"General-Admiral Apraksin" was laid down at the New Admiralty plant in St. Petersburg on May 20, 1895 (work began on October 12, 1892), launched on April 30, 1896 and entered service in 1899.
"General-Admiral Apraksin" was laid down at the New Admiralty plant in St. Petersburg on May 20, 1895 (work began on October 12, 1892), launched on April 30, 1896 and entered service in 1899.
Brief evaluation of the project
Battleships of this type were intended to counter the Swedish battleships in the Baltic. Due to the construction overload on Apraksin, the thickness of the belt and bow beam was reduced and the horm tower was made single-gun with an increase in the elevation angle of the guns from 15 to 35 degrees
Due to poor dressing, the 254-mm guns could not fire at full charge, which reduced the firing range
Displacement:
design 4125 tons
normal actual 4152 tons.
Dimensions: 86.4 / 84.8 / 81.9 x 15.9 x 5.2 (5.7-6.1).
Mechanisms: 4 cylindrical boilers, 2 GTR shafts, 4250 liters. with. \u003d 16 knots / on tests: 5763 hp \u003d 15.1 knots.
Coal stock: 7214/400 tons; range: 3400 (9 knots) with 550 tons of coal.
Armor (Harvey):
belt along VL (53 x 2.13) -203-254 (127) -203, bow traverse - 203,
stern - 152,
towers - 178,
barbets - 152,
felling - 178,
GP - 25 (above the belt) - 51 (at the extremities).
Armament:
3 (1x2) -254/45;
2 - 64/19 (landing),
4 surface 381-MM TA.
Crew: 18/ 400
Design and construction of coastal defense battleships of the "Admiral Ushakov" type
The rapid development of foreign fleets (primarily German) forced by 1890 to revise the Russian 20-year shipbuilding program (1883-1902). Plan for strengthening the Baltic Fleet for 1891-1895. provided for, among other things, the construction of armored ships with a shallow draft and strong artillery weapons, intended for operations in inland seas and coastal defense.
Simultaneously with the development of the project, attempts were made to obtain information about foreign "the latest coastal battleships and gunboats." From the end of 1889 to June 1891, the MTC, under the leadership of the senior shipbuilder E. E. Gulyaev, consistently drafted draft designs of armored ships with a displacement of 3850 to 5500 tons. Comparing them with foreign ones, E. E. Gulyaev came to the conclusion that "when With the same depth and displacement, we can design and build a much better protected battleship." Already after the approval in June 1891 of the draft design of a two-tower battleship for the Baltic Sea (displacement 4100 tons), it became necessary to increase the speed by 1 knot due to the weakening of the armor ("due to the progress of the German battleships 16 knots"), as well as the installation of new rapid-fire 152-mm guns.
Work on the first armored ship (from February 1892 - coastal defense battleships) began on June 16, on the second on July 20, 1892, on the third on October 12, 1894. The ceremonial laying of the ships that received the names of the famous Russian naval commanders "Admiral Ushakov" ( Baltiysky Zavod), "Admiral Senyavin" and "General-Admiral Apraksin" (New Admiralty), took place on October 22, 1892, April 8, 1893 and May 20, 1895, respectively (project displacement 4126 tons, maximum length 86.4, width 15.9, draft with normal fuel supply 5.2 m, speed 16 knots with indicated power of mechanisms 4250 hp, normal fuel supply 214, total 400 tons).The project provided for the installation of four 229-mm guns (barrel length 35 calibers) in two towers, four 152-mm rapid-fire Kane, six 47-mm single-barreled, eight 37-mm five-barreled Hotchkiss and two 64-mm Baranovsky landing ships.The first two ships of the Admiral Senyavin type, as they were called in documents of those years, it was planned to introduce three in the campaign of 1894. Taking into account the insufficient production capacity for the production of ship engines at the Baltic and Franco-Russian plants, as well as their heavy workload, the Naval Ministry ordered the main mechanisms for them in England. Contracts with Humphreys Tenant and Models (March 13 and July 20, 1892, respectively) provided for the manufacture and installation of the Admiral Senyavin and Admiral Ushakov machine and boiler plants by the summer of 1894. In addition to two triple expansion steam engines (total indicated power 5 thousand hp) and four fire-tube boilers (steam pressure 9 atm) each machine-boiler plant included desalination refrigerators, evaporators, etc.; three-bladed propellers (diameter 4 m) with removable blades were installed. The firms gave a two-year guarantee for the main mechanisms, provided that during this period the supervising engineer of the firm sailed on each of the battleships. In December 1893, the leadership of the Franco-Russian Plant asked for an order for the manufacture of mechanisms for the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin. Domestic ship engineering needed support, so the Naval Ministry agreed to conclude a contract (June 20, 1894), despite the fact that the cost of such mechanisms was a third higher than English ones. In the midst of the construction of battleships, the first domestic experimental pool began to operate (spring 1894); Eight variants of ship hull models of this type were tested, and one of them provided a speed of 0.5 knots more than the design one.
