Gangut class
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| Class details | |
| Ship type | Battleship |
| units | 4th |
| period of service | 1914-1954 |
| Sister ships | |
| Names | Gangut , Sevastopol , Petropavlovsk , Poltava |
| Shipyards |
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| Technical specifications | |
| Displacement | Construction: 23,000 t maximum: 25,850 t |
| length |
New construction: water line: 179.8 m over all: 182.9 m after renovation: water line: 181 m over all: 184.8 m |
| width | 26.9 m |
| Draft | 8.3 m |
| Armament | 12 × 305 mm-L / 52 -SK 16 × 120-mm-L / 50-SK 6 × 76.2-mm-L / 30.5- Flak 6 × underwater torpedo tubes Ø 457 mm |
| Armor |
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| Propulsion system |
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| Fuel supply |
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| speed | 23.0 kn |
| Driving range | 4,000 nm at 16 kn |
| crew | 1,125 men (war) |
The Gangut-class battleships were the first dreadnoughts built for the Imperial Russian Navy . The eponymous ship Gangut (1911) was named after the sea battle of Gangut (Finland) (Swedish Hangö , Finnish Hanko ).
construction
Due to the inexperience of Russian shipbuilders with combat ships of this size, the designs were made by a consortium of Italian, German ( Blohm & Voss ) and British ( John Brown & Company ) shipyards and engineers; a total of 51 designs were appraised. Ten of these were shortlisted, and one submitted by Blohm & Voss was selected, which, however, was not carried out due to opposition in the Russian Duma . Russian designers produced a new design that showed strong Italian influences and aimed at a kind of intermediate type of battleship and battlecruiser with strong armament and moderate armor protection. Their construction was approved by the Russian Duma in 1908, provided that the ships were to be built in Russian shipyards; the ships were ordered as early as 1909.
The four ships piled up and completed in the Admiralty Shipyard and the Baltic Shipyard in Saint Petersburg were given the names of battles, two of them from the Northern War under Peter the Great , the other two given the names of battles from the Crimean War . Three ships were replacements for ships of the line lost in the Russo-Japanese War with a similar name, only the fourth was an extension. The British shipyard John Brown & Company, Clydebank , took care of the design .
Due to the numerous grievances in Russian shipyards, construction progressed only slowly, and the costs for the ships therefore turned out to be significantly higher than originally planned. It was later to be found that construction at foreign shipyards would have saved up to 40% of the costs.
construction
Initial configuration
The construction plans used the experience gained in the Russo-Japanese War from a Russian point of view. For example, during the Battle of Tsushima , the Russian ships suffered severe damage and high crew losses from hits in the unarmored superstructure and upper hull parts, so that armor protection was now extended to a larger part of the hull. The structures themselves were relatively small in order to offer less target area. For reasons of weight, however, the armor was significantly thinner than on other ships, the citadel armor was only 102 mm thick and the belt armor was 203 mm thick, while the gun turrets were just as inadequately protected with 203 mm armor. This reduction was also made in order to achieve a greater top speed and in fact the ships were significantly faster than contemporary battleships at around 23 knots, but slower than battlecruisers . The installation of diesel engines was also temporarily considered, but rejected again due to insufficient performance parameters.
The main armament consisted of twelve 305 mm guns in four triplet turrets, which were mounted in the so-called Cuniberti configuration: only the foremost and the aftmost turret could fire forward and aft, the other two stood between the superstructures and could only follow the sides. The middle artillery counted sixteen 120 mm guns in individual casemates and was therefore relatively weak. There were also four underwater mounted 457 mm torpedo tubes. Since the turrets of the heavy artillery turned out to be about 200 t heavier than planned, some further savings had to be made on the armor.
The ships of the Gangut class were intended for the Baltic fleet and were equipped with the appropriate equipment for the special conditions in the Baltic Sea, so the bow of all ships was designed as an icebreaker. The completed ships, however, presented some problems; they were considered unhospitable and difficult to ventilate, keeping clean turned out to be difficult, and they took over a lot of water at high speeds. The design of the chimneys was also in need of improvement; the low chimneys immediately behind the bridge tower obstructed the view with plumes of coal smoke and dirty deck and superstructure. In addition, they were actually already out of date when they were commissioned, in terms of armament and armor they were inferior to ships of the British and German navies built at the same time.
