TTD:
Displacement: 11,050 tons
Dimensions: length 103.4 m, width 21 m, draft 8.5 m.
Maximum travel speed: 15.2 knots.
Cruising range: 2320 miles at 10 knots.
Power plant: 2 vertical triple expansion steam engines, 9100 hp
Reservation: deck - 50-63 mm, casemates 254-305 mm, wheelhouse - 229 mm.
Armament: 6 305 mm, 7 152 mm, 8 47 mm, 4 37 mm guns, 7 457 mm torpedo tubes.
Crew: 633 people
Ship history:
The revival of the fleet on the Black Sea after the Crimean War of 1853-1856. began after the abolition of the military articles of the Paris Treaty, which limited the sovereignty of Russia. Due to the difficult financial situation, the need to create, first of all, the Baltic Fleet and the implementation of the cruising program, the Maritime Ministry was unable to immediately start building a powerful Black Sea Fleet.
Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878 clearly demonstrated the advantages of seaworthy armored ships. But only on May 20, 1882, at a "special" meeting at the Naval Ministry, a 20-year shipbuilding program was approved, according to which eight battleships of the 1st rank were supposed to be built for the Black Sea. The well-known admirals S. S. Lesovsky and G. I. Butakov persistently advocated strengthening the Black Sea Fleet; they believed that in its power it should be at least equal to the Turkish one. "Russia should not play that weak role at sea as in the last Russo-Turkish war," the decision of the meeting said.
By order of the head of the Naval Ministry, Admiral I. A. Shestakov, the Naval Technical Committee (MTK) discussed and resolved issues related to the choice of analogues for the design of a Russian 1st rank battleship without spar with "very thick armor and the strongest guns no more than 45 tons, having a stroke of 14 knots and a supply of coal for four days. The prototype was the English Ajax (displacement 8660 tons, armament of four 305- and two 152-mm guns) and the French Cayman (7230 tons, two 420- and four 100-mm guns). And yet, after long discussions, it was adopted at the insistence of I.A. Shestakov's modified project of "Peter the Great" with three 305-mm guns, reduced displacement and coal reserves, without underwater wooden and copper plating, side armor up to 406 mm thick, reinforced armored deck and machines similar to those installed on the royal yacht "Livadia". By the end of 1882, the employees of the drawing MTK compiled the final draft of the first Black Sea armored ship. From "Peter the Great" they borrowed only the principle of protecting gun mounts, boilers and machines, enclosed in a kind of breastwork, which consisted of two casemates - the lower, rectangular, mounted on the side armor, and the upper, triangular.
On December 20, 1882, the MTC approved the theoretical drawing and specification of a battleship with a displacement of 9990 tons (the total indicated power of two steam engines is 9000 hp, the estimated draft is not more than 8 m, the speed is 14 knots). The hull was chosen for a very complete formation, with eighty-three frames assembled from 7.9 mm thick steel sheets; the vertical keel with a height of 0.965 m was made of steel 12.7 mm thick, the horizontal one was made of two layers of steel sheets (the lower one was 22.2 mm thick, the upper one was 15.9 mm). The vertical and horizontal keels were interconnected by 102-mm squares. A teak beam with a section of 456x305 mm was attached to the horizontal one, which served as the outer keel and served to reduce yaw; the outer skin and shirt behind the armor consisted of steel sheets with a length of at least 5.87 m and a thickness of up to 15 mm. Unsinkability was provided by ten transverse and one longitudinal, in the diametrical plane (between 17 and 65 sp.), watertight bulkheads, dividing the hull into sixteen compartments.
Armament included six 305-mm guns on three barbette mounts. In descending rigs inside the casemate, shells and charges were fed using hydraulic lifts; it was supposed to place seven 152-mm guns on the battery deck, and ten small-caliber ones to protect against destroyers. Along the waterline, the ship was protected by steel-iron 457-mm armor (2.44 m wide, 1.52 of them below the waterline). The casemate armor consisted of two belts - the lower one 2.6 m wide and the upper one 2.9 m wide. All vertical armor had a larch lining with the greatest thickness (305 mm) in the middle part of the side.
Of the decks, one was armored, residential, the beams of which passed at the level of the upper edge of the waterline armor belt (sheets of 12.7 mm steel inside the casemate and two layers outside the casemate with a total thickness of 50.8 mm).
In February 1883, the MTC developed detailed drawings of the location of vehicles, boilers, artillery, making an approximate calculation of the load and cruising range, which at 8 knots reached 4096, at full speed - 1350 miles; it was supposed to install a steam capstan and a steering engine. Although the development of the project was completed on this as a whole, its improvement continued until the armadillo entered service.
In May of the same year, lieutenant colonels A. V. Mordvinov and N. A. Subbotin, who was appointed builder of the first Baltic battleship of the 1882 program, were sent to England and France. Returning from abroad, A. V. Mordvinov acquainted the ITC with many details of foreign shipbuilding. It was noted, in particular, that in France they adhered to the full armor protection of the side (from bow to stern), since even small-caliber artillery easily pierced the poorly protected extremities.
On June 14, 1883, on the slipway in Nikolaev, the assembly of horizontal keel sheets of the first battleship began, and two weeks later in Sevastopol, at the ROPiT shipyard, the construction of two more of the same type (later Sinop and Chesma, builder Captain of the Corps of Naval Engineers A.P. . Toropov). During their construction, the MTK tried to take into account the experience of the service of "Peter the Great"; therefore, before leaving St. Petersburg (A.P. Toropov, at the direction of the committee, got acquainted with the commanders' reports about the shortcomings of this first Russian battleship in order to "reject them on new battleships", and then visited the ship itself in order to "use everything useful".
At the end of August 1883, Admiral I. A. Shestakov ordered that the ITC consider extending the armor for the entire length of the ship, reducing the number of 305-mm guns to four, and placing fourteen 152-mm guns on the battery deck. I. A. Shestakov proposed to consider the issue of placing 305-mm guns in the towers, developed by the French company Forge and Chantier. In December 1883 of the same year, the MTC approved the lengthening of the armor belt, but refused to change the armament.
