Mine cruiser Captain Saken. Captain Saken

Dobrovolets-class destroyers Melnikov Rafail Mikhailovich

"Enlarged type" of the Nikolaev plant ("Lieutenant Shestakov", "Lieutenant Zadarenny", "Captain Saken", "Captain-Lieutenant Baranov")

Gustav Bauer, the creator of the electric turbine plant of the famous Bremen liner, winner of the Atlantic Blue Ribbon prize (1930 and 1933), made the following statement in 1934: “If I now had to design the Bremen, I, without changing hull, would give the ship a power of not 120, but 180 thousand hp I would shorten the length of the engine and boiler room from 150 to 124 m, that is, I would save 17% of the length of these compartments, reduce its load on the engine boiler rooms by 545 tons and would increase the efficiency of this plant by reducing fuel consumption from 310 to 260 g/hp per hour.

Something similar could be said by the authors of the destroyers of the Germania plant. They, in essence, said this with the project of "their" destroyers built next to the Russian ships - the destroyers G-132 - G-136 (1905-1906, speed 27 knots) intended for the German fleet, and especially the turbine G-137 (190 6 g ., speed 33.8 knots). And if, due to the complex of all the reasons we have already considered, the Horseman and the rest of the ships of this project could not be such, then their creative reproduction in the new project gave a chance to catch up with the lost prospect. The lessons of the war definitely pointed to the need for a significant increase in the artillery armament of mine ships and to the possibilities that emerged everywhere to reduce mine weapons that did not find the use that their numbers on ships suggested. The conclusions about the expediency of redistributing the functions of destroyer ships in the direction of giving them the properties of minelayers were also undeniable.

The implementation of these proposals could make up its era in domestic shipbuilding. Equipped with turbines, they would stand in line with the future English "Tartars", Russian "Novik" and Soviet "Storms". Their actions would not have to be limited due to the risk of encounters with a faster enemy. And if they were built like that, they would have been worthless for many years.

Special hopes for overcoming the speed lag caused suggestions to build new destroyers for the Black Sea Fleet. This meant that there was no need for haste, which, for the sake of the supposed dispatch to the war, justified the project of the Germania plant and the projects of the Special Committee that were very constructively similar to it. The isolation of the Black Sea Theater ruled out the possibility of ships participating in the war with Japan, and the authors of the project got the opportunity to critically evaluate the task for their design, more fully and more thoughtfully compare the project being developed with foreign counterparts.

Implementing the shipbuilding program of 1898 in the Black Sea, the Naval Ministry, instead of the previously envisaged four mine cruisers, was going to build six "fighters with a displacement of 312-400 tons", which were ordered at that time for the squadron Pacific Ocean. Influenced by the experience of the war, as early as September 21, 1904, the MTC proposed "to switch to an increased type of mine cruisers of 570 and even up to 600 tons." It was decided to entrust their construction to the Nikolaev plant at a meeting on November 8, 1904, when the chief inspectors of the MTK, Rear Admiral A.A. Virenius, head of the Baltic plant S.K. Ratnik and chief ship engineer of the St. Petersburg port D.V. Skvortsov. It is not known whether a transcript of that meeting was kept and what opinions were expressed at it, but the course of events makes us think that no one was seriously interested in design assignments.

It can be seen from the documents that the only attempt to update the tasks for the new ships was made only by the chief mine inspector, Major General Kovalsky. In a letter to the Department of Constructions of the GUKiS dated December 13, 1904, he reported that for issuing an order to the Nikolaev plant, the MTK had "only a single developed project" - the one developed by the German company. The draft of the Special Committee was not available to the ITC or could not be considered elaborate enough.

The existing correspondence does not contain any hint of any coordination of the work of the Nikolaev plant with this project. The specification of the German project, on the contrary, was recognized as suitable "for general guidance in the development by the Nikolaev plant of a similar destroyer within 600 tons." In accordance with it, it was proposed to adopt artillery and mine weapons, the general location, and calculations of the strength of the hull.

At the same time, the mine department expressed its principled opinion, "the Nikolaev plant should not be constrained by the requirement to build destroyers exactly according to the design of the German plant, since it is highly desirable to go ahead and increase the speed instead of 25 to at least 27-26.5 knots, which give our destroyers in normal conditions load. " The routine of stereotyped thinking did not allow to aim for more.

The placement of boiler rooms and engine rooms was recommended to be preserved following the example of the German project, where coal creates protection for these vital important parts ship. Boilers should be provided with Norman systems, "recognized by the mechanical department as the best for ships of this type."

The drawings of the destroyers ordered by Germania in final development had not yet been received in the mine department. This meant that now the success of the project depended entirely on the initiative and creative search of the designers of the Nikolaev plant. In the opinion of the mechanical department, the machines should have been of "strong construction", supplying all steam cylinders with steam jackets. Circulation pumps should have had devices for quickly transferring them to pumping water from the hold, and a steam pipeline to the main engines would allow them to be fed from each boiler. evaporator performance standards - at least 35 tons of fresh water per day, water supply in tanks - at least 15 tons, specific coal consumption - no more than 1.24 kg / hp per hour There was no talk of the possibility of using turbines.

By February 11, 1905, the shipbuilding department of the MTK also expressed its view on technical progress and the need for creative search. Responding to a request from the GUKiS dated January 4, 1905 on the conditions for concluding a contract, the chief inspector of shipbuilding N.E. On February 11, Kuteinikov reported that he did not allow the possibility of reducing the weight of the destroyer hull and shared the opinion of the mechanical department of the MTC that "the construction of destroyers at the Nikolaev plant should be carried out according to the specification, if possible, according to the drawings of the Germany plant" (my discharge - R. M.) and with the highest speed of 25 knots. One of the huge number of those who applied to the Naval Ministry, this document actually drew a line under the entire previous 20-year period of destroyer shipbuilding. MTK in the person of his "most educated", according to A.N. Krylov, a ship engineer, admitted that he did not value all the previous domestic experience accumulated in this industry, and that he did not see any need to develop his own or at least partially improved in comparison with the prototype project. Such was the finale of the engineering career full of creative initiatives, but degenerated under the influence of the routine of the engineering career of the venerable lieutenant general (such ranks, in contrast to the non-prestigious engineering "ranks", were able to arrange for themselves the top of the MTC) Chief Inspector of Shipbuilding N.E. Kuteinikov.

Mental fatigue, generated by the struggle for a place under the sun on the ministerial Olympus, indifference, outright conformism, or, as A.N. Krylov, "narcissism" brought the most prominent ship engineer from among the patriots of domestic shipbuilding. And he seems to have completely decided to get rid of the destroying problems.

Destroyers of the Lieutenant Shestakov type on completion.

Meanwhile, the order to the Nikolaev plant gave a chance to turn from routine to true creativity. It was precisely because of the overload problems that always plagued domestic shipbuilding in the most acute and disastrous way that the chief inspector had to evaluate the reserves for modernization that the projects of the Special Committee and the Germania plant had at their disposal. Indeed, from project to project, which for 10 years were created under the direct guidance and supervision of N.E. Kuteinikov, absolutely unthinkable actual overloads were found against the calculated ones, and never (which remains incomprehensible to us today) did they provide for any noticeable displacement reserves. And if the ITC, due to the chronic and especially acute shortage of personnel, which had become especially aggravated by the 1900s, found it difficult to analyze all the abundance of projects that were generated by the initiative of Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, then it could not have been easier to entrust such work to students and graduates of the shipbuilding department of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute. Their energy, dedication, sense of the new and experience of practice in European factories, made possible thanks to the insistence of their dean and teacher, would have come in handy.

And their teacher himself - in the recent past, ship engineer K.P. Boklevsky, no doubt, could help the ITC to break the impasse. And then, perhaps, the real value of the existing projects would have been revealed, and those new horizons at the level of which the design of the ships of the Nikolaev plant should have been carried out. The picture was the following. The project of 500-ton destroyers of the "Ukraine" type, due to their prevailing relative hopelessness, had serious flaws. More than a modest supply of coal at the level of those that small destroyers had late XIX century, severely limited the cruising range and left no hope of performing any noticeable modernization at his expense. Due to the scandalous oversight of the company (and observers), stability turned out to be clearly insufficient. To eliminate this defect, the ships were loaded with 20-35 tons of ballast. There was no need to even think about using a new weapon on them - a device for setting mines. These ships could not be minelayers and, among others, they remained a kind of "Whites", which, unlike other ships, did not participate in setting minefields.

