Ottoman ironclad Asar-i Şevket
 Line-drawing of the Asar-i Şevket class
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Ottoman Empire | |
| Name | Asar-i Şevket |
| Namesake | "Work of God" |
| Ordered | 1866 |
| Builder | Forges et Chantiers de la Gironde |
| Laid down | 1867 |
| Launched | 1868 |
| Commissioned | 3 March 1870 |
| Decommissioned | 1903 |
| Fate | Sold for scrap , 31 July 1909 |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type | ironclad |
| Displacement | 2,047 metric tons (2,015 long tons; 2,256 short tons) |
| Length | 66.4 m (217 ft 10 in) (loa) |
| Beam | 12.9 m (42 ft 4 in) |
| Draft | 5 m (16 ft 5 in) |
| Installed power |
|
| Propulsion |
|
| Speed | 12 knots (22 km/h; 14 mph) |
| Complement | 170 |
| Armament |
|
| Armor | |
Asar-i Şevket (
launched in 1868, and was commissioned into the Ottoman fleet in March 1870. Asar-i Şevket was armed with a battery of four 178 mm (7 in) Armstrong guns in a central casemate and one 229 mm (9 in) Armstrong gun in a revolving barbette
.
The ship saw action in the Russo-Turkish War in 1877–1878, where she supported Ottoman forces in the Caucasus, and later helped to defend the port of Sulina on the Danube. She was laid up for twenty years, until the outbreak of the Greco-Turkish War in 1897, which highlighted the badly deteriorated state of the Ottoman fleet. Asar-i Şevket was not included in the major reconstruction program that saw most of the other ironclads rebuilt after the war, and she was decommissioned in 1903 and broken up for scrap in 1909.
Design
Asar-i Şevket was 66.4 m (217 ft 10 in)
double bottom. She displaced 2,047 metric tons (2,015 long tons; 2,256 short tons) normally. She had a crew of 170 officers and enlisted men.[1][2]
The ship was powered by a single horizontal
Asar-i Şevket was armed with a battery of one 229 mm (9 in)
muzzle loading Armstrong gun and four 178 mm (7 in) Armstrong guns. The 178 mm guns were mounted in a central, armored battery, with the 229 mm gun on top in an open barbette mount. The ship's armored belt consisted of wrought iron that was 152 mm (6 in) thick and was reduced to 114 mm (4.5 in) toward the bow and stern. Above the main belt, a strake of armor 114 mm thick protected the central battery, and the same thickness was used for the barbette.[1][2]
Service history
Asar-i Şevket, meaning "Work of God",Abdülaziz, who, on 5 June 1867, demanded Egypt surrender all of the ironclads ordered from foreign shipyards. After lengthy negotiations the vessel was formally transferred to the Ottoman Empire on 29 August 1868. The ship was then renamed Asar-i Şevket and commissioned into the Ottoman Navy on 3 March 1870.[4]
Upon completion, Asar-i Şevket and the other ironclads then being built in Britain and France were sent to
Hobart Pasha, remained largely inactive, with training confined to reading translated British instruction manuals. Asar-i Şevket was assigned to the I Squadron of the Asiatic Fleet, along with her sister ship Necm-i Şevket and the ironclads Hifz-ur Rahman and Lütf-ü Celil.[5] Early in the ship's career, the Ottoman ironclad fleet was activated every summer for short cruises from the Golden Horn to the Bosporus to ensure their propulsion systems were in operable condition.[6]
Russo-Turkish War
The Ottoman fleet began mobilizing in September 1876 to prepare for a conflict with Russia, as tensions with the country had been growing for several years,
declared war on the Ottoman Empire in July 1876. The Russo-Turkish War began on 24 April 1877 with a Russian declaration of war.[7] By this time, Asar-i Şevket had been transferred to the I Division in the Mediterranean Fleet, but she was quickly transferred to the Black Sea squadron, with the bulk of the Ottoman ironclad fleet.[8][9] The Ottoman fleet, commanded by Hobart Pasha, was vastly superior to the Russian Black Sea Fleet; the only ironclads the Russians possessed there were Vitse-admiral Popov and Novgorod, circular vessels that had proved to be useless in service. The presence of the fleet did force the Russians to keep two corps in reserve for coastal defense, but the Ottoman high command failed to make use of its naval superiority in a more meaningful way, particularly to hinder the Russian advance into the Balkans. Hobart Pasha took the fleet to the eastern Black Sea, where he was able to make a more aggressive use of it to support the Ottoman forces battling the Russians in the Caucasus. The fleet bombarded Poti and assisted in the defense of Batumi.[10]
In May, Asar-i Şevket, the steam
transport ships steamed to Batumi. Over the course of the war, Russian torpedo boats made several attacks on the vessels stationed in Batumi, but Asar-i Şevket was not damaged in any of them.[11] By the end of June, Asar-i Şevket was transferred to the port of Sulina at the mouth of the Danube, along with the ironclads Muin-i Zafer and Hifz-ur Rahman. The ships were tasked with defending the seaward approach to the port, supporting three coastal fortifications.[12] By August, the ship had been transferred to Sukhumi. There, on the night of 24 August, four Russian torpedo boats launched an attack on the ships in the harbor. One of the boats succeeded in detonating its spar torpedo under Asar-i Şevket's hull and claimed to sink her, but the ironclad was undamaged in the attack.[13]
Later career
After the end of the war in 1878, Asar-i Şevket was
Hotchkiss revolver cannon, and one 25.4 mm (1 in) Nordenfelt gun. The ship returned to service on 12 February 1892.[2]
At the start of the
AG Vulcan, were to rebuild the ships, but after having surveyed the ships, withdrew from the project in December 1897 owing to the impracticality of modernizing the ships and the inability of the Ottoman government to pay for the work. By 1900, the contracts were finally awarded, and Asar-i Şevket was not included in the program. Instead, the ship was decommissioned in 1903 and was ultimately sold to ship breakers on 31 July 1909.[15]
Notes
- ^ a b c d Lyon, p. 389.
- ^ a b c d e Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 137.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 197.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 3, 137.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 3, 5, 194.
- ^ Sturton, p. 138.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 5.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 194.
- ^ Greene & Massignani, p. 358.
- ^ Barry, pp. 97–102, 114–115, 190.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 6.
- ^ Wilson, pp. 289, 295.
- ^ Stem, pp. 20–21.
- ^ Sturton, pp. 138, 144.
- ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 9–10, 137.
References
- Barry, Quintin (2012). War in the East: A Military History of the Russo-Turkish War 1877–78. Solihull: Helion. ISBN 978-1-907677-11-3.
- Greene, Jack & Massignani, Alessandro (1998). Ironclads at War: The Origin and Development of the Armored Warship, 1854–1891. Pennsylvania: Combined Publishing. ISBN 978-0-938289-58-6.
- Langensiepen, Bernd & Güleryüz, Ahmet (1995). The Ottoman Steam Navy 1828–1923. London: Conway Maritime Press. ISBN 978-0-85177-610-1.
- Lyon, Hugh (1979). "Turkey". In Gardiner, Robert (ed.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. London: Conway Maritime Press. pp. 388–394. ISBN 978-0-85177-133-5.
- Stem, Robert (2008). Destroyer Battles: Epics of Naval Close Combat. Barnsley: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-4738-1356-4.
- Sturton, Ian. "Through British Eyes: Constantinople Dockyard, the Ottoman Navy, and the Last Ironclad, 1876–1909". Warship International. 57 (2). Toledo: International Naval Research Organization. ISSN 0043-0374.
- OCLC 1111061.