 miles, an 10 nodal stroke - 1392 miles. Therefore, a full supply of coal provided a cruising range of about 2700 miles at a speed of 10 knots.
The artillery artillery of the battleship included three 254-mm, four 120-mm, ten 47-mm, twelve 37-mm guns and two 64-mm Baranovsky paratroopers. Two 254-mm guns were placed in the nose turret (total weight of the 258,3 unit) and one in the stern (217,5 tonne). The savings were, as a result, small. The towers were provided with electric and manual (backup) drives. Nasal two-gun turret had eight Gram and Siemens electric motors: two for each of the turning and lifting mechanisms, lifting the chargers and acting as tillers. The total power of electric motors reached 72,25 kW (98 hp). The action of the aft tower was provided by four electric motors with a power of 36,15 kW (49 hp).
On Apraksin, 254-mm guns with a length of 45 gauges from A.F. Brink's drawing were installed, somewhat improved compared with the guns of the first two battleships. The mass of the barrel of a single gun was 22,5 t (as in the Rostislav and Peresvet). The initial velocity of the projectile (225,2 kg), as well as for the guns of "Ushakov" and "Senyavin", had to be limited to 693 m / s. The elevation angle of the guns reached 35 °, while for shooting at elevation angles above 15 °, parts of the armored roof above the embrasures swung on hinges, which ensured the firing range to 73 KB.
Kanet's 120-mm cannons, which had a 54 kb shooting range, were located on the upper deck in the corners of the superstructure (Spardy) without armor protection and without shields.
Two 47-mm guns of the Hotchkiss system stood along the sides in the "captain's hall" - a large room aft on the battery deck, two - between the 120-mm guns on the upper deck in the superstructure, the rest on the spardek and the bridges. Eight Hotchkiss 37-mm guns on swivel installations were located on the battle mast of the foremast, two on the bridge, and another two were used to arm the boats.
The mine armament included four 381-mm bronze surface mine vehicles: fore and aft (in the captain's hall), two side and three combat searchlights. Mines barriers (30 units), envisaged by the 1891 project of the year, were removed from the armament structure even during the construction of the first battleships of this type, but the anti-mine networks that were canceled were restored during ship tests. Two 34-foot shipboard steamboats had throwing mine apparatus.
The artillery of “General-Admiral Apraksin” was tested by shooting 23 and 24 in July 1899 by the commission of Rear Admiral FA Amosov. The shots were quite successful, although the shutters of the ports of the 120-mm guns required some rework, and the towers found a tendency to "subsidence" (as on battleships of the "Poltava" type). The speed of loading 254-mm guns "in electric" was 1 min 33 s (the interval between shots). The "settling" of the towers, fortunately, subsequently did not progress. However, the towers themselves during intensive operation (up to 54 shots per campaign) caused quite a lot of complaints. So, there were breakdowns of the teeth of the pinion gear, failures of the electric drive due to poor insulation of wires.
The quality of the hull works of the New Admiralty also left much to be desired. Commission V.P. Messera discovered the missing rivets, part of the remaining holes was filled with wooden chops. Vice-Admiral S.O. Makarov, who studied in detail the first two battleships of the same type, drew attention to the drawbacks of the drainage system.
In terms of tactical and technical elements, General-Admiral Apraksin not only did not yield to ships of his class in the German, Danish and Swedish fleets (1899 year), but also had a number of advantages due to the relatively advantageous combination of the caliber of the main artillery, its deployment and defense system . In the conditions of the Baltic, the battleship fully satisfied its purpose, and its entry into service was of particular importance due to the need to develop tower electric drives, already adopted for future squadron battleships.
However, the hopes of some admirals for the use of Apraksin for the preparation of commanders turned out to be in vain due to the events of the fall of 1899. At the beginning, the 1899 campaign of the year was developing quite well for the battleship. On August 4, having completed tests and having about 320 tons of coal and reserves for the summer campaign on board, the General-Admiral Apraksin left Kronstadt. At noon the next day, the battleship commander Captain 1 of rank V.V. Lipdestrem safely brought him to Revel to the Training Artillery Detachment. During his service in the Apraksin detachment, he fired five times with officers of the officer class and pupils-commanders, spending 628 cartridges for training 37-mm trunks, as well as 9 254-mm and 40 120-mm shells. The shooting turned out to be quite troublesome for the senior artillery officer Lieutenant F.V. Rimsky-Korsakov: on the fifth day in the aft tower the sleeve and the device for mounting the training barrel were torn, and on the sixth day the horizontal guidance of the nose tower failed. During the day, this malfunction was eliminated at the private plant “Wiegand”, which restored the broken teeth of the coupling transfer from manual control to the electric one.
14 August 1899, the "General-Admiral Apraksin" went to sea to go to Copenhagen. The fresh north wind foreshadowed a storm voyage. New ship, on the recall of V.V. Linddestrem showed “excellent seaworthy qualities”: with counter excitement only splashes flew onto the tank, and with passing, the pitches did not exceed 10 ° on board. The machine was working properly, ensuring the average speed of 11,12 knots when two boilers were put into operation. On the morning of May 16, the low-lying green shores of Denmark appeared on the horizon, and at 14 hours the Apraksin was already on the barrel in the harbor of Copenhagen, finding the Tsarevna yacht, the Gunner and the Two Danish ships there.
22 August in the Danish capital arrived on the yacht "Standart" Nicholas II with the family. The Apraksin’s parking lot in the capital of a friendly state was marked by numerous receptions and visits. Non-commissioned officers and sailors were regularly fired ashore. The officers of the Apraksin, the king of Denmark, according to the tradition “granted” by the gentlemen of the Order of Dannebrog.
On September 14, leaving the imperial yachts to cruise around European ports, the battleship left the hospitable kingdom and arrived in Kronstadt two days later. 21 September he ended the campaign, but did not disarm, so that after the completion of the construction work to go to Libau. Squadron battleships “Poltava” and “Sevastopol” were gathered there, completing the tests in a separate detachment of Rear Admiral F.I. Amosov.
Tuesday 12 of November 1899 of the year, scheduled for the release of Apraksin at sea, began with fog and a gradual strengthening of the northeast wind. The fog scattered around 15 h allowed the Apraksin navigator, Lieutenant P.P. Durnovo determine the deviation of the Kronstadt region, and the commander V.V. Linddestrem decided to follow the plan. Watching the fall of the barometer. Vladimir Vladimirovich hoped to take refuge in Revel, but he still had to go there.
By 20 h the wind increased to six points, and soon reached the strength of the storm, aggravated by negative air temperatures and snowstorms. Battleship, covered with a layer of ice, went blindly - out of sight of islands and lighthouses. Mechanical and manual lags due to freezing of water and the danger of sending people were not used, the speed was determined by the speed of the machines.
In 20 h 45 min. The commander reduced the stroke from 9 to 5,5 knots, intending to clarify the location by measuring the depth of the sea. Having not obtained certain results in this way, V.V.Lindestrem and P.P.Durnovo considered that the battleship had blown to the south and was going to decide on the lighthouse of Gogland, the largest island in the center of the Gulf of Finland. In fact, Apraksin turned out to be much to the north, and in W. H. 30 of 13 mines in November at a speed of about 3 the bonds jumped to the bank near the high snowy southeast coast of Gogland.
The blow seemed soft to the commander, and the situation was not hopeless. However, an attempt to get off the ground in full reverse failed, and an hour later the water appeared in the bow stoker, which quickly arrived. The ship tilted to 10 ° fawn side and on the excitement strongly fought the bottom of the ground. V.V. Linddestrem, thinking about saving people, decided to bring the team ashore. The message with the latter, which was attended by local residents, was established with the help of two rescue towers filed from the fort-mars. By 15, the crossing of people was successfully completed, having stopped before that the couples already raised after the accident in two fodder and auxiliary boilers.
