Uralez (ship)

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Uralez
Naval Ensign of Russia.svg
Builder: ROPiT (РОПиТ), Odessa
Keel laying: May 6, 1886
Launch: November 26, 1887
Commissioning: April 16, 1888
Period of service: 1888-1913
Displacement: 1280 t
Length: 67.2 m
Width: 12.2 m
Draft: 3.7 m
Drive: Sails, two horizontal composite steam engines
6 flame tube boilers
2 screws
1819 PSi
Speed: 13.0 kn
Range: 2100 nm at 6 kn
Crew: 180
1914: 137
Armament: Guns:

from 1887:

Torpedo tubes

  • 1 × 381 mm

after rearmament:

Uralez (Уралец) was the name of a sea-going gunboat of the Imperial Russian Navy . Commissioned in 1888, it ran aground in 1918 and was canceled , but it was removed from the fleet list in 1914. The name of the boat corresponds to the Russian name for a resident of the Urals and the Ural Cossacks .

The boat was procured as part of the fleet armament program for the years 1882-1902. It was intended for service in the Russian Black Sea Fleet .

The Uralez was on May 6, 1886 at the shipyard of the Russian Society for Steam Shipping and Trade ( Русское общество пароходства и торговли ) in Odessa in the presence of the Russian Emperor Alexander III. laid on keel . Like all boats intended for service in the Black Sea Fleet, it was built in a Russian shipyard, while the boats intended for service in the Baltic Sea and the Far East were built in foreign shipyards. There were some changes in the project compared to the Manchur type boat . The number of boilers was increased from four to six. The 203 mm cannon was placed on a higher mount in order to increase the firing range in direct aiming. The launch took place on November 26, 1887. The boat was put into service on April 16, 1888 after it had been equipped. After commissioning, the Uralez was assigned to the Russian Mediterranean Squadron and provided station service in various Mediterranean ports .

In 1900 the boat underwent a major overhaul, which was also combined with a replacement of the armament, and was used as a training boat from the following year. The years of use of the boat were unspectacular at first. In November 1905, the boat was involved in the revolutionary clashes in the port of Sevastopol . The boat lay in the southern bay of Sevastopol between the Dnestr mine- layer (Днестр) and the mine-transport ship Bug (Буг). On November 14th, some rebel sailors came on the boat. As a result, some of the crew who did not want to take part in the uprising were arrested. however, the officers' freedom of movement was not restricted. The next day, the red flag of the rebel sailors was hoisted on the Uralez . The boat was immediately taken under fire by a field artillery battery that had taken position on the boulevard. The Uralez was protected by the high side walls of the Dnestr next to it and was not damaged, but the Dnestr received four hits. Nevertheless, after the first shots, the red flag was brought down and the officers ended the uprising on the boat.

On December 8, 1907, the Uralez was assigned to the ships for the special use of the 1st reserve of the Black Sea Fleet, but was still used in the Black and Mediterranean, so the boat was stationed in the Mediterranean from August 1908 to May 1909. During the pogroms of the Young Turks against the Armenian population in 1909, in which between 15,000 and 20,000 Armenians were killed, the boat was moored in front of the port of Mersin together with German, English, French and American ships . The foreign warships that might have stopped the massacres did not intervene. From August 1910 the boat was used for station service in Galaz in the mouth of the Danube , and in Constantinople from April of the following year . In 1912/13 the boat returned to the Mediterranean.

At the end of autumn 1913, the Uralez was replaced by the Terez in the Mediterranean and returned to Sevastopol via Yalta . On the night of November 18, the boat was standing in front of the entrance to the port of Sevastopol when the boat guide could no longer see the lights of the port in fresh weather and suddenly falling darkness and lost their bearings. The boat ran onto a rock in Round Bay. When the wind picked up, all attempts to free the boat failed. Meanwhile a strong storm had developed. The crew could be rescued without losses, but six sailors of the gunboat Kubanez died when the cutter with which they wanted to help the Uralez capsized. After the storm had subsided the next morning, the hull was partially drained by auxiliary ships and the artillery armament dismantled. Plans to salvage the boat failed because another storm hit the night of December 3rd. In another storm on December 20, the boat broke in two. Thereupon all plans for salvage were given up and the boat was broken off on the spot. On January 28, 1914, the boat was deleted from the fleet list.

literature

  • В. В. Яровог: Канонерская лодка "Уралец". Судостроение "№ 3 (май-июнь) 2008 года (WW Jarowog: Gunboat" Uralez ". Sudostrojenije May / June 2008) (Russian)

Web links

Commons : Gunboat Uralez  - Collection of pictures, videos and audio files

References and comments

  1. ↑ see Jarowy
  2. ↑ see Jarowy
  3. ↑ Taner Akçam: Armenia and the Genocide. The Istanbul Trials and the Turkish National Movement. Hamburg 1999, p. 34.
  4. ↑ Vahakn N. Dadrian: The Forgotten Genocide. The genocide of the Armenians. Zurich 1998, p. 22 ff.
  5. ↑ in the following the Russian and German place names customary at the time are used
  6. ↑ see Jarowy