On October 27, 1893, the Admiral Ushakov was launched, and on August 10, 1894, the Admiral Senyavin was launched. Their construction coincided with the adoption of a new type of guns by the Russian fleet, which differed from the previous ones in a longer barrel length, and hence, in the muzzle velocity of the projectile. In addition, the introduction of 10-inch (254 mm) guns instead of 9-inch (229 mm) guns is also explained by the desire to have a more uniform (203, 254, 305 mm) instead of the previous range of calibers for the convenience of choosing an artillery caliber when designing ships, The Military Department adopted similar guns for coastal batteries, with which the new battleships were to interact. The decision to arm 254-mm guns with a length of 45 calibers instead of those provided for by the project became almost main reason significant overload of battleships and delays in commissioning (after 5 years from the start of work). The first eight guns ordered by the Obukhov plant for the "Admiral Ushakov" and "Admiral Senyavin" were accepted into mass production without testing prototypes. Trials in 1895-1896 at the Okhta sea range, they showed that a decrease in the mass of the gun affected its strength; it was necessary to limit the charge, and consequently, the firing range.
Back in 1892, a competition was held for the best design of a turret for two 254-mm guns; both Russian factories and a number of foreign firms (Metallichesky, Putilovsky, Armstrong, Whitworth, Kail, Batignolles, Canet) participated in it. Whitworth and the Putilov plant won, but the management of the latter asked for a lower price for every two installations (310 thousand rubles each), which decided the outcome of the case. On the first two battleships, the gun mounts were hydraulically driven, on the General-Admiral Apraksin, for the first time in the Russian fleet, they were electrically driven; in addition, they had a greater elevation angle of the guns (35 ° versus 15 on the first two), which increased the firing range from 60 to 73 cables and allowed a rate of fire of 1 shot in one and a half minutes. The use of electrically driven turrets was undoubtedly a progressive step in the domestic shipbuilding of that time, even though the mass of each rig increased from 144 to 255 tons for various reasons, and the cost by 20%.
The armor of the first two battleships basically corresponded to the project. The armor belt was 53 mm long along the waterline, 2.1 high (with immersion in water by 1.2 m) and had a thickness of 254 mm throughout the engine and boiler rooms with thinning to the lower edge up to 127; towards the bow and stern, the thickness of the plates also decreased (203 mm). To protect against longitudinal fire, the bow (203) and stern (152) traverses were placed at the ends of the armor belt, from which a carapace deck (50 mm) went to the ends. An armored deck (25 mm) was located on top of the belt armor, on which armored 65-mm glacises 0.76 m high were installed around the engine hatch. Due to a change in the design shape of the main caliber towers in 1894, their vertical armor was reduced from 203 ) to 178 mm, leaving the thickness of the armor of the projectile feed pipes (152) and the conning tower (178) the same. Long before the first two battleships were tested, it became obvious that in their final form they would have a significant overload. To avoid this, on the third ship it was decided to reduce the thickness of the armor belt and bow traverse by one and a half inches (38 mm), ordering them "garveyed", and make the aft turret single-gun.
The main mechanisms delivered from England in the fall of 1893 were installed on ships in the summer of 1894, but the battleships were not ready for testing, so the mechanisms were partially dismantled and mothballed on winter time what the contract stipulated. Tests of mechanisms on the "Admiral Ushakov" began in navigation in 1895 without armament and armor, and the required draft was provided by filling with water part of the double-bottom and side compartments. After increasing the pitch of the screws in the dock (their selection by experience was a common thing at that time), on October 27, 1895, the ship entered the official 11.5-hour trials; with a displacement of 4020 tons, the indicated power of the machines is 5769 liters. with. he showed a full speed of 16.1 knots.
Service of coastal defense battleships of the type "Admiral Ushakov"
November 12, 1899 "General-Admiral Apraksin" left Kronstadt for the winter in Libau and at 3 o'clock in the morning, in a strong snowstorm, jumped out onto the stones at the southern tip of about. Gogland. The largest hole with an area of about 28 m2 was in the bottom (12-23 sp.), Water gushed through it into the bow compartments. Soon, due to insufficient tightness of the main bulkhead (24 sp.), As well as the pastille of the second bottom, the bow boiler room was also flooded. In December, the wrecked ship was trapped in ice, and only the Yermak icebreaker supported communication with it. The first practical application of the invention of A. A. Popov, radio communications, is also connected with the work to save the armadillo. Information about the position of the ship from about. Gogland were transmitted by radio to the nearest (43 km) telegraph station and then further. Numerous proposals, sometimes fantastic, about the removal of the battleship were published in the newspapers. In the end, the following plan matured: to drill holes in the stone and lay dynamite cartridges in them. Drilling a granite monolith using a diamond drill mounted on interconnected rods overall length 23 m, and hand-rotating machines installed on the ice, it turned out to be a very difficult task. In 10 hours, it was possible to make one hole 50 cm deep, into which the diver then placed dynamite. Only after the successful completion of the demolition work on April 11, 1900, Yermak managed to remove the battleship from the stones.
During the Russo-Japanese War, all three battleships became part of the detachment of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov, heading to reinforce the 2nd Pacific Squadron, which was already on its way. In Libava, the ships were docked, among other things, work was done on the installation of Barr and Stroud rangefinders, optical sights, and radio telegraphs. On February 2, 1905, the squadron, with the help of the Yermak icebreaker, entered the outer roadstead.