The accident of a new battleship of coastal defense in St. Petersburg was learned from the telegram of the commander of the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, who noticed the distress signals sent by the Apraksin on the transition from Kronstadt to Revel. Vice-Admiral PPTyrtov, head of the Marine Ministry, immediately ordered to send a squadron battleship "Poltava" to Gogland from Kronstadt, and Admiral Ushakov battleship from Libava, supplying them with plasters and materials for rescue, the head of which was appointed by the Rear Admiral F I. Amosov, holding the flag on "Poltava". In addition to warships, the icebreaker Yermak, the steamer Moguchy, two rescue ships of the private Revel rescue community and divers of the Kronstadt school of the maritime department attracted the Apraksin to rescue. “Admiral Ushakov” did not reach Gogland - he returned to Libau due to a breakdown of the steering gear.
On the morning of November 15, F.I. arrived at the Apraksin. Amosov, who, without sharing the initial optimism of V.V. Lindestrem (“with immediate help the battleship will be removed”), found the position “extremely dangerous” and dependent on the weather. Fortunately, Yermak could provide the fight against ice, but the telegraph to maintain communication with St. Petersburg was available only in Kotka, which made operational management difficult.
It was possible to organize communication with the help of the outstanding invention of the end of the XIX century - radio. December 10 1899, Vice-Admiral I.M. Dikov and Acting Chief Inspector of the Mine Case, Rear Admiral K.S. Ostolic was suggested to connect Gogland with the mainland using the “telegraph without wires”, invented by A.S. Popov. The head of the ministry on the same day imposed a resolution on the report: “You can try, I agree ...”. A.S. Popov himself, his assistant P.N.Rybkin, captain 2 of the rank G.I., soon went to the place of works with sets of radio stations. Zalevsky and Lieutenant A.A. Remmert. On Gogland and on the island of Kutsalo, Kotka began building masts for antenna installation.
By this time, it turned out that "Apraksin", in the apt expression of FI Amosov, literally "climbed into a pile of stones." The top of the huge stone and the 8-ton granite boulder were stuck in the body of the battleship, forming a hole to the left of the vertical keel in the 12 — 23 frames area with an area of about 27 and m2. Through it, the bow chamber of the Baranovsky guns, the mine cellar, the turret compartment, the cryt chamber and the bomb cellar of the 254-mm turret, the entire nose compartment up to the armor deck were filled with water. Three other stones produced smaller bottom destruction. The ship received more than 700 tons of water, which could not be pumped out without sealing the holes. The stones stuck in the bottom prevented the Apraksin from moving.
Among the numerous proposals to save the armadillo were very curious. For example, to put a “steel plate” under the hull and simultaneously with towing to lift it above the stone with explosions under the explosive charge board (signed “Not a sailor, but simply a Moscow tradesman”), “One of the benevolent battleship Apraksin” offered to lift the body above the stone with using a huge lever out of the rails.
Subsequently, the commander V.V. Linddestrem considered it quite realistic to use the “ice dock” for the repair of the ship at the scene of the accident, calculated by Major General Zharintsev. The latter offered to freeze the water around the battleship to the very bottom with the help of liquid carbonic acid, and then cut through the trench to the bow to deepen the place and "free the surface of the sea bottom from the stones." However, rescuers went the other way.
All rescue operations were carried out under the general guidance and control of the ministry’s head, Admiral PPTyrtov, who drew the well-known admirals, I.M. Dikova, V.P. Verkhovsky and S.O. Makarov, the main inspectors of the ITC N.E. Kuteynikov, A.S. Krotkova, N.G. Nozikova. The commander of the battleship V.V. took direct part in the rescue work under the direction of F.I.Amosov. Linddestrem, junior assistants shipbuilder P.P. Belyankin and E.S. Politovsky, a representative of the Revel rescue society, von Franken, and the pointer of the New Admiralty Olympians, who knew the ship well. The divers, who worked in the icy water, were led by lieutenants MF Shultz and AK Nebolsin. It was decided to remove the upper part of a large stone by means of explosions, unload the battleship, which had an 4515 ton displacement at the time of the accident, repair the hole if possible, pump out the water and, using pontoons, steal the battleship off the ground.
Attempts to pull the Apraksin from the shoal were made twice: November 28 (icebreaker Yermak with the full rear course Apraksin) and December 9 (the steamers Meteor and Helios came to the rescue of Yermak). After a thorough examination of the hull and a large stone by divers, it became clear that these attempts were doomed to failure.
The struggle with stones, which lasted until freeze-up, in case of failure of attempts to move the Apraksin from its place by tugboats, led P.P.Tyrtov to the decision to postpone its removal from the bank to spring next year. F.I. Amosov with “Poltava” and the majority of the crew of the emergency ship were recalled to Kronstadt. To support the work, 36 sailors were left with boatswain Ivan Safonov. The danger of the destruction of Apraksin by the accumulation of ice was avoided with the help of Ermak and the strengthening of ice fields around the battleship.
25 January 1900, the chairman of the ITC Vice-Admiral I.M. Dikov read an urgent telegram from Kotka: "A telegram was received by Gogland without wires by telephone and the front stone was deleted." Having reported it to P.P.Tyrtov, Ivan Mikhailovich was instructed to report the contents to the editorial staff of Novoye Vremya and Gosudarstvennyi vestnik: this was the first in stories radiogram transmitted over a distance of more than 40 versts.
At the end of January 1900, the commander of the Training Artillery Detachment, Rear Admiral ZP Rozhestvensky, was appointed the head of the rescue work on Gogland. Zinovy Petrovich attracted to participate in the rescue of the battleship "Bureau for Soil Research", owned by mining engineer Voislav. The bureau sent technicians with two machines equipped with diamond drills for drilling holes in granite stones to the Apraksin. The explosion of dynamite in the boreholes turned out to be harmless to the ship. At the end of the work Voislav even refused to pay. Maritime Ministry, expressing gratitude for its disinterestedness, paid 1197 rubles. as compensation for equipment breakdowns and maintenance technicians.
By the beginning of April, 1900 managed to crack down on stones, temporarily seal up some of the holes and unload the battleship by about 500 t. 8 of April Yermak made an unsuccessful attempt to drag the ship onto the 2 of sazhen - the length of the lane created in solid ice. Three days later, the attempt was repeated, flooding the Apraksin fodder compartments and helping the Yermak with steam and coastal spiers. The battleship finally moved off and in the evening, with its own vehicles put into operation, moved back on the 12 and back from the stone ridge.
On April 13, on the channel laid by Yermak, he moved to the harbor at Gogland, and on April 22 safely landed in Aspe near Kotka. In the case of the battleship, there remained up to 300 t of water, which was continuously pumped out by pumps. In the presence of all 120 tons of coal and the absence of artillery (except for tower guns), ammunition, provisions, and most of the items of supply, the nose and stern were supplied by 5,9 meters.
On May 6, General-Admiral Apraksin, accompanied by the cruiser Asia and two rescue ships of the Revel Society, arrived in Kronstadt, where he was soon put in for repair at the Konstantinovsky dock, and 15 ended the prolonged campaign in May. P.P.Tyrtov congratulated V.V. Linddestrem with the end of the arduous epic and thanked all the participants of the work, especially ZP Rozhestvensky.
Repairing the damage to the battleship with the means of the Kronstadt port, completed in 1901, cost the treasury more than 175 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of rescue.
