Oleg (ship, 1903)

**Oleg**
	Oleg 1914
Ship data
flag	Russia
Ship type	Protected cruiser
Shipyard	New Admiralty Shipyard , Saint Petersburg
Keel laying	July 6, 1902
Launch	August 14, 1903
Commissioning	February 19, 1911
Whereabouts	Sunk by a torpedo hit on June 17, 1919
Ship dimensions and crew
length	134.2 m ( Lüa )
width	16.6 m
Draft	Max. 6.3 m
displacement	Construction: 6,550 t; Maximum: 7,070 t
crew	589 men
Machine system
machine	16 steam boilers; 2 steam engines
Machine ; performance	19,500 hp (14,342 kW)
Top ; speed	23 kn (43 km / h)
propeller	2
Armament
	upon completion: 2 × 2 15.2 cm L / 45 ; 8 × 1 15.2 cm L / 45; 12 x 1 7.5 cm L / 50; 8 x 1 4.7 cm L / 43; 2 × 1 3.7 cm L / 23 MK ; 2 × 1 7.62 cm MG ; 4 × torpedo tube ø 38.1 cm; 1916: 16 × 1 13.0 cm L / 51; 1 × 1 7.5 cm L / 30 flak; 2 × 1 4.7 cm flak; 2 × 1 7.62 cm MG; 2 × torpedo tube ø 45.7 cm;
Armor
	Deck : 35-80 mm; Casemates: 35-80 mm; Towers: 127 mm (front);

The Oleg ( Russian Олег ) was the second protected cruiser of the Bogatyr class of the Tsarist Russian Navy . It was sent to East Asia shortly after completion in the autumn of 1904 during the Russo-Japanese War and escaped damaged from the sea battle at Tsushima to Manila. After the end of the war she returned to the Baltic Sea and took part in the First World War. On June 17, 1919, the now Soviet Oleg was sunk by the British speedboat CMB-4 near Kronstadt with a torpedo hit.

Building history

Remnants of the Vitjas

Bogatyr class plan from Brassey's 1902

According to the plans of the Bogatyr built by the Stettiner Maschinenbau-AG Vulcan as part of the fleet building program of 1898 , four replicas were ordered from Russian shipyards before they were delivered. Two ships were commissioned for the Black Sea Fleet in 1900 ( Kagul and Pamiat Merkuria ), but were not completed until 1905 and 1907. Two more were ordered for the Baltic fleet . The first started Vityaz was destroyed on June 1, 1901 the slipways by fire of Galerny shipyard in St. Petersburg so that the termination occurred. The keel of the Oleg was only laid on July 6th, 1902 at the Admiralty Shipyard in St. Petersburg and then launched on August 14th, 1903. After the war with Japan began, it was put into service on June 24th, 1904 for the Baltic fleet .

Mission history

The cruiser was relocated to the Pacific as part of the Baltic Fleet during the Russo-Japanese War . Before leaving the Baltic Sea, the Oleg suffered machine damage . This delayed their march, so that they only with a second division on November 16, together with the cruiser Isumrud , some auxiliary cruisers (including Kuban ex Augusta Victoria , their sister ship Terek ex Columbia , but who had their own tasks and routes) and five destroy Libau and marched with some across the Mediterranean to overtake the main fleet.

Battle of Tsushima

Damage to the Oleg after Tsushima

The Oleg was one of the most modern units in the fleet. She was the flagship of Admiral Oskar Enkwist , who commanded the cruiser division of the fleet, which also included the protected cruiser Aurora and the two old cruisers Dmitri Donskoy and Vladimir Monomakh .

During the sea battle at Tsushima on May 27, 1905, Enkwist decided after his flagship of Japanese cruisers III. and IV. Cruiser Division had been damaged, to expire south. Together with Shemchug and Aurora , the Oleg managed to escape and reached Manila on June 3 , where the ships were interned by the Americans.

Back with the Baltic fleet

After returning to the Baltic Sea, the armament was modified and the torpedo nets removed. On 27 June 1908 she formed with her sister ship Bogatyr that the Russo-Japanese War in Vladivostok had survived, the battleships Slava and Russian battleship Tsesarevich and the armored cruiser Admiral Makarov the Russian naval unit, the the on the battleship Vérité incoming French President Armand Fallières with his State visit to Riga welcomed. On October 6, 1908, the Oleg ran aground near Steinort and could not be recovered until October 17.

