Ottoman ironclad Hamidiye

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Hamidiye in the Golden Horn
Class overview
NameHamidiye class
Operators Ottoman Navy
Preceded byMesudiye
Succeeded byNone
History
Ottoman Empire
NameHamidiye
NamesakeAbdul Hamid I
Ordered1871
BuilderImperial Arsenal, Constantinople
Laid downDecember 1874
LaunchedFebruary 1885
Commissioned1894
Decommissioned1903
FateBroken up, 1913
General characteristics
TypeCentral battery ship
Displacement6,594 metric tons (6,490 long tons)
Length
  • 87.6 m (287 ft 5 in) (pp)
  • 89 m (292 ft) (loa)
Beam16.9 m (55 ft 5 in)
Draft7.5 m (24 ft 7 in)
Installed power
  • 4 ×
    box boilers
  • 6,800 ihp (5,100 kW)
Propulsion
Speed13 knots (24 km/h; 15 mph)
Complement350
Armament
Armor
For the
Mesudiye-class ironclad ordered as Hamidiye but purchased by the Royal Navy, see HMS Superb (1875)
.

Hamidiye was a unique

ship breakers
in 1913.

Design

In 1861,

Peyk-i Şeref-class ironclads were ordered from Britain after Hamidiye, but both ships were purchased by the Royal Navy before completion.[3] She was also the last central battery ship to be completed, though the German Oldenburg was begun after Hamidiye, she was completed before Hamidiye entered service.[4] Lastly, she was the final ironclad of any type to carry muzzle-loading guns.[2]

Characteristics

Hamidiye was 87.6 m (287 ft 5 in) long between perpendiculars and 89 m (292 ft) long overall. She had a beam of 16.9 m (55 ft 5 in) and a draft of 7.5 m (24 ft 7 in). Her hull was constructed with iron, and displaced 6,594 metric tons (6,490 long tons) normally. She had a crew of 350 officers and enlisted men as completed.[5][6] The ship was fitted with three pole masts, and the foremast carried a single searchlight. She was equipped with torpedo nets, but the wooden booms were carried aboard the ship, rather than attached to the sides of the hull, and the nets were kept ashore.[7]

The ship was powered by a single horizontal, two-cylinder

sea trials. Hamidiye carried 600 t (590 long tons; 660 short tons) of coal. A supplementary sailing rig with three masts was also fitted.[6][8][9]

Hamidiye was designed to be armed with a main battery of ten 240 mm (9.4 in) 35-caliber breechloading guns manufactured by Krupp in a central casemate, firing through gun ports. These were to be supported by four 150 mm (5.9 in) 35-cal. Krupp breechloading guns and two 57 mm (2.2 in) Hotchkiss guns, the latter for defense against torpedo boats, along with two 450 mm (17.7 in) torpedo tubes. By the time she had been completed, however, she was armed with four 228 mm (9 in) muzzleloading Armstrong guns and ten of the 150 mm Krupp guns. The Armstrong guns were placed in each corner of the casemate, which allowed them a fairly wide arc of fire and limited capability for two of the guns to fire either directly ahead or astern. Six of the 150 mm guns were carried in the casemate on the broadside, three guns per side, and the remaining four were placed on the upper deck, two in the bow and two at the stern. The anti-torpedo boat battery was strengthened with the addition of six 37 mm (1.5 in) guns. The two 450 mm torpedo tubes were retained in deck-mounted launchers.[3][10][9]

The ship was protected with wrought iron armor plate that was manufactured at the Imperial Arsenal where the ship was built. She had a complete armored belt at the waterline, which extended 2 meters (6 ft 2 in) above the waterline and 2 meters (5 ft) below. The belt was 229 millimeters (9 in) thick, and tapered down to 127 mm (5 in) at either end of the ship. The casemate battery was protected with 178 mm (7 in) iron plate. The conning tower also had 178 mm thick sides on 280 mm (11 in) of cypress backing. Hamidiye's armor proved to be poor quality, being described in Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships as "very spongy and flaky".[5][9]

Service history

Hamidiye was ordered from the Imperial Arsenal in 1871, originally under the name Nüsretiye, and was

Fitting-out work was completed the following year, when she was commissioned into the Ottoman fleet,[3] though she remained in the Golden Horn until 1897.[9] By the time she entered service, she had been surpassed by the rapidly changing warship designs of the 1880s and 1890s, first by the turret ships such as the Italian Duilio type,[13] and then by modern pre-dreadnought battleships like the British Royal Sovereign class, which began to enter service the year before Hamidiye was commissioned.[14] Moreover, Hamidiye was equipped with poor quality armor and was difficult to handle, so she was employed as a stationary training ship for torpedo boat crews.[3][15][a] In addition, Sultan Abdul Hamid II, who had come to power in 1876 as a result of a coup in which the Navy had played a major role, distrusted the Navy and reduced its budgets to the minimum.[17]

With the outbreak of the

Greek Navy, which possessed the three modern Hydra-class ironclads.[18][19]

On 15 April, the British

Constantinople.[20]

The condition of the Ottoman fleet could not be concealed from foreign observers. The fleet proved to be an embarrassment for the government and finally forced Sultan Abdul Hamid II to authorize a modernization program, which recommended that the ironclads be modernized in foreign shipyards. German firms, including Krupp,

ship breakers in 1913 and thereafter dismantled.[10][21]

Notes

Footnotes

  1. ^ According to a German observer during the Greco-Turkish War of 1897, "when [Hamidiye] was launched...she proved unmanageable; accordingly she was towed back into the arsenal, where she has since spent her life in philosophic contemplation."[16]

Citations

  1. ^ Lyon, pp. 388–389, 391.
  2. ^ a b Sturton, p. 152.
  3. ^ a b c d Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 136.
  4. ^ Dodson, p. 30.
  5. ^ a b Lyon, p. 390.
  6. ^ a b Langensiepen & Güleryüz, p. 138.
  7. ^ Sturton, p. 155.
  8. ^ Lyon, pp. 391–392.
  9. ^ a b c d Sturton, p. 154.
  10. ^ a b Lyon, p. 391.
  11. ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 136, 198.
  12. ^ Sturton, pp. 152, 154.
  13. ^ Sondhaus, p. 112.
  14. ^ Lyon, p. 32.
  15. ^ Willmott, p. 35.
  16. ^ von Strantz, p. 94.
  17. ^ Lyon, p. 389.
  18. ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 8, 194.
  19. ^ Lyon, p. 387.
  20. ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 8–9.
  21. ^ Langensiepen & Güleryüz, pp. 9–10, 136.

References

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