The Apraksin accident showed the weakness of the rescue means of the maritime department, which had to resort to improvisation and the involvement of other public and private organizations. Evaluating their contribution to the rescue of the ship, ZPP Rozhestvensky pointed out that without the “Yermak” the battleship would be in the distressful state of 1 without the help of Revel's saving society would have sunk back in November 1899 of the year. In difficult winter conditions, the dedication in work and enterprise characteristic of Russians in extreme situations decided a lot.
The commission to investigate the circumstances of the accident found no corpus delicti in the actions of the battleship commander and navigator officer. Former navigator "Apraksina" P.P. Durnovo brilliantly rehabilitated himself in the Tsushima battle, having spent the wounded destroyer "Bravy" in Vladivostok. The winter experience of 1899 / 1900 of the year prompted Captain 1 of rank V.V. Linddestrem speak in the "Maritime Collection" to criticize the unsinkability of his ship. In the article “Accident of the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin” he wrote, he pointed to the weakness of the bottom and the bulkheads, the water permeability of the bulkhead doors, he noted the complexity and inconvenience of installing drainage facilities, the distribution of water through the ventilation system and the sealing of pipes and cables in the bulkheads.
The article came to the review in the shipbuilding department of the MTC, which, under the leadership of N.Ye. Kuteynikov very thoroughly substantiated the impossibility of its publication. In a review signed by I.M. Dikov, the predominant idea was to protect the "honor of the uniform" of the committee itself and the maritime department as a whole. Calling "Apraksin" "a type, in a constructive attitude, to a certain extent, obsolete", the shipbuilders of the MTC considered that VV Linndremrem outlined his shortcomings in a generalized form, and this could create in the society "false ideas about modern shipbuilding." It was argued that almost all of the shortcomings over the past two years were resolved by committee decisions, and the specific issue of Apraksin will be discussed at the ITC on the relevant official report of S.O. Makarov, attached to him and a duplicate article.
Based on the revocation of the ITC, PPTyrtov banned publication: the official press organ of the ministry could not give rise to attacks "on the orders that exist in the fleet." Unfortunately, these orders became the object of attacks by the press with a great delay, when the fleet had already paid for them in the Tsushima Strait.
1902 — 1904 campaigns “General-Admiral Apraksin” conducted in the Artillery Training Detachment. During this period, its crew consisted of up to 185 people in the staffing team and up to 200 commandant students, that is, the variable composition of the trainees. In 1902, the battleship participated in the famous demonstration maneuvers of the detachment in the presence of two emperors on the Revel raid, and in the beginning of the winter of the same year, unsuccessfully tried to force the ice of the Gulf of Finland and received damage to the hull. In general, in the opinion of the last commander of the battleship captain 1, rank N.G. Lishin 6's designated April 1903, the Apraksin hull, due to the 1899 accident of the year and the 1902 ice navigation of the year, was severely “loosened” and even leaking in the bow and throughout the upper deck.
In November 1904, General-Admiral Apraksin, together with Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Senyavin, was assigned to the Separate squadron of ships of the future 3 Pacific Squadron to immediately follow the Far East - to reinforce the 2-th squadron.
The battleship launched the 22 campaign on December 1904 of the year. In preparation for the march, the Slyabi-Arko system of wireless telegraphy, two Barr and Stroud rangefinders (on Mars and aft bridge), Perepelkin optical sights for 254-mm and 120-mm guns, two of the latter were replaced by new ones due to the large “shooting”. For 254-mm guns, 60 armor-piercing, 149 high-explosive and 22 segment shells were sent to the ship, but only 200 of them could be placed in the cellars, and the rest had to be loaded onto transports. The latter also contained additional 100 high-explosive 254-mm projectiles for all three battleships of the same type. Ammunition 120-mm guns made 840 cartridges (200 - from armor-piercing, 480 - with explosive and 160 - with segmented shells), 47-mm guns - 8180 cartridges, 37-mm guns - 1620 cartridges and to 64-mm assault guns took 720 shrapnel and 720 grenades. Additional ammunition with 180 armor-piercing and 564 high-explosive shells of 120 mm caliber and 8830 cartridges for 47-mm guns were also loaded onto the transports. At the request of the commander N.G. Lishin on the replacement of the upper deck, the commander of the port of Libavia of Emperor Alexander III, Rear Admiral A.I. Iretskaya responded with the phrase “You should all stand up,” followed by obscene expressions.
2 February 1905 of the year "General-Admiral Apraksin" as a part of the Separate Detachment of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov left Libava to the Far East. In the 14 daytime battle of May 1905, the first phase of the Tsushima battle, "General-Admiral Apraksin" fought valiantly against the Japanese. His crew consisted of 16 officers and mechanical engineers, 1 doctor, 1 priest, 8 conductors and 378 of the lower ranks (1 sailor died at the crossing in the Red Sea). In the battle formation of the 3 armored detachment Apraksin was the second matelot - in the wake of the flagship battleship Rear Admiral NI Nebogatov "Emperor Nicholas I".
At the beginning of the battle, the senior artillery officer of the battleship battleship Lieutenant Baron GN Taube concentrated fire on the Japanese flagship battleship Mikasa, but after 30 mines he transferred it to the closer armored cruiser Nissin. The nose tower of the Apraksin was commanded by Lieutenant P.O. Shishko, aft - Lieutenant S.L. Trukhachev.
Through 40 mines after the start of the battle, the General Admiral Apraksin, which was still intact, passed in four cables from the dying battleship Oslyabya. The death of Oslyabi and the failure of the flagship of the Prince Suvorov squadron, where fires were raging, made a heavy impression on the Apraksin team, which entered the battle in a “cheerful mood”. The senior ship mechanic, captain PN Mileshkin, shortly after the Japanese sank, "Oslyabi" could not stand it and "accepted alcohol", for which he was removed by the commander N.G. Lishin. Until midnight from 14 to 15 in May, when the commander restored the senior ship mechanic in his rights, his duties were performed by the lieutenant N.N. Rozanov.
However, the crew of the Apraksin fought valiantly against the Japanese until the very evening. Battleship fired 132-mm projectiles before 254 (along with destroyers fired at night from 14 to 15 in May - up to 153 projectiles) and 460 120-mm projectiles. The role of Apraksin and other battleships of the 3 squad clearly manifested itself around 17 h, when they inflicted damage on the Japanese armored cruisers and forced the latter to retreat, stopping the shelling of crowded transports, cruisers and destroyers of the Russian squadron. At the same time, "Apraksin" itself was damaged. 203-mm projectile from the cruisers of the squadron of Vice-Admiral H. Kamimura hit the stern tower at the embrasure 254-mm gun, the projectile tear raised the roof and hampered the rotation of the tower, although it did not pierce the armor. Fragments of the projectile struck down commander Sonsky, wounded several commanders, and the commander of the tower, Lieutenant S.L. Trukhachev was contused, but remained on duty. 120-mm projectile hit the mess and mortally wounded the Beetle mineral, who soon died. Another gadget of an unknown caliber was demolished, the fragments of others knocked out the network (antenna) of the wireless telegraph.
Having relatively minor injuries and losses in people (two dead, ten injured), Admiral General Apraksin, not including combat lighting, on the night of May 15 vigorously repelled mine attacks and did not lag behind Emperor Nicholas I, the detachment’s flagship , coming to Vladivostok with a course of at least 12 — 13 knots.
However, in the morning of May 15, the N.I. Nebogatov detachment was surrounded by superior enemy forces. "Well. We broke in ... we die, ”- said N.G.Lishin on the bridge of“ Apraksin ”. The officers and team of the battleship, indeed, were ready to fight to the last and die. Komendor Petelkin, “tempted by a successful fire,” even fired a sighting shot from an 120-mm cannon, but the new battle did not happen - Admiral Not rich, as is known, surrendered to the enemy. His example (at a signal) was followed by the commander of the Apraksin N.G. Lishin (it is known that by order of Lieutenant Taube, the commanders threw locks of small guns and sights overboard).