The campaign became a serious test not only for the crews, but also for the battleships themselves, built for the Inland Seas; in fresh weather in the ocean, they began to bury their noses, taking the wave to the bow tower; when following the wave, the speed dropped to 1-3 knots. In the stormy Bay of Biscay, the list reached 28 °, on the "General-Admiral Apraksin" the rivets and side seams began to leak water, water accumulated in the living quarters of the officers and crew. The transition in the tropics for ships unsuitable for long voyages in such a climate became incredibly difficult. Coal, taken in excess of any norm, filled up all the free premises up to the officers. Only in this way was it possible to increase the fuel supply to 550 tons, thanks to which the cruising range reached 3400 miles with an 8-9-knot course (consumption of 30 tons per day). As a result of the overload, the armor belt was completely under water, displacement, for example. "Admiral Senyavin" exceeded 5400 tons.
On April 26, 1905, after 83 days of a difficult journey, the detachment of Rear Admiral N.I. Nebogatov joined the 2nd Pacific Squadron at Van Phong Bay (now Vietnam). Almost immediately, the pipes of the arriving ships, modeled on the 2nd Pacific Squadron of Vice Admiral 3. P. Rozhdestvensky, were repainted from black to yellow(with black borders at the top), and the masts are in light ball.
All three battleships participated in Tsushima battle May 14-15, 1905 As a result of the damage received in the daytime battle, the Admiral Ushakov lagged behind the squadron, and its commander, Captain 1st Rank V.N. Miklukha-Maclay (brother of the famous explorer of New Guinea) decided to independently break through to Vladivostok. The next day, the Japanese cruisers "Iwate" and "Yakumo" overtook the battleship, which, after an unequal 30-minute battle, received heavy damage; the commander rejected the offer to surrender and perished along with the ship. The remnants of the 2nd Pacific squadron under the command of Rear Admiral N.I. Nebogatov, surrounded on May 15 by superior enemy forces near about. Even the years were forced to surrender. Renamed "Okinoshima" "General-Admiral Apraksin" was used as a training ship for ten years, and then a blockship (excluded from the lists of the Japanese fleet in 1926), outlived his "Mishima" - the former "Admiral Senyavin" for two years.
Such is the sad fate of these battleships, as well as many other ships - participants in the Russian-Japanese war. The intermediate shipbuilding program of 1895 (for the period 1896-1902) provided for the construction of four more coastal defense battleships. However, the operational-tactical views of the leadership on the use of the Russian fleet have changed, as a result of which they decided to build only one such ship. In December 1899, a draft design of a battleship with a displacement of 5300 tons was approved, and in September of the following year, even an order was given to start its construction, but soon after the laying out on the plaza, work stopped and was no longer resumed. Coastal defense battleships did not receive further development in the Russian fleet.
The appearance in the Russian fleet of the battleship "General-Admiral Apraksin", which became widely known due to the extraordinary circumstances of its rescue in the harsh winter of 1899/1900, became possible as a result of curious transformations of the five-year (1891 - 1895) plan for enhanced shipbuilding.
The original version of this plan, known in the literature as the interim program of 1890, was presented by Admiral N.M. Chikhachev and approved by Emperor Alexander III on November 24 of this year. It provided for the construction of 10 armored cruisers. However, as early as next year, the increase in the size and cost of ocean-going armored ships led the very author of the program, N.M. Chikhachev, to the idea of replacing some of them with “small” armored ships, or “coastal battleships”.
In 1892, at the expense of the allocated appropriations, along with ships of the Poltava and Sisoy Veliky types, the battleships Admiral Senyavin and Admiral Ushakov were laid in St. Petersburg with a normal displacement of only 4126 tons according to the project. At the end of 1893 , when the actual dimensions and cost of all the ships of the program became clear, and it became clear that limited opportunities The port of St. Petersburg does not allow it to be completed in a timely manner, Admiral N.M. Chikhachev, abandoning the already ordered battleship of the Sisoi Veliky type and the cruiser of the Rurik type, decided to build a third coastal defense battleship of the Admiral Senyavin type. Probably, the energetic manager of the Naval Ministry secured the oral consent of the tsar and the admiral general. It is possible that such a free execution of the highest plans of 1890 did not have scandalous consequences only due to the change of government in 1894, when the place of the deceased in Bose Alexander III interceded by his son - Nicholas II. Battleships of the "Admiral Senyavin" type were designed in 1889-1891 at the Marine Technical Committee (MTK) under the guidance of the famous shipbuilder E.E. Gulyaev. During the construction of the first two ships on the stocks (1892-1894), practical drawings were drawn up by the senior shipbuilder P.P. Mikhailov (the builder of Senyavin) and the senior assistant shipbuilder D.V. Skvortsov (overseeing the construction of Ushakov), while significant changes were made to the original project. Therefore, Mikhailov and Skvortsov can be considered Gulyaev's "co-authors" in the design of ships. The English firms Models, Sons and Field and Humphreys Tennant and Co. (suppliers of the main mechanisms for Ushakov and Senyavin), MTK gunners, mainly S.O. Makarov and A .F. Brink (selection and design of large guns), as well as the Putilov Plant - a supplier of hydraulically driven turrets. As a result, both in terms of the composition of weapons, and in terms of appearance battleships differed significantly from the original project, and in terms of the design of the main machines (and the height of the chimneys) they also differed from each other.