In more advantageous position turned out to be 570-ton and 615-ton destroyers of subsequent series. Their normal stability and an increase, against the "Ukraine", in the fuel reserve made it possible to carry out further modernization at much lower costs and loss of speed and seaworthiness. The age-old vice of the Russian maritime bureaucracy to put off all changes and improvements "until later" (after all, during the life of the ship, expenses can be attributed to another paragraph of the estimate) played a particularly bad joke on the ships of the Germania plant. Having retained the ridiculous design of the sponsons for the equally worthless 57-mm guns, the authorities forced these ships to undergo especially painful and repeated alterations. And they were needed almost immediately.

Twice short-sightedly "viewing" their own domestic invention (first shelving the fully justified and even practically proven method of Lieutenant A.P. Ugryumov, and then being late with its use during the war), the top of the Naval Ministry only in 1907, having built a series of 20 large destroyers of the "Volunteer" class, began to acquire devices for these ships for setting minefields from them. The obsolete 380-mm torpedoes with their tubes, which were preserved on the first four ships of the "Ukraine" type, also had to be replaced. Surprisingly, a few years later, the Naval General Staff (MGSH) managed to show a similar retrograde, which did not dare to immediately provide devices for 533-mm torpedoes on destroyers of the Novik type.

With scandalous shortcomings, despite the desperate struggle waged by the belated commissions of captains of the 2nd rank Shumov and Butakov, destroyers of the "Horseman" type came to Russia. During finishing work in the New Admiralty, the builder of steel boats of the St. Petersburg port (he was entrusted with this work in the absence of full-time builders), ship engineer A.L. On July 26, 1906, Alexandrov reported to the chief ship engineer about the warped bases of the devices on the Horseman and Gaydamak. As a result, one of the rails burst while adjusting the devices delivered to the ships to these bases. Plant "Germany", knowing its sin, readily admitted it. The new bases were manufactured by the Baltic Shipyard at the expense of the Germania plant.

On June 27, 1906, the commander of the Gaidamak reported to the commander of the St. Petersburg port about a leak discovered on the ship. It took place in the aft cartridge cellar on the left side of the keel on the 27th frame from the stern. 15 buckets of water arrived per day. Before the docking line approached, the leak was smeared with red lead and filled with cement. By checking the documents in the MTK, it was established that during the double tests of the watertightness of the bulkheads in the described area, the compartment was not flooded with water.

All this reminded us that, as a reference design of the Germania plant, it still required significant improvements. But not. Kuteinikov, as already mentioned, considered all the improvements unnecessary. No one remembered about turbines and an increase in displacement. The inexplicable indifference of the ITC to the fate of the project was also manifested in the oblivion of the direct instruction of the manager of the Naval Ministry to eliminate sponsors in the project of the Nikolaevsky plant. Another chance to think about the tasks for the design of destroyers of the Nikolaev plant was provided by the MTC with a request from the chief ship engineer of the Sevastopol port P.E. Chernigov. On March 17, 1905, he asked the Chief Inspector of Shipbuilding to inform (for considerations when designing dry docks in the Black Sea) dimensions and "a new counter-destroyer with a displacement of 650 tons."

In the meantime, an explanation came from the MTC that 650 tons was a "misunderstanding". In fact, as N.E. Kuteinikov March 26, 1905, negotiations are underway with the Nikolaev plant on the construction of 570-ton destroyers according to the specification of the same destroyers built at the German plant abroad. Further, their specification characteristics were reported. Having stamped the earlier decision, N.E. Kuteinikov, in this case, did not try to take a step towards creativity and initiative.

In March 1906, the ships were included in the lists of the fleet under the names "Lieutenant Shestakov", "Lieutenant Zatsarenny", "Lieutenant Pushchin", "Captain-Lieutenant Baranov". Thus, the fleet recalled the need to revive the glory and memory of the heroes of the war with Turkey in 1877-1878. Then the sailors, not having seafaring battleships and ignoring the overwhelming superiority of the Turks, were able to show remarkable examples of courage, resourcefulness, enterprise and initiative, which, alas, were so lacking in the war with Japan. A.P. Shestakov, I.M. Zatsarenny, L.M. Pushchin on fragile mine boats boldly attacked Turkish ships. N.M. Baranov, proposing to turn civilian ships into heavily armed cruisers, distinguished himself by capturing Turkish transport with the troops of the Mersin at sea, and another time in a heroic battle with the Turkish battleship Fethi-Bulend, which was pursuing him.

In March 1907, Lieutenant Pushchin changed its name to Captain Saken. It was the name of the hero of another war with Turkey in 1787-1791, when Russia finally confirmed its rights to the possession of the Crimea. On one of the days of this war, May 26, 1788, Captain 2nd Rank R. Saken, commanding dubel-boat No. 2 (6 guns, 52 crew members), was surrounded by 11 Turkish galleys at the mouth of the Southern Bug. Being attacked by them to board, he blew up his ship, sinking 4 galleys. After this battle, in which the commander Saken and 43 sailors died, the Turks no longer risked boarding attacks. The name of the new ship passed from the mine cruiser built in 1889. The name "Lieutenant Pushchin" was named one of the serial 350-ton destroyers built by the Nikolaev plant in 1904.

The studies performed by the plant on the basis of the requirements of the ITC in January 1905 showed the need for a significant increase in displacement or a decrease in coal reserves. So, with a given MTK displacement of about 600 tons, the ships were provided with 5300 hp machines, which gave a speed of 24 knots. For 25 knots of speed, 6450 hp were required. and boosting the boilers above those allowed by the MTK with a corresponding increase in the mass of the boilers by 16 tons. To achieve 26 knots. speed, power and mass of mechanisms were to be 7300 hp. and 204.4 tons; at 27 knots 8100 hp and 226.8 tons. Accordingly, coal with a displacement of 600 tons remained 88.1 and 65.7 tons. As a result, the ITC in February 1905 confirmed the decision to stop at 570 tons of displacement and 25 knots of speed. Armament consisted of two 75 mm cannons, six 57 mm cannons, two three-line machine guns and three mine launchers with a stock of 9 457 mm torpedoes.

The drawing was provided by the magazine "Shipbuilding".

Destroyer type "Lieutenant Shestakov".

(Longitudinal section, plans of the upper deck, hold and cross sections)

1- rail track and ramp for dropping minefields, 2-kubrick, 3- foundation and reinforcements for a stern 120-mm gun, 4- awning device, 5- searchlight. 6-machine gun, 7-compass. 8-rudder machine, 9-rowed 10-oared boat, 10-similar hatch, 11-75-mm gun, 12-reinforcement under the spire, 13-chain box, 14-ammunition cellar, 15-outer vertical keel, 16-boiler compartment, 17 - foundations of engine rooms, 18 - engine room, 19 - tiller, 20 - sponsons, 21 - shturtros wiring along the upper deck, 22 - skylight, 23 - neck for loading coal, 24 - torpedo loading hatch, 25 - shot, 26-removal to protect the propeller, 27-officer cabins and wardroom, 28-coal pits,

In May 1905, loans were allocated for the construction of four destroyers under this project, and the manager of the Naval Ministry ordered that the Nikolaev Plant be ordered for them. On June 15, 1905, a contract was signed for their construction and an additional contract for the supply of items for ships by the plant mine weapons. The cost of building each was 790,000 rubles, the readiness period for testing on a measured mile was 23 months for two and 24 months for others "from the date of final approval of the main drawings." Attached to the contract and already typographically printed "Specification of a destroyer of 570 tons", however, did not become final. The drawing of four Norman boilers approved by the MTK on June 28, 1905, developed by the plant, provided for an increase from the total heating surface to 1364 m. The MTK presented a number of new requirements on August 5 when considering other drawings: theoretical, practical and cross sections of the body.

Sponsons for guns proposed by the factory according to the German prototype had to be finalized on site during construction. On August 20, the "general drawing" of the destroyer was approved, on October 3, 1905, the MTC had to agree to changes in the specification in connection with all these requirements. Already in July, the plant called its ships "Cruisers of 615 tons", but the MTC agreed only to increase their displacement during testing from 570 to 605 tons, and since their location was preserved mainly according to the prototype (plant "Germany"), it was decided call them "enlarged destroyers of the 570 t type."

Destroyer "Captain-Lieutenant Baranov" on completion.