So the ship, which bore the name of Peter the Great's associate and the first general admiral of the Russian fleet, fell into the hands of the enemy. The Japanese called it Okinoshima and even used it in an operation to seize Sakhalin Island. In 1906 — 1915, the Okinoshima was a training ship, in 1915 — 1926, in a blockbuster, and in 1926, it was scrapped.
For the delivery of the battleship to the enemy N.G. Lishin, before returning from captivity, was deprived of the rank of 1 captain of rank, and then convicted. The sentence of the court - the death penalty - was changed by Nicholas II to 10 years in prison. By two months of imprisonment in the fortress, the court sentenced the senior officer, Lieutenant N.M. Fridovskogo, who could not prevent the "criminal intentions" of his commander.
Sources and Literature
1.V. L. Installation of an ice dock designed by Major-General Zharshov for sealing holes. // Sea collection. 1905. No. 3. Neof. Dep. C.67 — 77.
2.Gribovsky V.Yu., Chernikov I.I. Battleship "Admiral Ushakov", St. Petersburg: Shipbuilding, 1996.
3.Molodtsov S.V. Battleships of coastal defense of the type "Admiral Senyavin" // Shipbuilding. 1985. No. 12. C.36 — 39.
4.Report on the artillery of the ITC for 1893. SPb., 1900.
5. Russian-Japanese War 1904 — 1905 Fleet actions. Documents. Separate Iv. Prince 3. Issue 1. SPb., 1912.
6.Tokarevskiy A. The crippled armadillos by official evaluation // Russian shipping. 1898. March — April (No. 192 — 183). C.63 — 97.
7.RGAVMF.F.417, 421,921.
The original version of this plan, known in the literature as an intermediate program 1890 of the year, was introduced by Admiral N.M. Chihachev and approved by Emperor Alexander III 24 in November of this year. He envisioned the construction of 10 armored cruisers. However, as early as next year, the increase in the size and cost of armored ships of ocean navigation led the author of the program, N.M. Chikhachev, to the idea of replacing part of them with “small” armored ships, or “coastal armadillos”.
In the 1892 year, in addition to the allocated Poltava and Sisoy Veliky ships in St. Petersburg, the battleships Admiral Senyavin and Admiral Ushakov were laid down with a normal displacement of 4126 tons in the project, along with the allocated allocations. At the end of 1893 of the year when it became clear the actual size and cost of all the ships of the program, and it became clear that the limited capabilities of the St. Petersburg port do not allow it to be done in a timely manner, Admiral N. M. Chikhachev, refusing to have already ordered a battleship of the “Sisoy the Great” type and a cruiser “Rurik” ", P inyal decision on construction of the third battleship of coastal defense of the "Admiral Senyavin". Probably, the energetic manager of the Naval Ministry secured with the oral consent of the king and the general admiral. It is possible that such free execution of the highest predestinations of the 1890 of the year was without scandalous consequences only due to the change of government in the 1894 year, when the place of Alexander III who had died in Boz was replaced by his son, Nikolay II. Battleships of the “Admiral Senyavin” type were designed in 1889 — 1891 in the Maritime Technical Committee (ITC) under the guidance of the famous shipbuilder E. E. Gulyaev. During the construction of the first two ships on the stocks (1892 — 1894), practical drawings were compiled by the senior shipbuilder PP Mikhailov (the builder of “Senyavin”) and the senior assistant shipbuilder D.V. Skvortsov (observing the construction of "Ushakov"), At the same time significant changes were made to the initial draft. Therefore, Mikhailov and Skvortsov can be considered the “co-authors” of Gulyayev in the design of ships. The British firms “Models, Sons and Field” and “Humphreys Tennant and Co.” (suppliers of the main mechanisms for “Ushakov” and “Senyavin”), artillerymen of the ITC, mainly S.O. Makarov and A. .F. Brink (selection and design of large tools), as well as Putilov factory - supplier of tower installations with hydraulic drive. As a result, the battleships differed significantly from the original design in terms of the composition of weapons and the appearance of the armament, and differed in the design of the main machines (and height of the chimneys).
In December, 1893, simultaneously with the order to build the third coastal defense battleship, Admiral Chikhachev ordered that machines and boilers be ordered for him to the Franco-Russian plant in St. Petersburg, which was supposed to be manufactured according to the drawing of the “Ushakov” Modsley mechanisms. Therefore, the new ship, named "General-Admiral Apraksin", in many documents called the battleship of the type "Admiral Ushakov."
Preparatory work on the hull began in February 1894 of the year, and on October 12, the first poods of metal were set up on the slipway of the wooden slipway of the New Admiralty, which was released after launching the Sisoi the Great. The official bookmark of “General-Admiral Apraksin” was held on 20 in May of the following year, and D.V. Skvortsov, one of the most energetic and talented Russian naval engineers of the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, became its builder.
It seemed that the construction of the third battleship of coastal defense according to the already completed and revised prototype drawings would not cause any particular difficulties and would not require an adjustment of the project. However, in practice, everything turned out differently just because of the additions of the 1891 project of the year, which caused an overload of the first two ships, and also because of the desire to improve the 254-mm tower system. In February 1895 of the year, DVSkvortsov computed the load of Admiral Ushakov, the draft of which in normal cargo exceeded the design load by 10 '/ 2 inches (0,27 m). In order to avoid overloading Admiral Apraksin General, the builder proposed reducing the thickness of all onboard armor by 1 inch (25,4 mm), “destroying 10-inch gun turrets by placing tools on barrels behind barbet and covering with spherical shields”, covering the shells and charges thick armor (barbets) and exercise using electric winches.
Even earlier, July 15, 1894, the MTK gunners, led by Rear Admiral S.O. Makarov, for the first time in terms of the design of two-gun installations of 254-mm guns, first put forward the requirements to ensure the loading speed of each gun no more than 1,5 minutes and the elevation angle 35 °. The design of such plants with hydraulic drive by three plants (for the rostislav battleship) in the autumn of the same year showed the possibility of providing the specified parameters. However, in February 1895, MTK, also for the first time, chose a more promising approach for the Apraksin towers - an electric drive with similar loading speeds and elevation angles, but with a decrease in the thickness of the vertical armor of the tower to 7 inches (178 mm), barbetas - to 6 (152 mm) and roofs up to 1,25 inches (about 32 mm). The total mass of the turret with armor protection should not exceed 255 t.
In June, according to the results of competitive design, 1895 ordered an order for tower installations for “General-Admiral Apraksin” to give to the Putilov plant, although the design of the Metal Plant, which developed electric drives from 1892, had “the same merit”. Probably, the Metal Plant had the best chances for the successful execution of the order, but asked for a higher price. Somewhat earlier, the electric tower mechanisms were also chosen for the battleship Rostislav (the order was for the Obukhov Plant), and later similar towers were ordered for the battleships Oslyabya and Peresvet. Therefore, it was the Rostislav and the General-Admiral Apraksin (and not the battleships of the Peresvet type) that became the first ships in the Russian fleet with electric tower installations. At the same time, for the last battleship in order to reduce the overloading of the MTK in April — May, 1895 approved the installation of one 254-mm gun in the aft turret instead of two. Putilov plant pledged to pass both towers "Apraksina" by the end of September 1897 year.
Thus, MTC rejected Skvortsov’s proposal to replace the towers with barbets and cut the number of large-caliber guns by a quarter. In order to compensate for the increased weight of the new towers in comparison with the hydraulic ones, it was decided to reduce the onboard booking by 1,5 inches.
