"Ugly Sisters" of the Russian Navy
In the Russian Empire, unlike other maritime powers, there was no position of "chief shipbuilder", the holder of which determined the appearance of future ships. In its place there was a collective body - the Marine Technical Committee (MTK). In addition, oversight of the development fleet was carried out by the "inspector of shipbuilding". During the period described, the chairman of the MTC was Vice-Admiral Fyodor Dubasov, and the inspector was Lieutenant General Engineer Nikolai Kuteinikov.
Vice Admiral Fedor Dubasov, Chairman of the Ministry of Transport and Communications
Lieutenant General Nikolai Kuteinikov
The question of what ships would replace the Borodino-class battleships was raised in the MTC back in 1902 (since a 20-year shipbuilding program for 1902-1923 was adopted) and caused heated discussions. But, as Nicholas II's resolution stated: "Shipbuilding cannot stop without the most harmful consequences for the state", so the Minister of Finance Count Sergei Witte allocated 12 million rubles in December 1902 for 1903, and promised to allocate the same amount for 1904. And this despite the fact that no one had any idea what needed to be built...
The battleship Borodino is a proven option...
It became clear that there were three possible directions to move: either build the tried and tested Borodino-class battleships, or slightly improve the current design, or build a completely new ship. Seventeen variants of the “ship of the future” concept were considered. Among them were some rather bold proposals, the implementation of which could lead to the appearance of the first dreadnoughts in Russia – ships without artillery medium caliber, but... bureaucratic routine led to the victory of the "improved Borodino" project.
When designing the ship, revolutionary solutions were considered, such as installing main caliber guns with a barrel length of 50 calibers instead of the standard 40, which, together with increasing the gun elevation angle, could have given a significant increase in firing range. But it did not work out: heavier guns gave a strong overload, which resulted in an increase in displacement, determined at 16 tons, so Vice-Admiral Dubasov did not insist on installing new guns, and it was decided to install the old 500-caliber guns. So what was the novelty of the project?
"South Carolina" is one of the sources of inspiration
Strictly speaking, in the installation of 12x203-mm medium-caliber guns instead of 12x152-mm. In addition, the sides of the new ships were designed straight, unlike the sloping sides of the squadron battleships of the Borodino type, and instead of the usual masts, they decided to install new-fangled lattice masts, like on the American South Carolinas (the turrets for the battleships were developed by Vladimir Shukhov, the author of the "turret on Shabolovka"). The longitudinal underwater armored bulkhead was moved from the side by 16 feet instead of 6 on the Borodino.
It must be said that changes were constantly being made to the project. Moreover, with the laying of the foundation in 1903, this practice did not stop, but only intensified! The fact is that the MTC was greatly influenced by Tsushima, which forced the project to be redrawn during construction. The redrawn itself was based on the experience of the lost battle, but this experience was known exclusively from newspapers: the prisoners had not yet managed to return from Japan, and the interned ships remained in the ports where they were interned.
For example, the armor of the new ship was "smeared" along the side: an armor belt 8-8,5 inches thick and 4-5 inches at the ends, but above it was placed another armor belt 5 inches thick and 3,5 inches at the ends. The third armor belt covered the casemate of 203-mm guns and was 5 inches thick (inside the casemate, the guns were separated from each other by traverses). But this was not the end: above the third armor belt was placed the fourth - covering the casemate of 120-mm guns - 3,5 inches thick.
Main caliber...
The ship's armament was originally to consist of two main caliber turrets with 4x305 mm guns and six intermediate caliber turrets on each side for 12x203 mm guns with a barrel length of 50 calibers, but... again they did not fit into the weight criteria, and it was decided to abandon the middle intermediate caliber turret in favor of placing the guns in a casemate. However, due to the weight saved, it was considered possible to install three guns in the casemate instead of a pair, thereby increasing the number of 8'' guns to fourteen. The "feature" of the new ships was the ring-shaped ammunition magazines of the main caliber turrets, which allowed the rate of fire of the 12'' guns to be doubled: if on the Borodino-class battleships it was one shot every 66 seconds, then on the new ships, as practice later showed, one shot with mechanical loading was fired in 32 seconds.