Unlike the mine cruisers being built by the Germania plant and the committee to strengthen the navy, on which the numbering of the frames (according to German practice) went from stern to bow, on the ships of the Nikolaev plant, the numbering was changed to that adopted in the Russian fleet from bow to stern. The chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet, Vice Admiral G.P., insisted on this decision in a report to the MTC in August 1905. Chukhnin, who pointed out the significant inconvenience of the difference in numbering for personnel during the development of ships and their transfer from one to another.

In the new specification for the "destroyer of an enlarged type 570 tons", the length of the ship along the waterline (the previous one is in brackets) was 73.5 (71.0) m, the width along the waterline was 7.7 (7.2) m, the maximum width along the deck was 8, 3 (7.4) m, hull height from the upper edge of the keel to the middle of the upper deck beams 4.6 (4.5) m, draft in the middle part of the hull without keel 2.32 (2.3) m, with keel 2, 53 (2.51) m, with propeller blades 3.05 (3.05) m. Displacement 605 metric tons or 595.3 English tons "in full gear, ready for testing on the move" were: hull and equipment 202 tons, mechanisms and electrical equipment 212.7 tons, ship systems and devices 18.6 tons, weapons and ammunition 42.1 tons, supplies 21.6 tons, normal coal supply 9.8 tons, displacement reserve 10 tons.

The ship was divided into compartments by 12 waterproof transverse bulkheads, brought from the keel to the upper deck on frames No. 8, 27, 35, 47. 59, 71, 83, 93, 98 (broken bulkhead in the engine room), 108, 124, 129, 143 and brought to the living deck on frames No. 11, 14, 18, 113, 196. The bulkhead on frame 8 was brought to the forecastle deck, necks in the bulkheads were not allowed. Watertight longitudinal bulkheads of coal pits were provided. The thickness of the outer skin within the engine and boiler rooms was 6 mm, at the extremities 5 mm. A sheerstrake 8 mm thick ran at half the length of the hull, at the ends it decreased to 5 mm, the vertical keel consisted of a sheet with two continuous squares 7 mm thick on the upper edge and 8 mm on the lower.

According to the drawing developed by the plant on May 27 and approved by the ITC on June 28, each Norman boiler had 1292 hot water tubes with an outer diameter of 35 mm and a wall thickness of 3 mm. For tubes exposed directly to the flame, the thickness increased to 3.5 mm. The diameters of the cylinders of the two main steam engines were: high pressure 550, medium 820 and two low 830 mm. Drainage means included seven water-jet ejectors of the domestic system of mechanical engineer N.I. Ilyin with water supply 80 t/h. One steam steering engine was located in the chart house, the other in the stern in a similar hatch in the conductors' room. The crew included 7 officers, 3 conductors and 80 enlisted men.

Destroyer of the Lieutenant Shestakov type.

(Theoretical drawing)

A new change in the project was due to the strengthening of weapons proposed on January 3, 1906 by the chief inspector of naval artillery, Major General K.T. Dubrov. Under pressure from the experience of the war, the ineffectiveness of the recently adopted 57-mm guns was recognized. Now they were excluded from the armament of ships, and for the mine cruisers of the Nikolaev plant, instead of six 57-mm guns, it was proposed to install four 75-mm guns, and add two more to the two existing machine guns. The design of the ships was delayed by other ambiguities. The plant, suggesting the use of retractable anchors, provided for them side fairleads, providing universally appreciated ease of cleaning the anchor. But in the MTC they were guided by the traditional Parker anchors, with rods attached in a stowed manner on the upper deck.

The drawings of the steering frame also had to be changed, the design of which, when implementing the technological improvements proposed by the plant, was reinforced at the request of the ITC by increasing the number of stiffeners. In the lower part of the stern post, a tap was provided to protect the front end of the frame from hitting the ground and from accidentally pinching the cable between the post and the steering wheel. To reduce the vibration of the stern, its valance was connected with a longitudinal rib to the upper part of the aft bulkhead.

Following the first change in the artillery armament of the ships, the second had to be carried out. This was insisted on in a detailed note dated June 15, 1906 by the commander of "Captain-Lieutenant Baranov" Captain 2nd Rank A.M. Lazarev, who in Port Arthur commanded the mine cruiser "Horseman" and the gunboat "Brave". His arguments were as follows. The experience of frequent skirmishes with Japanese destroyers required guns with a caliber of at least 100-120 mm to fight ships of this class. It was these guns that were now installed on foreign 400 ton destroyers. Moreover, such guns are needed for ships under construction, which are inferior to foreign ones in speed, emphasized A.M. Lazarev. The possibility of such a replacement of the aft 75-mm gun with one 120-mm gun was also confirmed by the management of the plant. The artillery department of the MTK accepted such a proposal without enthusiasm and. considering the guarantees of the plant "unfounded", he demanded a settlement confirmation. The issue was resolved only on September 25, 1907.

Due to the insignificant impact on the sea qualities and a significant improvement in the combat qualities of the ship, the shipbuilding department considered it acceptable to overload from the installation of 120-mm guns with a barrel length of 45 calibers (weight with a machine tool and a shield 9.1 tons, and with a stock of 100 rounds of 12.7 tons) and reduction of the metacentric height by 50 mm. Reinforcement of the hull and foundation for the installation of the gun, the return of which reached 29.5 tons, as well as the conversion of the aft 75-mm cellar for new, extended to 1.3 m, 120-mm high-explosive shells, required an appropriate overload. The guns themselves, due to the undesirability of their alterations in the event of transfer from those under construction battleships type "Andrew the First-Called", urgently ordered at the Obukhov plant.

Meanwhile, the construction of ship hulls, which began simultaneously on January 24, 1906, was moving forward rapidly. On the day of the official laying on September 3, 1906, the ships were up to 40% ready (in relation to the total cost of construction). The greatest advancement of 46.75% was on the "Lieutenant Shestakov", in the hull of which about 100 tons of material were installed, including a fixed 200-kg stem. In March 1907, 1.7 tons of sternposts were installed on all four ships, in July-August 3.4 tons of propeller shaft brackets. There was an installation of pillars, machine and boiler foundations, skylights, guard rails, anchor locks. They began to hang the rudders, fix the tiller, the propeller outlets.

In August 1907, the inscription of the name of the ship appeared on the Shestakov. He was the first to be launched. It was followed on September 1 by "Captain Saken", on October 16 "Lieutenant Zatsarenny" and the last on October 23 "Captain Lieutenant Baranov". From the plant, shipbuilding work on destroyers was led by a marine engineer (a graduate of the St. Petersburg Polytechnic Institute) S. T. Kamensky, observing until April 1907 were ship engineers A.A. Terentiev and V.E. Karpov, and then the staff captain of the corps of ship engineers A.E. Vlashimsky.

Along with vigorous completion afloat, the adjustment of a number of design and technical solutions continued. In connection with the decision to install radio stations on the destroyers, the ship engineer who supervised the construction, instead of the light (17 m from the waterline) masts provided under the contract, in 1907 designed new masts 21 m long, but they also had to be redone in 1908 due to the requirement of the manager radiotelegraph case in the Black Sea Fleet, Lieutenant Commander V.N. Kedrin.

Only in May 1909, after experiments on the Lieutenant Shestakov, the main mast, 16.3 m high, was installed on the rest of the destroyers of the series. Additional were shots for boats, special signal lights (fast ships, admiral and wake), barbets and reinforcements for 75-mm guns (instead of 47-mm). Instead of the already begun wooden furniture, metal furniture was made according to samples developed by the ship engineer N.I. Egorov for 350 tons of destroyers. The decoration of residential premises was improved with canvas shields on frames at the direction of the chief commander of the Black Sea Fleet R.N. Virena.

Increased the capacity of feed and drinking water tanks. In addition to the manual supply of 75- and 120-mm ammunition, the plant also manufactured an elevator driven by manual winches. The method of covering the upper decks of ships also changed. The thick lacquered sailcloth offered according to the specification was recognized as impractical by experiments in the Baltic Fleet, but only after the official delivery of the ships, it was decided to cover their already rusting decks with linoleum.

In August 1908, Lieutenant Shestakov, the first to move to Sevastopol, began sea trials, but the contractual 25-knot speed was not achieved. The diameter of the propellers was reduced from 2.83 to 2.5 m, and the area of the deployed surface of each from 2.3 to 1.9 m. But even with these modified propellers, the Captain Saken, which entered the tests, reached only 22 knots of speed. The rotational speed was only 300 rpm, instead of the contract 350-360. Tips from St. Petersburg by the famous mechanical engineer V.I. Afanasyev was helped to achieve only 310 rpm, and the discouraged plant declared that "our destroyers, due to the peculiar formation of the hull, do not meet the conditions for determining the shape and size of the propellers."