Work on the slipway, meanwhile, continued. It was not without difficulties. Lack of experience, delays in the manufacture of stems, the supply of profile and sheet steel, in obtaining working drawings, constantly changing decisions of the MTK on many issues - all this affected the construction time.
The order for armor for all three ships was taken over by the Camel factory in Sheffield (it was he who in 1873 was engaged in rolling and fitting plates for Peter the Great). It took the factory two years to produce 402 armor plates. Two gun mounts for 305-mm guns were ordered from Anderson's English factory, with the expectation that they would then be used to make four others at the Obukhov factory. Based on the experimental work carried out by Captain 1st Rank S. O. Makarov in November 1885 to test watertight bulkheads, on all three battleships, at the suggestion of their builders, the bulkheads were reinforced with squares and Z-shaped strips.
October 15, 1883 "Sinop" was included in the lists of ships of the Black Sea Fleet, launched on June 1, 1887, and entered service in June 1889.
On February 13, 1892, she was reclassified to a squadron battleship, and on October 10, 1907 to a battleship.
The hull and mechanisms were overhauled in 1910 with re-equipment: 2x2 203, 12x1 152 and 4x1 47-mm guns, 2x1 7.62-mm machine guns.
Participated in the First World War (carried out fire service at the Sevastopol Bay, from November 1916 was used as a headquarters ship of a detachment of ships on the Danube, and then the entire Black Sea Fleet) and in the civil war (the establishment of Soviet power in Odessa in January-March 1918 ).
January 30, 1918 became part of the Red Black Sea Fleet. Since April 1918, he was in storage at the Sevastopol military port, where on May 1, 1918 he was captured by the German invaders, and on November 24, 1918 - by the Anglo-French invaders and handed over to the White Guards.
On February 19, 1919, it was disarmed, and on April 22-24, 1919, by order of the British command, it was blown up and put out of action. On April 29, he was liberated by units of the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, but on June 24 he was again captured by the White Guards.
After the liberation of Sevastopol on November 15, 1920, parts of the Red Army did not put into operation, in 1923 it was handed over to the Komgosfondov for dismantling and cutting into metal, and on November 21, 1925 it was excluded from the lists of ships of the RKKF.
Squadron battleship "Sinop" Squadron battleship "Sinop" of the Black Sea Fleet Squadron battleship "Sinop" of the Black Sea Fleet Squadron battleship "Sinop" of the Black Sea Fleet TTD: Displacement: 11,050 tons. Dimensions: length 103.4 m, width 21 m, draft 8.5 m. Maximum travel speed: 15.2 knots. Cruising range: 2320 miles at 10 knots. Power plant: 2 vertical triple expansion steam engines, 9100 hp Reservation: deck - 50-63 mm, casemates 254-305 mm, wheelhouse - 229 mm. Armament: 6 305 mm, 7 152 mm, 8 47 mm, 4 37 mm guns, 7 457 mm torpedo tubes. Crew: 633 people History of the ship: The revival of the fleet on the Black Sea after the Crimean War of 1853-1856. began after the abolition of the military articles of the Paris Treaty, which limited the sovereignty of Russia. Due to the difficult financial situation, the need to create, first of all, the Baltic Fleet and the implementation of the cruising program, the Maritime Ministry was unable to immediately start building a powerful Black Sea Fleet. Russian-Turkish war 1877-1878 clearly demonstrated the advantages of seaworthy armored ships. But only on May 20, 1882, at a "special" meeting at the Naval Ministry, a 20-year shipbuilding program was approved, according to which eight battleships of the 1st rank were supposed to be built for the Black Sea. The well-known admirals S. S. Lesovsky and G. I. Butakov persistently advocated strengthening the Black Sea Fleet; they believed that in its power it should be at least equal to the Turkish one. "Russia should not play that weak role at sea as in the last Russo-Turkish war," the decision of the meeting said. By order of the head of the Naval Ministry, Admiral I. A. Shestakov, the Naval Technical Committee (MTK) discussed and resolved issues related to the choice of analogues for the design of a Russian 1st rank battleship without spar with "very thick armor and the strongest guns no more than 45 tons, having a stroke of 14 knots and a supply of coal for four days. The prototype was the English Ajax (displacement 8660 tons, armament of four 305- and two 152-mm guns) and the French Cayman (7230 tons, two 420- and four 100-mm guns). And yet, after long discussions, it was adopted at the insistence of I.A. Shestakov's modified project of "Peter the Great" with three 305-mm guns, reduced displacement and coal reserves, without underwater wooden and copper plating, side armor up to 406 mm thick, reinforced armored deck and machines similar to those installed on the royal yacht "Livadia". By the end of 1882, the employees of the drawing MTK compiled the final draft of the first Black Sea armored ship. From "Peter the Great" they borrowed only the principle of protecting gun mounts, boilers and machines, enclosed in a kind of breastwork, which consisted of two casemates - the lower, rectangular, mounted on the side armor, and the upper, triangular. On December 20, 1882, the MTC approved the theoretical drawing and specification of a battleship with a displacement of 9990 tons (the total indicated power of two steam engines is 9000 hp, the estimated draft is not more than 8 m, the speed is 14 knots). The hull was chosen for a very complete formation, with eighty-three frames assembled from 7.9 mm thick steel sheets; the vertical keel with a height of 0.965 m was made of steel 12.7 mm thick, the horizontal one was made of two layers of steel sheets (the lower one was 22.2 mm thick, the upper one was 15.9 mm). The vertical and horizontal keels were interconnected by 102-mm squares. A teak beam with a section of 456x305 mm was attached to the horizontal one, which served as the outer keel and served to reduce yaw; the outer skin and shirt behind the armor consisted of steel sheets with a length of at least 5.87 m and a thickness of up to 15 mm. Unsinkability was provided by ten transverse and one longitudinal, in the diametrical plane (between 17 and 65 sp.), watertight bulkheads, dividing the hull into sixteen compartments. Armament included six 305-mm guns on three barbette mounts. In descending rigs inside the casemate, shells and charges were fed using hydraulic lifts; it was supposed to place seven 152-mm guns on the battery deck, and ten small-caliber ones to protect against