On a training trip into the Mediterranean with Slava , Zessarewitsch and the Bogatyr , the Russian association met with the British Atlantic Fleet and the 1st Division of the US Atlantic Fleet (four ships of the line) as well as units from other nations on January 31, 1909 in Gibraltar .
On November 20, 1912, the Oleg left Athens at full speed after reports of the murder of Christians in Jaffa .

First World War

Mine-layer Yenisei

During the First World War , the Oleg was part of the 1st Cruiser Brigade. On September 2, 1914 she came into combat for the first time. Together with the sister ship Bogatyr , she tried to provide the German small cruiser Augsburg , which eluded the Russian cruisers. The Russian cruisers secured several offensive mining companies, so in November the Oleg with the Bogatyr and the armored cruiser Rurik, a company of the mine-layer Amur , who laid 240 mines on the Stolpe Bank between Kolberg and Danzig . In January 1915, the Oleg and the Bogatyr were also used to mine themselves when they laid 196 mines east of Bornholm . The German cruiser Augsburg got into this minefield shortly afterwards and was out of action for three months after being hit by a mine .

The Oleg and Bogatyr participated as part of the 1st Brigade cruisers, together with the two armored cruisers Admiral Makarov (flagship of Rear Admiral Mikhail Bachirew ) and Bajan , the so-called Gotland raid on July 2, 1915 in part. In a battle with German cruisers, they drove the German mine cruiser Albatross onto the beach near Östergard, Gotland .

In June 1916 the Russian fleet attempted attacks on the German Luleå convoys off the Swedish coast. In addition to the Oleg , the Bogatyr and the Rurik , a number of destroyers were also used. The three new destroyers Nowik , Pobeditel and Grom found a German escort on June 14 near the island of Gotland southeast of Oxelösund , but the Russian commander overestimated the strength of the German escort and broke off the engagement. Only the German submarine trap, Ship H , which was on its first mission, was sunk after an hour of fighting and a torpedo shot by the destroyer Grom . The Oleg ran on the way back on June 16, 1916, a sunken Bark before Reval on.

October Revolution

In August 1917, the Oleg was taken over by the team that joined the Bolsheviks and was active in the October Revolution on 6/7. Involved November 1917. The Oleg remained active in the Baltic Sea after the revolution.

After the landing of the German Baltic Sea Division on April 3, 1918 at Hangö and the conclusion of the Hangö Agreement between Rear Admiral Hugo Meurer and representatives of the Zentrobalt (Central Committee of the Baltic Fleet), the longest-serving officer of the Baltic Fleet, Captain 1st rank, Alexei Shchastny organized (Алексей Михайлович Щастный), the transfer of Russian units to Kronstadt . The Oleg was one of the ships that took part in the Baltic Fleet's ice march . With this, Russia was able to retain practically the entire Baltic fleet.

In November 1918 the Oleg and the Bogatyr supported the Red Army invasion of Estonia with two destroyers .

Whereabouts

In June 1919, Oleg shelled the fortifications of Krasnaya Gorka in front of Kronstadt, which were held by insurgents. The British naval officer Augustus Agar , who was stationed in Finland camouflaged as a civilian to smuggle agents and messages for the MI6 secret service to Russia and back with small speedboats , decided to support the defenders and attack the warships with torpedoes without authorization. Agar had received express orders from London not to attack. A first attempt to attack a bombardment group of the Bolsheviks with two boats failed when the speedboat CMB-7 was damaged by a collision and the attack had to be stopped.

Oleg left the port on June 17, secured by four destroyers, shot at the fort and stopped firing at around 7 p.m. Agar had watched the ship from land and planned an attack under cover of darkness. At a distance of 200 meters from the Bolshevik guard destroyers on port and starboard, Agar steered the boat CMB-4 in the direction of Oleg . After a misfire of the explosive charge for the torpedo discharge, the CMB-4 lay almost motionless between the guard ships for a while until the charge was replaced. When the crew finally started the engine to attack, the noise betrayed them and Oleg and the destroyers opened fire. Minutes later, around midnight, CMB-4 dropped the only torpedo it carried and then fled west. According to Agar, the weapon hit the cruiser just behind the first chimney. Oleg sank, but the fort's defenders had given up hours earlier.

literature

Hans H. Hildebrand / Albert Röhr / Hans-Otto Steinmetz: The German warships: Biographies - a mirror of naval history from 1815 to the present , Koehlers Verlagsgesellschaft, Herford,