Oryol (ship, 1902)
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|---|---|
 Ship of the line Oryol in Kronstadt 1904 |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| units | 5 |
| Shipyard |
Galerny shipyard, |
| Keel laying | June 2, 1900 |
| Launch | July 19, 1902 |
| delivery | October 1904 |
| Namesake | the city of Oryol |
| period of service |
1904–1905 Russian Navy. |
| Whereabouts | sunk as a target ship on July 10, 1924 by aircraft |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
13,516 ts construction; |
| length |
121 m |
| width |
23.3 m |
| Draft |
8.00 m |
| crew |
782 men |
| drive |
12 Belleville boilers , |
| speed |
17.5 kn |
| Range |
2,590 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
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| Armament ( iwami ) |
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| Armor |
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The ship of the line Orjol ( Russian Орёл ) of the Imperial Russian Navy was the third of five ships of the Borodino class . In 1905 she was captured by the Japanese at Tsushima and used as an Iwami by the Japanese Navy from 1907 to 1923 .
The Borodino class
The Borodino class was based on the plans of the Zessarevich, built in France 1899–1901 . When the construction contract was signed, the Russian naval command insisted that five more ships of the same type be built in Russia and modified if necessary so that they would meet the requirements of the Russian navy. Accordingly, from 1899 to 1905, the ships of the Borodino class were built in Russian shipyards: Borodino , Emperor Alexander III. , Knjas Suvorov , Oryol and Slava .
Like the Zessarewitsch , these ships also suffered from the fact that their center of gravity was too high, the hull walls in the so-called tumble home design showed inwards above the waterline, the longitudinal bulkhead running in the middle of the hull caused the danger of capsizing, and the low belt armor was pushed underwater with a full combat load. The casemate guns were so low that they were unusable in rough seas. In addition, the ships, despite their greater weight, had weaker engines than the Zessarewitsch .
The three ships of the class sunk at Tsushima capsized before sinking. The ships are therefore regarded by some shipbuilding experts as the worst battleships ever built (Preston 2002).
history
The Oryol was laid down in 1900 at the Galerny shipyard in St. Petersburg . It was launched in July 1902 and was put into service in October 1904, although not yet fully completed, and assigned to the Second Pacific Squadron under Vice Admiral Roschestvensky with her sisters (with the exception of the not yet completed Slava ) . The commander of the ship was the first-rate captain Nikolai Viktorovich Jung .
Tsushima
On October 15, 1904, Roschestvensky's fleet embarked on an eight-month voyage over 18,000 nautical miles to East Asia. The Oryol still had shipyard workers on board who were supposed to finish the last work.
The Orjol , as the fourth ship in the Russian battle line, was badly damaged in the naval battle of Tsushima on May 27, 1905: she was probably given five 30.5 cm, two 25.4 cm, nine 20.3 cm and 28 15.2 cm hits. Her three sister ships were sunk. On the morning of the next day, May 28, 1905, around 10:30 am, the Oryol surrendered on the orders of Rear Admiral Nebogatov . With the Oryol , the old ironclad Imperator Nikolai I , Admiral Nebogatov's flagship, and the two coastal armored ships General-Admiral Apraxin and Admiral Senjawin also capitulated . Captain Jung, who was seriously injured during the battle, died on May 29, 1905 and was buried at sea.
Japanese Navy
After a complete overhaul in 1906–1907, the ship served under the name Iwami in the Japanese Navy. When the heavily damaged ship was being repaired, its superstructure was reduced considerably in order to improve the ship's seaworthiness. The six 15.2-cm twin turrets of the middle artillery were replaced by six 20.3-cm single guns. The light guns were reduced and the bow and stern torpedo tubes expanded. The broadside tubes were, however, replaced by more modern 45 cm tubes. The boiler system was renewed with tubular boilers of Japanese design and enabled an output of 16,500 hp and thus a speed of over 18 knots.
The Iwami , which has been classified as a coastal armored ship since August 1912 , was used in the First World War with four other formerly Russian ships in the blockade and conquest of the German colony of Qingdao (Kiautschou) . The other former Russian ships were the liner ships Suwo ex Pobeda and Tango ex Poltawa captured in Port Arthur and the coastal armored ships Okinoshima ex General-Admiral Apraxin and Mishima ex Admiral Senjawin , which had surrendered with the former Oryol at Tsushima. The association remained in action there until the Germans surrendered on November 7, 1914.
On January 12, 1918, the Iwami was the first allied warship to enter Vladivostok to protect Japanese interests in revolutionary Russia. After her, the British armored cruiser Suffolk , the liner Asahi and the Brooklyn arrived. The action expanded into the Siberian Intervention , in which Japan temporarily exerted influence on the entire Russian Pacific coast and supported the so-called coastal republic until the withdrawal in September 1922. The Iwami was used in this context in 1920 and 1921 off Kamchatka .
Due to the Washington Fleet Treaty of February 1922, the Iwami was decommissioned on May 9, 1923 and sunk as a target ship by bombers off Tokyo Bay on July 10, 1924 .
literature
- Robert A. Burt: Japanese Battleships 1897-1945 . Arms and Armor Press, ISBN 0-85368-758-7
- Sir Julian Corbett : Maritime Operations in The Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905. 1994, ISBN 1-5575-0129-7 .
- Tony Gibbons: The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships. Crescent Books, New York 1983, ISBN 0-517-378108 .
- Richard A. Hough: The Fleet That Had To Die. Ballantine Books, New York 1960.
- Hugh Lyon: The Encyclopedia of the World's Warships. Chartwell Books, 1985, ISBN 0-89009-780-1 .
- S. McLaughlin: Aboard the Orel at Tsushima. In: Warship 2005. Conways Maritime Press, 2005.
- A. Novikow-Priboi : Tsushima. George Allen & Unwin Ltd., London 1936.
- Constantine Pleshakov : The Tsar's Last Armada: Epic Voyage to the Battle of Tsushima. 2002, ISBN 0-46505-792-6 .
- Antony Preston: World's Worst Warships. Conways Maritime Press, 2002.
- John Roberts, HC Timewell, Roger Chesneau (Ed.), Eugene M. Kolesnik (Ed.): Warships of the World 1860 to 1905 - Volume 2: USA, Japan and Russia. Bernard & Graefe Verlag, Koblenz 1983, ISBN 3-7637-5403-2 .
- VM Tomitch: Warships of the Imperial Russian Navy, Vol. 1: Battleships. 1968.
- Denis et al. Peggy Warner: The Tide at Sunrise, A History of the Russo-Japanese War 1904-1905l. 1975, ISBN 0-7146-5256-3 .
Web links
Footnotes
- ↑ a b Located on Galerny Island in the Neva . Taken over by the New Admiralty Shipyard in 1908. The name of the shipyard is spelled differently in the sources (also: Galernyi, Galernij etc.).
- ↑ Alexei Silytsch Novikow-Priboi : Tsushima , Berlin 1986, pages 479-481, ISBN 3-327-00251-7