In December 1893, simultaneously with the order to build the third coastal defense battleship, Admiral Chikhachev ordered to order machines and boilers for him from the Franco-Russian plant in St. Petersburg, which was supposed to manufacture them according to the drawing of Maudsley's "Ushakov" mechanisms. Therefore, the new ship, which received the name "General-Admiral Apraksin", in many documents was called an battleship of the "Admiral Ushakov" type.
Preparatory work on the hull began in February 1894, and on October 12, the first pounds of metal were put on the slipway of the wooden boathouse of the New Admiralty, liberated after the launch of the Sisoya the Great. The official laying of the "General-Admiral Apraksin" took place on May 20 of the following year, and D.V. Skvortsov, one of the most energetic and talented Russian ship engineers at the turn of the 19th-20th centuries, became its builder.
It seemed that the construction of the third coastal defense battleship according to the already worked out and corrected prototype drawings would not cause any particular difficulties and would not require adjustments to the project. However, in practice, everything turned out differently precisely because of the additions to the 1891 project of the year, which caused an overload of the first two ships, and also because of the desire to improve the 254 mm turret system. In February 1895, D.V. Skvortsov calculated the load of the Admiral Ushakov, the draft of which in a normal load exceeded the design one by 10 "/2 inches (0.27 m). In order to avoid overloading the General-Admiral Apraksin, the builder proposed to reduce the thickness of the entire side armor by 1 inch (25.4 mm), “destroy the turret installations of 10-inch guns by placing the guns on the benches behind the barbette and covering with spherical shields”, cover the supply of shells and charges with thick armor (barbettes) and carry out using electric winches .
Even earlier, on July 15, 1894, the gunners of the MTK, led by Rear Admiral S.O. Makarov, in the conditions for the design of two-gun installations of 254-mm guns, for the first time put forward the requirements to ensure the loading speed of each gun is no more than 1.5 minutes and an elevation angle of 35 °. The design by three plants of such units with a hydraulic drive (for the battleship Rostislav) in the autumn of the same year showed the possibility of providing the specified parameters. However, in February 1895, the MTC, also for the first time, chose a more promising one for the Apraksin towers - an electric drive with similar loading speeds and elevation angles, but with a decrease in the thickness of the vertical armor of the tower to 7 inches (178 mm), a barbette - to 6 (152 mm) and roofs - up to 1.25 inches (about 32 mm). The total mass of the tower with armor protection should not exceed 255 tons.
In June 1895, according to the results of the competitive design, it was decided to give the order for tower installations for General-Admiral Apraksin to the Putilov Plant, although the project of the Metal Plant, which had been developing electric drives since 1892, had "the same merits." Probably the Metalworks had a better chance of completing the order successfully, but asked for a higher price. Somewhat earlier, electric turret mechanisms were also chosen for the battleship Rostislav (order - to the Obukhov plant), and later similar towers were ordered for the battleships Oslyabya and Peresvet. Therefore, it was Rostislav and General-Admiral Apraksin (and not battleships of the Peresvet type) that became the first ships in the Russian fleet with electric tower installations. At the same time, for the last battleship, in order to reduce overload, the MTC in April-May 1895 approved the installation of one 254-mm gun in the aft turret instead of two. The Putilov Plant was obliged to hand over both Apraksin towers by the end of September 1897.
Thus, the MTK rejected Skvortsov's proposal to replace the towers with barbettes and reduced the number of large-caliber guns by a quarter. To compensate for the increased weight of the new towers in comparison with the hydraulic ones, it was decided to reduce the side armor by 1.5 inches.
By the beginning of 1896, D.V. Skvortsov brought the readiness of "Apraksin" in the hull to 54.5%. The launch of the ship took place on April 30, 1896, and the first exit to the trial of machines took place in the fall of 1897. The manufacture of the main mechanisms at the Franco-Russian plant was led by engineers P. L. One and A. G. Arkhipov, who were present at the tests of Maudslay machines on the Admiral Ushakov. Sea trials of the "General-Admiral Apraksin" ended in the fall of 1898, and experimental firing from 254-mm towers - only in August of the next.
The normal displacement of "General-Admiral Apraksin" was 4438 tons (according to the design of the prototype - 4126 tons) with a maximum length of 86.5 m (according to the GVL - 84.6 m), a width of 15.9 and an average draft of 5.5 m.
The load of the battleship was distributed as follows: the hull with armor lining, practical things, systems, devices and supplies - 2040 tons (46.0% of the normal displacement, the hull itself accounted for about 1226 tons or 29.7%), armor - 812 tons (18.4%), artillery weapons - 486 tons (11%), mines - 85 tons (1.9%), vehicles and boilers with water - 657 tons (14.8%), normal coal supply - 214 tons (4 .8%), boats, anchors, chains - 80 tons (1.8%), crew with luggage - 60 tons (1.3%).
The displacement of the ship with a full supply of coal (400 tons) reached 4624 tons.