destroyers. Along the waterline, the ship was protected by steel-iron 457-mm armor (2.44 m wide, 1.52 of them below the waterline). The casemate armor consisted of two belts - the lower one 2.6 m wide and the upper one 2.9 m wide. All vertical armor had a larch lining with the greatest thickness (305 mm) in the middle part of the side. Of the decks, one was armored, residential, the beams of which passed at the level of the upper edge of the waterline armor belt (sheets of 12.7 mm steel inside the casemate and two layers outside the casemate with a total thickness of 50.8 mm). In February 1883, the MTC developed detailed drawings of the location of vehicles, boilers, artillery, making an approximate calculation of the load and cruising range, which at 8 knots reached 4096, at full speed - 1350 miles; it was supposed to install a steam capstan and a steering engine. Although the development of the project was completed on this as a whole, its improvement continued until the armadillo entered service. In May of the same year, lieutenant colonels A. V. Mordvinov and N. A. Subbotin, who was appointed builder of the first Baltic battleship of the 1882 program, were sent to England and France. Returning from abroad, A. V. Mordvinov acquainted the ITC with many details of foreign shipbuilding. It was noted, in particular, that in France they adhered to the full armor protection of the side (from bow to stern), since even small-caliber artillery easily pierced the poorly protected extremities. On June 14, 1883, on the slipway in Nikolaev, the assembly of horizontal keel sheets of the first battleship began, and two weeks later in Sevastopol, at the ROPiT shipyard, the construction of two more of the same type (later Sinop and Chesma, builder Captain of the Corps of Naval Engineers A.P. . Toropov). During their construction, the MTK tried to take into account the experience of the service of "Peter the Great"; therefore, before leaving St. Petersburg (A.P. Toropov, at the direction of the committee, got acquainted with the commanders' reports about the shortcomings of this first Russian battleship in order to "reject them on new battleships", and then visited the ship itself in order to "use everything useful". At the end of August 1883, Admiral I. A. Shestakov ordered that the ITC consider extending the armor for the entire length of the ship, reducing the number of 305-mm guns to four, and placing fourteen 152-mm guns on the battery deck. consider the issue of placing 305-mm guns in the towers, developed by the French company "Forge and Chantier". In December 1883 of the same year, the MTC approved the extension of the armor belt, but refused to change the armament. Work on the slipway, meanwhile, continued. It could not do without difficulties Lack of experience, delays in the manufacture of stems, the supply of profile and sheet steel, in obtaining working drawings, constantly changing decisions of the ITC on many issues - all this This affected the timing of construction. The order for armor for all three ships was taken over by the Camel factory in Sheffield (it was he who in 1873 was engaged in rolling and fitting plates for Peter the Great). It took the factory two years to produce 402 armor plates. Two gun mounts for 305-mm guns were ordered from Anderson's English factory, with the expectation that they would then be used to make four others at the Obukhov factory. Based on the experimental work carried out by Captain 1st Rank S. O. Makarov in November 1885 to test watertight bulkheads, on all three battleships, at the suggestion of their builders, the bulkheads were reinforced with squares and Z-shaped strips. October 15, 1883 "Sinop" was included in the lists of ships of the Black Sea Fleet, launched on June 1, 1887, and entered service in June 1889. On February 13, 1892, she was reclassified to a squadron battleship, and on October 10, 1907 to a battleship. The hull and mechanisms were overhauled in 1910 with re-equipment: 2x2 203, 12x1 152 and 4x1 47-mm guns, 2x1 7.62-mm machine guns. Participated in the First World War (carried out fire service at the Sevastopol Bay, from November 1916 was used as a headquarters ship of a detachment of ships on the Danube, and then the entire Black Sea Fleet) and in the civil war (the establishment of Soviet power in Odessa in January-March 1918 ). January 30, 1918 became part of the Red Black Sea Fleet. Since April 1918, he was in storage at the Sevastopol military port, where on May 1, 1918 he was captured by the German invaders, and on November 24, 1918 - by the Anglo-French invaders and handed over to the White Guards. On February 19, 1919, it was disarmed, and on April 22-24, 1919, by order of the British command, it was blown up and put out of action. On April 29, he was liberated by units of the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, but on June 24 he was again captured by the White Guards. After the liberation of Sevastopol on November 15, 1920, parts of the Red Army did not put into operation, in 1923 it was handed over to the Komgosfondov for dismantling and cutting into metal, and on November 21, 1925 it was excluded from the lists of ships of the RKKF.
"Sinop"
Historical data
general information
EU
real
dock
Booking
Armament
Main caliber
- 6 (3x2) - 305-mm / 30 guns of the Obukhov factory, model 1877.
medium caliber
- 7 - 152-mm / 35 guns of the Obukhov plant, model 1884.
mine artillery
- 8 - 47 mm Hotchkiss revolver guns;
- 6 - 37 mm Hotchkiss revolver guns.
Mine and torpedo armament
- 7 - 356 mm torpedo tubes;
- 65 spheroconic mines Hertz ..
Ships of the same type
General information
barbette armadillo "Sinop"- the third in a series of ships of the Catherine II type, was built according to a twenty-year shipbuilding program of 1883-1902 and was intended to strengthen the Black Sea Fleet. On February 13, 1892 she was reclassified to a squadron battleship, and on October 10, 1907 to a battleship. During the First World War, the ship was on duty at the Sevastopol Bay, from November 1916 it was used as a headquarters ship for a detachment of ships on the Danube, and then for the entire Black Sea Fleet. During the Civil War, it changed hands several times. Since April 1918, it was in storage at the Sevastopol military port, where it was put out of action and blown up by order of the allies evacuating from the Crimea. After the capture of Sevastopol by parts of the Red Army, it was not put into operation, in 1923 it was handed over to the Komgosfondov for dismantling and cutting into metal. The data mentioned in some sources that "Sinop" was sunk near Yalta and allegedly discovered by Ballard's underwater expedition do not correspond to reality.
