Retwisan
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|---|---|
 Retwisan after completion |
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| Overview | |
| Type | Ship of the line |
| Shipyard | |
| Keel laying | July 29, 1899 |
| Launch | October 23, 1900 |
| delivery | March 23, 1902 |
| period of service |
1902–1904 Russian Navy. |
| Whereabouts | Sunk September 20, 1924 as a target ship |
| Technical specifications | |
| displacement |
12,780 ts |
| length |
117.85 m |
| width |
22 m |
| Draft |
7.9 m |
| crew |
750 men |
| drive |
24 Niclausse steam boilers |
| speed |
18 kn |
| Range |
4,900 nm at 10 kn |
| Armament |
|
| Armor |
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The Russian battleship Retvizan ( Russian Ретвизан ) was a pre-dreadnought - battleship of the Imperial Russian Navy, built by William Cramp & Sons in Philadelphia (USA). She was stationed in the Pacific during the Russo-Japanese War and took part in the naval battle in the Yellow Sea . It was sunk by Japanese land artillery in besieged Port Arthur .
After the war it was lifted and repaired by the Japanese and put into service by them as a heater . She was decommissioned in 1923 and sunk as a target ship in 1924 .
Design and construction
The Imperial Russian Navy decided after the Sino-Japanese War of 1894/1895 to expand its Pacific squadron . The construction program of 1898 envisaged the construction of ships of the line, cruisers and destroyers for this station. Some of these ships were also to be built abroad, as the Russian Baltic Sea shipyards were either busy or insufficiently efficient. On May 2, 1898, a contract was signed with the William Cramp and Sons shipyard in Philadelphia, which had previously built and repaired ships for the Russian Navy. The ship of the line to be built was to be based on the Russian basic plans for the Petropavlovsk class and Knjas Potjomkin Tavritscheski , who was ordered for the Black Sea fleet at the time . The Retwisan did not belong to any class, as there were no sister ships. The new ship was scheduled to be delivered in 30 months for $ 4,360,000. She was the only Russian capital ship built in the United States for Russia. At the same time, the shipyard received another order worth US $ 2,138,000 for a protected cruiser , the Varyag , which competed with the cruisers Askold and Bogatyr ordered in Germany .
At the same time as the Retwisan , the Zessarewitsch was ordered and built in France . The Retwisan was considered to be more solidly constructed; it was less top-heavy than the Zessarewitsch , but still had the old arrangement of the middle artillery in casemates instead of in separate towers. Nevertheless, the Zessarewitsch was a model for the five Russian replicas of the Borodino class .
Dimensions
The Retwisan was 116.5 m long in the waterline and had a length of 117.8 m over all. She was 22 m wide and had a normal draft of 7.6 m. It displaced a laden 12,985 t. The fuselage was divided in length into fourteen compartments and in the area of the engine rooms it was also separated by a longitudinal bulkhead. The entire fuselage had a double floor that reached on the sides to the lower end of the armor.
The armor
The Krupp armor weighed a total of 3,353 t, i.e. 25.8% of the displacement. The armor was mainly made in the United States. Only part of the deck armor was delivered from Russia. The armored belt had a maximum thickness of 229 mm and tapered to 127 mm towards the lower end. It was 78 m long and 2.1 m high, of which 0.9 m was above the construction waterline. A second upper belt of equal length was installed over this belt, which was 2.3 m high and 152 mm thick. In front of and behind the armor belts, 51 mm thick armor plates protected the ends of the ship. The core of the ship was secured with 178 mm thick armored bulkhead.
The turrets were armored at the front and sides with 229 mm, but their roofs were only 55 mm thick. Her barbeds were armored 203 mm above the deck; the armor was reduced down to 102 mm. The lower and upper casemates were armored with 127 mm and the individual guns were separated by 38 mm thick armor plates. The walls of the command post were 254 mm thick. The armored deck up between the armored bulkheads and the armored belt was 52 to 64 mm thick. In front of and behind it, it increased in places up to 76 mm. The ram bumper was also reinforced.
drive
The Retwisan had two vertical triple expansion steam engines that were supposed to produce 16,000 hp (11,931 kW). 24 Niclausse boilers produced the necessary steam at a pressure of 18 atm. Cramp pushed through the installation of Niclausse boilers, since Cramp was the representative in the USA for this type. Despite concerns from the Russian Admiralty, the Admiral General Grand Duke Alexei Alexandrovich supported the installation of the boiler type. During the test drives, an output of 17,111 PSi (12,760 kW) and a top speed of 17.99 knots were achieved. Cramp claimed a speed of 18.01 knots to avoid a penalty as 18 knots were guaranteed.