The launch weight of the Apraksin hull (fore draft - 1.93 m, stern - 3.1 m) did not exceed 1500 tons. Peaceful time the displacement of the battleship was about 4500 tons, and in the morning of the first day of the Tsushima battle (May 14, 1905) with a load of 446 tons of coal and about 200 tons fresh water"Apraksin" with an average draft of about 5.86 m had a displacement of 4810 tons.
The riveted hull of the ship was divided into 15 main compartments by watertight bulkheads that reached the armored (aka battery) deck. For 15-59 frames there was a double bottom (10 double-bottom waterproof compartments). The stems, steering frame (weighing 3.5 tons) and propeller shaft brackets were cast at the Obukhov plant. The drainage system, which included a main pipe with a diameter of 457 mm, was carried out at the Admiralty Izhora Plants.
Armor protection included the main armor belt along the waterline with a length of 53.6 m and a width of 2.1 m (with immersion in water by 1.5 m) from "garve" plates with a thickness of 216 mm in the upper part (9 plates in the middle of each side) and 165 mm (6 end plates each). The armored citadel was closed by bow (165 mm) and stern (152 mm) traverses, and was protected from above by a 38 mm armored deck (25.4 mm armor plates on 12.7 mm steel decking). Under the protection of the citadel were placed the main mechanisms and ammunition cellars. The bow and stern ends were partially protected by a carapace deck with a total thickness of 38 to 64 mm. The conning tower was formed by two 178-mm armor plates with an entrance to it through a hatch in the spardeck deck. The same armor protected the turrets of large-caliber guns, the bases (barbettes) for which were armored with 152-mm plates.
The main mechanisms of the battleship included two vertical triple expansion machines (cylinders with a diameter of 787, 1172 and 1723 mm) with a design power of 2500 hp each. each (at 124 rpm) and four steam cylindrical boilers (operating steam pressure 9.1 kgf/cm2). Five steam dynamos produced a direct current of 100 V. Ten coal pits could hold 400 tons of coal. In 1896-1897, about 34 tons of “oil” (fuel oil) in the amount of about 34 tons was taken into the coal pit between 33 and 37 frames as an experiment. overflowed into the adjacent coal pit through the top due to leaks in the connection of the bulkhead with the armored deck. The planned oil heating of the boilers on the Apraksin, as well as on some other Baltic battleships, was not actually used.
The installation of the main machines, boilers and smoke work on the ship was completed in November 1896, at the same time (November 18) the machines were tested on mooring trials. The steam pressure in three boilers was increased to 7.7 kgf/cm2. shaft speed up to 35-40 rpm. Sea trials of "General-Admiral Apraksin" began only in the autumn of 1897, when the battleship under the command of Captain 1st Rank N.A. Rimsky-Korsakov spent his first campaign in the detachment of ships assigned for trials (flag of Rear Admiral V.P. Messer). However, all three factory tests (from October 11 to 21) ended in failure: the machines developed power from only 3200 to 4300 hp, and the tests themselves had to be interrupted each time due to malfunctions (knock in the cylinder, an error in the drawing of the steam regulator, steam pressure drop in boilers).
The board of the Franco-Russian plant saw the reasons for this situation in the poor quality of coal and the inexperience of factory stokers, but the next year the tests were repeatedly postponed due to various malfunctions. Finally, on October 14, 1898, on the official 6-hour test of the armadillo car, they developed 4804 hp, and the average speed (over four runs per measured mile) was only 14.47 knots (maximum - 15.19 knots). The English prototype machines ("Ushakov") at one time developed more than 5700 hp, having worked for almost 12 hours and providing a speed of over 16 knots. Therefore, Vice-Admiral P.P. Tyrtov, head of the Naval Ministry, ordered the Apraksin sample to be repeated, which was done on October 20 of the same year after coating the steam pipes and receiving coal.
This time, for 7 hours at full speed, the battleship showed average speed 15.07 knots with a total power of 5763 hp machines. and a displacement (at the beginning of the tests) of 4152 tons. Why the 16-knot speed was not reached is not entirely clear, but the leadership of the ministry rated the results of the test as “brilliant”, and in a number of documents it was noted that maximum speed reached 17 knots, which, in principle, could be with such a significant excess of the design capacity.
The estimated cruising range of the Apraksin at full (15 knots) speed with a normal (214 tons) coal supply reached 648 miles, with a 10-knot speed - 1392 miles. Consequently, a full supply of coal provided a cruising range of about 2,700 miles at a speed of 10 knots.
Artillery armament of the battleship included three 254-mm, four 120-mm, ten 47-mm, twelve 37-mm guns and two 64-mm Baranovsky landing guns. Two 254-mm guns were located in the bow turret (total weight of the installation is 258.3 tons) and one in the stern (217.5 tons). The savings are small as a result. The towers were provided with electric and manual (backup) drives. The bow two-gun turret had eight electric motors of the Gramm and Siemens systems: two each for the swivel and lifting mechanisms, lifting the chargers and operating the breaker. The total power of the electric motors reached 72.25 kW (98 hp). The aft turret was powered by four 36.15 kW (49 hp) electric motors.