History of creation
Construction and testing
On June 30, 1883, in Sevastopol, a member of the board of the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade (ROPiT) N.N. Sushev signed a contract with the Naval Ministry for the construction of the first Black Sea battleship according to the drawings and specifications "Catherine II" two more ships. In fact, the plant produced only the hull of the ship, and the Naval Ministry undertook to supply vehicles, armor, artillery, boats and anchors with chains within a predetermined timeframe.
The hull of the armored ship "Sinop" on the eve of launching, the Shipyard of the Russian Society of Shipping and Trade in Sevastopol on May 19, 1887
One of the ships was laid down on September 25, 1883, and on September 30 it was named "Sinop". He received his name in honor of the victory of the Russian fleet in the battle of Sinop. In July 1884, the Naval Ministry requested the board of the ROPiT to speed up the pace of work on the construction of the same type of battleship "Chesma", because of this, ordering cars abroad for "Sinop" and its launch was delayed. They were ordered only on June 30, 1885 to the D. Napier & Son Limited plant in Glasgow. During the slipway work, the captain of the Corps of Naval Engineers A.P. Toropov suggested cutting off the upper casemate by 381 mm to lighten the ship, which would save 166 tons. In 1885, at a joint meeting of the Shipbuilding and Artillery departments of the Naval Ministry, the issue of installing 305-mm guns in closed rotating towers was considered. However, due to fears of a serious overload and an increase in draft, it was decided "to place the guns as before in the upper casemate for firing through the barbette." In addition, a new design of a steel mast of increased diameter with two mars was approved and accepted for execution: the lower one was closed like a French battleship Hoche and top - open. For this reason, the building "Sinop" was about a year behind schedule. Only in August 1886, they began to install the racks of the lower casemate on it.
The ship was launched on May 20, 1887. A year later, with the help of the workers of the D. Napier & Son Limited plant, the main machines and boilers were installed on the battleship, and the installation of armor, auxiliary boilers, gun mounts and guns was completed only by the middle of 1889.
June 29, 1889 ironclad "Sinop" was taken out for testing. English mechanisms made it possible to develop a maximum speed of 16.5 knots, but as it turned out, they had significant flaws. Artillery tests revealed a number of design flaws, the main of which was the restriction of the firing sector to the bow and stern due to the weakness of the upper deck mounts. For these reasons, the first campaign lasted only 49 days.
Design Description
Frame
"Sinop" with absolutely identical dimensions with ships of the same type, it had some differences in silhouette. There were only minor differences in the hull set, mainly related to the location of bulkheads due to the installation of triple expansion steam engines on the ship.
Booking
On the "Sinope" the number and dimensions of armor plates were somewhat different from ships of the same type, but their thicknesses were the same. The height of the plates of the upper pear-shaped casemate was 381 mm less than that of the lead ship of the series and was, depending on the installation site, from 2.32 meters to 2.62 meters. The armored cabin of the ship was also different. She had a pear-shaped plan and 229-mm vertical armor. The light armor cover was also distinguished by its shape to protect against fire from small-caliber artillery and fragments of barbette installations of the main caliber. They consisted of flat armor plates with a thickness of 38 to 63.5 mm, recruited in the form of a truncated polyhedral cone and rotated together with the installations.
Power plant and driving performance
The main power plant of the battleship was mechanical, two-shaft with two triple-expansion steam engines and 14 fire-tube boilers, located in four boiler rooms and two engine rooms. Vertical, three-cylinder triple expansion steam engines of the English company D. Napier & Son Limited had an operating pressure of 8.79 atmospheres. Each machine with a high pressure cylinder 1118 mm in diameter, a medium pressure cylinder 1600 mm in diameter and a low pressure cylinder 2413 mm in diameter and a piston stroke of 1143 mm had a power of 4444 hp. and a speed of 100 rpm. transmitted rotation to one four-bladed propeller with a diameter of 488 mm and a fixed pitch of 6.8 meters.
Cylindrical, fire-tube, four-furnace steam boilers of the span type, in contrast to the lead ship of the series, were installed with furnaces to the sides. The maximum fuel supply - 910 tons of coal allowed the ship to travel 2800 miles at a speed of 10 knots or 1367 miles at 14.5 knots.
To ensure the smooth operation of the mechanisms, as well as for other needs, in addition to the main ones, the battleship had two auxiliary boilers and 44 auxiliary steam engines with power from 3 to 72 hp.
Armament
Main caliber
Barbette installation of 305-mm guns of the battleship "Sinop"
Six 305-mm guns of the Obukhov factory of the 1877 model with a barrel length of 30 calibers were located in pairs in three rotary barbette mounts with a diameter of 7.01 m. The guns with manual opening and closing of the lock were placed on ordinary carriages with a constant height of the trunnion axis. The rotation of the barbette was carried out by two hydraulic presses, their rods acted on Gall chains put on a gear rim attached to the central deck or manually.
mine artillery
Eight 47-mm five-barreled Hotchkiss revolver guns were placed on the battery deck and could fire through loopholes in the sides. Four 37-mm five-barreled Hotchkiss revolver guns were placed on the lower closed combat tops. Two more of the same guns were installed on the upper Mars.
Modernizations and conversions
- In 1890 on the battleship, the mast was shortened and the mars platforms were lowered below.
- In 1904 The old steam boilers were replaced by 20 Belleville water tube boilers.
- In 1910 four 152-mm guns of the Kane system are installed on the upper deck
- In 1911 all the old artillery was dismantled. In place of the 305-mm guns, four 203-mm guns of the 1905 model of the year were installed, and eight 152-mm guns of the Kane system were installed in the battery deck. Ammunition magazines were re-equipped, new electric elevators for lifting shells and a centralized fire control post were installed.
- In 1916 on-board stationary metal caissons and a conning tower removed from an armadillo were installed "The Twelve Apostles", the area of the steering wheel is increased.
