Poltava (ship, 1894)
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| Poltava | |
 Liner Poltava |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| Namesake | the city of Poltava |
| Shipyard | New Admiralty Shipyard , Saint Petersburg |
| Keel laying | May 1892 |
| Launch | November 6, 1894 |
| delivery | 1899 |
| period of service |
1899–1904 Russian Navy |
| Whereabouts | Captured by Japan in 1905 |
| 2. Period of service |
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| Surname | tango |
| Namesake | japanese tango province |
| period of service | 1908–1916 Japanese Navy |
| Commissioning | 1908 |
| Whereabouts | Sold to Russia in 1916 |
| 3. Period of service |
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| Surname | Chesma |
| Namesake | Sea Battle of Cesme |
| period of service | 1916–1922 Russian Navy |
| Decommissioning | 1922 |
| Whereabouts | Scrapped in 1923 |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
10,960 ts ; maximum 11,354 ts |
| length |
KWL : 112.47 m |
| width |
21.34 m |
| Draft |
7.77 m |
| crew |
632 men |
| drive |
2 triple expansion steam engines |
| speed |
16.5 kn |
| Range |
5,000 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
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| Coal supply |
1,500 ts of coal |
| Armor |
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The Poltava (I) (Russian Полтава.), Named after the Battle of Poltava (1709), was a pre-dreadnought - battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy , one of three ships of Petropavlovsk class . Her sister ships were the Petropavlovsk and the Sevastopol , both of which were sunk in the Russo-Japanese War 1904–1905.
technology
The Poltava was laid down in the New Admiralty Shipyard in Saint Petersburg in May 1892 , launched on November 6, 1894, and entered service in 1898. The ship was 112 m long, 21 m wide, and 7.8 m deep. It displaced 10,960 tons (standard) and 11,400 tons (maximum). The armament consisted of four 305 mm guns, twelve 152 mm guns (eight of them in twin turrets ), twelve three pounders (76.2 mm) and 28 one pounders (47 mm) as well as six 457 mm torpedo tubes (the four on the side below the waterline, bow and stern tube above water). In addition, 60 mines could be carried. The crew numbered 668 men, the maximum speed was 18 knots.
history
Russian Navy 1898–1905
The Poltava served with her sister ships in East Asia from March 1901 and took part in the naval battle in the Yellow Sea during the Russo-Japanese War . Then she was one of the Russian ships that were trapped in Port Arthur during the siege by the Japanese and sunk by their crews before the city's surrender on January 2, 1905.
Russo-Japanese War
On the night of February 9, 1904, the Poltava, like most of the ships of the Pacific Squadron, was anchored in the outer harbor of Port Arthur. There the squadron was attacked by a flotilla of Japanese torpedo boat destroyers . The Russians were not prepared for this attack. However, they had deployed their torpedo nets , which kept the damage to a minimum, although the attack caused considerable confusion. The Poltava was not damaged. The ships of the line Zessarewitsch and Retwisan and the cruiser Pallada were hit .
The following day, the Japanese fleet attacked the anchored squadron with six ships of the line and nine cruisers under the command of Admiral Togo and there was a 40-minute exchange of fire. After that, the Japanese broke off the shelling and the Russians did not follow. The Poltava fired back and was hit only once itself. Two sailors were killed. The damage to the ship was insignificant.
In the Battle of the Yellow Sea, the Poltava was the last ship in the Russian line of ships of the line. After the Russian squadron was able to free itself from the first attack by the Japanese, the Mikasa caught up with the Russian squadron again in the early afternoon and opened fire from about seven miles on the Poltava , which was unable to follow the 14 knot fleet due to engine problems. Mikasa and Asahi quickly scored several hits on the Poltava . The 2nd admiral of the Russian squadron, Uchtomski on the Pereswet , then dropped his division, which then scored a large number of hits on the Japanese top ships Mikasa and Asahi . Togo therefore decided after about half an hour to break off the battle and, with its superior speed, to get a position that enabled it to successfully attack all of Withoft's ships .
About two hours later, Togo's decisive attack took place at a relatively close range. Since the Poltava had lost touch again, it was fired at first and Togo ordered all ships of the line and cruisers present to fire at it while passing, so that at least it would be sunk before dark. The Poltava under captain Ivan P. Uspenski defended itself resolutely and scored several hits on the attacker. Due to the Japanese attack, the Russian ships moved closer together again and Poltava and Peresvet , although badly damaged, fought together with the other ships of the line again. The Poltava was mainly fired at by Shikishima and Asahi , who both had only one tower of heavy artillery ready for use. After the hits on the Zessarewitsch , which killed the Commander in Chief and triggered uncontrolled maneuvers by the flagship, the Poltava followed her division ship Peresvet back to Port Arthur. She had received at least twelve serious hits. Twelve men of the crew were killed and 43 men seriously injured.