The Apraksin was equipped with 254-mm guns 45 calibers long, designed by A.F. Brink, somewhat improved compared to the guns of the first two battleships. The mass of the barrel of one gun was 22.5 tons (as on Rostislav and Peresvet). initial speed projectile flight (225.2 kg), as for the Ushakov and Senyavin guns, had to be limited to 693 m / s. The elevation angle of the guns reached 35 °, while for firing at elevation angles above 15 °, parts of the armored roof above the embrasures were hinged, which ensured a firing range of up to 73 kb.
The 120-mm Kane cannons, which had a firing range of 54 kb, were located on the upper deck in the corners of the superstructure (spardeck) without armor protection and without shields.
Two 47-mm guns of the Hotchkiss system stood on the sides in the "captain's hall" - a large room in the aft part on the battery deck, two - between the 120-mm guns on the upper deck in the superstructure, the rest - on the spardeck and bridges. Eight 37-mm Hotchkiss guns on swivel mounts were located on the combat mars of the foremast, two on the bridge, and two more were used to arm the boats.
Mine armament included four 381-mm bronze surface mine vehicles: bow, stern (in the captain's hall), two side and three combat searchlights. The minefields (30 pieces) provided for by the 1891 project of the year were removed from the armament during the construction of the first battleships of this type, but the anti-mine nets that were canceled were restored during the tests of the ship. Two 34-foot ship steam boats had mine launchers.
The artillery of "General-Admiral Apraksin" was tested by shooting on July 23 and 24, 1899 by the commission of Rear Admiral F.A. Amosov. The shooting was quite successful, although the shutters of the ports of the 120-mm guns required some alteration, and the towers showed a tendency to "settle" (as on battleships of the "Poltava" type). The loading speed of 254-mm guns "in electric" was 1 min 33 s (the interval between shots). The "settlement" of the towers, fortunately, did not subsequently progress. However, the turrets themselves, under intensive use (up to 54 shots per campaign), caused quite a lot of criticism. So, there were breakages of the gear teeth of the coupling, failures of the electric drive due to poor insulation of the wires.
The quality of the hull work of the New Admiralty also left much to be desired. Commission V.P. Messera found missing rivets, some of the remaining holes were clogged with wooden chops. Vice-Admiral S.O. Makarov drew attention to the shortcomings of the drainage system, having studied in detail the first two battleships of the same type.
In terms of tactical and technical elements, "General-Admiral Apraksin" was not only not inferior to ships of its class in the German, Danish and Swedish fleets (for 1899), but also had a number of advantages due to the relatively advantageous combination of the caliber of the main artillery, the system for its placement and protection . In the conditions of the Baltic, the battleship fully satisfied its purpose, and its entry into service was of particular importance in connection with the need to master the turret electric drives already adopted for future squadron battleships.
However, the hopes of some admirals to use Apraksin to train gunners turned out to be futile due to the events of the autumn of 1899. At first, the 1899 campaign of the year was going quite well for the battleship. On August 4, having completed the tests and having on board about 320 tons of coal and reserves for summer campaign, "General-Admiral Apraksin" left Kronstadt. At noon the next day, the commander of the battleship, Captain 1st Rank V.V. Lipdestrem, safely brought him to Revel as part of the Training Artillery Detachment. During his service in the Apraksin detachment, he went out shooting five times with officer-class students and student gunners, having used up 628 cartridges for training 37-mm barrels, as well as 9 254-mm and 40 120-mm shells. The shooting turned out to be quite troublesome for the senior artillery officer, Lieutenant F.V. Rimsky-Korsakov: on the fifth day in the aft tower, a sleeve and a device for installing a training barrel were torn, and on the sixth, the horizontal guidance of the bow tower failed. This malfunction was eliminated within a day at the Wiegandt private plant, which restored the broken teeth of the coupling for transferring from manual to electric control.
August 14, 1899 "General-Admiral Apraksin" went to sea to go to Copenhagen. A fresh north wind foreshadowed a stormy voyage. The new ship, according to V.V. Lindeström, showed "excellent seaworthiness": in the case of oncoming waves, only splashes flew onto the tank, and in passing, the pitching range did not exceed 10 ° on board. The machine worked properly, providing an average speed of 11.12 knots with two boilers put into operation. On the morning of May 16, the low-lying green shores of Denmark appeared on the horizon, and at 14 o’clock the Apraksin was already on a barrel in the harbor of Copenhagen, finding the Tsarevna yacht, the Grozychy gunboat and two Danish ships there.
On August 22, Nicholas II and his family arrived in the Danish capital on the Shtandart yacht. The Apraksin parking lot in the capital of a friendly state was marked by numerous receptions and visits. Non-commissioned officers and sailors were regularly dismissed ashore. According to tradition, the King of Denmark “granted” the Apraksin officers as holders of the Order of the Dannebrog.
On September 14, leaving the imperial yachts to cruise through European ports, the battleship left the hospitable kingdom and arrived in Kronstadt two days later. On September 21, he finished the campaign, but did not disarm, so that after completion of the outfitting work he would go to Libau. The squadron battleships "Poltava" and "Sevastopol" were also going there, completing tests in a separate detachment of Rear Admiral F.I. Amosov.