To attract "authorities" to the case marine engineering"A representative of the plant, A.N. Kharkevich, went to St. Petersburg with all the documentation. The propellers had to be designed again, and only in May 1909 did the speed of each ship approach the contract: 24.26 knots for the Lieutenant Zatsarenny, 24.4 for the Captain -Lieutenant Baranov", 24.58 for Lieutenant Shestakov, 24.78 for Captain Saken. The design (6500 hp) power was blocked on each ship, amounting to 6963, 6675, 7136, 7310 hp, respectively The overload was also to blame for the lack of speed.The displacement of ships during trials, even minus the "ministerial" overload of 16 tons assumed by the customer and with a contractual supply of coal, was from 639 to 645 tons, instead of 605 under the contract. With full coal pits ( capacity up to 214 tons), the displacement increased accordingly.

The ships that had not yet entered service, continuing intensive trials (including progressive tests on the Lukul measured mile and 42-hour runs at sea) and finishing work in Sevastopol and at the Nikolaevsky plant, were often involved in fleet maneuvers and exercises. Together or separately, they made voyages to Nikolaev. Yalta, Feodosia, Odessa, participated in the escort of the royal yacht "Standart", and "Lieutenant Shestakov" under the imperial bred pennant on September 3 hosted a review of the destroyers of the fleet. On September 18, 1909, the chairman of the selection committee, captain 1st rank I.G. Vasiliev (he is also the head of the division under construction formed by ships destroyers) signed an act on the admission to the treasury of "Lieutenant Shestakov", followed by "Captain Saken" and "Captain-Lieutenant Baranov" on September 30, and on October 3 "Lieutenant Zatsarenny". The reliability of their design and the good quality of work were personally checked in Sevastopol by the chairman of the MTK, Major General for the Admiralty A.N. Krylov and Comrade of the Naval Minister Rear Admiral I.K. Grigorovich, under whose braid pennant "Lieutenant Shestakov" on October 17, 1909 made a 20-knot transition from Sevastopol to Yalta and back.

I.K. Grigorovich, agreeing with the proposal of A.N. Krylova to accept the destroyers to the treasury, in his report to the Minister of the Navy, he emphasized that on the ships "the execution of work is marked by completeness and thoroughness, with the general correctness and rationality of the design details."

Destroyer "Captain Saken" in Sevastopol.

By order of the Maritime Department dated November 12, 1909, the ships were enlisted in the active fleet of the Black Sea. They formed the second battalion of destroyers and, together with the first battalion (destroyers of 350 tons of the "3" and "Zh" series), were consolidated into a mine brigade. But even after that, energetic "finishing" of the ships by the forces of the Sevastopol military port continued until the end of the year. The help of seconded factory specialists was invaluable, of which I.K. Konosovich, for example, sailed permanently on the "Kapitan Saken" for 1.5 years, first as a supervising machinist, then as a warranty mechanic. During December 1909, on each of the four destroyers, instead of the 75-mm guns, a stern foundation was temporarily mounted, one 120-mm gun was installed, and they began to be adjusted and fire tested. Guns supplied optical sights and began to master the manual rangefinders of the Myakishev system. At the same time, the equipment of the radio cabins was being completed, spare propellers were fitted in the dock, painted in a protective ball color, and the supply to the 120-mm guns, for which the elevators were considered unnecessary, was redone.

In intense exercises, a wide range of combat missions was mastered, significantly expanded taking into account the experience of the Russo-Japanese War. Acceptance of minefields in Sukharnaya Balka and subsequent training minelaying, sweeping mines with shield sweeps, night torpedo attacks and salvo torpedo firing, reconnaissance curtains and evolutions at full speed became familiar. Part of the tasks were carried out in the first summer voyages with the fleet near the Crimean and Caucasian coasts and in the spring bilateral maneuvers. Repeated progressive tests of ship mechanisms at the maximum rate of fire with the measurement of elastic and residual deformations were also successful. Rare observations on the results of fouling of ships for the year were made by the commander of the "Captain Saken" Captain 2nd Rank F.A. Winter. So, at 160 rpm. the speed was 11.82 knots instead of 12.7 knots, and at 220 rpm. 15.55 instead of 17 knots. The merits of the ships, as the first genuine destroyers in the Black Sea, were fully manifested in subsequent campaigns in 1911, when the fleet, in view of the impending Balkan war, made a rare at that time bypass of all foreign coasts from Anatolian to Balkan.

The first changes in the artillery armament of the ships took place already in December 1910, when the armor shields were removed from the 75-mm guns, and then the turn of these guns themselves, which had long been recognized as unsuitable for real destroyers, came. In December 1913, Captain Saken began replacing five 75mm guns with one 120mm gun. By the beginning of 1914 artillery armament The ships consisted of two 120mm guns, of which the bow was mounted on the forecastle, providing the ability to fire in significant waves. The notorious sponsors were also eliminated.

Since August 1911, the 2nd destroyer division became part of the Black Sea mine division, and in September 1914, in connection with the entry into service of new destroyers of the Novik type, the ships of the former 2nd division formed the 3rd division. In 1914 ("Captain-Lieutenant Baranov") and in 1915. The ships were overhauled. On each ship, two 47-mm anti-aircraft guns with elevation angles of up to 80-87 ° were added to two 120-mm guns, the number of mines received increased to 50, twice as much (1 kW) was the power of new radio stations installed in 1916. on "Lieutenant Zatsarenny" and "Captain-Lieutenant Baranov".

Comprehensive combat training of the ships was provided by the commanders of the pre-war years, captains of the 2nd rank N.A. Goering ("Shestakov", 1911-1913), S.S. Pogulyaev ("Saken", 1911-1913), B.B. Gervais ("Baranov", 1913-1915), I.I. Podyapolsky ("Zatsarenny", 1913-1914). Having skillfully preserved the school of the former commanders, they, due to the rotation that inevitably took root during the war, handed over the ships to new officers who replaced them already in 1914-1915. The fleet was replenished with new ships, and the former destroyer commanders, as happened in the Baltic, received higher positions. S.S. Pogulyaev in 1913-1916. commanded the cruiser "Cahul", then took command of the 1st brigade of battleships of the Black Sea. B.B. Gervais, the hero of the battle on the cruiser "Gromoboy" in 1904, in 1915-1917. commanded one of the first Black Sea "Noviks" - "Hasty".

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From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

"Captain Saken"

Mine cruiser "Captain Saken" in the South Bay of Sevastopol
Service:	Russia, Russia
Vessel class and type	mine cruiser
Home port	Sevastopol
Construction started	May 9, 1886
Launched into the water	April 30, 1889
Commissioned	1889
Withdrawn from the Navy	December 22, 1909
Main characteristics
Displacement	742 tons
Length	69.4 m
Width	7.3 m
Draft	3.1 m
Booking	Deck - 13 mm
Engines	2 vertical triple expansion steam engines, 3 fire tube boilers
Power	2341 l. With. (1.7 MW)
mover	2
travel speed	18.3 knots (33.9 km/h)
Crew	7 officers, 120 sailors
Armament
Artillery	6 × 1 - 47 mm guns, 4 × 1 - 37 mm guns
Mine and torpedo armament	3 × 381 mm NTA

As a result of numerous alterations in the stern of the cruiser, instead of the superstructure, cabins were installed for officers and separately for the commander. The tank superstructure was replaced with a carapace deck. The location of the officers' cabins (in the aft part of the living deck) was approved only in November 1887. In addition, changes were made to the design of Captain Saken in order to correct the shortcomings identified during the tests of Lieutenant Ilyin. The cylinders of medium and low pressure were provided with shirts, and the coal pits were equipped with pipes for measuring the temperature of the coal. Steam lifters were removed to remove ash and slag from the furnaces. As a result of all the alterations, the displacement of the ship in full load turned out to be a quarter heavier than the design one.

Armament was limited to six 47mm and four 37mm guns. After identifying a large overload, they decided not to install rotary mine vehicles. Of the five mine vehicles, two onboard proved to be very inconvenient for loading and were subsequently removed.

Repeatedly resumed sea trials showed that the power of the mechanisms at 223 rpm did not exceed 2341 hp. Instead of the expected 21-knot speed, the ship squeezed out only 18.3 knots.