She then belonged to the Russian ships that were trapped in Port Arthur during the siege by the Japanese . Although the damage caused by the battle in the Yellow Sea was quickly repaired, it never ended. It gave parts of the crew and light artillery to the defenders on land and supported the defense with its heavy artillery. In September she received a hit from the Japanese land artillery for the first time. This managed 280 mm howitzers and captured positions for these positions in order to put the ships of the line out of action in the port. On December 5, the Poltava was hit so badly that it sank in shallow water in the harbor. Before the city surrendered on January 2, 1905, the remaining Russian occupation carried out further destruction in order to make it impossible for the conquerors to rescue it.
Japanese Navy 1905-1916
The Japanese Navy lifted the ship on July 8, 1905 and named it Tango ( Japanese丹 後), after the former Japanese province of Tango . She was one of a total of eight Russian ships of the line that were captured by Japan in this war.
In 1907 the little renovated ship was transferred to the shipyard in Maizuru , without artillery and hardly equipped , where it was to be prepared for service in the Japanese fleet. In addition to the damage caused by fire and the long stay in the water, damage that the crew had caused to the ship before the surrender in Port Arthur had to be repaired in order to prevent its use by the enemy. The ship received 16 new boilers of the Japanese type Miyabara as well as modified masts and chimneys. The armament was converted to guns used in Japan. So the Russian 305 mm guns had to be replaced by British guns. The same was true of the Russian 152 mm guns, which were replaced by Armstrong cannons. Of the small-caliber guns, only four 47 mm cannons remained in the wings of the two bridges. Eight 75 mm guns were installed as a defense against torpedo boats. The magazines assigned to the guns also had to be converted for the standard ammunition of the Japanese fleet.
In 1909 the Tango came into service as a training ship for sailors and gunners. The crew was increased to 750 men for this task. Now obsolete, the ship was downgraded to Coastal Defense Ship First Class in August 1912.
Russian Navy 1916-1922
Since Japan and Russia were allies in World War I , Japan sold three formerly Russian ships (the former Varyag , Peresvet and Poltava ) to Russia for 15.5 million rubles. On March 21, 1916, the ships were delivered in Vladivostok . The ships were supposed to be used in the Barents Sea to secure the supply lines from the western allies to Russia via Arkhangelsk and then Murmansk . While the other ships resumed their old names, the former Poltava was given the new name Tschesma (Russian Чесма , after the naval battle of Çeşme in 1770).
On June 19, she marched with the Varyag , but without the Pereswet , which had been damaged by agrounding , from Vladivostok via Hong Kong, Singapore, Colombo, Port Victoria / Seychelles and Aden (August 27, where the ships were repainted in khaki) to Port Said . There the two ships separated on September 6th. The Tschesma joined the allied Mediterranean fleet in Alexandria and went to Thessaloniki in the Aegean Sea . At the beginning of October she took part in the seizure of the Greek fleet by the Allies. The participation of the Chesma was politically justified. She then went to the Arctic. On the way she docked in Birkenhead . She had minor repairs carried out and four anti-aircraft guns were installed. On December 17, she started for the first time to the Barents Sea, but broke off this journey and went to Belfast . From December 28 to January 3, 1917 the transfer to Romanov, as Murmansk was called at that time, took place.
The old ship of the line did not actively fight. She gave parts of her light artillery to auxiliary ships and was mostly in port. After the October Revolution, she was occupied by British troops in March 1918 and served as a prison ship for two years. In 1920 she went to Arkhangelsk, where she was taken over by white Russian troops. When the Allied intervention in northern Russia ended, it came into the possession of Soviet Russia . In 1923 the ship was scrapped by the Soviet Union .
literature
- Robert A. Burt: Japanese Battleships 1897-1945. Arms and Armor Press, ISBN 0-85368-758-7 .
- Robert Forczyk : Russian Battleship vs Japanese Battleship, Yellow Sea 1904-05. Osprey, 2009, ISBN 978-1-84603-330-8 .
- Tony Gibbons: The Complete Encyclopedia of Battleships and Battlecruisers. 1983.
- 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 .
Web links
- Poltava class data (Russian)
- R. Melnikow: Battleship Poltava (set with drawings) (russ.)
- Petropavlovsk Class on battleships cruisers with photos