Tuesday, November 12, 1899, scheduled for the Apraksin to go to sea, began with fog and a gradual increase in northeast wind. The fog that dissipated at about 15 o'clock allowed the navigator of the Apraksin, Lieutenant P.P. Durnovo to determine the deviation along the alignment of the Kronstadt lights, and the commander V.V. Lindeström decided to go ahead with the plan. Watching the fall of the barometer. Vladimir Vladimirovich hoped to take refuge in Reval, but he still had to get there.
By 20:00, the wind increased to six points, and soon reached the strength of a storm, aggravated by negative air temperature and a snowstorm. The battleship, covered with a layer of ice, walked blindly - out of sight of the islands and lighthouses. Due to the freezing of water and the danger of sending people to the poop, mechanical and manual logs were not used, the speed was determined by the speed of the cars.
At 2045 hours, the commander reduced the course from 9 to 5.5 knots, intending to clarify the place by measuring the depth of the sea. Having not received certain results in this way, V.V. Lindestrome and P.P. Durnovo considered that the battleship had been blown to the south and were going to decide on the lighthouse of Gogland, the largest island in the center of the Gulf of Finland. In fact, the Apraksin turned out to be much to the north, and at 3:30 on November 13, at a speed of about 3 knots, it ran onto a shallow near the high snowy southeastern shore of Gogland.
The blow seemed soft to the commander, and the situation was not hopeless. However, an attempt to get off the shallows in full astern failed, and an hour later water appeared in the bow stoker, which quickly arrived. The ship listed up to 10 ° yellow side and, in the waves, strongly beat the bottom against the ground. V.V. Lindeström, thinking about saving people, decided to take the team ashore. The message with the latter, on which the locals gathered, was installed with the help of two lifelines, filed from the fore mars. By 3 p.m., the crossing of people was successfully completed, having stopped the steam raised after the accident in two feed and auxiliary boilers.
The accident of the new coastal defense battleship in St. Petersburg was learned from a telegram from the commander of the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, who, on the way from Kronstadt to Revel, noticed the distress signals given by the Apraksin. Vice-Admiral P.P. Tyrtov, head of the Naval Ministry, immediately ordered the squadron battleship Poltava to be sent from Kronstadt to Gogland, and the battleship Admiral Ushakov from Libava, providing them with plasters and materials for rescue operations, the head of which was appointed Rear Admiral F .I.Amosov, holding the flag on the Poltava. In addition to warships, the Ermak icebreaker, the Moguchiy steamer, two rescue steamers of the private Revel Rescue Society and divers of the Kronstadt school of the maritime department were involved in the rescue of Apraksin. "Admiral Ushakov" did not reach Gogland - he returned to Libava due to a breakdown in the steering gear.
On the morning of November 15, F.I. arrived at Apraksin. Amosov, who, not sharing the initial optimism of V.V. Lindeström ("with immediate assistance, the battleship will be removed"), found the situation "extremely dangerous" and dependent on the weather. Fortunately, Yermak could provide ice control, but the telegraph to maintain communication with St. Petersburg was available only in Kotka, which made it difficult to manage the work.
It was possible to organize communication with the help of an outstanding invention late XIX century - radio. December 10, 1899 Vice Admiral I.M. Dikov and Acting Chief Mine Inspector Rear Admiral K.S. Ostoletsky proposed to connect Gogland with the mainland using a “telegraph without wires” invented by A.S. Popov. On the same day, the head of the ministry imposed a resolution on the report: "You can try, I agree ...". A.S. Popov himself, his assistant P.N. Rybkin, captain 2nd rank G.I. soon went to the place of work with sets of radio stations. Zalevsky and Lieutenant A.A. Remmert. On Gogland and on the island of Kutsalo near Kotka, the construction of masts for installing antennas began.
By this time, it turned out that "Apraksin", according to the apt expression of F.I. Amosov, literally "climbed into a pile of stones." The top of a huge stone and an 8-ton granite boulder got stuck in the armadillo's hull, forming a hole with an area of about 27 m2 to the left of the vertical keel in the region of 12-23 frames. Through it, the bow cartridge cellar of the Baranovsky guns, the mine cellar, the turret compartment, the hook chamber and the bomb cellar of the 254-mm turret, the entire bow compartment to the armored deck, were filled with water. Three other stones produced smaller damage to the bottom. In total, the ship received more than 700 tons of water, which could not be pumped out without sealing the holes. Stones stuck in the bottom prevented the Apraksin from moving.
Among the many proposals for saving the battleship were very curious. For example, put a “steel board” under the hull and, simultaneously with towing, raise it above the stone with explosions under the board of explosive charges (signed “Not a sailor, but just a Moscow tradesman”), “One of the well-wishing battleship Apraksin proposed to raise the hull above the stone with using a huge lever made of rails.
Subsequently, commander V.V. Lindeström considered it quite realistic to use the “ice dock” designed by Major General Zharintsev to repair the ship at the accident site. The latter proposed to freeze the water around the armadillo to the very bottom with the help of liquid carbon dioxide, and then cut a trench to the bow to deepen the place and “free the surface of the seabed from stones.” However, the rescuers went the other way.
