Esmeralda (ship, 1895)
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 The armored cruiser Esmeralda |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Armored cruiser |
| Shipyard |
Armstrong, Mitchell & Co. , Elswick , BauNr. 639 |
| Keel laying | 4th July 1895 |
| Launch | April 14, 1896 |
| delivery | 4th September 1896 |
| Decommissioning | 1929 |
| Whereabouts | Canceled in 1933 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
7032 tn.l. |
| length |
142.7 m (468 ft) overall, |
| width |
15.9 m (52 ft) |
| Draft |
6.2 m (20.5 ft) |
| crew |
513 men |
| drive |
Cylinder boiler |
| speed |
22.5 kn |
| Range |
7680 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
• 2 × 203 mm L / 40 cannon |
| Coal supply |
550 tn.l., max. 1374 tn.l. |
| Armored deck |
25–51 mm (1–2 in) |
| Protective shields |
113 mm |
| Belt armor |
up to 152 mm |
Delivered to the Chilean Navy in 1896, the Esmeralda was the first armored cruiser built by Armstrong, Mitchell & Co. in Elswick . She was the fourth ship in the Chilean Navy to bear the name Esmeralda . The armored cruiser was not decommissioned until 1929 and canceled in 1933.
Building history
The conception of the ship was based on the results of the sea battle at Yalu in the Sino-Japanese War , in which the number of guns brought into action and the speed of the ships were decisive for the Japanese victory. Philip Watts , chief designer of Armstrong Mitchell & Co. since 1885, was responsible for the construction . On May 15, 1895 the construction contract was signed and on July 4 the keel of the new building No. 639 was laid at the Armstrong shipyard in Elswick Newcastle-upon-Tyne . On April 14, 1896, the second Esmeralda built by Armstrong for the Chilean Navy was launched and was delivered on September 4, 1896 as one of the strongest and fastest cruisers of its time.
description
The external impression showed a larger cruiser with the typical appearance of the Elswick cruisers with a continuous deck and relatively high freeboard. The two chimneys were further apart and were not as high in proportion as those of other cruisers in the shipyard. The two masts had armed tips .
The steel hull was clad in wood and copper, like many British cruisers for use in the tropics, to reduce vegetation, and was divided into 18 watertight compartments. The capacity of the coal bunker was normally 550 tons, with a maximum of 1,350 tons of coal. The armor was made of Harvey steel and consisted of an armored deck, as in the Elswick cruisers, 25 to 51 mm (1 to 2 inches ) thick and belt armor 106.75 m (350 ft) in length, which was in the central The ship's area was 2.1 m (7 ft) high, 152 mm (6 in) thick, and thinned towards the ends. The Esmeralda was powered by two four-cylinder triple expansion machines with a total of 16,000 PSi, which acted on two screws.
The main armament consisted of two heavy 8-inch (203-mm) -L / 40- EOC / Armstrong cannons which were positioned individually at the bow and stern behind 113-mm protective shields. This weapon had previously been installed in the same way on the Chilean cruiser Blanco Encalada and the Argentine Buenos Aires , both protected cruisers .
The 16-cannon strong middle artillery consisted of 152 mm L / 40 rapid-fire guns "6 inch / 40 QF" of the Armstrong design , the first and last of which on each side were set up in casemates at the end of the deckhouses. Four more stood one deck up next to the superstructure. The remaining eight guns formed a battery on each side on the upper deck between the deckhouses and to the side of the funnels. The armament was supplemented by eight 12-pounders (76 mm L / 40), nine 6-pounders (57 mm L / 42), two 3-pounders (47 mm L / 40) and eight Maxim machine guns . In addition, the cruiser had three torpedo tubes in caliber 451 mm, one of which was installed firmly under water in the bow and two rotatable on the sides.
Mission history
After the gunboat Prat (1,380 tons left), which had already been sold to Japan ( Tsukushi ) during construction , the third Esmeralda (2,950 tons left), which was sold to Japan after ten years of service in 1894, and the cruiser Blanco Encalada (4,420 tons left), the armored cruiser Esmeralda was the fourth ship Armstrong built for the Armada de Chile (Chilean Navy). However, during the negotiations for the construction of the Esmeralda with the Ministro Zenteno of 3,438 tn.l. acquired yet another smaller cruiser, which completed its manufacturer tests on July 10, 1896. This cruiser was designed for Brazil , but could be purchased by Chile in September 1895 due to financial difficulties of the client.
The Esmeralda was taken over by Chile on September 4, 1896 and only left Plymouth for South America at the end of March 1897 together with the Ministro Zenteno and torpedo ships built by Laird Brothers in Birkenhead (the torpedo cannon boat Almirante Simpson and the destroyers Capitán Muñóz Gamero , Capitán Orella , Teniente Serrano and Guardiamarina Riquelme ). The association gathered in the Canary Islands in early April 1897 and then crossed the Atlantic to enter Rio de Janeiro on April 29th . By the end of June all units had reached Valparaíso .
