Russian battleship Navarin
Navarin underway at slow speed
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Class overview | |
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Operators | Imperial Russian Navy |
Preceded by | Dvenadsat Apostolov |
Succeeded by | Tri Sviatitelia |
Built | 1890–1896 |
In service | 1896–1905 |
Completed | 1 |
Lost | 1 |
History | |
Russian Empire | |
Name | Navarin |
Namesake | Battle of Navarino |
Ordered | 24 April 1889[Note 1] |
Builder | Franco-Russian Works, Saint Petersburg |
Laid down | 31 May 1890 |
Launched | 20 October 1891 |
In service | June 1896 |
Nickname(s) | Factory (Zavod) |
Fate | Sunk at the Battle of Tsushima, 28 May 1905 |
General characteristics | |
Type | Pre-dreadnought battleship |
Displacement | 10,206 long tons (10,370 t) |
Length | 351 ft (107 m) ( o/a ) |
Beam | 67 ft (20.4 m) |
Draft | 27 ft 7 in (8.4 m) |
Installed power |
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Propulsion | 2 shafts, 2 triple-expansion steam engines |
Speed | 15 knots (28 km/h; 17 mph) |
Range | 3,050 nmi (5,650 km; 3,510 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
Complement | 24 officers, 417 crewmen |
Armament |
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Armor |
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Navarin (
Design and description
Navarin was a low-
The ship was 347 feet 6 inches (105.9 m)
She had a pair of three-cylinder
Armament
The ship's main battery consisted of four 35-caliber 12-inch (305 mm) Obukhov Model 1886 guns mounted in hydraulically powered twin-gun turrets fore and aft of the superstructure. The guns required 2 minutes, 22 seconds between shots.[4] They fired a 731.3-pound (331.7 kg) "light" shell at a muzzle velocity of 2,090 ft/s (637 m/s).[5] Each gun was provided with 80 rounds. Her secondary armament of eight 35-caliber 6-inch (152 mm) Pattern 1877 guns were mounted in casemates in the superstructure. The ship carried a total of 1,600 rounds for them.[4]
Navarin was protected against torpedo boats by a suite of smaller guns that included fourteen quick-firing (QF) 47-millimetre (1.9 in) Hotchkiss guns mounted in the superstructure.[4] They fired a 3-pound-3-ounce (1.4 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,867 ft/s (569 m/s).[6] A total of eight Maxim QF 37-millimetre (1.5 in) guns were mounted in the fighting top and the other four guns may have been used to arm the ship's boats.[4] They fired a 1-pound (0.45 kg) shell at a muzzle velocity of 1,319 ft/s (402 m/s).[7] Navarin was also armed with six above-water 15-inch (381 mm) torpedo tubes, one each in the bow and stern and one pair on each broadside. The ship carried two torpedoes for each tube.[2]
Protection
The ship used
The lower casemate was above the belt, 218 feet (66.4 m) long and 8 feet (2.4 m) high, and was intended to protect the bases of the turrets and everything between them. It had 16-inch sides and was closed off by 16-inch transverse bulkheads fore and aft. The upper casemate protected the six-inch guns and was 5 inches (127 mm) thick on all sides. The armor plates of the turret sides were 16 inches thick and the conning tower had sides that were 12 inches (305 mm) thick. The armor deck was 2 inches (51 mm) thick over the lower casemate, but 2.5 inches (64 mm) thick forward and aft of the main armor belt to the bow and stern.[9]
Construction and career
Navarin, named after the
Navarin was assigned to the Baltic Fleet and began a cruise to the Mediterranean Sea in August 1896. She visited the Greek port of
On 15 October 1904, she set sail for Port Arthur from Libau along with the other vessels of the Second Pacific Squadron, under the command of
Rozhestvensky reorganized his ships into three divisions; the first consisted of the four new Borodino-class battleships commanded by himself, von Fölkersam commanded the second division of the battleships Oslyabya, Navarin, Sissoi Veliky and the armored cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, and Nebogatov retained his ships as the third division. Von Fölkersam, ill with cancer, died on 26 May and Rozhestvensky decided not to inform the fleet in order to keep morale up. The captain of Oslyabya became the commander of the 2nd Division while Nebogatov had no idea that he was now the squadron's de facto second-in-command.[16]
