Oryol. |
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| Class overview | |
|---|---|
| Builders: | Admiralty yard, Baltic Works, |
| Operators: | Imperial Russian Navy, Imperial Japanese Navy |
| Preceded by: | Tsesarevich |
| Succeeded by: | Peresviet class battleship |
| Built: | 1899–1903 |
| In commission: | 1904–1917 |
| Completed: | 5 |
| Lost: | 4 |
| General characteristics | |
| Displacement: | 13,516 tons designed 14,151 tons at Tsushima |
| Length: | 397 ft (121 m) |
| Beam: | 76 ft (23 m) |
| Draught: | 26 ft (7.9 m) |
| Propulsion: | 2 shafts, vertical triple-expansion engines 12 Bellville Boilers 15,800 hp (12 mW) |
| Speed: | 18 kn (33 km/h) |
| Complement: | 28 officers, 754 men |
| Armament: | 4 × 12 in (305 mm) guns (2 × 2) 12 × 6 in (152 mm) guns (6 × 2) 20 × 75 mm (3 in) (20 × 1) 20 × 47 mm (2 in) (20 × 1) 4 × 15 in (381 mm) torpedo tubes |
| Armour: | Krupp armour Belt: 7.6 in (190 mm) Turrets: 10 in (250 mm) max Deck: 2 in (51 mm) 1 in (25 mm) anti-torpedo bulkhead |
The five Borodino-class battleships (also known as the Suvorov-class) were pre-dreadnoughts built between 1899 and 1905 for the Imperial Russian Navy. Three of the class were sunk and one captured by the Imperial Japanese Navy in a decisive naval engagement during the Russo-Japanese War, at the Battle of Tsushima.
Historically, the Borodino-class battleships established two records; under Russian Admiral Zinovy Rozhestvensky riding in his flagship, Kniaz Suvorov, he led the Russian battleship fleet on the longest coal powered journey ever conducted by a steel battleship fleet during wartime, a voyage of over 18,000 miles (29,000 km) one way. Secondly, although sunk in battle, the Borodinos participated in the only decisive battleship fleet action ever fought. Lastly, what may be the most distinctive item of interest for the future, is the fact that the ships were constructed with tumblehome hulls, seemingly wider at the bottom then narrower towards the top. As a lesson from Tsushima tumblehome construction was discarded in warship design, as they were regarded as unstable under combat conditions.
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The five Borodino class battleships were the largest class of ocean going battleships built by Russia up to that time. Although they were to be near duplicates of the Tsesarevich, as soon as the contracts were signed it became clear that they would be quite different than the French built battleship. The basic problem facing the Russian government was that the Borodinos would have heavier engines and larger turrets which would require a designer to build the same Tsesarevich type warship which had the same speed, draft, guns and armor, but had a bigger displacement. The new design was made up by Russia's MTK (Naval Technical Committee) D. V. Skvortsov. He completed his new design in July/August, one month after the original contract had been signed. The new concept was roughly a 1,000 tons heavier and slightly larger and wider than the Tsesarevich.[1]
Outwardly, the biggest change was in the appearance of the Borodinos from the original Tsesarevich design. Skvortsov added two more casemates, each containing four 75mm guns, one at the bow and the other aft. This was added to the already existing 12 75mm guns emplaced along the sides above the armor belt. This resulted in the tumblehome hull design over the twelve guns to be done away with, and flat sided armor was used in its place. Thus the five Borodino class battleships only had tumblehome hulls both fore and aft of their 75mm guns emplaced along their sides.[2]
The Borodino-class battleships were based upon the earlier battleship Tsesarevich, which had been built to a French design at La Seyne and fought as the Russian flagship at the Battle of the Yellow Sea in 1904. The Russian Navy agreed to buy Tsesarevitch under the conditions that they could construct 5 more of them and modify them to meet the standards of the Russian Navy; thus Oryol, Kniaz Suvorov, Borodino, Aleksandr III, and Slava were built in Russian yards. Only Slava was not finished in time to participate in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–05. As previously mentioned all of the class were of a tumblehome hull design as were many of the French Pre-Dreadnoughts of the period. Dupuy de Lôme, the leading French naval architect, was a proponent of the idea as it increased fields of fire for the main and secondary gun batteries, as well as improving seaworthiness and freeboard[3]. Another advantage of the tumblehome design was that it provided for sloped armour – giving a thicker vertical belt at any given point due to the slope of the armour plate.
Along with the lead-ship of the class, Tsesarevich, the vessels suffered from instability having a high centre of gravity (made worse by overloading). The centre line bulkhead led to a danger of capsizing and a narrow armour belt became submerged due to overloading. As such, some naval architects regard these as some of the worst battleships ever built[4].
The Japanese re-built Oryol, which they renamed Iwami, by substantially reducing its top-hamper and removing the lighter calibre guns.
The Borodinos utilized their standard 12 inch forty caliber Obukhovskii guns housed in turrets based on their Retvizan battleship which was built in the United States. The weapons had a designed maximum elevation of 15 degrees and a designed rate of fire of one round per 50 seconds, but in practice the rate of fire was lower than this. During trials, one round per 105 seconds was recorded, with about 90 seconds being the average. Additional turret modifications performed by the Putilovskii Works brought the time back down to about 60 seconds.
The secondary batteries contained 6 inch 45 caliber guns in electrically operated turrets. They were designed to fire six rounds per minute and could elevate to 20 degrees. Alloted ammunition was 180 rounds per gun. The 20 75mm guns were for anti-torpedo boat defense and were alloted 300 rounds per gun.
The class leader, Borodino, was fitted with a direct copy of the La Seyne which was installed in the Tsesarvich, and was built by the Franco-Russian Works. The remaining four Borodinos were supplied with machinery designed and built by the Baltic Works. The vessels were equipped with two 4-cylinder triple expansion engines, with a designed output of 16,300 horse power for the Borodino and 15,800 hp (11,800 kW) for the remaining four battleships.
The Borodino was equipped with three-bladed screws, while her sisters had four-bladed propellers.[5]
Media related to [//commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Borodino_class_battleship Borodino class battleship] at Wikimedia Commons
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