At normal load, the Retwisan drove with a coal supply of 1,032 t, which enabled a range of 4,900 nautical miles at 10 knots. A maximum of 2,000 t could be loaded, which then made 8,000 nautical miles possible.
Armament
The Retwisan's armament was shipped to the United States from Russia.
The main armament consisted of two pairs of 305 mm L / 40 guns of the Model 1895 in twin turrets fore and aft. The guns could be used with a maximum elevation of 15 ° and lowered down to −5 °. With a 10 ° increase, a range of 11,000 m was achieved. Of the 330 kg bullets, 77 were available per gun.
Eight of the twelve 152 mm L / 45 guns of the Canet Model 1892 were installed in casemates. The remaining four were on the upper deck. The guns all had an aiming range of 20 ° to −5 °. With the maximum increase, a range of 11,500 m was possible. 200 shells weighing 41.4 kg were available for each gun.
The defensive armament against torpedo boats consisted of twenty 75 mm L / 50 canet cannons of the 1892 model. They could fire their 4.9 kg projectiles up to 7,850 m. Each gun had 325 shells. There were also twenty-four 47 mm Hotchkiss cannons with a range of 1,850 m. Four of these guns stood in the weapon platforms of the masts and eight each at the ends of the superstructure. There were also six 37-mm Hotchkiss cannons in the wings of the bridge.
The Retwisan also had six 381 mm torpedo tubes. Four of them were mounted above water in the bow, in the stern and rear in the broadside. The front broadside tubes were installed under water. 17 torpedoes were available for all of them.
The ship was prepared to take two small torpedo boats and could also transport 45 mines.
First years of peace
The keel-laying of the Russian battleship Retvizan took place on 29 July 1898th It was named after a Swedish warship that was captured by the Russians in 1790. On October 23, 1900, the launch was delayed by a strike at the shipyard. Differences between the shipyard and the Russian construction supervision also hindered the completion. In October 1901 the acceptance tests began in American waters. The ship was accepted on March 23, 1902, and it began the march into the Baltic Sea under Captain Eduard Schensnowitsch , who commanded the ship during the entire Russian service . After a stop in Cherbourg to replenish coal, a boiler tube was damaged. Three scalded sailors died. The Retwisan was added to the Baltic fleet and took part in the fleet parade in Riga in August 1902 during the state visit of Kaiser Wilhelm II .
On October 29, 1902, their transfer to the Pacific Squadron began in the Association of Rear Admiral Stackelberg . The association also included the Pobeda liner , five cruisers ( Pallada , Diana , Nowik , Bogatyr , Bojarin ) and seven torpedo boats (five of the Forel class from French production and two, Boiki and Burny , from Russian production). The squadron rarely performed together. The Pobeda had to lag behind early and the Nowik ran in front of the formation, while the Bogatyr was responsible for the torpedo boats and the boyarin took on other tasks. The Retwisan ran mainly in association with the Pallada and Diana . On the way, they called for supplies in Kiel , Portland , Vigo , Algiers , Piraeus , Port Said , Suez , Aden , Colombo , Sabang , Singapore and Nagasaki . On April 8, 1903, the Retwisan , accompanied only by the Pallada , reached Port Arthur, where she was stationed.
The Retwisan immediately took part in the exercises of the squadron, which included four other ships of the line (three of the Petropavlovsk class and the Peresvet ). Pobeda , who had left Russia with her , did not arrive until June and Zessarevich then in November 1903. The Retwisan docked in Vladivostok in 1903 and, like all ships of the Pacific Squadron, was painted olive green. The eighth ship of the line scheduled for the Pacific Squadron, the Osljabja , also belonging to the Peresvet class , was in Djibouti when the war broke out and was ordered back to the Baltic Sea.
Russo-Japanese War
During the first Japanese attack on Port Arthur on the night of February 8th to 9th, 1904, the Retwisan was one of the three Russian ships hit by torpedoes. She received a hit in front of the front turret that tore a sizeable hole. A compartment under the armored deck filled up and the ship sank aground. It was only ready for use again in June.