By the beginning of the year 1896, DV Skvortsov brought the Apraksin readiness on the hull to 54,5%. The ship was launched on 30 on April 1896 of the year, and the first test of the machines was in the autumn of 1897. The manufacture of the main mechanisms at the Franco-Russian Plant was led by the engineers P.L. One and A.G. Arkhipov, who were present at the tests of Modsley's machines at the Admiral Ushakov. The sea trials of General Admiral Apraksin ended in the autumn of 1898, and experienced shooting from the 254-mm towers did not happen until next August.
The normal displacement of General Admiral Apraksin was 4438 t (according to the design of the prototype — 4126 t) with the greatest length of 86,5 m (GVL - 84,6 m), width 15,9 and average draft of 5,5 m.
The load of the battleship was distributed as follows: the hull lined with armor, practical items, systems, devices and supplies - 2040 t (46,0% of normal displacement, the body itself accounted for about 1226 t or 29,7%), booking - 812 t (18,4%) , artillery armament - 486 t (11%), mine - 85 t (1,9%), machines and boilers with water - 657 t (14,8%), normal coal stock - 214т (4,8%), boats, anchors, chains - 80 t (1,8%), team with baggage - 60 t (1,3%).
The displacement of a ship with a full supply of coal (400 tons) reached 4624 tons.
The apraksin corps trigger mass (nose draft - 1,93 m, stern - 3,1 m) did not exceed 1500 t. In peacetime, the battleship displacement was about 4500 t, and in the morning of the first day of the Tsushima battle (14 May 1905 of the year) with 446 t coal weight and about 200 t of fresh water “Apraksin” with an average draft of about 5,86 m had a displacement of 4810 t.
The riveted hull of the ship with watertight bulkheads that reached the armored (battery) deck was subdivided into 15 main compartments. There were a double bottom throughout the 15 — 59 frames (10 double bottom watertight compartments). The studs, steering frame (3,5 t mass) and propeller shaft brackets were cast at the Obukhov plant. The drainage system, which included a trunk pipe with a diameter of 457 mm, was carried out at the Admiralty Izhora plants.
The armor protection included the main armor belt on the waterline with a length of 53,6 m and a width of 2,1 m (with immersion on 1,5 m) from the “welded” plates in the upper part of the 216 mm (9 plates in the middle of each side) and 165 mm (6) extreme plates). The armored citadel was closed by the bow (165 mm) and aft (152 mm) traverses, and the 38-mm armor deck (25.4-mm armor plates on the 12,7-mm steel flooring) was protected from above. Under the protection of the citadel were placed the main mechanisms and ammunition cellars. The fore and aft ends were partially protected by a car deck with a total thickness from 38 to 64 mm. The conning tower was formed by two 178-mm armor plates with the entrance to it through the hatch in the deck of the Spardek. The same armor defended turrets of large-caliber guns, the bases (barbety) for which were booked 152-mm plates.
The main mechanisms of the battleship included two vertical machines of triple expansion (cylinders with a diameter of 787, 1172 and 1723 mm) with a design capacity of 2500 hp. each (at 124 rpm) and four steam cylindrical boilers (working steam pressure 9,1 kgf / cm2). Five steam dynamos produced a constant current of voltage 100 B. Ten coal wells contained 400 tons of coal. In 1896 — 1897, “oil” (fuel oil) in an amount of about 33 tons was accepted as a coal pit between 37 and 34. A weekly stay of fuel oil in the pit revealed quite satisfactory tightness of vertical riveted joints, but around 240 kg of “oil” flowed into the next coal pit through the top due to leaks at the junction of the bulkhead with an armored deck. Conceived oil heating boilers on the Apraksin, like on some other Baltic battleships, were not actually used.
The installation of the main machines, boilers and smoke work on the ship was completed in November 1896, at the same time (November 18) the machines were tested in mooring trials. The vapor pressure in the three boilers brought to 7.7 kgf / cm2. shaft speeds up to 35 — 40 rpm. The sea trials of General Admiral Apraksin began only in the fall of 1897, when the battleship commanded by Captain 1, rank N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov conducted his first campaign in a detachment of vessels designated for testing (flag of Rear Admiral VP Messer). However, all three factory tests (from 11 to 21 of October) failed: the machines developed power from just 3200 to 4300 hp, and the tests themselves had to be interrupted each time due to faults (knock on the cylinder, error in the drawing of the steam regulator, vapor pressure drop in boilers).
The reasons for this situation were that the board of the Franco-Russian Plant saw the poor quality of coal and the inexperience of factory firemen, but the following year, tests were repeatedly postponed due to various problems. Finally, 14 on October 1898 of the year on the official 6-hour test of the battleship machine developed the 4804 hp, and the average speed (in four runs on the measured mile) was only 14,47 knots (maximum 15,19 knots). The British prototype machines (“Ushakov”) at one time developed more than 5700 hp, having worked for almost 12 hours and ensured speed over 16 knots. Therefore, the Vice-Admiral PPTyrtov, the head of the Marine Ministry, ordered the Apraksin test to be repeated, which was done on October 20 of the same year after washing the steam pipes and receiving the coal.
This time, during 7 hours of full speed, the battleship showed an average speed of 15,07 knots with the total power of the 5763 machines hp. and the displacement (at the beginning of the test) 4152 t. Why the 16-nodal speed was not achieved is not entirely clear, but the ministry’s management assessed the results as “brilliant”, and in a number of documents it was noted that the maximum speed reached 17 knots, which in principle could be with such a significant excess of the design capacity.
The estimated cruising range of the Apraksin with a full (15 knots) course at a normal (214 tonnes) stock of coal reached 648 miles, an 10 nodal stroke - 1392 miles. Therefore, a full supply of coal provided a cruising range of about 2700 miles at a speed of 10 knots.
The artillery artillery of the battleship included three 254-mm, four 120-mm, ten 47-mm, twelve 37-mm guns and two 64-mm Baranovsky paratroopers. Two 254-mm guns were placed in the nose turret (total weight of the 258,3 unit) and one in the stern (217,5 tonne). The savings were, as a result, small. The towers were provided with electric and manual (backup) drives. Nasal two-gun turret had eight Gram and Siemens electric motors: two for each of the turning and lifting mechanisms, lifting the chargers and acting as tillers. The total power of electric motors reached 72,25 kW (98 hp). The action of the aft tower was provided by four electric motors with a power of 36,15 kW (49 hp).
On Apraksin, 254-mm guns with a length of 45 gauges from A.F. Brink's drawing were installed, somewhat improved compared with the guns of the first two battleships. The mass of the barrel of a single gun was 22,5 t (as in the Rostislav and Peresvet). The initial velocity of the projectile (225,2 kg), as well as for the guns of "Ushakov" and "Senyavin", had to be limited to 693 m / s. The elevation angle of the guns reached 35 °, while for shooting at elevation angles above 15 °, parts of the armored roof above the embrasures swung on hinges, which ensured the firing range to 73 KB.
Kanet's 120-mm cannons, which had a 54 kb shooting range, were located on the upper deck in the corners of the superstructure (Spardy) without armor protection and without shields.
Two 47-mm guns of the Hotchkiss system stood along the sides in the "captain's hall" - a large room aft on the battery deck, two - between the 120-mm guns on the upper deck in the superstructure, the rest on the spardek and the bridges. Eight Hotchkiss 37-mm guns on swivel installations were located on the battle mast of the foremast, two on the bridge, and another two were used to arm the boats.
