Tifon

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Тифон
Naval Ensign of Russia.svg
Builder: New Admiralty Shipyard, St. Petersburg
Keel laying: June 26, 1863
Launch: June 14, 1864
Commissioning: May 13, 1865
Period of service: 1865-1922
Displacement: 1566 t
Length: 61.3 m
Width: 14.0 m
Draft: 3.5 m
Drive: 1 steam engine
1 screw
570 hp
Speed: 6.7 kn
Range: 1440 nm
Crew: 10 officers
100 men
Armament: Guns:

from 1865:

  • 2 * 9 inch smoothbore cannon

from 1868:

  • 2 * 381mm smoothbore cannon

from 1876:

Tifon (Russian: Тифон, transliteration Tifon; named after the figure Typhon in Greek mythology) was the name of a gunboat of the Imperial Russian Navy . The boat belonged to a series of ten gunboats (class Bronenossez (Броненосец), also class Uragan (Ураган) after the first built boat). The boats were the first monitors built in Russian shipyards. The construction of this class led to a surge in innovation in the Russian shipbuilding industry.

history

The Russian naval command closely followed developments in the construction of armored warships. After reports of the successful use of the USS Monitor in the American Civil War , the construction of the wooden frigates Sevastopol (Севастополь), Petropavlovsk (Петропавловск) and the corvette Askold (Аскольд) were suspended for the time being. A special committee chaired by Vice-Admiral Rumyantsev (Румянцев) was formed to discuss the question of armoring these wooden warships, which are also already in use in the navy . More decisive, however, was that the Ministry of the Navy decided to convert the Admiralty Shipyards (also Galley Island, Russian: Галерный островок) for the construction of iron ships. In addition, manufacturing facilities for ironmaking and rolling mills were built in the Admiralty's Ischorski works.

Towards the end of 1862 a Russian naval formation under the leadership of Captain 1st rank SS Lessowski (С. С. Лесовский) visited the USA. Naval engineer Colonel NA Arzeulov (Н. А. Арцеулов) also belonged to the staff of the association . Lessowski and Arzeulow found during the visit that the American monitors of the Passaic type appeared to be the most suitable for the defense of Kronstadt and the Gulf of Finland . On the basis of its report, the Russian government decided to set up a series of ten such monitors. The tower construction by John Ericsson was to be used. One of the reasons for choosing this construction was the fact that the turret was armored with 15 layers of armor plates with a thickness of 25.4 mm. In the construction of Cowper Phipps Coles , the armor consisted of a layer with a thickness of 114.3 mm. However, armor of this thickness could not be made in Russia at the time. In Europe, there was only one company in Sheffield , England , that could produce armor plates of this thickness in the required quality. Also, because of the Polish uprising, relations between the United Kingdom and Russia quickly deteriorated . The Russian government was therefore forced to take decisions quickly and implement them quickly.

Based on the drawings bought in the USA, Arzeulow created a new project and adapted it to the possibilities of the Russian shipbuilding industry. The biggest change was the reduction in the number of layers of armor in the tower to eleven. As early as April 1863, the plans for the project were submitted to the shipbuilding committee for confirmation. In 1863 the first ten Russian monitors were piled up. The boats were classified as armored tower boats (башенная броненосная лодка), from May 10, 1869 as coastal armored ships . Two of the boats, the Tifon and the Uragan (Ураган) were built at the New Admiralty Shipyard, the rest of the boats at other shipyards. The towers were made in the Ishorsky factory, as was the armor for the steam pipes, the mounts and a number of other pieces of equipment. The armor plates, which are difficult to manufacture, were manufactured by other companies, as was the steering gear, with the armor coming from a British company. Arzeulow died during construction, he was replaced by Colonel A. Ja. Gesechus (А. Я. Гезехус) replaced. After the launch, the Tifon was transferred to the works of Charles Baird (Чарльз Берд), where the boiler and ship's machinery were scaffolded. Then the boat came back to the New Admiralty Shipyard, where the tower made in the Ishorsky factory was scaffolded. The equipment work turned out to be complicated and lengthy, so that additional specialist personnel from the St. Petersburg war port was ordered to the shipyard. The price of a boat was about 600,000 rubles .