Chile thus had one of the most modern and powerful cruisers in the world. However, at the end of 1896 , the neighboring Argentina received the armored cruiser General Garibaldi from Italy, a perhaps even stronger, albeit slower, ship. The delivery of both ships marked the beginning of an arms race between the two states that lasted through the turn of the century, which were constantly on the brink of armed conflict. Chile therefore ordered another armored cruiser from Armstrong before the Esmeralda was completed , the even more powerful O'Higgins (8,500 ts), which was delivered in 1898. The two armored cruisers remained the strongest ships in the Chilean fleet until 1921, as Chile's first ships of the line as the Swiftsure class were sold to Great Britain during construction and the battleships then ordered were not delivered because of the World War and after this only the Almirante Latorre was bought.
On December 18, 1907, she brought troops from Valparaíso to suppress the striking saltpetre workers, later massacre at the Santa María de Iquique school .
On May 2, 1910, she and the fleet flagship O'Higgins visited Buenos Aires for a fleet survey on the occasion of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Argentina. On September 14, 1910, she was involved in a fleet survey in Valparaíso on the occasion of the celebrations for the 100th anniversary of the founding of the Republic of Chile. Then the cruiser was overtaken, received new Niclausse - Water-tube boilers and gave four of his 152-mm guns.
In 1914 the Esmeralda was with other units of the Chilean fleet in Valparaíso when parts of the German East Asia Squadron arrived there after the sea battle at Coronel and supplied themselves.
On March 18, 1915, the Esmeralda arrived with the Ministro Zenteno off Robinson Crusoe Island , where the British cruisers HMS Kent and HMS Glasgow had destroyed the German cruiser SMS Dresden in the Cumberland Bay. The British cruisers withdrew when the Chilean cruisers took the surviving Germans on board to intern them. The Esmeralda transported the crew members of the Dresden to Valparaíso. Since the British protested against being accommodated on German ships that lay there, the cruiser's crew were finally transported by the Esmeralda and the Blanco Encalada to the island of Quiriquina , where they remained interned until the end of the war.
In 1929 the outdated armored cruiser Esmeralda was decommissioned, sold disarmed in 1930 and scrapped in 1933.
The other ships named Esmeralda
Three ships of the Chilean Navy had previously been named Esmeralda :
- the first Esmeralda , a former Spanish frigate of 950ts, which was conquered in Callao in November 1820 by the rebellious Chileans under Admiral Cochrane but was renamed Valdivia that same year ;
- the second Esmeralda , a corvette of 854 ts built in 1854, which sank as the flagship of the Chilean fleet on May 21, 1879 in the naval battle of Iquique under Arturo Prat Chacón ;
- the third Esmeralda , the fastest cruiser in the world in 1884 and the first of the so-called Elswick cruisers , did not enter service with the Chilean Navy; it was sold to Japan in 1894.
- the fourth Esmeralda was the 1895 armored cruiser
- the fifth Esmeralda , a former Canadian River-class frigate , which was in service from 1946 to 1966, but was renamed Baquedano in 1952 to use the name Esmeralda for the following training ship;
- the sixth Esmeralda , the sailing training ship of the Chilean Navy, which was bought from Spain in 1954 and put into service as a four-masted barquentine .
literature
- Peter Brooke: Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867-1927. World Ship Society, Gravesend 1999, ISBN 0-905617-89-4 .
- Robert Gardiner, Roger Chesneau, Eugene M. Kolesnik (Eds.): Conway All the World Fighting Ships, 1860-1905. Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-130-0 .
- Robert Gardiner, Randal Gray (Ed.): Conway All the World Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Conway Maritime Press, London 1986, ISBN 0-85177-245-5 .
- Maria Teresa Parker de Bassi: Cruiser Dresden: Odyssey of No Return. Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1993, ISBN 3-7822-0591-X .
- Bruno Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1905. 2nd edition, JF Lehmann Verlag, Munich on archive.org
Web links
- Crucero Esmeralda (4to); Unidades Navales, Armada de Chile ( Memento of October 18, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Side elevation of the Esmeralda
- Chile vs. Argentina arms race
Footnotes
- ↑ Further technical data on the Elswick Ordnance cannons.
- ↑ Torpedo cannon boat "Almirante Simpon" ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) built in 1896, 800 tn.l., 73.2 × 8.38 × 4.27 m, 4,500 PSi, 2 screws, 21.5 kn, two 12 cm, four 3 pounder cannons, three torpedo tubes
- ↑ Four torpedo boat destroyers of the Capitán Orella class, built in 1896, 300 tn.l., 64 × 6.58 × 1.64 m, 6,250 PSi, 2 screws, 30 knots, one 12-pounder and five 6-pounder guns , two torpedo tubes
- ↑ La Tragedia de la Escuela Domingo Santa María de Iquique. (PDF; 470 kB)
- ↑ Parker de Bassi, p. 441 ff.