Service History
The battleship enters service
Squadron battleship "Sinop" in Sevastopol, 1890s
Until April 1890, the ironclad "Sinop" wintered in Sevastopol. Over the next month, the ship went out almost daily to test cars. On May 30, an order came from the chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet and ports, Vice Admiral A.A. Peshchurova about the inclusion "Sinop" to the first detachment of the Practical Squadron under the command of Admiral O.K. Kremer, where he became the flagship. On June 3, at 10 o'clock in the morning, the ships of the squadron, raising their flags and pennants, began the campaign of 1890.
"Sinop" went to sea on June 8, where cars were tested on it for three hours. The exit was overshadowed by an accident. The machinist of the 1st article, Ivan Gonchenko, had his arm crushed, which then had to be amputated. For the next twenty days, the squadron stood in the roadstead. This time was devoted to raid exercises and the interaction of personnel on alert. Simultaneously with the raid exercises, the squadron trained to set mines from arrows and rafts. Ship mine boats went to Inkerman for firing. On July 7, the Queen of Greece, Grand Duchess Olga Alexandrovna, arrived in Sevastopol and visited the flagship with her retinue. In honor of the queen "Sinope" a dinner was held with the participation of the ship's officers and senior officials of the Sevastopol garrison. On July 10, representatives of the Metal Plant handed over the ship's artillery to the treasury, and on the same day the battleship left for testing. Having made 15 shots from each gun of the main caliber, the representatives of the plant made sure that they were in full working order. From that moment on, a team entered the service of the artillery of the battleship.
On July 15, the squadron set sail along the Black Sea coast. The next day, from 10 o'clock in the morning, the battleships of the first detachment practiced joint actions on the flag signals of the new code introduced in the Russian fleet. By 16 o'clock, having completed the maneuvers, the ships anchored at Feodosia. Over the next week, the battleships fired mines in the Feodosiya Bay. Having celebrated the birthday of Empress Maria Feodorovna on July 22 on the Feodosia roadstead, the ships weighed anchor and headed for Odessa in the evening. After standing there for two days, making a number of visits to the city authorities and the command of the Odessa garrison, Admiral O.K. Kremer gave the order to withdraw to Sevastopol.
"Sinop" in the Northern Bay of Sevastopol.jpg
On the way to Sevastopol "Sinop", testing the mechanisms and determining the consumption of coal, went separately from the squadron sequentially under 6.8, and then 10 boilers. During the tests, the bottom steam pipe burst, connecting one of the boilers with the main steam line. The boiler room instantly filled with steam, and everyone in it received severe burns. A few hours later, the mechanic midshipman Prince Khilkov and the stoker Moskalenko died in the infirmary. Then six more stokers died, and ten people were in serious condition. On the morning of July 27, Sevastopol celebrated the anniversary of the Gangut victory. "Sinop" he stood all day on the outer roads and entered the harbor with a half-mast flag only in the evening, when all the celebrations were over. The commission appointed to investigate came to the conclusion that many of the steam pipes had serious defects and the battleship was put in for repairs. September 29 "Sinop" went on sea trials, which showed good results. The danger of rupture of the pipes was eliminated, and the battleship ended the campaign the next day.
For my first campaign "Sinop" walked 909 miles. During it, it turned out that on the battleship a steel mast 36 m high with a wedge with its artillery tops had a weak mast. In addition, the alarm guys had to be removed, which noticeably weakened the fastening, and the mast weighing 16 tons could easily be knocked down in battle or simply collapse during a storm. At the direction of the MTC, the mast was shortened and the landing platforms were lowered immediately after the end of the campaign. Throughout October, ship property, rigging, shells and charges were brought from the battleship to the shore. At the end of the month, the team also moved to the barracks.
As part of the Practical Squadron
"Sinop" as part of a squadron of battleships enters the Sevastopol harbor
The 1891 company began earlier than usual, on 18 May. From May 22, the battleship accompanied Empress Maria Feodorovna, who was resting in the south, from Sevastopol to Yalta. Over the next three years "Sinop" was obliged to walk a measured mile, practice shooting, joint sailings with the squadron's battleships, laying mines and repelling destroyer attacks. Participation in landings and crossings along the coast with calls to almost all the Black Sea ports of the empire became an annual event. In 1894, the intensity of combat training increased markedly. The battleship, before the final test firing, conducted at least six preparatory artillery and four mines. The conditions for repelling night attacks by destroyers were brought as close as possible to combat ones.
In 1895, the squadron began to increasingly focus on artillery firing, which for battleships was the basis of their combat training. In the autumn of 1895, riots broke out in Turkey. Therefore, from December 11, 1895 to April 25, 1896, the squadron was on campaign and stood in full readiness, having made several exits to the sea. The squadron also spent four summer months and the winter from 1896 to 1897 on voyages.
Planned rearmament
Estimated external view of the armadillo during rearmament. 1899 project
In 1897, the MTC, at the insistence of Vice Admiral N.V. Kopytov, the chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet and ports, proposed replacing fire-tube boilers with more advanced Belleville water-tube systems of the 1896 model. It was planned to replace steam fans and drainage machines with electric ones, the electricity to which would be supplied from two installed dynamos. According to the project, it was considered expedient to install six 305-mm guns with a length of 40 calibers, nine 152-mm guns with a length of 45 calibers and install six on the battery deck, and four 47-mm single-barreled guns on the bridge. This would significantly increase the combat capabilities of the battleship. When re-equipping, the MTC proposed not to change the reservation system, but to limit itself to replacing the old steel-iron slabs of the upper and lower casemates with new Krupp ones, 75% thick from the thickness of the old slab. Replacing the armor reduced the overload by "Sinope" by 128 tons, the draft also decreased by 7.6 cm.
The battleship "Sinop" in the Sevastopol Bay. Campaign of 1909.
They could not start modernization then - in St. Petersburg, artillery would have been manufactured only after four years. After 2 years - in December 1899, the artillery department of the MTK again raised the issue of rearmament. Now it was proposed to radically remake the hull above the battery deck, install two towers with two 305-mm guns, and place ten 152-mm Kane guns in newly installed separate casemates. But this project was not destined to be realized. There were no funds for the rapid manufacture of armor and artillery.
