O'Higgins (ship, 1897)
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 Armored cruiser O'Higgins |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Armored cruiser |
| Shipyard |
Armstrong, Whitworth & Co , Elswick , BauNr. 650 |
| Keel laying | March 19, 1896 |
| Launch | May 17, 1897 |
| Commissioning | July 25, 1898 |
| Whereabouts | 1933 abandoned in 1958 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
8,500 t |
| length |
135.94 m over everything, |
| width |
18.9 m |
| Draft |
6.7 m |
| crew |
489-500 men |
| drive |
30 Belleville boiler |
| speed |
21.5 kn |
| Range |
6000 nm at 10 kn, |
| Armament |
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| Armor |
Harvey type |
| Armored deck |
52 mm |
| Belt armor |
178 mm |
| Turrets |
190 mm |
| Command tower |
190 mm |
The armored cruiser O'Higgins of the Chilean Navy , designed by Philip Watts , is regarded as a model for the more modern armored cruisers at the end of the 19th century. From 1898 to 1933 the cruiser was in service with the Chilean fleet.
Building history
The O'Higgins , designed by the shipyard Sir WG Armstrong, Whitworth (since 1897) & Co. Ltd in Elswick near Newcastle upon Tyne , was considered the most modern armored cruiser development of its time. The Chilean government took over the ship, which the shipyard had already started on its own account, in March 1896 at a price of 700,000 pounds for the finished ship. It was the sixth ship that Chile wanted to purchase from the shipyard.
Armstrong cruiser at Chile
On October 2, 1879, the keel of the small cruiser Arturo Prat was stretched in Elswick, which was sold to Japan while it was being built and was kept in service there as the gunboat Tsukushi until 1906.
It was followed by the Esmeralda , commissioned in 1881 , which is considered the first of all protected cruisers of the Elswick type . It was sold to Japan in November 1894 during the Sino-Japanese War . As Izumi , she took part in the 1905 Sea Battle of Tsushima and was decommissioned in 1907.
The Blanco Encalada ordered in 1892 only arrived in Chile on January 26, 1895 after it had been sold . In June 1897, the Chilean Navy had the first armored cruiser, the fourth Esmeralda ordered in 1895, and the smaller protected cruiser Ministro Zenteno , which had originally been started for Brazil. Both Armstrong cruisers had already been completed in England in 1896, but the transfer from England to Chile with further newbuildings by Laird Brothers (one torpedo cannon boat, four destroyers) did not begin until the end of March 1897.
The first turreted armored cruiser built in Britain
The steel hull of the ship was sheathed with wood and covered with copper for use in tropical waters. It was divided into 15 watertight compartments. The two triple expansion machines received steam from 30 Belleville boilers , which were arranged in three groups and discharged the exhaust gases through 3 chimneys.
The four heavy 8-inch (203-mm) -L / 40- EOC / Armstrong cannons in four individual turrets: bow and stern turret, plus two turrets on the side behind the bridge. This weapon had previously been installed behind protective shields on the two Chilean cruisers Blanco Encalada and Esmeralda, as well as the Argentine Buenos Aires . It was further developed into an L / 45 gun, which was installed in twin turrets on the six Asama armored cruisers and behind shields as a single gun on the Japanese Takasago and the Chinese protected cruisers Hai Tien and Hai Chi and as a bow and stern gun of the 1902 purchased Chacabuco came to the Chilean Navy in this variant.
In addition to this main armament, there were four 6-inch (152-mm) L / 40 rapid-fire guns in two individual turrets each, which were set up behind the three funnels on either side, while the other six cannons of this caliber were set up deeper in casemates. There were also four 4.7-inch (120-mm) -L / 45 -armstrong rapid-fire guns on the upper deck, which were supposed to reinforce the bow and stern fire, eight 12-pdr- (76-mm) -L / 40 rapid fire guns and two 12 pdr (76 mm) L / 23 landing guns as well as ten 6 pdr 57 mm Hotchkiss cannons, four machine guns in the mast tops and two underwater torpedo tubes in the bow, as well as three above water tubes British 18-in (45 cm) type in the stern and broadsides.
The armor was made of Harvey steel, included a 52 mm thick armored deck, up to 178 mm thick belt armor 79.3 m long and 2.14 m high in the waterline, armored towers up to 200 mm thick for the heavier ones Guns and 150 mm for the central artillery set up in towers and the casemates' blinds. There was also a command tower protected with 190 mm.
Mission history
The armored cruiser O'Higgins arrived in Chile on July 25, 1898. The ship was named after Bernardo O'Higgins , the first head of state of Chile. The armored cruiser was the third ship in the Chilean Navy to bear his name. The predecessors were a captured frigate from 1818 to 1826 and a corvette of 1100 tons that was used from 1866 to 1895. Buying ideas, some of which were considered by the USA, with regard to this ship, which was more than equivalent to the American ships in view of its own conflict with Spain, were dropped because Chile was ultimately not expected to sell to any of the warring parties.
Chile was able to temporarily settle the conflict with Argentina thanks to British mediation when the two presidents, Errázuriz for Chile and Roca for Argentina, met in Punta Arenas on the Strait of Magellan on February 15, 1899 on board the O'Higgins . Despite these efforts, the conflict soon flared up again, both countries were on the verge of war, which Errázuriz's successor Riesco was able to finally prevent through two treaties in May and November 1902 . Both sides had heavily upgraded their navies during this phase. Argentina had obtained four Garibaldi-class armored cruisers from Italy, bought two more from Italy, but then sold them to Japan in 1903, where they arrived shortly after the start of the Russo-Japanese War . On February 26, 1902, Chile had ordered two light ships of the line from Armstrong-Whitworth in Elswick and Vickers in Barrow-in-Furness , which were no longer considered necessary after the Argentines waived additional ships. The British bought the unfinished ships as Swiftsure class so as not to let them fall into the hands of one of the new warring factions. In 1902, however, the Chileans bought the protected cruiser Chacabuco , which was launched at Armstrong as a storage building in 1898 and was taken over by the Chilean Navy in Europe in spring 1902.