The mine armament included four 381-mm bronze surface mine vehicles: fore and aft (in the captain's hall), two side and three combat searchlights. Mines barriers (30 units), envisaged by the 1891 project of the year, were removed from the armament structure even during the construction of the first battleships of this type, but the anti-mine networks that were canceled were restored during ship tests. Two 34-foot shipboard steamboats had throwing mine apparatus.
The artillery of “General-Admiral Apraksin” was tested by shooting 23 and 24 in July 1899 by the commission of Rear Admiral FA Amosov. The shots were quite successful, although the shutters of the ports of the 120-mm guns required some rework, and the towers found a tendency to "subsidence" (as on battleships of the "Poltava" type). The speed of loading 254-mm guns "in electric" was 1 min 33 s (the interval between shots). The "settling" of the towers, fortunately, subsequently did not progress. However, the towers themselves during intensive operation (up to 54 shots per campaign) caused quite a lot of complaints. So, there were breakdowns of the teeth of the pinion gear, failures of the electric drive due to poor insulation of wires.
The quality of the hull works of the New Admiralty also left much to be desired. Commission V.P. Messera discovered the missing rivets, part of the remaining holes was filled with wooden chops. Vice-Admiral S.O. Makarov, who studied in detail the first two battleships of the same type, drew attention to the drawbacks of the drainage system.
In terms of tactical and technical elements, General-Admiral Apraksin not only did not yield to ships of his class in the German, Danish and Swedish fleets (1899 year), but also had a number of advantages due to the relatively advantageous combination of the caliber of the main artillery, its deployment and defense system . In the conditions of the Baltic, the battleship fully satisfied its purpose, and its entry into service was of particular importance due to the need to develop tower electric drives, already adopted for future squadron battleships.
However, the hopes of some admirals for the use of Apraksin for the preparation of commanders turned out to be in vain due to the events of the fall of 1899. At the beginning, the 1899 campaign of the year was developing quite well for the battleship. On August 4, having completed tests and having about 320 tons of coal and reserves for the summer campaign on board, the General-Admiral Apraksin left Kronstadt. At noon the next day, the battleship commander Captain 1 of rank V.V. Lipdestrem safely brought him to Revel to the Training Artillery Detachment. During his service in the Apraksin detachment, he fired five times with officers of the officer class and pupils-commanders, spending 628 cartridges for training 37-mm trunks, as well as 9 254-mm and 40 120-mm shells. The shooting turned out to be quite troublesome for the senior artillery officer Lieutenant F.V. Rimsky-Korsakov: on the fifth day in the aft tower the sleeve and the device for mounting the training barrel were torn, and on the sixth day the horizontal guidance of the nose tower failed. During the day, this malfunction was eliminated at the private plant “Wiegand”, which restored the broken teeth of the coupling transfer from manual control to the electric one.
14 August 1899, the "General-Admiral Apraksin" went to sea to go to Copenhagen. The fresh north wind foreshadowed a storm voyage. New ship, on the recall of V.V. Linddestrem showed “excellent seaworthy qualities”: with counter excitement only splashes flew onto the tank, and with passing, the pitches did not exceed 10 ° on board. The machine was working properly, ensuring the average speed of 11,12 knots when two boilers were put into operation. On the morning of May 16, the low-lying green shores of Denmark appeared on the horizon, and at 14 hours the Apraksin was already on the barrel in the harbor of Copenhagen, finding the Tsarevna yacht, the Gunner and the Two Danish ships there.
22 August in the Danish capital arrived on the yacht "Standart" Nicholas II with the family. The Apraksin’s parking lot in the capital of a friendly state was marked by numerous receptions and visits. Non-commissioned officers and sailors were regularly fired ashore. The officers of the Apraksin, the king of Denmark, according to the tradition “granted” by the gentlemen of the Order of Dannebrog.
On September 14, leaving the imperial yachts to cruise around European ports, the battleship left the hospitable kingdom and arrived in Kronstadt two days later. 21 September he ended the campaign, but did not disarm, so that after the completion of the construction work to go to Libau. Squadron battleships “Poltava” and “Sevastopol” were gathered there, completing the tests in a separate detachment of Rear Admiral F.I. Amosov.
Tuesday 12 of November 1899 of the year, scheduled for the release of Apraksin at sea, began with fog and a gradual strengthening of the northeast wind. The fog scattered around 15 h allowed the Apraksin navigator, Lieutenant P.P. Durnovo determine the deviation of the Kronstadt region, and the commander V.V. Linddestrem decided to follow the plan. Watching the fall of the barometer. Vladimir Vladimirovich hoped to take refuge in Revel, but he still had to go there.
By 20 h the wind increased to six points, and soon reached the strength of the storm, aggravated by negative air temperatures and snowstorms. Battleship, covered with a layer of ice, went blindly - out of sight of islands and lighthouses. Mechanical and manual lags due to freezing of water and the danger of sending people were not used, the speed was determined by the speed of the machines.
In 20 h 45 min. The commander reduced the stroke from 9 to 5,5 knots, intending to clarify the location by measuring the depth of the sea. Having not obtained certain results in this way, V.V.Lindestrem and P.P.Durnovo considered that the battleship had blown to the south and was going to decide on the lighthouse of Gogland, the largest island in the center of the Gulf of Finland. In fact, Apraksin turned out to be much to the north, and in W. H. 30 of 13 mines in November at a speed of about 3 the bonds jumped to the bank near the high snowy southeast coast of Gogland.
The blow seemed soft to the commander, and the situation was not hopeless. However, an attempt to get off the ground in full reverse failed, and an hour later the water appeared in the bow stoker, which quickly arrived. The ship tilted to 10 ° fawn side and on the excitement strongly fought the bottom of the ground. V.V. Linddestrem, thinking about saving people, decided to bring the team ashore. The message with the latter, which was attended by local residents, was established with the help of two rescue towers filed from the fort-mars. By 15, the crossing of people was successfully completed, having stopped before that the couples already raised after the accident in two fodder and auxiliary boilers.
The accident of a new battleship of coastal defense in St. Petersburg was learned from the telegram of the commander of the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, who noticed the distress signals sent by the Apraksin on the transition from Kronstadt to Revel. Vice-Admiral PPTyrtov, head of the Marine Ministry, immediately ordered to send a squadron battleship "Poltava" to Gogland from Kronstadt, and Admiral Ushakov battleship from Libava, supplying them with plasters and materials for rescue, the head of which was appointed by the Rear Admiral F I. Amosov, holding the flag on "Poltava". In addition to warships, the icebreaker Yermak, the steamer Moguchy, two rescue ships of the private Revel rescue community and divers of the Kronstadt school of the maritime department attracted the Apraksin to rescue. “Admiral Ushakov” did not reach Gogland - he returned to Libau due to a breakdown of the steering gear.
On the morning of November 15, F.I. arrived at the Apraksin. Amosov, who, without sharing the initial optimism of V.V. Lindestrem (“with immediate help the battleship will be removed”), found the position “extremely dangerous” and dependent on the weather. Fortunately, Yermak could provide the fight against ice, but the telegraph to maintain communication with St. Petersburg was available only in Kotka, which made operational management difficult.
It was possible to organize communication with the help of the outstanding invention of the end of the XIX century - radio. December 10 1899, Vice-Admiral I.M. Dikov and Acting Chief Inspector of the Mine Case, Rear Admiral K.S. Ostolic was suggested to connect Gogland with the mainland using the “telegraph without wires”, invented by A.S. Popov. The head of the ministry on the same day imposed a resolution on the report: “You can try, I agree ...”. A.S. Popov himself, his assistant P.N.Rybkin, captain 2 of the rank G.I., soon went to the place of works with sets of radio stations. Zalevsky and Lieutenant A.A. Remmert. On Gogland and on the island of Kutsalo, Kotka began building masts for antenna installation.