In early February 1899, a contract was signed with the "Society of Mechanical Production in Southern Russia" in Nikolaev for the manufacture of "Sinop" twenty Belleville boilers with a working pressure of 17 kg / cm². Using the upcoming work, the artillery department of the MTK again proposed to carry out rearmament. In May 1903, due to lack of funds, the start of re-equipment was postponed on the basis that after replacing the boilers, the ship could still serve as a coastal defense battleship for some time and at the same time be a training ship for artillery school students to practice. By May 1904, the boilers had been replaced. In September of the same year, the chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet and ports suggested that the MTK be removed from "Sinop" all onboard torpedo tubes, leaving only one stern. The committee, having approved this proposal, in the end decided not to change the mine armament and transfer the battleship to the reserve squadron.
On June 4, 1908, a meeting "on the issue of re-equipping the Black Sea ships" was held at the MTK. Instead of the old artillery, the artillery department of the MTK proposed to install on "Sinope" four 305-mm 52-caliber guns in new turrets and eight 120-mm guns in casemates. Shipyards promised to complete all the work in five years. After discussing the report, those present at the meeting came to the conclusion that the amount of work is too large in order to have a re-equipped, but already obsolete ship in 1913. The official conclusion of the meeting was the following: "Battleships "The Twelve Apostles", "George the Victorious" and "Sinop" should not be rearmed."
Events of the summer of 1905, "Silent fight"
On the afternoon of June 15, 1905, the headquarters of the Black Sea Fleet received information about what happened on the battleship "Prince Potemkin-Tauride" uprising. In the absence of the fleet commander, senior officer of the Black Sea Fleet A.Kh. Krieger decided to send squadrons to Odessa with the authority to "take measures that circumstances require." Battleship "Sinop" became part of the additional forces under the direct command of the senior flag officer.
Battleship "Potemkin" cuts through the government squadron
At 9:45 am on June 17, the squadron of A.Kh. Krieger was approaching Odessa, after 45 minutes additional forces joined with the squadron under the command of Rear Admiral F.F. Vishnevetsky. After a tactical meeting of admirals addressed to "Potemkin" a radiogram was sent:
and both squadrons headed for Odessa.
At 12:20 pm "Potemkin" and the ships of the squadron got so close that they were able to exchange messages through semaphore signals. "Potemkin" handed over to the ships of the squadron: .
"Potemkin" went to the squadron, forcing it to break formation in order to avoid a collision. At 12:50 "Potemkin", with raised signals "squadron to anchor" cut through the squadron formation, while the battleship team "George the Victorious" left the place of military service, gathered on the open decks of her ship and greeted the rebels with exclamations of "Hurrah!". At 13:00, turning 180 °, "Potemkin" again cut through the front of the squadron. At this time on "George the Victorious" the rebellion of the command against its officers was already in full swing. In the end, the pyramids with rifles were cracked and the sailors armed themselves. The team removed the officers from the control of the ship and stopped the battleship. At 14:00, the remaining ships of the united squadron retreated to the Tendrovskaya Spit area, and the rebel battleships "Prince Potemkin-Tauride" and "George the Victorious" began a joint movement to Odessa. Around 7 pm A.Kh. Krieger decided, in view of the unreliability of the squadron commands, to return to the main fleet base in Sevastopol.
Divine service on the "Potemkin" for a new allegiance to the tsar and the expulsion of the "devil of the revolution".
June 24 in Sevastopol from an armadillo "Sinop" all firearms were brought ashore. Two companies of soldiers boarded. Under their guard and under the threat of decimation, Admiral I.P. Tikhmenev managed to force the crew of the battleship to hand over the rebels. Sixteen sailors were arrested. The next day "Prince Potemkin-Tauride" entered the Romanian port of Constanta, where his team agreed to surrender to the authorities on the terms of military deserters. The team was taken ashore, and the Romanian flag was hoisted on the battleship
July 9 "Sinop" as part of a squadron under the command of Rear Admiral S.P. Pisarevsky arrived in Constanta. At 14:00 six boats with "Sinop" delivered to "Potemkin" ten officers and about 200 sailors. The changing of the guards took place, the Romanian flag was lowered, and at 14:10 Andreevsky was raised. A Russian priest served a prayer service and sprinkled the ship with holy water to exorcise the "devil of the revolution." Already on July 11 at 19:20 minutes the squadron left Constanta. "Sinop" led in tow "Potemkin", on which 47 sailors and conductors returned to Russia. the 14 th of July "Potemkin" introduced into the South Bay of Sevastopol. The remains of the former team were removed from the battleship and sent under arrest to a training ship "Rod".
Service in "reserve"
Training of students of the training and artillery detachment
Before January 31, 1906 "Sinop" was part of the Practical Squadron. At the end of the voyage, on October 1, 1906, the Practical Squadron was renamed the Separate Practical Detachment. Having existed for only a few months, the Practical Detachment was renamed the Black Sea Detachment of the active fleet. In 1907, the public of Russia and all Slavic countries widely celebrated the thirtieth anniversary of the victory in the war of 1877-78. "Sinop" and steamer "Eriklik" sent on a visit to the Bulgarian port of Varna. Participants of the war went to Bulgaria on them: 11 generals, 21 retired officers and 21 retired soldiers. The delegation was headed by Grand Duke Vladimir Alexandrovich.
On February 1, 1908, a reserve detachment was specially formed, which included "Sinop". The ships of the detachment were entrusted with the task of practical training in all specialties of students of the Training Detachment of the Black Sea Fleet. In 1910 on "Sinope" they placed a school of engine teams and steering signalers, in addition, gunners, students of the Training and Artillery Detachment of the Black Sea Fleet, conducted firing on the ship.