Service History

Despite the shortcomings of the ship, the Black Sea Fleet, which had not received a single cruiser until the end of the 19th century, used the Captain Saken as a messenger and reconnaissance ship.

On August 25, 1899, radio communication between warships was established in Sevastopol for the first time in world history. Transceivers were placed on the battleships "George the Victorious" and "Three Saints", and the transmitter was placed on the mine cruiser "Captain Saken".

During the Sevastopol uprising of 1905, the mine cruiser remained under the command of Vice Admiral Chukhnin and, together with the government squadron, fired at the rebel ships.

April 8, 1907 renamed the port ship Bombory. Never took part in hostilities. Excluded from the lists on December 22, 1909.

commanders

1893-хххх - captain of the 2nd rank Danilevsky, Mikhail Alexandrovich
1895-xxxx - captain of the 2nd rank Rogul, Evgeny Petrovich
1898-1899 - captain of the 2nd rank Brusilov, Lev Alekseevich
1905-хххх - captain of the 2nd rank Akimov, Sergey Nikolaevich
1906-xxxx - captain of the 2nd rank Shelting, Vladimir Vladimirovich
1911-xxxx - adjutant wing captain 2nd rank Pogulyaev, Sergey Sergeevich
captain 2nd rank Makalinsky, Alexey Alexandrovich
1920 - captain of the 2nd rank Ostolopov, Alexei Alekseevich

Served on a ship

Vishnevsky, Iliodor Petrovich - in 1892 he was appointed senior ship mechanic.

Sources



Type "Lieutenant Ilyin"

Type "Kazarskiy"

Type "Abrek"

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An excerpt characterizing Captain Saken (mine cruiser)

The princess said nothing, and suddenly her short, mustache-lined sponge trembled; Prince Andrei, standing up and shrugging his shoulders, walked across the room.
Pierre, surprised and naive, looked through his glasses first at him, then at the princess, and stirred, as if he, too, wanted to get up, but again pondered.
“What does it matter to me that Monsieur Pierre is here,” the little princess suddenly said, and her pretty face suddenly broke into a tearful grimace. “I wanted to tell you for a long time, Andre: why have you changed so much towards me?” What did I do to you? You're going to the army, you don't feel sorry for me. For what?
– Lise! - only said Prince Andrei; but in this word there was both a request, and a threat, and, most importantly, an assurance that she herself would repent of her words; but she went on hurriedly:
“You treat me like a sick person or a child. I see everything. Were you like this six months ago?
“Lise, I ask you to stop,” Prince Andrei said even more expressively.
Pierre, becoming more and more agitated during this conversation, got up and went up to the princess. He seemed unable to bear the sight of tears and was ready to cry himself.
- Calm down, princess. It seems so to you, because I assure you, I myself experienced ... why ... because ... No, excuse me, the stranger is superfluous here ... No, calm down ... Farewell ...
Prince Andrei stopped him by the hand.
- No, wait, Pierre. The princess is so kind that she does not want to deprive me of the pleasure of spending the evening with you.
“No, he only thinks of himself,” the princess said, unable to hold back her angry tears.
“Lise,” said Prince Andrei dryly, raising his tone to the degree that shows that patience is exhausted.
Suddenly, the angry squirrel expression of the princess's pretty face was replaced by an attractive and compassionate expression of fear; she looked frowningly at her husband with her beautiful eyes, and on her face appeared that timid and confessing expression that a dog has, quickly, but feebly wagging his lowered tail.
- Mon Dieu, mon Dieu! [My God, my God!] - the princess said and, picking up the fold of her dress with one hand, she went up to her husband and kissed him on the forehead.
- Bonsoir, Lise, [Good night, Liza,] - said Prince Andrei, getting up and politely, like a stranger, kissing his hand.

The friends were silent. Neither of them began to speak. Pierre glanced at Prince Andrei, Prince Andrei rubbed his forehead with his small hand.
"Let's go to dinner," he said with a sigh, getting up and heading for the door.
They entered the elegant, newly decorated dining room. Everything, from napkins to silver, faience and crystal, bore that special imprint of novelty that happens in the household of young spouses. In the middle of dinner, Prince Andrei leaned on his elbows and, like a man who has long had something in his heart and suddenly decides to speak out, with an expression of nervous irritation in which Pierre had never seen his friend before, he began to say:
“Never, never marry, my friend; here is my advice to you: do not marry until you tell yourself that you have done everything you could, and until you stop loving the woman you have chosen, until you see her clearly; otherwise you will make a cruel and irreparable mistake. Marry an old man, worthless ... Otherwise, everything that is good and high in you will be lost. Everything is wasted on trifles. Yes Yes Yes! Don't look at me with such surprise. If you expect anything from yourself ahead, then at every step you will feel that everything is over for you, everything is closed, except for the drawing room, where you will stand on the same board with the court lackey and the idiot ... Yes, what! ...
He waved his hand vigorously.
Pierre took off his glasses, which made his face change, showing even more kindness, and looked in surprise at his friend.
“My wife,” continued Prince Andrei, “is a wonderful woman. This is one of those rare women with whom you can be dead for your honor; but, my God, what would I not give now not to be married! This I tell you alone and first, because I love you.
Prince Andrei, saying this, was even less like than before, that Bolkonsky, who was sitting lounging in Anna Pavlovna's armchair and squinting through his teeth, uttering French phrases. His dry face kept trembling with the nervous animation of every muscle; eyes, in which the fire of life had previously seemed extinguished, now shone with a radiant, bright brilliance. It was evident that the more lifeless he seemed at ordinary times, the more energetic he was in those moments of almost painful irritation.
“You don’t understand why I say this,” he continued. “It's a whole life story. You say Bonaparte and his career,” he said, although Pierre did not talk about Bonaparte. – You are talking to Bonaparte; but Bonaparte, when he worked, went step by step towards the goal, he was free, he had nothing but his goal - and he reached it. But bind yourself to a woman, and like a chained convict, you lose all freedom. And everything that is in you of hope and strength, everything only weighs you down and torments you with repentance. Drawing rooms, gossip, balls, vanity, insignificance - this is a vicious circle from which I cannot get out. I'm off to war now the greatest war, which only happened, but I don’t know anything and I’m not good for anything. Je suis tres aimable et tres caustique, [I am very sweet and very eater,] continued Prince Andrei, “and Anna Pavlovna is listening to me. And this stupid society, without which my wife cannot live, and these women ... If only you could know what it is toutes les femmes distinguees [all these women of good society] and women in general! My father is right. Selfishness, vanity, stupidity, insignificance in everything - these are women when everything is shown as they are. You look at them in the light, it seems that there is something, but nothing, nothing, nothing! Yes, don’t marry, my soul, don’t marry, ”Prince Andrei finished.
“It’s funny to me,” said Pierre, “that you yourself, you consider yourself incapable, your life a spoiled life. You have everything, everything is ahead. And you…
He did not say that you were, but his tone already showed how highly he appreciated his friend and how much he expected from him in the future.
"How can he say that!" thought Pierre. Pierre considered Prince Andrei the model of all perfections precisely because Prince Andrei combined to the highest degree all those qualities that Pierre did not have and which can be most closely expressed by the concept of willpower. Pierre was always amazed at Prince Andrei's ability to deal calmly with all kinds of people, his extraordinary memory, erudition (he read everything, knew everything, had an idea about everything), and most of all his ability to work and study. If Pierre was often struck by the lack of the ability of dreamy philosophizing in Andrei (which Pierre was especially prone to), then he saw this not as a flaw, but as a strength.
In the best, friendly, and simple relations, flattery or praise is necessary, as grease is necessary for wheels to keep them moving.

"Captain Saken"


Mine cruiser "Captain Saken" in the South Bay of Sevastopol
basic information
Type of	mine cruiser
flag state	Russia
Home port	Sevastopol
Construction started	9th May
Launched into the water	April 30
Commissioned	1889
Withdrawn from the Navy	December 22
Options
Tonnage	742 t
Length	69.4 m
Width	7.3 m
Draft	3.1 m
Booking	Deck 13 mm
Technical details
Power point	2 vertical triple expansion steam engines, 3 fire tube boilers
screws	2
Power	2341 hp
Speed	18.3 knots.
Crew	7 officers, 120 sailors
Armament
Artillery	6x1x47 mm guns, 4x1x37 mm guns

Repeatedly resumed sea trials showed that the power of the mechanisms at 223 rpm did not exceed 2341 hp. Instead of the expected 21-knot speed, the ship squeezed out only 18.3 knots.