By this time, it turned out that "Apraksin", in the apt expression of FI Amosov, literally "climbed into a pile of stones." The top of the huge stone and the 8-ton granite boulder were stuck in the body of the battleship, forming a hole to the left of the vertical keel in the 12 — 23 frames area with an area of about 27 and m2. Through it, the bow chamber of the Baranovsky guns, the mine cellar, the turret compartment, the cryt chamber and the bomb cellar of the 254-mm turret, the entire nose compartment up to the armor deck were filled with water. Three other stones produced smaller bottom destruction. The ship received more than 700 tons of water, which could not be pumped out without sealing the holes. The stones stuck in the bottom prevented the Apraksin from moving.
Among the numerous proposals to save the armadillo were very curious. For example, to put a “steel plate” under the hull and simultaneously with towing to lift it above the stone with explosions under the explosive charge board (signed “Not a sailor, but simply a Moscow tradesman”), “One of the benevolent battleship Apraksin” offered to lift the body above the stone with using a huge lever out of the rails.
Subsequently, the commander V.V. Linddestrem considered it quite realistic to use the “ice dock” for the repair of the ship at the scene of the accident, calculated by Major General Zharintsev. The latter offered to freeze the water around the battleship to the very bottom with the help of liquid carbonic acid, and then cut through the trench to the bow to deepen the place and "free the surface of the sea bottom from the stones." However, rescuers went the other way.
All rescue operations were carried out under the general guidance and control of the ministry’s head, Admiral PPTyrtov, who drew the well-known admirals, I.M. Dikova, V.P. Verkhovsky and S.O. Makarov, the main inspectors of the ITC N.E. Kuteynikov, A.S. Krotkova, N.G. Nozikova. The commander of the battleship V.V. took direct part in the rescue work under the direction of F.I.Amosov. Linddestrem, junior assistants shipbuilder P.P. Belyankin and E.S. Politovsky, a representative of the Revel rescue society, von Franken, and the pointer of the New Admiralty Olympians, who knew the ship well. The divers, who worked in the icy water, were led by lieutenants MF Shultz and AK Nebolsin. It was decided to remove the upper part of a large stone by means of explosions, unload the battleship, which had an 4515 ton displacement at the time of the accident, repair the hole if possible, pump out the water and, using pontoons, steal the battleship off the ground.
Attempts to pull the Apraksin from the shoal were made twice: November 28 (icebreaker Yermak with the full rear course Apraksin) and December 9 (the steamers Meteor and Helios came to the rescue of Yermak). After a thorough examination of the hull and a large stone by divers, it became clear that these attempts were doomed to failure.
The struggle with stones, which lasted until freeze-up, in case of failure of attempts to move the Apraksin from its place by tugboats, led P.P.Tyrtov to the decision to postpone its removal from the bank to spring next year. F.I. Amosov with “Poltava” and the majority of the crew of the emergency ship were recalled to Kronstadt. To support the work, 36 sailors were left with boatswain Ivan Safonov. The danger of the destruction of Apraksin by the accumulation of ice was avoided with the help of Ermak and the strengthening of ice fields around the battleship.
25 January 1900, the chairman of the ITC Vice-Admiral I.M. Dikov read an urgent telegram from Kotka: "A telegram was received by Gogland without wires by telephone and the front stone was deleted." Having reported it to P.P.Tyrtov, Ivan Mikhailovich was instructed to report the contents to the editorial staff of Novoye Vremya and Gosudarstvennyi vestnik: this was the first in stories radiogram transmitted over a distance of more than 40 versts.
At the end of January 1900, the commander of the Training Artillery Detachment, Rear Admiral ZP Rozhestvensky, was appointed the head of the rescue work on Gogland. Zinovy Petrovich attracted to participate in the rescue of the battleship "Bureau for Soil Research", owned by mining engineer Voislav. The bureau sent technicians with two machines equipped with diamond drills for drilling holes in granite stones to the Apraksin. The explosion of dynamite in the boreholes turned out to be harmless to the ship. At the end of the work Voislav even refused to pay. Maritime Ministry, expressing gratitude for its disinterestedness, paid 1197 rubles. as compensation for equipment breakdowns and maintenance technicians.
By the beginning of April, 1900 managed to crack down on stones, temporarily seal up some of the holes and unload the battleship by about 500 t. 8 of April Yermak made an unsuccessful attempt to drag the ship onto the 2 of sazhen - the length of the lane created in solid ice. Three days later, the attempt was repeated, flooding the Apraksin fodder compartments and helping the Yermak with steam and coastal spiers. The battleship finally moved off and in the evening, with its own vehicles put into operation, moved back on the 12 and back from the stone ridge.
On April 13, on the channel laid by Yermak, he moved to the harbor at Gogland, and on April 22 safely landed in Aspe near Kotka. In the case of the battleship, there remained up to 300 t of water, which was continuously pumped out by pumps. In the presence of all 120 tons of coal and the absence of artillery (except for tower guns), ammunition, provisions, and most of the items of supply, the nose and stern were supplied by 5,9 meters.
On May 6, General-Admiral Apraksin, accompanied by the cruiser Asia and two rescue ships of the Revel Society, arrived in Kronstadt, where he was soon put in for repair at the Konstantinovsky dock, and 15 ended the prolonged campaign in May. P.P.Tyrtov congratulated V.V. Linddestrem with the end of the arduous epic and thanked all the participants of the work, especially ZP Rozhestvensky.
Repairing the damage to the battleship with the means of the Kronstadt port, completed in 1901, cost the treasury more than 175 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of rescue.
The Apraksin accident showed the weakness of the rescue means of the maritime department, which had to resort to improvisation and the involvement of other public and private organizations. Evaluating their contribution to the rescue of the ship, ZPP Rozhestvensky pointed out that without the “Yermak” the battleship would be in the distressful state of 1 without the help of Revel's saving society would have sunk back in November 1899 of the year. In difficult winter conditions, the dedication in work and enterprise characteristic of Russians in extreme situations decided a lot.
The commission to investigate the circumstances of the accident found no corpus delicti in the actions of the battleship commander and navigator officer. Former navigator "Apraksina" P.P. Durnovo brilliantly rehabilitated himself in the Tsushima battle, having spent the wounded destroyer "Bravy" in Vladivostok. The winter experience of 1899 / 1900 of the year prompted Captain 1 of rank V.V. Linddestrem speak in the "Maritime Collection" to criticize the unsinkability of his ship. In the article “Accident of the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin” he wrote, he pointed to the weakness of the bottom and the bulkheads, the water permeability of the bulkhead doors, he noted the complexity and inconvenience of installing drainage facilities, the distribution of water through the ventilation system and the sealing of pipes and cables in the bulkheads.
The article came to the review in the shipbuilding department of the MTC, which, under the leadership of N.Ye. Kuteynikov very thoroughly substantiated the impossibility of its publication. In a review signed by I.M. Dikov, the predominant idea was to protect the "honor of the uniform" of the committee itself and the maritime department as a whole. Calling "Apraksin" "a type, in a constructive attitude, to a certain extent, obsolete", the shipbuilders of the MTC considered that VV Linndremrem outlined his shortcomings in a generalized form, and this could create in the society "false ideas about modern shipbuilding." It was argued that almost all of the shortcomings over the past two years were resolved by committee decisions, and the specific issue of Apraksin will be discussed at the ITC on the relevant official report of S.O. Makarov, attached to him and a duplicate article.