Initially, it was planned to use 20 semi-automatic 75-mm guns protected by 76-mm armor and 20 semi-automatic 47-mm guns as an anti-mine caliber. In addition, the ship was planned to have five 75-mm landing guns and 8 machine guns. The new battleship was also supposed to carry six torpedo tubes: five underwater and one above water. Given the low speed and short range of the torpedoes of that time, this weapon should have been considered completely useless already at the time of design (it is quite difficult to imagine that in battle someone would be able to approach a ship with such powerful artillery at a torpedo salvo range), but the inertia of thinking worked...
8'' towers of "St. Andrew the First-Called"
The ship's speed was planned to be higher than that of the Borodino-class battleships by a knot — 19 knots. True, to achieve this using triple-expansion steam engines with a capacity of 17 hp, given that the Borodino-class battleships, which had a displacement of 635 tons less, had engines of 1500 hp, was not entirely justified optimism. Especially if you consider that, given the chaos in shipbuilding at that time (the Putilov and Metallichesky factories could make a mistake of 16 tons in determining the weight of 300-mm caliber turrets...), an increase in displacement during the construction of a ship was common practice (S. O. Makarov immediately estimated the real displacement of the ships planned for construction to be significantly higher than 203 thousand tons). In an effort to reduce the displacement of the future predreadnought (although this name was not yet in use), it was decided to abandon the forecastle. And, just to be on the safe side, reduce the freeboard height.
Ksavery Ratnik - Head of the Baltic Plant
Changes to the project were made literally on the fly. The head of the Baltic plant, Ksavery (often written as "Savery") Ratnik, who was to build one of the ships, took an active part in making changes to the project. "Ships", because it was decided to build a series of two "sister ships". Having experience in building battleships of the "Borodino" type, he guessed that during construction, refrigeration units, laundries, mechanical means for lifting boats would appear in the project, and from there it would not be far to innovations in armament, and it would be desirable to include all of the above in the project before the ships were laid down. Naive!
"Emperor Paul I" under construction
On August 15, 1903, complete sets of drawings were transferred to the Baltic and St. Petersburg port plants, on August 16, orders were issued for the construction of the ships, and on August 22, the ships were named Andrei Pervozvanny and Emperor Paul I. True, work on Andrei Pervozvanny began only on March 2 of the following year, and on Emperor Paul I on October 14. According to the plan, the ships were to be launched by the summer of 1906. But the harsh reality of pre-revolutionary shipbuilding immediately began to make changes to such optimistic plans. The first changes were made after the death of Admiral Makarov and the battleship Petropavlovsk by Japanese mines - it was decided to remove the mines from the new ships (it was believed that the instant death of Petropavlovsk was caused by the detonation of the mines on board). Then, realizing that the 75mm and 47mm guns were no longer relevant as anti-mine caliber, they were replaced with 12x120mm guns. The number of torpedo tubes was also reduced from six to four. The drive of the anchor device capstans was changed from electric to steam. The combat topsail with a machine gun was removed.
On April 28, 1905, the Andrei Pervozvanny was officially laid down: "His Imperial Highness General-Admiral Alexei Alexandrovich" personally attached a silver keel plate to the ship's keel ("Emperor Paul I" was laid down on October 27, 1905). After which, changes to the project continued: it was decided to abandon two of the four torpedo tubes, the thickness of the armored deck plating was reduced from 38,1 to 31,7 mm, the thickness of the upper and lower decks was reduced to 6,35 mm, transverse bulkheads were introduced between the upper and lower decks, the thickness of the rotating parts of the 12'' and 8'' gun turrets was reduced, and so on and so forth...
The Dreadnought - the ship that changed everything...
At the same time, all the changes were, by and large, useless work: the Dreadnought had already been laid down in England, making the project of the Andrei Pervozvanny and the Emperor Paul I stillborn. Instead of normal side portholes in the cabins and quarters, ceiling ones were designed, with a diameter of slightly more than 15 cm, which was also presented as a revolutionary solution that allowed for increasing the ship's protection, but in fact turned the officers' cabins and sailors' quarters into real gas chambers (the ventilation system on the ships was also very imperfect).