Service History

Despite the shortcomings of the ship, the Black Sea Fleet, which had not received a single cruiser until the end of the 19th century, used the Captain Saken as a messenger and reconnaissance ship.

During the mutiny of 1905, the mine cruiser remained under the command of Vice Admiral Chukhnin.

April 8, 1907 renamed the port ship Bombory. Never took part in hostilities. Excluded from the lists on December 22, 1909.

Sources

[Network resource: flot.sevastopol.info/ship/cruiser/kapitan_saken.htm Mine cruiser "Captain Saken"]
[Network resource: wunderwaffe.narod.ru/Magazine/BKM/mkr_ru/02.htm MYSTERY PROJECT - "CAPTAIN SAKEN"]
[Network resource: korabli.h11.ru/?nomer=154 "Captain Saken"]
[Network resource: www.russianfleet.info/saken.html Picture]

MYSTERY PROJECT - "CAPTAIN SAKEN"

The dubious reforms of that time (naval qualification, the humiliation of engineers), the unrestrained authoritarianism of management, led to the fact that even ships conceived as the same type turned out to be different. So it happened with "Captain Saken". Noble was the idea of naming the ship - in memory of the Black Sea hero of the war with Turkey in 1787-1788. Then, on May 30, 1788, in the Bug estuary, the commander of dubel-boat No. 2 "captain of the 2nd rank R. Saken, cut off from his 11 Turkish ships, having managed to send part of the team on the boat, blew up his ship along with the Turkish boarding it galleys. Timely was the intention to give the resurgent Black Sea Fleet a ship of a new class, a reasonable desire to build ships of the same type. But the conceit and arrogance of the Russian bureaucracy were too great. She did not want to realize the specifics of destroyer shipbuilding. Even then, it was determined by especially strict observance of weight discipline and increased the culture of mine-carrying engineering, which, together with the production of torpedoes, reached the level of precision instrumentation.This level in Russia remained unattainable.It is quite possible to compare it with what the country has achieved in comparison with the world level in the automotive industry today.

Nevertheless, having successfully mastered European household items for a long time, the bureaucracy believed that the specifics of destroyer shipbuilding could not be difficult, and therefore, having undertaken the experience of building its first mine cruiser, it was decided, without waiting for results, to immediately build the second. Nobody dared to advise I.A. Shestakov to change his mind and look around. Representative of the ITC with him in 1883-1886. was the "gray horse" of the bureaucracy, Major General Octavius Peltsig, who was not marked in history, and in 1886-1888. an equally convenient Admiral Oskar Karlovich Kremer (1829-1910). The hero of the sinking in 1868, the best of the Russian frigates "Alexander Nevsky", this indifferent "phlegmatic Finn" to everything, who successfully served time in 1888-1896. also in the position of head of the Main Staff, was the personification of that deep stagnation and paralysis of thought that reigned supreme in the fleet at the time of I.A. Shestakova.

However, before inviting these two employees to the positions, the admiral offered I.F. to become the chairman of the ITC. Likhachev. But he, knowing about the complete silence and lawlessness of this position, designed according to the new order, refused the flattering appointment. And then I.A. Shestakov in August 1883, with a light heart, set in motion the filed by I.F. Likhachev's resignation. The manager did not need an admiral who thought independently and who was rooting for the fleet full of strength, he did not heed (or did not have time, due to his unexpected death on November 21, 1888 in Sevastopol), to heed the arguments of the program work of I.F. Likhachev "Service of the General Staff in the Navy", published by the journal "Russian Shipping" in 1888. Therefore, the established even before I.A. Shestakov vicious order of domestic shipbuilding. About him in the work of I.F. Likhachev (p. 55) said in the following words: “She (the state treasury - P.M.) will read or hear that a cruiser was launched in England, which went on a test of 20 knots, it would be good for us to start at least one of the same. Draw up a draft in the technical committee!"

As a result of continuous redrawings and refinements of the project, which were based on the ideas of English projects that were also redrawn and outdated more than once "according to the model", as I.F. wrote. Likhachev, "some "Ajax", "Worspite" or others, are doubly late. And this lag can be so significant that due to the change in tactical views and requirements, ships built "according to the model" may not only not meet the new requirements, but even completely contradict them. With this intolerable situation, the admiral reminded, in England, when the budget for 1887-1888 was submitted to Parliament, it was proposed to establish a "department of information", or in essence a naval general staff, as the highest scientifically organized world center for planning and mobilizing the fleet and shipbuilding. "Will we, as usual, be left behind?" the admiral asked. After all, it was so important, without waiting for the example of the British, to get ahead of them "by the advantage that more modern organization and a better utilization of one's forces." In this way, it was possible, at least in part, to compensate for the existing and, apparently, the admiral admitted, a long-term lag in technology (p. 57).

Changes, as you know, did not happen and the Moscow State School in Russia in the 19th century. was not created. And "Captain Saken" had to go through all that thorny path of design and construction described by the admiral, which, as it turned out, was especially complicated by the conditions of work in the south of Russia. It remains a big mystery that, having apparently lost interest in the project, I.A. Shestakov assigned the task of reproducing it in Nikolaev to a purely economic institution - the Main Directorate of Shipbuilding and Supply (GUKiS). Having received from the MTK a project in its most general form, it would later decide its fate. This is how the wounded I.A. Shestakov's even more bureaucratic "order" than before. In the famous two-volume review of the activities of the maritime administration in Russia in the first twenty years of the prosperous reign of the Emperor Alexander Nikolayevich 1855-1880 "(Privy Councilor K.A. Mann, St. Petersburg, 1880, part 2, p. 907, 984), it was sadly noted, that in the past reign "in all departments and offices there was the most complex and intricate workflow", that "estimates, in accounting and reporting there was confusion and ambiguity, partly due to the system itself, partly due to misunderstanding of the matter, negligence or routine", that " secrecy was observed in office work", because of which "information was considered a state secret, which, on the contrary, should be disclosed for the benefit of the service" (p. 908).

Far from all cases, it was possible to figure out how much harm and delays in the construction of the ship were brought in by the multiple authorities in charge of it: the emperor, the admiral general, the manager, the MTK, the GUKiS, the port authorities, the shipyard authorities. In the Black Sea, the influence was added, which had largely autonomous power in the theater, the Chief Commander of the Fleet and Ports. To all these factors that influenced the fate of the project, its special insecurity was added, caused by the long absence of the manager I.A. Shestakov, who went on an inspection trip to the Far East. On the same ship, the admiral sailed to San Francisco and only by the fall through America arrived in the Black Sea.

Did he himself manage to give instructions before leaving on the alteration of the project of the second mine cruiser, was it done by him during the trip, or did the head of the General Staff N.M., who replaced him, take the initiative? Chikhachev (1830-1917) and Chief Commander of the Fleet and Ports of the Black and Caspian Seas (in 1882-1890) Vice Admiral A.A. Peshchurov (7-1891), but significant uncertainty was introduced into the project. The initiative could also come from the Baltic Plant in 1883 - it reached an important milestone in ship engineering - the machines manufactured by the plant for the cruiser "Vladimir Monomakh" allowed it, however, to reach 17-knot speed with incomplete pa-loading. This triumph of the plant was evidenced by the picture that M.I. Kazi then presented MTK. On it, the cruiser is depicted with a flag signal about this speed raised on September 30, 1883, in response to a question with the imperial yacht "Derzhava" escorted by the cruiser (on the way from Copenhagen).

The plant was justly proud of the success achieved, but one cannot help but recall that the same 17-knot speed in the USA was achieved on steam-powered cruisers of the Wampanoa type in 1864. And the same Vladimir Monomakh in full load had to be content with a more modest speed 15.4 knots. The plant, however, avoided the scandalous failure that befell Byrd's plant, which had previously had a high reputation. His machines installed on the battleship "Peter the Great" had to be replaced by sending the ship in 1881 to England. Having paid almost a million rubles and leaving Byrd's cars to the British, during the tests of 1882 in England, instead of the previous 10 knots, the speed was increased to 14.26 knots. But other people's lessons are learned poorly and M.I. Kazi - whether on his own initiative or at the suggestion of I.A. Shestakova - in 1884, forgetting about the specifics of the destroyer shipbuilding, she undertakes more than dubious "economic" experience. On the new destroyer "Kotlin" built by the plant, the plant fitted (on two shafts) two machines (of the same Byrd plant!), Taken from the destroyers of 1877-1878. Thrush and Canary. As explained by M.I. Kazi, wanted "by experience to determine to what extent it is possible to use at least part of the capital spent in 1877-1878 on the construction of 100 destroyers", which, by his own admission, were now recognized as "almost unsuitable" for combat purposes. As expected, the "old shattered machines", as a result of long and painful tests, made it possible to develop only 15 knots of speed, which was hopelessly far from 18-20 knots, achieved by foreign-built destroyers.