construction

The Passaic , the prototype for the Uragan class boats

The tower of the boat was practically on the upper deck. Compared to the Coles construction, this led to a higher center of gravity and poorer sea behavior. The weight of the tower was taken up by a support ring that was a few centimeters below the level of the upper deck. The depression around the tower was covered with iron plates, which offered some protection from splinters, but were permeable to water. In 1870, the commander of the sister boat Perun (Перун), captain 1st rank of Goldbach (фон Гольдбах) reported that the boat took over a lot of water when it was hurt by 7 to 8, which got on the hot parts of the directional drives. The tower developed "a lot of steam" according to the commandant.

The armor on the side walls of the tower consisted of eleven layers of iron that overlapped each other. The roof of the armored tower was formed by a number of iron girders, which were laid with a distance of 75 mm and covered with iron plate with a thickness of 12.7 mm. The tower had two larger observation openings and a number of smaller openings with a diameter of 25.4 mm, which were used for ventilation. A smaller turret was placed on the actual turret, in which the rudder was located. The top of this tower was covered by a tarpaulin that was attached with a bow construction. The energy for the tower slewing gear was provided by a two-cylinder auxiliary steam engine with an output of 15 hp. The tower had a diameter of 6.4 m and a height of 2.7 m, the control tower a diameter of 1.83 m.

In the case of American boats, the tower was initially arranged exactly amidships. This led to a slight but undesirable rear-heaviness. As a result, the position of the tower was moved forward. Russian naval officers who were in the USA to study American shipbuilding reported the problem, but the construction of the boats had progressed so far that the position of the tower could no longer be changed for eight out of ten boats. As a result, the armor thickness of the turret was reduced to eight layers with a total thickness of 203 mm in order to eliminate the unwanted stern heaviness.

As early as the beginning of the 1860s, the Russian military leadership had recognized that guns with smooth barrel, so-called smooth barrel cannons, no longer had any development potential and that their performance was exceeded by guns with rifled barrel. Therefore, that was in 1861 Committee for the accelerated introduction of guns with tubing and construction of armored ships ( "Комитет для скорейшего введения нарезной артиллерии и строения броненосных судов ") led by Adjutant General Ye. V. Putyatin (Е.В.Путятин) formed. A short time later, the testing of guns with rifled barrel began on the artillery firing range of the Volkov fleet. However, progress was slow. The biggest problem was the lack of a reliably working shutter. Therefore - similar to the UK at the time - muzzle-loading guns with rifled barrel were constructed. However, loading from the front limited the length of the pipe. In addition, the grenade in the barrel was not guided precisely by the pulls, which led to poor accuracy. While in Great Britain and France special constructions were developed to improve the guidance of the grenade in the barrel (see Armstrong cannon ), one concentrated in Russia on the improvement of the breech construction. However, ready-to-use closures were not available in 1863. A 381-mm Rodmann cannon and a 229-mm Krupp cannon were therefore provided for the monitors . Both weapons were smooth-barreled muzzle-loaders. Since the Obukhov works had only started production in 1863, neither of the two types was produced in Russia. The weapon intended for the Tifon was therefore supplied by Krupp in Germany. The Olonezki factory was selected for the production of the 381 mm Rodmann cannon. However, the preparation for production took a long time, so that testing of the first weapon could not begin until June 27, 1865. The testing dragged on until July 7th, 1865, only then did the construction of the second weapon begin. The delays meant that the Tifon, like its sister boats, was initially equipped with Krupp's 229 mm cannon. The production of the 381 mm cannon was very slow, so that by the beginning of 1868 only three of the ten boats could be equipped with the larger weapon. The Tifon received this weapon in the course of 1868. In the 1870s, Krupp developed the prismatic wedge lock, a design that worked reliably. In 1876, two weapons of this type manufactured by Krupp were scaffolded on the Tifon , and in 1878 they were exchanged for the improved version made in the Obuchow works. The maximum tube elevation changed from 7.2 ° to 9.5 °, with both versions the tube could be lowered to −1.7 °. In the following year, 1878, the Tifon got back the weapons originally built by Krupp. By changing the mount, the maximum tube elevation was 9 °, which resulted in a range of 2.4 km. The weapons armed in 1876 had a range of 1.89 km, those installed in 1878 of 2.2 km. 150 rounds of ammunition were carried for the cannon, initially in boxes and later in storage racks. During the renovation, the appearance of the boat also changed. A flat bridge was built behind the tower. The position of the dinghies and smaller superstructures was changed so that the side straightening range was now 310 °. Three small-caliber rapid-fire cannons were set up behind an armored railing on the tower, and another on the bridge. Armor with a thickness of 12.7 mm should be applied to the deck. This armor was made and brought to the shipyard and cut to size. The holes for the fastening bolts were drilled, but in the end the armoring and the fastening bolts were not added, but stored.

