Russian gunboats are our answer to Charles Napier
The Emperor sat at the table in the Marine Cabinet of the Peterhof Cottage Palace. He loved this place: with telescopes, a compass, surveying instruments and a silver megaphone on the table, an optical telegraph on the balcony, paintings on the walls, among which stood out "Sea View" by the young but talented graduate of the Academy of Arts Ivan Aivazovsky.
"Naval Cabinet" of Nicholas I.
True, today the Emperor did not get any pleasure from observing the sea: "I see the enemy from my window on the northern fairway," he wrote to the commander of the Crimean army, Prince Menshikov. In the spring of 1854, an Anglo-French squadron was making its evolutions in front of the windows of Emperor Nikolai Pavlovich...
Assault on Bomarsund
The Crimean War in the Baltic began with the capture of Bomarsund by the allies, an unfinished Russian fortress on the Aland Islands. The Sveaborg fortress could cover Helsingfors, but not St. Petersburg. Hope was in the forts of Kronstadt, minefields (the emperor was a good engineer and was able to assess the prospects weapon) and... On the flotilla of gunboats, which was hastily built by the talented engineer Nikolai Putilov.
Grand Duke Konstantin Nikolaevich
Nicholas I entrusted the defense of the capital to his son Konstantin. The Grand Duke was recommended the collegiate assessor Nikolai Putilov, a graduate of the Naval Cadet Corps who had exchanged the quiet life of a mathematics teacher for the position of an official for special assignments of the Shipbuilding Department of the Naval Ministry. "Can you do the impossible: build a flotilla of screw gunboats to defend Kronstadt by the end of navigation? There is no money in the treasury, but here are my personal 200 thousand," he asked the elderly official. And, as it turned out, Konstantin Nikolaevich was not mistaken in this personnel issue!
Nikolai Ivanovich Putilov
Nikolay Ivanovich Putilov was born... God knows when! Either May 14, or May 21, or 1816, or 1820. Possibly. What is certain is that he was born in the village of Kolomenka, Borovichsky district, Novgorod province. His father was a titular councilor, assistant police chief of the water police for the Mstinsky part of the Vyshnevolotsky department. At the age of 10, the future engineer and industrialist joined the naval company of the Alexander Cadet Corps, and two years later he was transferred to the Naval Cadet Corps, which was commanded by Vice-Admiral Ivan Fyodorovich Kruzenshtern (a man and a steamship).
Academician Mikhail Vasilyevich Ostrogradsky
During his training, Cadet Putilov demonstrated remarkable mathematical abilities and, after being promoted to officer, was retained in the Corps as a mathematics teacher. He was hired as an assistant by Academician Mikhail Ostrogradsky, researched the features of external ballistics, discovered an error in the calculations of the outstanding mathematician Augustin Cauchy in his course on integral calculus, and wrote scientific papers. In 1843, due to health reasons, he left military service, exchanging the shoulder straps of a naval lieutenant for the uniform of a titular adviser, and went south - for the Black Sea fleet Several steamships were purchased, with foreigners (mostly Englishmen) serving as mechanics. Putilov was tasked with organizing the repair and maintenance of the new ships. He most likely coped with the task successfully, since already in 1847 Nikolai Ivanovich was an official for special assignments of the Shipbuilding Department of the Naval Ministry. And here was a new task: to do the impossible...
Putilov had no doubts that the state shipyards with their sluggish bureaucracy would not be able to complete the task on time (in addition, they were overloaded with larger orders). And he began what is called "network planning" today. To begin with, he made a list of all the mechanical workshops in St. Petersburg, to which he distributed assignments for the manufacture of parts for steam engines, boilers, and other high-tech items of the time. Not enough workers? No problem! Putilov hired spinners from Rzhev who had been left without work because of the war (the export of yarn abroad had ceased).
"We brought the spinners, assigned them to factories and workshops. We assigned: who of them would be a foundryman, who would be a fitter, a turner, a boilermaker. And for each team of several people we assigned one old craftsman. A week later, everyone set to work... All January, February and March, in all corners of the capital, where there was anything for mechanical work, they worked with tireless activity - in two shifts... Crowds of novice craftsmen boldly went to work solely in the conviction that ignorance can be replaced by ingenuity. Two or three days after the opening of work, a thousand craftsmen under the guidance of a dozen teachers began to carry out the work"
, Nikolai Ivanovich wrote later.