Used in World War I and the interwar period
The construction of all four ships was well advanced when the war broke out, so that they were gradually put into service by the fleet. However, they only took part in a few missions - the risk of losing the valuable capital ships through mines, torpedo attacks or the unexpected appearance of enemy battleships seemed too great. With the outbreak of the revolution, the ships fell into the hands of the Reds, who, however, made little use of them during the civil war. The only major action in which they all took part was the ice march of the Baltic Fleet , the retreat to the Kronstadt fleet base , in early 1918.
The Petropavlovsk fell victim to the attack of the British motor torpedo boat CMB 88 during the intervention of the British Royal Navy , but could be lifted and temporarily repaired; the Poltava suffered severe damage from a fire in 1922.
After the end of the Russian Civil War , all ships were renamed - the new names stood for the Bolsheviks' program :
- Gangut in Oktyabrskaya Revoljuzija after the October Revolution
- Sevastopol in Parishskaya Kommuna after the Paris Commune
- Petropavlovsk in Marat after Jean Paul Marat , the politician from the time of the French Revolution
- Poltava in Michail Frunze after Mikhail Wassiljewitsch Frunze , a Soviet military leader
Only the Oktjabrskaja Revoljuzija and the Parischskaja Kommuna were always in usable condition during the civil war, the other two ships were not operational due to damage and neglect. Accordingly, after the damage suffered in a major fire in 1922 , the Michail Frunze was only used as a Hulk and then canalized, and the Marat was put back into service in 1921, after repairing the damage suffered by torpedo hits in 1919. The Parischskaja Kommuna was moved after long-term modernization in 1929 in the Black Sea where the Soviet fleet had no more capital ships: for the Russian Black Sea Fleet ships built of Imperatriza-Marija class were lost due to accidents and enemy action. On the voyage, the Parischskaja Kommuna suffered severe damage to the forecastle in a storm and had to go to the dock in Brest to be repaired. The emergency steven drafted there remained in place for a few years.
Modernizations
In the 1930s, the ships still in service (with the exception of the Michail Frunze ) underwent a complete conversion, in which they were equipped with new superstructures, oil-fired machines and more powerful anti-aircraft armament. The previous superstructures were too small for modern requirements and had to be enlarged, and a catapult for a seaplane was placed on the third turret. A noticeable feature was the conversion of the front chimney, the head of which was pulled far back in order to reduce the smoke nuisance for the command tower. During the Second World War , the ships also received British radar systems. The bow section was renewed to improve seaworthiness, and some of the ships also received torpedo bulbs. An extensive modernization program was also planned for the Marat , in which new machines and improved central artillery were to be installed and the arrangement of the turrets was to be changed; however, due to the outbreak of war, this did not happen. Another such plan was to be implemented after the end of the war, but was also rejected.
Use in World War II
During the Second World War, the remaining ships proved to be a valuable pillar of the Soviet defense efforts against the German attack. In the Baltic Sea, the Baltic Fleet was unable to counter the German superiority and had to limit itself to defensive operations, the Oktyabrskaya Revoljuzija relocated from Tallinn first to Kronstadt and finally to Leningrad , where its heavy artillery made an important contribution to the defense of the besieged city. The Marat was sunk on the quay in Kronstadt on September 23, 1941 during an attack by German Stukas - a 1000 kg bomb from the aircraft controlled by Lieutenant Hans-Ulrich Rudel hit the forecastle and destroyed the foremost tower of the heavy artillery - with 326 Men of the crew perished. The ship sank on a level keel, but remained sufficiently capable of fighting to continue to intervene in the battles for Leningrad with the remaining artillery. The Parishskaya Kommuna played an important role in the Black Sea and provided valuable service with its artillery fire during the sieges of Odessa and Sevastopol . In 1943, the ships got their old names back , probably as part of national propaganda in the context of the Great Patriotic War .
Fate after World War II
The Gangut and the Sevastopol remained in service until the 1950s and were scrapped after being decommissioned in 1959 and 1957. The Petropavlovsk was lifted and put back into service as an artillery school ship Volkhov , in 1953 it was also scrapped. The Poltava, on the other hand, remained Hulk and was scrapped in the 1950s.
literature
- Siegfried Breyer: Battleships and battle cruisers 1905–1970. JF Lehmanns Verlag, Munich 1970, ISBN 3-88199-474-2 .