Launch of the Emperor Paul I
The first of the ships was launched on October 7, 1906, 4 months behind schedule, with the ship's readiness at that point being 51 percent. And that was only the beginning: the First Russian Revolution was in full swing, and strikes and terrorist attacks are not conducive to ship building. In addition, the ship's completion time was affected by delays in components from suppliers, for example, the armor covers for the main caliber turrets arrived at the Metal Plant only in April 1910, and both masts were installed at the same time. The work was slowed down by the lack of portholes: the conditions inside the ships, with no ventilation, were like those in a hot shop. In general, the last defects on board the ships were eliminated in 1912 - an epic long-term construction project!
Meanwhile, while still at the plant, the squadron battleships became battleships - the appearance of the "Dreadnought" led to a change in the usual classification. The St. Andrew's flag was raised on the "Andrei Pervozvanny" on June 1, 1910, after which the ship entered the armed reserve ("Emperor Paul I" entered the armed reserve on September 7, 1910). However, no one had any unnecessary doubts about the real combat capability of the new ships.
Pyotr Voynovich Rimsky-Korsakov
The commander of the Emperor Paul I, Captain 1st Rank Pyotr Rimsky-Korsakov, expressed it best:
"I have had occasion more than once to express my opinion that the ships Emperor Paul I and Andrey Pervozvanny cannot be made into dreadnoughts, no matter how much they are improved. And therefore they will never reach the point of being equal to our future battleships. At the same time, one cannot doubt for a moment that these ships, in the form in which they are now thought out, will always remain very serious opponents for the most powerful battleships... Our two ships at certain course angles can successfully compete even with the English battleship Dreadnought. But with all that, they will always remain ships of only the second line of combat ships of the active fleet: they will be put there under their own power, which, even according to the project, is 3 knots slower than the speed of the future battleships of our fleet. Why, one might ask, what is called going out of one's way to improve them in one direction, knowingly worsening other combat qualities of primary importance, such as, for example, the ship's speed? Thus, I believe that it is absolutely necessary now and finally to clarify to what extent the ships "Andrey Pervozvanny" and "Emperor Pavel I" satisfy modern tactical requirements and, having understood this, firmly decide what these ships can give and what can be demanded of them. We must reconcile ourselves to this situation and order them to be completed as they are currently designed."
The battleships held the wave so-so...
Subsequent operation showed that the new ships had very questionable combat capability. Let's start with their seaworthiness: due to the absence of a forecastle and a low side, they were very low. The bow of the predreadnoughts was flooded at the slightest swell, so the ability to fire from the bow main caliber turret was highly dependent on the weather. Speed... Even a modest 19 knots became an unattainable dream for them: none of the battleships could show more than 18,3 knots on a measured mile. Seaworthiness can also be supplemented by such a criterion as habitability: these ships had very poor habitability - subsequently, portholes had to be cut in the sides at the plant, because the capacity of the ship's ventilation was not enough to create a normal atmosphere in the cockpits and officers' cabins. And the appearance of the battleships with archaic cylindrical turrets and futuristic “Shukhov” masts was so strange that the ships received the nickname “ugly sisters”.
In all their glory, the “Shukhov” masts have not yet been cut off...
The situation with armament is more complicated. Yes, Andrey Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I were the weakest of the pre-readnoughts: 203 mm of auxiliary artillery was clearly less than 240 mm on the Radetskys or 234 mm on the King Edward VII-class battleships, but the number of barrels somewhat equalized the odds. On the other hand, the rapid-fire 12'' main caliber guns of the Russian battleships were superior to similar guns of the English counterpart (even if they were slightly inferior to the Austrian ones). But the problem lay in the rate of fire itself! The fact is that the guns of the "ugly sisters" were designed for shells of the 1895 and 1907 models, weighing 331,7 kg and having a length of 2,65-3,16 calibers. And in 1911, the Russian Imperial Navy adopted shells weighing 470 kg and 5 calibers long. And they did not fit into the ring shell magazines of Andrei Pervozvanny and Imperator Pavel I! As a result, during the War, the old Slava and Tsesarevich could fire at least something at the German battleships that could damage them, but the newer pre-readnoughts could not...