In 1910 "Sinop" as completely obsolete, they decided to convert it into a training and artillery ship. In the same year, four 152-mm Kane guns were installed on the upper deck in the region of 18 and 52 frames. Then, in addition to them, having removed all the old artillery in 1911, four 203-mm guns covered with shields were installed in the places of the barbette installations, and eight 152-mm Kane guns in the battery deck (six in the places of the former side 152-mm guns and two in the admiral's saloon). At the same time, the cellars were re-equipped, new electric elevators were installed for lifting shells, and a centralized fire control post was placed on the ship. In 1911, the battleship spent near Sevastopol, carrying out fire service. For the next two pre-war years, the ship had to participate in joint voyages with a brigade of battleships, either performing training tasks or pretending to be an "enemy" ship.
World War I
Battleship Sinop in camouflage
The 1914 campaign began for "Sinop" from the task of protecting the Sevastopol raid and training teams. This he did during the next four years of the First World War. In the spring of 1915, on the instructions of the MGSH, camouflage painting was carried out on the battleship for the purpose of the experiment. On its sides, over the usual gray-green paint, a series of black undulating stripes was applied, hiding the true position of the waterline. In addition, superstructures were painted on the ship. Dark broken patterns were applied to them. The mast was painted in a light color. The artist Shpazhinsky supervised this. The coloring had one goal - to hide the waterline and make it difficult to identify by silhouette at a great distance. Measuring the distance to "Sinop" rangefinders with a vertical base turned out to be impossible. However, Shpazhinsky's experiments were not particularly successful.
Due to the fact that the ship, with the advent of German submarines on the Black Sea, was in great danger of sinking from torpedoes. It was decided to install side caissons on it, which were ordered on February 8, 1916 by the Society of Nikolaev Plants and Shipyards. April 1 "Sinop" left for Odessa, and then 25 days later arrived in Nikolaev. Here, on both sides, from 9 to 75 frames, stationary metal caissons were installed (the width at the midsection is 4.6 m). The caissons had a cross-sectional shape of a kind of pentagon, two adjacent sides of which formed an angle and were located: one parallel and slightly below the waterline, the other, intended to hit torpedoes against it, parallel to the diametrical plane of the ship (the line of formation of the underwater part of the hull was, as it were, the third, opposite side of the pentagon). At the same time, a more extensive conning tower, taken from an armadillo, was installed on the ship "The Twelve Apostles", and increased the area of the steering wheel. Autumn 1916 "Sinop" returned to Sevastopol.
Revolution and civil war
The barbette battleship "Sinop" was laid down in 1883, launched in 1887. The third in a series of four ships of the "Catherine II" type.
History: according to a successful project, 4 ships were laid at once with small intervals in time.
The main differences between them were in the arrangement of barbette installations.
On "Ekaterina" the guns were advanced above the edge of the armor only at the time of aiming and firing. On "Chesma" and "Sinop" the extension of the guns was no longer envisaged, but the installations themselves remained open, and on the "George the Victorious" they used a tower-like cover with an inclined frontal plate, although its thickness remained insignificant and protected only from fragments, bullets and small shells.
In 1906, it was proposed to significantly modernize Sinop, Chesma and George the Victorious with the installation of four modern 305-mm guns with a barrel length of 40 calibers in tower mounts and 120-mm rapid-fire artillery.
Guns were even ordered, but the absurdity of the idea became clear to the Naval Staff. "Sinop" became an artillery training ship, armed with four 203-mm guns in place of the old barbets and twelve 152-mm Kane guns.
Participated in the first world war. Carried out fire service at the Sevastopol Bay, from November 1916 was used as a command ship of a detachment of ships on the Danube.
During the Civil War, it changed hands several times. January 30, 1918 became part of the Red Black Sea Fleet. Since April 1918, he was in storage at the Sevastopol military port, where on May 1, 1918 he was captured by the German invaders, and on November 24, 1918 - by the Anglo-French invaders and handed over to the White Guards.
On February 19, 1919, it was disarmed, and on April 22-24, 1919, by order of the British command, it was blown up and put out of action.
On April 29, he was liberated by units of the Ukrainian Front of the Red Army, but on June 24 he was again captured by the White Guards. After the liberation of Sevastopol on November 15, 1920, parts of the Red Army did not put into operation, in 1923 it was handed over to the Komgosfondov for dismantling and cutting into metal, and on November 21, 1925 it was excluded from the lists of ships of the RKKF.
He sank off the coast of Yalta, in the Crimea, where he was found by the famous submarine archaeologist Robert Ballard, who found the Titanic, on the research vessel "Endever" cruised around the sea around the clock Robert, at low speed, and behind the "Endever" on a cable cut through the water column three remote-controlled vehicles, shooting underwater landscapes.
Robert Ballard accidentally found the battleship Sinop, who was looking for the "Telohod Armenia" which sank in the same place, with more than 7 thousand. people on board (this is somewhere 5 Titanic), a coma of an armadillo at the bottom of the Black Sea near the coast of Yalta.
In a month, they found 494 objects that are not listed in any archive of the world (usually an expedition that finds 2-3 ships is considered successful), including 40 ancient Greek ships, military equipment from the First World War and almost two hundred ships and submarines from the Great Patriotic. In one place, where, judging by the archives, an ancient ship lay, archaeologists found something strange. The sonar camera described circle after circle around the find.
It was identified by elimination. Only three battleships of this class were built in Nikolaev. "Chesma" is still standing in the Taganrog Bay as a target for pilots to learn how to shoot.
"Catherine II" was flooded by revolutionary sailors near Novorossiysk. So, under Yalta was "Sinop", which disappeared in the troubled 1924. “You have an underwater museum ready,” says Robert Ballard. “There are no such number of ships in excellent condition anywhere in the world!”
The commander of the Practical Squadron of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral G.F. Tsyvinsky, thought the same. The best, in his opinion, in the fleet were the three battleships "Panteleimon", "Three Saints" and "Rostislav" and the cruisers "Ochakov" and "Cahul". The rest of the ships, he considered obsolete, including destroyers.
With the exclusion of Chesma and Ekaterina P from the fleet, three battleships with barbette mounts still remained in service in the Black Sea Fleet. Therefore, the issue of re-equipping "Sinop", "Twelve Apostles" and "George the Victorious" remained unresolved.