The displacement of the Tifon was 1566 t. The boat was 61.3 m long, 14 m wide and had a draft of 3.5 m. The hull had large overhangs fore and aft. A large four-point anchor was placed under them in the front, and the overhang at the aft served to protect the propeller and rudder from shells. The hull was divided into six compartments by bulkheads , two of the bulkheads were watertight. The frames consisted of 100 * 12.7 mm thick iron girders and 300 * 300 mm thick oak beams, the flat keel made of 18.9 mm thick iron, and the stern and stern of 12.7 mm thick iron plates. A longitudinal bulkhead was drawn in from frame 53 to the stern, which supported the deck with two rows of pillars, in the front part of the boat the support consisted of three rows of pillars with a diameter of 50 mm. The deck itself was made of two layers of pine. The hull was armored with five layers of thin iron plates.

The horizontal two-cylinder steam engine with an output of 570 hp worked on a four-bladed ship's propeller with a diameter of 3.6 m. The steam was generated in two cylinder boilers. The total heating area was 290.7 m 2 , the steam pressure 14 kg / cm 2 . The top speed was 6.7 knots. In addition to the auxiliary steam engine to drive the tower slewing gear, there was another two-cylinder auxiliary steam engine to drive the ventilator of the machinery. Their power was 20 hp. The coal supply of 190 t was sufficient for 10 days at a speed of 6 knots.

The ships were assigned to the tank squadron of the Baltic fleet . Together with the artillery of the coastal fortifications , they had to protect the sea access to St. Petersburg. In the fleet service, the boats proved to be reliable and durable. In 1900 the Tifon was withdrawn from active service and used as the Hulk. From 1909 referred to as block ship No. 3 (Блокшив №3), it served as a warehouse for sea ​​mines and torpedoes . In this function the boat was still used during the First World War. In April 1918 the boat fell into Finnish hands in the port of Helsingfors and was finally abandoned in 1922.

Remarks

  1. ↑ In the Imperial Russian Navy, members of technical careers led ranks of the Army
  2. ↑ The crooked dimensions result from the fact that metric units of measurement were not in use in Russia and the USA at the time. 25.4 mm correspond to the Russian length measure Djuim (Дюйм) or 1 inch

literature

  • Л. И. Амирханов: Артиллерия российских мониторов , Гангут, Санкт-Петербург 1998 (LI Amichranov: The Artillery of Russian Monitors , Gangut Publishing House, St. Petersburg, 1998)
  • Виктор Галыня: Первые русские мониторы (сборник статей и документов) , Санкт-Петербург, 2000 (Viktor Galynitore, 2000) (Collection of Russian Articles, St. Petersburg) documents, St. Petersburg and Petersburg: 2000 (Viktor Galynitore) documents, St.

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