A bold experiment of Russia - unique round battleships of the Black Sea Fleet

2024 Author: Richard Flannagan | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-15 23:55

In the second half of the 19th century, warships began to change - the idea of building them from metal came to replace wood, and this entailed a change in the shape of ships. So, the Scottish shipbuilder John Elder advocated building ships wider than usual - this, according to his theory, should have allowed carrying heavier military equipment. This concept liked Admiral Andrey Alexandrovich Popov, who decided to take full advantage of this theory.

According to Popov's convictions, the shorter the ship's length and the greater its width, the better the ship's displacement and the lower the cost. The displacement was an important factor, since it was about patrolling the estuary, where the water depth was shallow. And if you make the ship round, so that both the length and width are the same, then it's just a combo - just as Popov assured, you can achieve "the most favorable conditions" in relation to both of these factors.

It was planned to place a machine tool in the center of such a circle, which would simultaneously serve as a monitor. The whole circle, together with the central tower, should be covered with armor, and two screws should be installed on the underwater part.

And although this design immediately raised questions about how quickly such a round "contraption" could move, Popov argued that its task was not speed, but reliability - battleships were needed to protect specific two areas in the Black Sea: the entrance to the Sea of Azov and the Dnieper. Bungsky estuary. After the defeat in the Crimean War, the Black Sea Fleet was constrained by the terms of the Paris Peace Treaty (all Black Sea powers were forbidden to have a navy), but Russia fought to abolish this rule at the expense, and in 1871, at the London Convention, it did achieve its cancellation.

Immediately after this victory, the construction of round battleships began. There was no industry near the Black Sea, so the first ship - it was later called "Novgorod" - was built in St. Petersburg, and then partly transported by land to the seashore in Nikolaev. In the same place, in Nikolaev, the ship was assembled and launched in 1873. Two years later, they built a second ship ("Kiev") - this time in Nikolaev. The ships differed in the diameter and caliber of the artillery. At the same time, both vessels had large-caliber weapons from the samra available at that time.

It was these large-caliber guns that at one time served as the source of rumors that greatly undermined the image of these ships. It was no secret that the ships were extremely difficult to control. Instead of the planned two screws, in the end, I had to install six in order to be able to somehow move them from place. However, the weak support of the guns led to the fact that after each shot from the force of the recoil, they were rotated and thrown away. Rumors spread throughout the country that after each shot the whole ship was spinning. Instead of the solemn names of ships, the people began to use the much simpler and understandable word "popovka". Even N. A. wrote about this in his time. Nekrasov:

Hello, smart head, have you been from foreign countries for a long time?

- It's bad, the matter does not argue, Experience does not give sense, Everything is spinning and spinning, Everything is spinning - it does not float.

`` This, brother, is the emblem of the century.

Somewhere somehow everyone is embarrassed, Somehow there is a sin … We are spinning like a "priest", And not an inch ahead.

The guns had to be fixed, but this led to the next problem - with the fixed artillery, the round vessel lost one of its main advantages, because the ability to shoot in any direction was initially the biggest advantage of the "popovka". And given the round shape of the ship, its turn on the water took about 20 minutes (40-45 to make a full turn) - and this time in a real battle the ship simply would not have.

In addition, there were two more significant problems. The ship was quite decently kept on the water with a slight roughness of the waters, however, even with a moderate storm, the deck was overwhelmed by waves, which made it impossible to be on the deck, as well as to control the ship in any way. The second reason was just the high cost of servicing popovok. Each maneuver required a huge amount of coal - much more than expected.

Later, the battleship "Kiev" was renamed "Vice-Admiral Popov". Both ships were included in the Odessa navy, where they served until 1903. Then they tried to sell them to Bulgaria, but that side was not interested in these innovative ships. As a result, in 1911, both ships were sent to the landfill.

You can learn about how women paved the way to the front from our article. "Revolutionary sailors and war heroines".