The O'Higgins was deployed in 1903 during the dispute between the USA and Colombia over the separation of Panama from the Central American coast. The Chileans were interested in the smooth movement of goods across the isthmus. The conflict ended with the separation of Panama from Colombia and the reinforced construction on the Panama Canal . In 1903 the O'Higgins landed parts of the crew in Chañaral to break a strike organized by the Sociedad Mancomunal de Obreros . The marines also arrested union leaders.
After the earthquake in Valparaíso in 1906 , the crew fought with the crews of other ships under the command of Rear Admiral Basilio Rojas against the subsequent uprisings and looting.
In 1910, the O'Higgins was sent to Buenos Aires with the armored cruiser Esmeralda to celebrate the centenary of Argentina's independence .
In the meantime a new arms race of the South American navies had begun. Chile had ordered two capital ships and six large destroyers in Great Britain. Two of those destroyed reached Chile before the outbreak of World War II, the rest served as flotilla commanders of the Faulknor class in the Royal Navy. The three survivors were delivered to Chile after the war. Of the capital ships, only the Almirante Latorre was completed as HMS Canada , which after serving in the British fleet reached Chile in 1921, so that the O'Higgins remained the largest ship in the Chilean Navy until then.
When the German cruiser squadron under Graf Spee and the Royal Navy units searching for them appeared off the Chilean coast in 1914 , the Chilean naval units did not intervene. They paid attention to the length of stay in the ports in accordance with the rules of neutrality, but tolerated that both sides hid in lonely bays or coaled within the territorial waters.
The O'Higgins was routinely maintained and in tests in 1919 still reached a top speed of 21 knots. In the same year, the first attempts began with an on-board aircraft, which was put on the water with a crane and taken back on board. However, on August 24, 1920 at Mejillones there was a fatal accident with Ensign Juli Villagrán as the pilot.
On September 1, 1931, the O'Higgins crew took part in the uprising of the fleet after significant pay cuts had been passed. The fleet flagship Almirante Latorre , seven destroyers and some submarines were also involved in the mutiny at the beginning , which was to be put down by the use of aircraft of the Chilean Air Force ( Fuerza Aérea de Chile ). However, the air strike was unsuccessful. However, the mutineers gave up after a few days.
In 1933 the armored cruiser was decommissioned. The remaining ship was only canceled in 1958 at the Pacific Steel Company.
literature
- Peter Brooke: Warships for Export: Armstrong Warships 1867-1927. World Ship Society, Gravesend 1999, ISBN 0-905617-89-4 .
- David K. Brown: Warrior to Dreadnought: Warship Development 1860-1905. Caxton Editions, 2003, ISBN 1-84067-529-2 .
- Roger Chesneau, Eugene M. Kolesnik (Eds.): Conway's All The Worlds Fighting Ships, 1860-1905. Conway Maritime Press, London 1979, ISBN 0-85177-133-5 .
- JJ Colledge, Ben Warlow: Ships of the Royal Navy: the complete record of all fighting ships of the Royal Navy. Chatham, London 1969/2006, ISBN 978-1-86176-281-8 .
- Fred T. Jane (Ed. Anthony Preston): The British Battle-Fleet: Its Inception and Growth throughout the Centuries. New edition, Conway Maritime Press, 1997, ISBN 0-85177-723-6 .
- Bruno Weyer: Taschenbuch der Kriegsflotten 1905. 2nd edition, JF Lehmann Verlag, Munich on archive.org
Web links
- O'Higgins on the side of the Chilean Navy (span.)
- Model of the O'Higgins
- The Chilean Navy including the O'Higgins
- The O'Higgins with the Chilean destroyers O'Brien and Thompson off Valpareiso
- Side elevation of the O'Higgins
Footnotes
- ↑ Tsukushi , 1,380 t, 64 m long, 16.5 kn, 2 × 254 mm, 4 × 120 mm
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↑ Data of the third Esmeralda ( memento of November 17, 2009 in the Internet Archive ) 2950 t, 82 m long, 18.3 kn, 2 × 254 mm, 6 × 152 mm.
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↑ Curriculum vitae on the second Blanco Encalada ( memento from September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) and crack of the cruiser 4420 t, 113 m long, 22.8 kn, 2 × 203 mm, 10 × 152 mm
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↑ The ship's life cycle ( memento from March 20, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) 7000 t, 130 m long, 22.5 kn, 2 × 203 mm, 16 × 152 mm
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↑ Curriculum vitae of the Ministro Zenteno ( Memento of September 27, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) 3450 t, 101 m long, 22.5 kn, 8 × 152 mm.
- ^ Image of the O'Higgins
- ↑ Further technical data on the Elswick Ordnance cannons
- ↑ Technical data of the export version Elswick Z
- ^ New cruiser in Chile, NYT, July 26, 1898 (Eng.)
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↑ Curriculum vitae of Chacabuco ( Memento from September 28, 2013 in the Internet Archive ) and pictures 4300 t, 110 m long, 23.6 kn, 2 × 203 mm, 10 × 120 mm.
- ↑ the second ship was completed as the British aircraft carrier Eagle and remained with the Royal Navy
- ↑ Picture of a Sopwith Baby in front of the O'Higgins