And now, with the same light-hearted approach to the problem, a new experiment was being undertaken. It began with a request addressed on March 27, 1886 to the MTK.

GUKiS regarding a set of drawings and specifications for the mine cruiser "Lieutenant Ilyin". Developed by the plant, they, in accordance with the new procedure, entered the GUKiS, which accompanied them for consideration by the ITC. A conclusion was expected from the MTK on whether it was possible to give the Baltic Shipyard an order for the construction of a mine cruiser according to these drawings and at the same time forward these drawings and specifications in copies to the Chief Commander of the Fleet and the ports of the Black and Caspian Seas for guidance during the construction of the mine cruiser "Captain Saken" in Nikolaev .

The ship was added to the lists on January 18, 1886, slightly behind the "Lieutenant Ilyin" (October 15, 1885) and, obviously, it was supposed to be completely of the same type with it. But the expected uniformity did not work. Some intrigue intervened in the matter, in which, as it should be understood, the interests of the MTK, the GUKiS, the Baltic Plant, the Chief Commander, I. A. Shestakov, and even, perhaps, the Emperor himself clashed. The chief commander, by virtue of the authority given to him, could himself, following the project, order cars abroad, but M.I. Kazi expressed his readiness to manufacture and install on a new ship in Nikolaev a set of mechanisms according to the English model within 14-16 months by the forces of his plant. The proposal in GUKiS was apparently considered economical and the ship's design began to be redone. Without changing the contours of the hull and only having provided it with an even more menacing-looking ram-rod, they began to redraw the internal layout to accommodate the Baltic Plant machine and cylindrical-type fire-tube boilers instead of locomotive ones.

This replacement is one of the mysteries surrounding the ship. Hawthorne, Leslie & Co. continued to enjoy a high reputation, and ordering her new machines with the Belleville water-tube boilers already in use could (having stipulated contractual requirements accordingly) provide the ship with the coveted 22-knot speed. But the path was chosen much more tortuous and inexplicable. The locomotive boilers were replaced with water-tube and fire-tube boilers. The replacement, apparently, did not take place immediately, and only on January 21, 1887, when it turned out that the new boilers were 25.5 tons heavier, attempts were made to unload the stern from the superstructures. MTK magazine No. 12 decided to eliminate them, and lower the entire board by 3 feet, that is, by almost 1 meter.

These changes, as usual, were followed by new ones. The ship seems to have been redesigned, both in Nikolaev and in St. Petersburg. The Baltic Shipyard developed designs and arrangements of machines and boilers in accordance with its own vision of the project, the Chief Commander proposed his own improvements, in the form of a particularly threatening form of a ram stem, the MTK occasionally approved the solutions he liked.

The position of captain R.Yu., appointed as the builder of the Black Sea mine cruiser, was unenviable. Tirshtein (1841-?). Being a "local" ship engineer (from January 1886 in the position of a junior builder in the port of Nikolaev), he, contrary to the prevailing customs of shipbuilding, was not the author of the project and had to master it in the course of work. By virtue of the same customs, he was assigned the duties of the then combined chief builder and chief technologist. In these conditions, with a multitude of commanding authorities over him and unceremoniously disposing of the commanding authorities, he could not be the master of the project with full conviction. Equally difficult was his position as a builder.

The conditions for the construction of the ship in the Nikolaev Admiralty were strikingly different from those in which Lieutenant Ilyin was built at the private Baltic Shipyard. The patriarchal picture of the economy with chaotically scattered buildings, half of which was occupied by long-dead, but carefully, like Plyushkin, preserved old ship's rubbish, the predominant use of manual labor, was displayed by a study published in 1909. "Shipbuilding and shipyards in Russia and abroad". In it, the authors paid tribute to the fact that in these almost rural conditions, the shipyard still managed to keep the ship on the stocks for 2 years or even less, to cope with the construction of the ship in a five-year period. To complete the picture, it remains to add also the constant turnover of the labor force due to seasonal fluctuations in agriculture south of Russia, and, accordingly, its insufficient qualifications.

The unusual fate of the ship, barely begun by the construction, was manifested both in its accelerated laying, and in close connection with the construction of six large seaworthy gunboats that began on the Black Sea on an emergency assignment from the emperor.

This decision testified that when comparing two similar-sized ships of different classes, the choice was made in favor of undoubtedly more versatile and artillery powerful ships long-distance navigation. This meant the rejection of the recent destroying euphoria. Accordingly, the attitude towards the type of mine cruiser should have changed. The new ships were mixed type artillery and mine boats, which, with a displacement increased to 1200 tons, had reinforced artillery armament of two 8-inch and one 6-inch guns (not counting small ones), light (10-mm) deck armor and two mine vehicles. It was expected (although the contracts were not fulfilled) that the speed could be up to 15 knots. It was decided to build such boats (at the beginning 900-tons of the Sivuch type) in the Black Sea under the influence of "misunderstandings on the Afghan issue" in relations with England. Convened in the spring of 1885 by the highest command, a commission chaired by the Commander of the Odessa Military District decided that for a successful defense Black Sea coast in case of an invasion by the English fleet, it is necessary to urgently build six gunboats, and in addition six destroyers of the Poti type and 20 steam barges. These "overweight" ships, due to the weakening of tension, soon somehow imperceptibly disappeared.

The construction of canboats proceeded at an unprecedented pace in the Admiralty, already on November 22, 1885, the supposed builder of three Nikolaev boats (three more were to be built in Sevastopol) captain R.Yu. Tirshtein (1841-?) submitted to the authorities a statement of the steel order for these ships, and the preparation of slipways began.

At the same time, having the hull drawings ready and having placed an order for materials, work began on the Captain Saken. But very soon it turned out that the gunboats, by virtue of their status as an imperial order, were given an advantage over the Saken in everything. Apparently, the cooling of I.A. Shestakov to destroyers, his absence from the capital due to a business trip to the Far East and, of course, "savings". Otherwise, one cannot explain the fact that instead of its own mortgage board, as was the case at the Baltic Shipyard at Lieutenant Ilyin, Captain Saken was included in the general text of a single (unprecedented case in the Russian fleet!) Board, made for three boats of the Nikolaev Admiralty . The mine cruiser was "pulled" to the gunboats. Strictly speaking, this was a very sensible step by the treasury, which could now prepare one instead of four name plaques for the honorary participants in the laying ceremony. But the mine cruiser, due to the uniqueness of its type and separation from gunboats (in Sevastopol they also made a single board for three ships), was still entitled to rely on its own board.

Preserved in the TsVMM in St. Petersburg, two mortgage boards measuring 12.4x7.2 cm are made of silver and have an engraved inscription on the front side: Kanonerskaya 3 push. 2 screw. boats in 1500 ind. forces "Zaporozhets", "Donets", "Chernomorets" and Mine Cruiser "Kapitan Sa-ken" in 3500 ind. With. It was laid down in the Nikolaev Admiralty on May 9, 1886, in the presence of Their Imperial Majesties, the Sovereign Emperor, the Empress Empress. "On the reverse side it read:" Chief Commander of the Fleet and Ports of the Black and Caspian Seas Vice Admiral A.A. Peshchurov, Captain over the Nikolaev port, Rear Admiral V.I. Popov, Boat Builder: Ship. Eng. Headquarters-Capitan Berg, Mine Cruiser Builder: Ship. Eng. Captain Tirshtein.

The documents of the RGA of the Navy say that "for cutting on both sides of the inscriptions on 19 silver and 5 copper plates" the engraver M. Efimov presented an invoice for 84 rubles. silver. For cutting 12 silver boards on both sides, the seal cutter A. Zishman was to receive 36 rubles. Another 36 rubles. cost 6 cases pasted over with velvet and 24 rubles. - 24 locks to them. Following the royal family, your souvenir in memory of the laying on May 10 (as it was said in cover letter) was also received by Vice Admiral N.M., temporarily managing director of the Naval Ministry. Chikhachev (1830-1917).