Based on the revocation of the ITC, PPTyrtov banned publication: the official press organ of the ministry could not give rise to attacks "on the orders that exist in the fleet." Unfortunately, these orders became the object of attacks by the press with a great delay, when the fleet had already paid for them in the Tsushima Strait.
1902 — 1904 campaigns “General-Admiral Apraksin” conducted in the Artillery Training Detachment. During this period, its crew consisted of up to 185 people in the staffing team and up to 200 commandant students, that is, the variable composition of the trainees. In 1902, the battleship participated in the famous demonstration maneuvers of the detachment in the presence of two emperors on the Revel raid, and in the beginning of the winter of the same year, unsuccessfully tried to force the ice of the Gulf of Finland and received damage to the hull. In general, in the opinion of the last commander of the battleship captain 1, rank N.G. Lishin 6's designated April 1903, the Apraksin hull, due to the 1899 accident of the year and the 1902 ice navigation of the year, was severely “loosened” and even leaking in the bow and throughout the upper deck.
In November 1904, General-Admiral Apraksin, together with Admiral Ushakov and Admiral Senyavin, was assigned to the Separate squadron of ships of the future 3 Pacific Squadron to immediately follow the Far East - to reinforce the 2-th squadron.
The battleship launched the 22 campaign on December 1904 of the year. In preparation for the march, the Slyabi-Arko system of wireless telegraphy, two Barr and Stroud rangefinders (on Mars and aft bridge), Perepelkin optical sights for 254-mm and 120-mm guns, two of the latter were replaced by new ones due to the large “shooting”. For 254-mm guns, 60 armor-piercing, 149 high-explosive and 22 segment shells were sent to the ship, but only 200 of them could be placed in the cellars, and the rest had to be loaded onto transports. The latter also contained additional 100 high-explosive 254-mm projectiles for all three battleships of the same type. Ammunition 120-mm guns made 840 cartridges (200 - from armor-piercing, 480 - with explosive and 160 - with segmented shells), 47-mm guns - 8180 cartridges, 37-mm guns - 1620 cartridges and to 64-mm assault guns took 720 shrapnel and 720 grenades. Additional ammunition with 180 armor-piercing and 564 high-explosive shells of 120 mm caliber and 8830 cartridges for 47-mm guns were also loaded onto the transports. At the request of the commander N.G. Lishin on the replacement of the upper deck, the commander of the port of Libavia of Emperor Alexander III, Rear Admiral A.I. Iretskaya responded with the phrase “You should all stand up,” followed by obscene expressions.
2 February 1905 of the year "General-Admiral Apraksin" as a part of the Separate Detachment of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov left Libava to the Far East. In the 14 daytime battle of May 1905, the first phase of the Tsushima battle, "General-Admiral Apraksin" fought valiantly against the Japanese. His crew consisted of 16 officers and mechanical engineers, 1 doctor, 1 priest, 8 conductors and 378 of the lower ranks (1 sailor died at the crossing in the Red Sea). In the battle formation of the 3 armored detachment Apraksin was the second matelot - in the wake of the flagship battleship Rear Admiral NI Nebogatov "Emperor Nicholas I".
At the beginning of the battle, the senior artillery officer of the battleship battleship Lieutenant Baron GN Taube concentrated fire on the Japanese flagship battleship Mikasa, but after 30 mines he transferred it to the closer armored cruiser Nissin. The nose tower of the Apraksin was commanded by Lieutenant P.O. Shishko, aft - Lieutenant S.L. Trukhachev.
Through 40 mines after the start of the battle, the General Admiral Apraksin, which was still intact, passed in four cables from the dying battleship Oslyabya. The death of Oslyabi and the failure of the flagship of the Prince Suvorov squadron, where fires were raging, made a heavy impression on the Apraksin team, which entered the battle in a “cheerful mood”. The senior ship mechanic, captain PN Mileshkin, shortly after the Japanese sank, "Oslyabi" could not stand it and "accepted alcohol", for which he was removed by the commander N.G. Lishin. Until midnight from 14 to 15 in May, when the commander restored the senior ship mechanic in his rights, his duties were performed by the lieutenant N.N. Rozanov.
However, the crew of the Apraksin fought valiantly against the Japanese until the very evening. Battleship fired 132-mm projectiles before 254 (along with destroyers fired at night from 14 to 15 in May - up to 153 projectiles) and 460 120-mm projectiles. The role of Apraksin and other battleships of the 3 squad clearly manifested itself around 17 h, when they inflicted damage on the Japanese armored cruisers and forced the latter to retreat, stopping the shelling of crowded transports, cruisers and destroyers of the Russian squadron. At the same time, "Apraksin" itself was damaged. 203-mm projectile from the cruisers of the squadron of Vice-Admiral H. Kamimura hit the stern tower at the embrasure 254-mm gun, the projectile tear raised the roof and hampered the rotation of the tower, although it did not pierce the armor. Fragments of the projectile struck down commander Sonsky, wounded several commanders, and the commander of the tower, Lieutenant S.L. Trukhachev was contused, but remained on duty. 120-mm projectile hit the mess and mortally wounded the Beetle mineral, who soon died. Another gadget of an unknown caliber was demolished, the fragments of others knocked out the network (antenna) of the wireless telegraph.
Having relatively minor injuries and losses in people (two dead, ten injured), Admiral General Apraksin, not including combat lighting, on the night of May 15 vigorously repelled mine attacks and did not lag behind Emperor Nicholas I, the detachment’s flagship , coming to Vladivostok with a course of at least 12 — 13 knots.
However, in the morning of May 15, the N.I. Nebogatov detachment was surrounded by superior enemy forces. "Well. We broke in ... we die, ”- said N.G.Lishin on the bridge of“ Apraksin ”. The officers and team of the battleship, indeed, were ready to fight to the last and die. Komendor Petelkin, “tempted by a successful fire,” even fired a sighting shot from an 120-mm cannon, but the new battle did not happen - Admiral Not rich, as is known, surrendered to the enemy. His example (at a signal) was followed by the commander of the Apraksin N.G. Lishin (it is known that by order of Lieutenant Taube, the commanders threw locks of small guns and sights overboard).
So the ship, which bore the name of Peter the Great's associate and the first general admiral of the Russian fleet, fell into the hands of the enemy. The Japanese called it Okinoshima and even used it in an operation to seize Sakhalin Island. In 1906 — 1915, the Okinoshima was a training ship, in 1915 — 1926, in a blockbuster, and in 1926, it was scrapped.
For the delivery of the battleship to the enemy N.G. Lishin, before returning from captivity, was deprived of the rank of 1 captain of rank, and then convicted. The sentence of the court - the death penalty - was changed by Nicholas II to 10 years in prison. By two months of imprisonment in the fortress, the court sentenced the senior officer, Lieutenant N.M. Fridovskogo, who could not prevent the "criminal intentions" of his commander.
Sources and Literature
1.V. L. Installation of an ice dock designed by Major-General Zharshov for sealing holes. // Sea collection. 1905. No. 3. Neof. Dep. C.67 — 77.
2.Gribovsky V.Yu., Chernikov I.I. Battleship "Admiral Ushakov", St. Petersburg: Shipbuilding, 1996.
3.Molodtsov S.V. Battleships of coastal defense of the type "Admiral Senyavin" // Shipbuilding. 1985. No. 12. C.36 — 39.
4.Report on the artillery of the ITC for 1893. SPb., 1900.
5. Russian-Japanese War 1904 — 1905 Fleet actions. Documents. Separate Iv. Prince 3. Issue 1. SPb., 1912.
6.Tokarevskiy A. The crippled armadillos by official evaluation // Russian shipping. 1898. March — April (No. 192 — 183). C.63 — 97.
7.RGAVMF.F.417, 421,921.
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