Ministro Zenteno (1896)
|
|
|---|---|
 The Ministro Zenteno |
|
| Overview | |
| Type | Protected cruiser |
| Shipyard |
Armstrong, Mitchell & Co , |
| Keel laying | May 6, 1895 for Brazil |
| Launch | February 1, 1896 |
| Namesake |
José Ignacio Zenteno (1786–1847) |
| Commissioning | 1897 |
| Decommissioning | 1930 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
3438 tn.l. |
| length |
108.0 m over everything, |
| width |
13.1 m |
| Draft |
5.1 m |
| crew |
363 men |
| drive |
4 cylinder boilers , |
| speed |
20.2 kn , |
| Armament |
8 × 6 inch (152 mm) L / 45 Armstrong rapid fire guns |
| Coal supply |
400, maximum 848 tn.l. |
|
Armor armored deck command tower |
Harvey system |
| Sister ships |
Almirante Barroso , Brazil |
The Ministro Zenteno was a protected cruiser of the Chilean Navy . She was the first ship in a November 1894 order by Brazil for three cruisers from Armstrong, Mitchell & Co in Elswick. While still on the Helgen, the ship was bought by Chile, which wanted to replace the first Elswick cruiser Esmeralda , which had been sold to Japan . Brazil also struggled to fund its new build program. The Ministro Zenteno completed its testing in 1896 and moved to Chile from April 1897 with an association of new buildings. Her service went without any major events until she left in 1931.
The three other ships in the series came to Brazil as the Almirante Barroso , as well as the New Orleans and Albany for the US Navy, since the United States bought the last two ships in March 1898 to prevent a sale to Spain.
Building history
In November 1894, the Brazilian Navy ordered three cruisers from the Armstrong, Mitchell & Co warship yard in Elswick near Newcastle upon Tyne . Probably because of financial difficulties, Brazil had sold the first of the cruisers ordered in 1894 to Chile on the Helgen in September 1895. Chile had previously acquired two Elswick cruisers . First the Esmeralda of 2,950 tn.l. , the first Elswick cruiser ever, and then in July 1992 the 4,403 tn.l. large Blanco Encalada . The old Esmeralda was now in need of modernization after ten years of service and Armstrong had made an offer to do so. Chile then sold the cruiser to Japan in November 1994 and has been negotiating a larger new build since then. These finally led to the keel-laying of a considerably larger Esmeralda in July 1895 , which was the first armored cruiser to be completed by the Armstrong shipyard.
The cruisers designed by Philip Watts for Brazil displaced a little over 3400 tn.l., were 108.1 m long and 13.1 m wide and had a copper-clad hull for use in tropical waters. They were slightly smaller than the largest Elswick cruisers delivered to Japan , Argentina and Chile to date . The four-cylinder triple expansion machines supplied by Humphrys & Tennant developed 6500 PSi and with artificial pull up to 7520 PSi on two screws.
The armament proposed by the manufacturer with eight 6-inch (152 mm) guns was only installed in the Ministro Zenteno . After a lengthy test, the Brazilian Navy opted for a mixed armament of six 6-inch and four 4.7-inch rapid-fire guns Manufacturer decided which was to be installed in the three other buildings. In addition, the Zenteno had ten six pounder (57 mm) and four three pounder ( 37 mm) Hotchkiss rapid-fire guns, four machine guns and three 450 mm torpedo tubes (rigid nose tube and two movable broadside tubes).
The new Brazilian building purchased in September 1895 was initially called Chacabuco . When launched on February 1, 1896, however, he received the name Ministro Zenteno after the Chilean War and Navy Minister from 1817 to 1822 and Commander in Chief of the Navy from 1821 to 1825 José Ignacio Zenteno (1786-1847). In July 1896 the cruiser made its acceptance tests at the shipyard. The armored cruiser Esmeralda was meanwhile also in the acceptance process and completed its tests in September 1896. However, both cruisers did not leave Great Britain until the end of March 1897, when the launch of the stronger armored cruiser O'Higgins was also imminent.
Mission history
(2).jpg)
The transfer of the Ministro Zenteno , completed in 1896, does not take place until the end of March 1897 together with the new armored cruiser Esmeralda and other units built by Laird Brothers in Great Britain (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 . All units had reached Valparaiso by the end of June.
In August 1901, the Ministro Zenteno was sent to Mexico for the duration of the Pan American Congress. On the way out, the cruiser visited Callao and Guayaquil ; on the way back, Costa Rica , El Salvador , Nicaragua and Guatemala were visited.
On August 31, 1906, the cruiser in Lota received the American Secretary of State Elihu Root , who had been overdue for two days in Smith's Channel with the new American cruiser USS Charleston and was already wanted by the Chilean gunboat Almirante Simpson .