Very little is known of Navarin's actions during the Battle of Tsushima on 27–28 May as there were very few survivors from the ship and visibility was poor for most of the battle. The ship was apparently not heavily engaged during the early part of the battle, but was badly damaged later in the day when she was third from last in the Russian line of battle.[17] She was hit four times by large-caliber shells on the waterline that caused major flooding aft. Her quarterdeck was awash up to her rear 12-inch turret by 2100 and the ship was forced to stop for repairs. Around that time she was attacked by Japanese torpedo boats that may have made one or two torpedo hits.[18][19][20] Navarin managed to get underway again and damaged one torpedo boat badly enough that she sank later that night. Around 0200 on 28 May, the ship was attacked again by the Fourth Destroyer Division which dropped six strings of mines ahead of her.[19] These consisted of four mines linked together with cables so that hitting any part of the string would draw the mines onto the ship. Two of these mines struck Navarin, which quickly capsized and sank.[21] Some 70 men were able to abandon ship before she sank, but only three were alive when they were found 16 hours later. One man was rescued by a Japanese torpedo boat while the other two were rescued by a British merchant ship.[22] The rest of her crew of 674 officers and enlisted men were lost. The rescued men had said that when they called out for help, they were fired on by Japanese torpedo boats.[23]
Notes
Footnotes
- ^ a b McLaughlin 2003, p. 66
- ^ a b McLaughlin 2003, p. 65
- ^ McLaughlin 2003, pp. 65, 67, 70
- ^ a b c d e McLaughlin 2003, p. 68
- ^ Friedman 2011, p. 251
- ^ Friedman 2011, pp. 118, 265
- ^ Friedman 2011, pp. 120, 265
- ^ Campbell 1979, p. 180
- ^ McLaughlin 2003, p. 69
- ^ Silverstone 1984, p. 379
- ^ McLaughlin 2003, pp. 65–66, 68–70
- ^ McLaughlin 2003, pp. 71, 166
- ^ Forczyk 2009, p. 9
- ^ a b McLaughlin 2003, p. 167
- ^ Pleshakov 2002, pp. 111, 152–159
- ^ Forczyk 2009, p. 56
- ^ Campbell 1978, p. 135
- ^ McLaughlin 2003, p. 169
- ^ a b Campbell 1978, p. 188
- ^ Morris 2007, p. 20
- ^ Evans & Peattie 1997, p. 122
- ^ McLaughlin 2003, p. 170
- ^ Warner & Warner 2002, p. 514
References
- Campbell, N. J. M. (1978). "The Battle of Tsu-Shima". In ISBN 0-87021-976-6.
- Campbell, N. J. M. (1979). "Russia". In Chesneau, Roger & Kolesnik, Eugene M. (eds.). Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships 1860–1905. New York: Mayflower Books. pp. 170–217. ISBN 0-8317-0302-4.
- Evans, David & Peattie, Mark (1997). Kaigun: Strategy, Tactics, and Technology in the Imperial Japanese Navy, 1887–1941. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 0-87021-192-7.
- Forczyk, Robert (2009). Russian Battleship vs Japanese Battleship, Yellow Sea 1904–05. Oxford, UK: Osprey. ISBN 978 1-84603-330-8.
- Friedman, Norman (2011). Naval Weapons of World War One. Barnsley, UK: Seaforth. ISBN 978-1-84832-100-7.
- McLaughlin, Stephen (2003). Russian & Soviet Battleships. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-481-4.
- Morris, Rear Admiral Roger (October 2007). "The Night After Tsushima: The End of the Imperial Russian Fleet 27–28 May 1905". Warships (157). London: World Ship Society: 14–30. ISSN 0966-6958.
- Pleshakov, Constatine (2002). The Tsar's Last Armada: The Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima. New York: Basic Books. ISBN 0-465-05791-8.
- Silverstone, Paul H. (1984). Directory of the World's Capital Ships. New York: Hippocrene Books. ISBN 0-88254-979-0.
- Warner, Denis & Warner, Peggy (2002). The Tide at Sunrise: A History of the Russo-Japanese War, 1904–1905 (2nd ed.). London: Frank Cass. ISBN 0-7146-5256-3.
External links
- Media related to Navarin at Wikimedia Commons
- Russian navy encyclopaedia (in Russian)