In May 1908, at the direction of the MTK, the Sinop and George the Pobedonosts were determined the value of the metacentric height. It turned out that the "Sinop", when deepened by 0.7 m, had a displacement of 11,310 tons, which exceeded the design (9990 tons) by 1320 tons or 13.2%. Its metacentric height remained rather large - 1.2 m. With such a deepening, the upper edge of the armor belt rose above the water by only 0.15 m.
"Catherine II"
"Chesma"
"Sinop"
"George the Victorious"
External view of battleships of the type "Catherine II"
Estimated appearance of battleships of the "Catherine II" type during rearmament. Project 1899. It was planned to “cut off” the hull on the ships, making the upper battery deck; to install towers similar to those of battleships of the Borodino type, and in place of the pear-shaped casemate, a superstructure with 152-mm guns in separate casemates. Steel armor was replaced by Krupp's. The armament of the battleships would have been 4-305/40-mm, 10-152/45-mm and 18 small-caliber guns.
A little later, on June 4, 1908, a meeting was held at the ITC under the chairmanship of Admiral I. M. Dikov, who for several years had the opportunity to command the Practical Squadron of the Black Sea Fleet, on the “issue of re-equipping the Black Sea ships”.
The speaker, Colonel A. N. Krylov, believed that rearmament "in view of their extremely insufficient stability should be associated with their re-equipment."
So, in his opinion, “the ship“ Twelve Apostles ”after breaking unarmored extremities turns over from one shift of the rudder on board, and“ Sinop ”and“ George the Victorious ”completely lose stability under these conditions.” He believed that "when replacing the thick steel-and-iron armor of these ships with thinner modern one, it is possible not only to ensure combat stability by armoring the extremities, but also to replace the artillery with the latest." This, according to the calculations of A. N. Krylov, made it possible to reduce the draft of each by 0.3 m and increase the speed by 0.5 knots.
Instead of the old artillery, the MTK artillery department proposed installing four 305-mm 52-caliber guns in new turrets and eight 120-mm guns in casemates on the George the Victorious and Sinop.
The Twelve Apostles proposed to equip four 254-mm and four 120-mm guns.
The total cost of re-equipping these three ships, together with the re-equipment of the battleship Three Saints, which was supposed to be simultaneously, was determined at 30 million rubles. Shipyards promised to complete all the work in five years.
“Thus, after the rework, by January 1, 1913, we will have a squadron of four ships with an average speed of 13.5 knots, with proper stability, armor and weapons of twelve 12-inch, four 10-inch and twenty-eight 120-mm guns, ”said A.N. Krylov at the end of his report.
After discussing the report, rear admirals Yakovlev, A. A. Virenius, L. K. Kologeras, captains of the II rank P. V. Rimsky-Korsakov and Kaskov, who were present at the meeting, Admiral I. M. Dikov, who chaired, and the speaker himself came to the conclusion about that the amount of 30 million rubles is too large to have a squadron of even re-equipped, but already obsolete ships in 1913.
This amount was then quite enough for the construction of two 12,000-ton battleships of the "Prince Potemkin Tauride" type, which by that time, with the advent of "dreadnoughts", were also outdated. The official conclusion of the meeting was the following: “The battleships “Twelve Apostles”, “George the Victorious” and “Sinop” should not be re-equipped. After the re-equipment of the Three Hierarchs and the formation of a brigade of four ships with it, exclude them from the list.
19. Excluded Vessels No. 3 and No. 4
At the beginning of 1906, the Naval General Staff decided that the obsolete ships Admiral Spiridov, Admiral Lazarev, Admiral Greig and Charodeyka in the Baltic and the battleships Catherine II and Chesma, as well as the cruiser The memory of Mercury" on the Black Sea should be withdrawn from the fleet, since "the money spent on them will be unjustified." The MTC offered to deposit them in ports.
After the Russo-Japanese War, the era of ships built according to the plans of the 1864 program and the first ships of the 1882 program irrevocably passed into the past. Now everyone began to realize this, and on October 31, 1906, Admiral A. A. Birilev, Minister of the Sea, ordered all ships to “sell legally” or use them as auxiliary ships for the needs of the fleet.
According to this, the Naval Department issued order No. 178 of August 1, 1907, which stated that “The Sovereign Emperor, on the 3rd day of July of this year, the Highest commanded to be deigned to be excluded from the lists of ships of the fleet, due to complete unfitness for further service, surrendered squadron battleships "Ekaterina I" and "Chesma" to the port.
From that day on, the first Black Sea battleships were crossed out from the lists of combat ships of the fleet.
According to the then existing rules, the workers of the ports removed the “combat weapons” from all the “excluded” ships and then disbanded the teams, and the hulls themselves with mechanisms were stored until “special order”.
After the disarmament, "Catherine II" was planned to be turned into a school of machinists, and "Chesma" to be converted into a floating prison, since the events of 1905 added a large number of convicts. True, the MGSH demanded that the port keep the boilers and mechanisms in full working order for the further use of these ships for military "needs".
The first commission from the port of Sevastopol visited both ships on October 5, 1907. She noted “that all the guns on the ships are available. The combat set of 12-inch guns is very small, about 50 shells per barrel, and there are no 6-inch shells, as they have already been transferred to other ships.
The members of the commission recognized the previously planned transfer of 305-mm guns to the Sevastopol fortress as inappropriate, "since they do not have the ballistic qualities that are needed now."
Indeed, the maximum range of their firing on standard machines at an elevation angle of 15 ° was only 51 cables (about 9.4 km). For the time when the Obukhov plant began manufacturing new 305-mm guns in 50 calibers, such a firing range was very small. The gunners of the Sevastopol fortress were not satisfied with the weight of the projectile at 810 pounds (367.4 kg), its pyroxylin combat charge at 38 pounds (17.2 kg). All this, with slow loading, the absence of optical sights (only mechanical, vector ones were used) and the equal cost of installing them on the shore compared to new guns, nullified all the arguments in favor of these outdated barrels. Moreover, to install their towers, it was necessary to build a brick structure in the ground, equal in height to a three-story building.