On March 14, 1907, the Ministro Zenteno left Valparaiso with cadets on a training trip, the culmination of which was to take part in the Great International Naval Parade in Hampton Roads at the entrance to Chesapeake Bay to mark the 300th anniversary of the settlement of the United States. A large number of foreign warships came to the United States for this fleet parade and the exhibition in Jamestown , including the sister ship of the Zenteno , the Brazilian Almirante Barroso , in a Brazilian association, which had visited Chile for the second time earlier this year. The Ministro Zenteno first visited the Chilean ports of Puerto Barroso , Grappler , Dixon , Punta Arenas and then ran via Bahia , La Guaira and Bermuda to the Hampton Roads, via Annapolis and Newport the journey to Europe was continued and the Chilean cruiser visited Plymouth , Brest , El Ferrol and Lisbon . Then the Zenteno moved to the Mediterranean, where Algiers , Malta , La Spezia , Genoa , Barcelona and Cartagena were visited, before via Gibraltar , Santa Cruz de Tenerife , Rio de Janeiro (second visit after the transfer in 1897) and the Argentine ports of Buenos Aires and Puerto Madryn the journey home was started. In Chile, Punta Arenas, Fortescue , Tamar , Puerto Bueno , Puerto Edén , Puerto Laguna , Melinka , Puerto Montt and Talcahuano were called before the longest journey of the Ministro Zenteno in Valparaíso ended on December 8, 1907.
In 1910 the cruiser 88 rescued the survivors of the British ship Lima (1907, 4953 GRT) belonging to the Pacific Steam Navigation Company , which ran aground in the Huamblin Passage of the Strait of Magellan . In February 1914, the cruiser was sent to Callao in Peru to secure Chilean interests in the event of unrest there.
On March 18, 1915, the Ministro Zenteno and the armored cruiser Esmeralda arrived 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. While the Esmeralda ran straight back to Valparaíso, the Zenteno explored the island in order to find more Germans if necessary and to obtain testimony from the residents about the battle.
In January 1918, the Ministro Zenteno was assigned surveying tasks. She measured the Beagle Channel and other areas in southern Chile. In July 1928 she was unsuccessfully sent with the destroyer Almirante Williams ex HMS Botha to search for survivors of the transporter Angamos (5975 t), which sank on July 7th in the Gulf of Arauco near Puenta Morguillas near Lebu with probably 283 dead.
Final fate
The cruiser served mainly as a survey ship since 1918. On January 3, 1930, the Ministro Zenteno was decommissioned and canceled the following year.
_at_Chatham_on_3_May_1981.jpg)
Later namesake
From 1974 to 1990 the Chilean Navy again had a ship of the same name in service with the destroyer Ministro Zenteno . He had joined the US Navy in 1944 as Charles S. Sperry of the Allen M. Sumner Class and served there until 1973. The Chilean Navy still had a similar destroyer , the Ministro Portales , the former Douglas H. Fox .
From 1991 to 2006 the former British frigate Achilles of the Leander class served as Ministro Zenteno in the Chilean Navy. Sister ships were the newly built for Chile Almirante Condell (1973 to 2007 in service) and Almirante Lynch (1974 to 2007 in service), both of which were sold to Ecuador in 2008 , as well as the Ariadne , acquired in 1992 as General Baquedano (PF-09) until 1998.
literature
- Peter Brooke: Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867-1927. World Ship Society, Gravesend 1999, ISBN 0-905617-89-4 .
- Roger Chesneau, Eugène M. Koleśnik, NJM Campbell: Conway's All the World's Fighting Ships, 1860-1905. Naval Institute Press, Annapolis, Md. 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
- Maria Teresa Parker de Bassi: Cruiser Dresden: Odyssey of No Return. Koehler Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford 1993, ISBN 3-7822-0591-X .
Web links
- Curriculum vitae of the Ministro Zenteno ( Memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
- Model of the Ministro Zenteno in the Valpareiso Naval Museum
- Ministro Zenteno
Footnotes
- ↑ Regarding the 6-inch guns, it is unclear whether L / 50-Mk.V models were installed as on the US ships, some sources also indicate a mixed armament of two L / 45 and six L / 40 cannons .
- ↑ Torpedo cannon boat "Almirante Simpson" ( 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, two screws, 21.5 kn, two 120 mm, four 3 pounder cannons, three torpedo tubes
- ↑ Four Capitán Orella class torpedo boat destroyers, built in 1896, 300 tn.l., 64 × 6.58 × 1.64 m, 6250 PSi, two screws, 30 knots, one 12 pounder and five 6 pounder guns , two torpedo tubes
- ^ Secretary Root is safe NYT, September 1, 1906
- ^ Visit to Barcelona on September 14, 1907
- ^ Lima survivors NYT, February 18, 1910
- ↑ Parker de Bassi, p. 441 ff.