The laying of the “Captain Saken”, fastened to the laying of gunboats to please the emperor, turned out to be the only event connecting them. ships) - gunboats and a mine cruiser dispersed on their predetermined problems.Overshadowed by the status of the imperial order and generously provided with foreign supplies, under the watchful eye of the authorities of all ranks, the gunboats began to move rapidly in their readiness.

Having begun construction in March-April 1886, by the end of May, soundly cast stems delivered from Germany began to be attached to the structures of the bottom and sides that had grown on stocks on gunboats. But the mechanisms for boats made in England turned out to be of poor quality.

More than a dozen outfits had to be made at the request of the representative of the Napier Kledgoria factory, who recognized the marriage of his compatriots. flaws English work mooring tests were also delayed, when after checking the ejectors and cleaning the fire tubes, it was necessary to dismantle the pipelines that found cracks.

Insufficient quality of work also manifested itself at the "Captain Sakeie", where the builder had to achieve the elimination of flaws made by the artisans even more often and with even greater expenditure of time and energy. Many had to be redone and corrected already upon delivery of the ship. This whole situation created particular difficulties for the Baltic Shipyard, which made the first experience of great work in complete isolation from its production base, which turned out to be a thousand miles away. Due to the abundance of adverse factors, on the days when the boats began their sea trials (or rather, checks for power) "Captain Saken" was just being prepared for descent. It took place on April 30, 1889.

By this time, the ship had completed the painful process of redesigning with the integration of new machines and boilers manufactured by the Baltic Shipyard into the former hull and at the same time redesigning the external appearance. After repeated changes in the stern, cuttings for officers and separately for the commander were established instead of the finished superstructure. The tank superstructure was replaced with a streamlined sloping roof above the deck, following the example of the first destroyers. Only in November 1887, the MTK magazine No. 162 approved the location of the officers' quarters. This was the last of the ITC's journal resolutions on the project. All other questions on the proposals of the builder and M.I. Kazi were resolved on the spot by the authority of the Chief Commander. In particular, they corrected the miscalculations of the Lieutenant Ilyin project. The cylinders of medium and low pressure were provided with shirts, and the coal pits were equipped with pipes for measuring the temperature of the coal. Abandoned little effective steam lifts to remove ash and slag from furnaces.

Armament was limited to six 47 mm, four 37 mm guns. Of the five mine vehicles, two are airborne. turned out to be very inconvenient for loading and had to be removed by 1900. They did not dare to install rotary devices when a large overload was discovered. As a result of the outfitting work, which lasted the whole of 1888 and captured (due to the delay in materials and products for mechanisms) as early as 1889, the displacement of the ship in full load reached 742 tons. min, did not exceed 2341 hp. Instead of the expected 21-knot speed, only 18.3 knots had to be content. These results can be explained by some significant miscalculations of the Baltic Shipyard in the design and manufacture of machines and boilers, as well as by the overload that occurred against the design displacement of 525-600 tons.

Apparently, a mistake was repeated that had already been made in the manufacture of boilers for the Lieutenant Ilyin. Therefore, the lengthening of the chimneys did not bring results either. Only a special historical and technical study can help to fully elucidate the truth, but it is difficult to imagine that now someone could take on this work. So far, one has only to guess which of the information found in the literature can be recognized as corresponding to reality. The choice for today remains extensive.

In the publication "Military fleets and a marine reference book for 1892" (VKAM, St. Petersburg, 1892). Behind the "Captain Saken" was the power of the mechanisms 3400 hp. and speed 17 knots. But in the editions of the Ship's List for 1898 and 1904 they returned to the original figures: 2341 hp. and 18.3 knots. In the secret appendix to the "List" of 1901, they were not present, but the speed "on the last voyage" in 1901 was indicated only 14.3 knots. The total supply of coal was 143 tons, cruising range 10 knots at a speed of 1580 miles. The given speed characteristics and their obvious discord are another mystery of "Captain Saken". It is natural to want to compare the quality of the ship's machines with the British machines, which turned out to be not entirely impeccable, but nevertheless confirmed their contractual capacities, gunboats being built simultaneously with the Saken.

But it was not customary to ask such questions at that time. The authors of the "Report on the Naval Department 1884-1890" also diplomatically circumvented it. (St. Petersburg, 1891), which for the mine cruisers "Lieutenant Ilyin" and "Captain Saken" resulted in a speed of 18.29 knots, and for the later built in Germany "Kazarsky" - 21.05 knots. The cost of building these ships (with weapons) is also indicative: the first is 1,079,793 rubles, the second is 1,045,720 rubles. and the third only 488,230 rubles. There is no answer to these anomalies either in the Collection of Brief Information on the Naval Department (1908), or in modern history Baltic plant. It was also very reserved about mine cruisers in the special work of Lieutenant M.A. Beklemishev (1858-?) "Special mine vessels" (St. Petersburg, 1898), there was no mention of any of their merits.

There was no place in the remarkable completeness of the information given in the book of tables "Types of destroyers". It has yet to be supplemented with the same information about mine cruisers as a result of archival "excavations". But the result, alas, can be summed up today. The author of the book, who graduated from the mine class in 1886 and from the Naval Academy in 1890, with all his indisputable mine enthusiasm, obviously could not recognize these ships as the flagships of the domestic mine fleet. By verdict creative activity Admiral I.A. Shestakov, who, among his other deeds, managed to discredit the idea of a domestic mine cruiser, remains in history the lieutenant's confession that both ships are "similar in size, only the Captain Saken cruiser came out heavy, overloaded more than Lieutenant Ilyin" and has move 17 knots, while "Lieutenant Ilyin" goes up to 19".

But the fleet in the Black Sea, until the end of the XIX century. who did not receive a single cruiser, found in the "Captain Saken" a completely suitable assignment - to play the role of a messenger and reconnaissance ship with the squadron.

Black Sea Fleet. The builder is Captain Robert Yulievich Tirshtein. Built in Nikolaev. Enrolled on the lists on January 18, 1886. Laid down May 9, 1886. Launched on April 30, 1889, commissioned in 1889.

Named after the captain of the 2nd rank Johann-Reingold von Osten-Sacken, whose dubel-boat on May 20, 1788 was attacked by a Turkish squadron of 30 ships. Not wanting to surrender to the enemy, Saken blew up his ship along with the Turkish galleys that boarded it.

It was assumed that the second mine cruiser would be completely the same type as Lieutenant Ilyin, laid down three months earlier. However, the Baltic Shipyard, having working drawings of the mechanisms of the Lieutenant Ilyin cruiser, undertook to manufacture the same installation on its own within 14-16 months and install it on the Captain Saken in Nikolaev. The proposal was considered profitable, and the design of the ship was redone. Without changing the contours of the hull (but having provided it with an even more menacing-looking ram-rod), the interior rooms were reconfigured to accommodate the machine and cylindrical-type fire-tube boilers instead of locomotive ones.

The replacement of locomotive boilers with fire tube boilers did not occur immediately. On January 21, 1887, it turned out that the new boilers were 25.5 tons heavier than required, as a result of which the magazine MTK No. 12 ordered to remove the aft superstructures and lower the entire board by almost 1 meter.

Proposals to change the project continued to come independently from the Chief Commander of the Nikolaev port and from the directorate of the Baltic Shipyard. The ITC approved some of them. As a result, R. Yu. Tirshtein could not exercise proper control over the implementation of the project.

In parallel with the construction of the “Captain Saken”, three gunboats (“Zaporozhets”, “Donets”, “Chernomorets”) were built in Nikolaev, the builder of which was initially appointed by the same R. Yu. Tirshtein (later he was replaced by Captain Berg). Due to the imperial status of this order, gunboats were given preference in everything. As a result, "Captain Saken" did not even receive its own mortgage board, but was included in the general text of a single (unprecedented case in the Russian fleet) board, made for three boats being built in Nikolaev. The construction of the mine cruiser was delayed, and by the time it was launched, the gunboats were already beginning sea trials.

Repeatedly resumed sea trials showed that the power of the mechanisms at 223 rpm did not exceed 2341 hp. With. Instead of the expected 21-knot speed, the ship squeezed out only 18.3 knots.

Despite the shortcomings of the ship, the Black Sea Fleet, which had not received a single cruiser until the end of the 19th century, used the Captain Saken as a messenger and reconnaissance ship.

During the Sevastopol uprising of 1905, the mine cruiser remained under the command of Vice Admiral Chukhnin and, together with the government squadron, fired at the rebel ships.

April 8, 1907 renamed the port ship Bombory. Never took part in hostilities. Excluded from the lists on December 22, 1909.