On the morning of August 10, 1904, the Russian 1st Pacific Squadron under Admiral Withöft left the port of Port Arthur to break the Japanese blockade during the siege and to run to Vladivostok to join the squadron there as a strong force unite. The squadron consisted of the ships of the line Zessarewitsch , Retwisan , Pobeda , Peresvet , Sevastopol and Poltava as well as four armored cruisers and 14 torpedo boats. The Japanese fleet under the command of Admiral Togo comprised the battleships Mikasa , Asahi , Fuji and Shikishima , the armored cruisers Nisshin and Kasuga , eight protected cruisers as well as 18 destroyers and 30 torpedo boats.
The main force of the Japanese fleet initially blocked the Russian route along the Shandong peninsula . At about 1 p.m., both sides opened fire, and after about an hour Admiral Withöft finally managed to break out. Admiral Togo, who had in the meantime realized that the Russians wanted to escape to Vladivostok, took up the chase and caught up with the slower Russian squadron after a few hours. Driving on a parallel course, both sides began another firefight at 16:20 at a distance of about 8–9 km, in which considerable damage was done on both sides and the Russian commander in chief fell.
Unclear conditions of command after Withöft's death let most of the Russian squadron (five ships of the line, one cruiser and nine destroyers) return to Port Arthur. The other units were dispersed in the dark and sought neutral ports, including the flagship Zessarewitsch , the only liner , which called at the German base in Tsingtau . Only the cruiser Nowik tried to break through to Vladivostok, but was caught by the Japanese at Sakhalin . The Retwisan had received 18 shell hits and was quite badly damaged. From then on she was not to leave Port Arthur under the Russian flag during the war.
On December 6, 1904, she was fired upon by Japanese land guns and then sank on a level keel in the port of Port Arthur, the defense of which she continued to support with her guns. On January 2, 1905, the Russian defenders capitulated. The last mobile Russian ship of the line, the Sevastopol , had previously been sunk in deep water by her commander Nikolai von Essen . Only a few smaller ships such as the destroyer Wlastni of Forel class tried previously yet to escape.
As a Japanese ship of the line
After the end of the Russo-Japanese War, the Retwisan was lifted by the Japanese on September 22, 1905 and repaired from January 1906 to November 1908 at the naval shipyard in Sasebo . The guns on the masts have been removed and the light guns replaced with Japanese models. The kettles were replaced by Japanese Miyabara kettles. The ship was put back into service under the name Hizen .
In October 1914 she was on the way to Esquimalt in British Columbia to reinforce the weak British units there. She was sent to Honolulu , Hawaii, to block the old small cruiser Vulture that came in there. She arrived there on October 15 and was supported by the armored cruiser Asama , which came from the northern South Pacific , until the vulture was interned on November 8. Then both Japanese ships marched to the American west coast in order to take part in the search for the German East Asia Squadron of Admiral Maximilian von Spee together with the armored cruiser Izumo stationed there .
In the Russian Civil War , the Hizen still undertook intervention missions. On September 1, 1921, she was reclassified as a coastal defense ship. In April 1922 she was disarmed due to the Washington Naval Agreement , decommissioned on September 20, 1923 and sunk as a target ship by the Japanese battle fleet in Bungostraße on July 12, 1924 .
literature
- Robert A. Burt: Japanese Battleships 1897-1945. Arms and Armor Press, ISBN 0-85368-758-7 .
- Robert Gardiner (Ed.): Conway's All the World's Fighing Ships 1860-1905. Mayflower Books, New York 1979, ISBN 0-8317-0302-4 .
- Stephen McLaughin: The Retvizan, an American Battleship for the Czar. In: Warship. 2000/2001, Conway Maritime Press, London 2000, ISBN 0-85177-791-0 , p. 48 ff.
Web links
- Battleship Retvizan at cityofart.net (English)
Footnotes
- ↑ McLaughin, p 51
- ↑ McLaughin, p. 53.
- ↑ McLaughlin, pp. 54f.
- ^ McLaughlin, p. 53.
- ↑ a b McLaughlin, p. 58.
- ↑ McLaughlin, p. 55.
- ↑ Obukhov 305mm model 1895
- ↑ Canet model 1892
- ↑ 75mm Canet Model 1892
- ↑ 47mm Hotchkiss
- ↑ 37mm Hotchkiss
- ↑ McLaughin, p. 64.
- ↑ McLaughin, pp. 54ff.
- ↑ McLaughlin, p. 64.