Gunboat "Burya"
The results of Putilov's work were not slow in coming - the first 32 gunboats were launched in May 1855. So, when the allied squadron of 67 steamships appeared again near Kronstadt, they left empty-handed: the English and French captains understood perfectly well that in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Finland, gunboats had an advantage over ocean-going ships. And for those who did not understand... They explained: in the very first battle, the gunboat "Shalun" inflicted serious damage on one of the screw frigates with its 68-pound cannonballs. Over the next 8 months, 35 more gunboats, 14 corvettes and clippers, 3 floating docks and a repair shop at the Kronstadt steamship plant were built.
What were Putilov's gunboats like? They were ships with a displacement of 173 tons. The length of the gunboat was 33,9 meters, the width was 6,1 meters, and the draft was 1,8 meters. The boats were driven by steam engines with a capacity of 70-80 horsepower, which allowed them to reach a speed of 7-9 knots, which was quite enough to perform the tasks assigned to them. The armament of Putilov's gunboats often varied, but most often consisted of 2x68-pounder guns No. 2, 1x36-pounder gun No. 1. The underwater part of the hull in the area of the engine and the powder chamber was protected by iron shields, and the corridor of the propeller shaft was also protected by an iron casing.
Drawbacks? There couldn't be any, given the hasty construction! The hastily built hulls were so bad that most of the gunboats didn't last even 10 years. The habitability of the gunboats also... Left much to be desired: there was no galley, no skylights, and the water and food supply was meager. The engine was a modified locomotive engine with a small water supply. Seaworthiness... And what is that?
Rear Admiral Ivan Ivanovich von Schantz
It is worth noting that the name "Putilov's gunboat" is not entirely correct: Nikolai Ivanovich was responsible for the production of the most complex part - the machines, but the design for the screw gunboats was prepared by Captain 2nd Rank A. Shestakov, and the hulls were built by the Peterhof merchant S. Kudryavtsev (a well-known hack, but all other enterprises were busy with larger orders).
However, the story even more complicated: in 1853, the commander of the skerry flotilla, Rear Admiral I. I. von Schantz, designed a rowing gunboat. Rowing gunboats were even built in the amount of 40 pieces, but in the era of steam, their value was low. Moreover, back in 1824, after the famous flood, Captain 1st Rank P. Chistyakov proposed using the hull parts of damaged ships to build low-draft steamboats armed with large-caliber guns, but at that time the Navy Department was not interested in the project. In 1854, according to the design of von Schantz, the steam gunboat "Sterlet" was built, in the image and likeness of which Shestakov designed his "Osetr" - the prototype of all "Putilov gunboats".
Gunboat "Sterlyad" - a source of inspiration
Initially, the gunboats were supposed to have steam engines designed by Nepir, but the engines ordered from Great Britain before the war were confiscated by the British government. Which, as it turned out later, was for the best: Nepir's engines were unreliable, especially those made by the Nobel plant, and were also very expensive. Therefore, Putilov focused on the production of less powerful, but significantly simpler and more reliable steam engines of the Penn system. It was their production that Nikolai Ivanovich managed to establish at small enterprises in St. Petersburg using spinning craftsmen. However, part of the order was also fulfilled by large enterprises: the Alexandrovsky Plant, the Thompson, Isherwood, Fricke, Bird, Semenov plants, the Izhora State Plant, and the Ashworth and Stevens company.
How good were the machines supplied by Putilov? The engineer himself spoke about them as follows:
"The machines were made so satisfactorily that on many gunboats the pairs were set up while still on the slipways so that after launching they could go straight to testing, and after the war the corvettes and clippers went to the Pacific Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea. On many of these ships former spinners became senior machinists... Our assembly of machines was similar to the assembly of watches in Geneva: from one workshop - the dial, from another - the hands, from a third - the case, etc."
Russian gunboats on the attack
Today it is known that the British and French had no intention of storming the Kronstadt forts. But at that time the Russian Navy Department had no such information, and besides... The construction of 32 gunboats in three months was an unpleasant surprise for the allies. The French Admiral Peno wrote: "We are facing an active enemy, who knows how to strengthen his resources and harm us... The steam gunboats, so quickly built by the Russians, and the number of which can still increase, have completely changed our position in relation to the enemy. Now we must not only think about attack, but also take care of our own defense, because the Russians have more gunboats than the British."
"Gunboats "Burun" and "Vikhr" by artist Alekseev from the collection of the Central Museum of Modern Art.
The construction of gunboats during the Crimean War became a milestone in the history of domestic shipbuilding. And it is not only about the experience of network planning of production. Putilov clearly demonstrated to the Naval Ministry the need for import substitution. After the Crimean War, Russia purchased only one engine abroad, with the expectation of organizing the production of a series at its own enterprises. It was domestic machines that were used to equip post-war screw corvettes and clippers. But that is another story!
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