In the ice of the Gulf of Finland...
The fate of the "ugly sisters" was a bit strange. They did not have any big battles or feats: even in Moonzund and the Irben Strait, the "Slava" and "Tsesarevich" (by that time renamed "Grazhdanin") fought the Germans. True, it cannot be said that the "sisters" were idle - they carried out operations to support the actions of destroyers and cruisers. On the other hand... The long construction of the ships led to good training of the crew in matters of survivability and operation of the materiel. If we take "Andrei Pervozvanny", then also to high cohesion of the crew. As a result, when the revolution began, very few ships retained real combat capability, and the predreadnoughts were just among them. Moreover, there were no officers killed on Andrei Pervozvanny (there were on the Emperor Paul I, renamed the Republic). The armor smeared over the sides of these ships was also "in the theme": during the "Ice March" from Helsinki to Kronstadt, which began on February 19, 1918, Andrei Pervozvanny quite successfully performed the role of an icebreaker for some time, despite the fact that the ice hummocks on some sections of the route reached 5 meters in height!
"Artillery is hitting its own..."
After the crossing, Andrey Pervozvanny joined the DOT, an active detachment of ships of the Baltic Fleet. It did not fight in this capacity. At least not with the enemy. In 1919, the battleship actively fired at the rebellious Kronstadt fort Krasnaya Gorka: 568 shells were fired. Respublika did not take part in this event: the crew there was of much lower quality, so immediately after the crossing from Helsinki, the ship was transferred to the port for storage. It was listed in the Kronstadt Naval Forces, but had no real value.
Lev Mikhailovich Galler made a great career in the Soviet Navy. But the "von" part of his name had to be removed...
During the "Kronstadt wake-up call" at 18 a.m. on August 1919, 13, the "Andrei Pervozvanny" received a torpedo from an English torpedo boat in the bow. The sailors' training made a difference: despite the fact that the crew was far from full on board, the fight for the ship's survivability under the leadership of the commander (and future Soviet admiral) Lev Haller was carried out in an exemplary manner - the bulkhead on the 45th frame was battened down in a timely manner, the leak from the chain locker was plugged with wedges, and the bilge pumps coped with the influx of water. The continuous armoring served the ship well: the armor absorbed the force of the torpedo explosion - two plates were heavily deformed and lagged behind the side by 75-20 cm, two - shifted, lagging behind the side by 80-8000 mm. In principle, the damage was trivial and could be solved by putting it in a dock for three months, but... During a revolution, chaos is guaranteed, and they didn't even try to restore the ship. Meanwhile, the crew was running away. The process was especially active after the second Kronstadt mutiny: among the XNUMX participants in the mutiny who left for Finland, there were plenty of sailors from the battleship.
The Soviet Union needs a lot of needles!
In 1923, Andrey Pervozvanny and Respublika were transferred to the stock property department for dismantling. The ships that survived the revolution had no real combat value. But... the battleships had a chance to shoot at the Germans with their guns during the Great Patriotic War: by that time, the 8'' turret mounts were installed on the Krasnoarmeysky (former Krasnaya Gorka) and Pervomaysky (former Totleben) forts. And the 12'' gun mounts were installed on the TM-2-12 artillery railway transporters.
Leonid Sobolev, in his youth - navigator of the battleship "Emperor Pavel I"
These battleships did not have the brightest fate, but... Most people who are not indifferent to the fleet are very familiar with them. The fact is that two brothers, Alexander and Leonid Sobolev, served on the Emperor Paul I, and later on the Andrei Pervozvanny. The elder, Alexander, according to some sources, shot himself after receiving an order to shell the Krasnaya Gorka fort. And the younger, Leonid, became a famous Soviet writer. The battleship Generalissimo from his novel Capital Repairs was written off from the Emperor Paul I...
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