All rescue work was carried out under the general guidance and control of the head of the ministry, Admiral P.P. Tyrtov, who involved famous admirals I.M. Dikova, V.P. Verkhovsky and S.O. Makarov, chief inspectors of the MTC N.E. Kuteynikova, A.S. Krotkova, N.G. Nozikov. Directly involved in the rescue work under the leadership of F.I. Amosov was the commander of the battleship V.V. Lindestrem, junior assistants to the shipbuilder P.P. Belyankin and E.S. Politovsky, a representative of the Revel Rescue Society von Franken and a pointer to the New Admiralty Olympiev, who knew the ship well. divers working in ice water, led by lieutenants M.F. Schultz and A.K. Nebolsin. It was decided to remove the upper part of a large stone with the help of explosions, unload the battleship, which had a displacement of 4515 tons at the time of the accident, repair the hole if possible, pump out water and, using pontoons, pull the battleship aground.
Attempts to pull the Apraksin afloat were made twice: on November 28 (the icebreaker Ermak with the Apraksin in full reverse gear) and on December 9 (the steamships Meteor and Helios came to the aid of the Yermak). After a thorough examination of the hull and a large stone by divers, it became clear that these attempts were doomed to failure in advance.
The struggle with stones, which dragged on until the freeze-up, with the failure of attempts to move the Apraksin from its place by tugboats, led P.P. Tyrtov to the decision to postpone its removal from the shallows until the spring of next year. F.I. Amosov with "Poltava" and the majority of the crew of the emergency ship was recalled to Kronstadt. To ensure the work, 36 sailors were left with the boatswain Ivan Safonov. The danger of the destruction of Apraksin by a heap of ice was avoided with the help of Yermak and the strengthening of the ice fields around the battleship.
On January 25, 1900, the chairman of the ITC, Vice Admiral I.M. Dikov read an urgent telegram from Kotka: "Gogland's telegram received without wires by telephone, front stone removed." Having reported it to P.P. Tyrtov, Ivan Mikhailovich was instructed to report the contents to the editors of Novoye Vremya and the Government Bulletin: this was the first radiogram transmitted over a distance of more than 40 miles.
At the end of January 1900, the commander of the Training Artillery Detachment, Rear Admiral Z.P. Rozhestvensky, was appointed the head of the rescue operations on Gogland. Zinovy Petrovich involved in the rescue of the battleship the Bureau for Soil Research, which belonged to the mining engineer Vojislav. The bureau sent technicians to Apraksin with two machines equipped with diamond drills for drilling holes in granite stones. The explosion of dynamite in the pits turned out to be harmless to the ship. At the end of the work, Vojislav even refused the reward. The Naval Ministry, expressing its gratitude to him for his disinterestedness, paid 1,197 rubles. in the form of compensation for equipment breakdowns and the maintenance of technicians.
By the beginning of April 1900, in the conditions of a relatively harsh winter, it was possible to deal with stones, temporarily close up some of the holes and unload the battleship by about 500 tons. On April 8, Yermak made an unsuccessful attempt to drag the ship 2 fathoms - the length of the lane created in solid ice. Three days later, the attempt was repeated, flooding the aft compartments of the Apraksin and helping the Yermak with steam and coastal manual capstans. The battleship finally set off and by evening, with its own machines put into operation, moved 12 meters back from the stone ridge.
On April 13, along the channel laid by the Yermak, he moved to the harbor near Gogland, and on April 22 he safely moored in Aspe near Kotka. Up to 300 tons of water remained in the armadillo's hull, which was continuously pumped out by pumps. In the presence of only 120 tons of coal and the absence of artillery (except for turret guns), ammunition, provisions and most of the supplies, the draft fore and aft was 5.9 m.
On May 6, General-Admiral Apraksin, accompanied by the cruiser Asia and two rescue ships of the Revel Society, arrived in Kronstadt, where it was soon put in for repairs at the Konstantinovsky Dock, and on May 15 ended the protracted campaign. P.P. Tyrtov congratulated V.V. Lindestrem with the end of the difficult epic and thanked all the participants in the work, especially Z.P. Rozhdestvensky.
Repair of damage to the battleship by means of the Kronstadt port, completed in 1901, cost the treasury more than 175 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of rescue work.
The Apraksin accident showed the weakness of the rescue equipment of the maritime department, which was forced to resort to improvisation and the involvement of other public and private organizations. Assessing their contribution to the salvation of the ship, Z.P. Rozhdestvensky pointed out that without the Yermak, the battleship would have been in distress 1 without the help of the Revel Rescue Society would have sunk back in November 1899. In difficult winter conditions, a lot was decided by the dedication to work and entrepreneurial spirit characteristic of Russians in extreme situations.
The commission to investigate the circumstances of the accident did not find corpus delicti in the actions of the commander and navigator of the battleship. Former navigator of Apraksin P.P. Durnovo brilliantly rehabilitated himself in the Battle of Tsushima by leading the wrecked destroyer Bravy to Vladivostok. The experience of the winter of 1899/1900 prompted Captain 1st Rank V.V. Lindeström to speak in the "Sea Collection" with criticism of ensuring the unsinkability of his ship. In his article “Accident of the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin,” he pointed out the weakness of the bottom and bulkheads, the permeability of bulkhead doors, noted the complexity and inconvenience of installing drainage facilities, the spread of water through the ventilation system and sealing pipes and cables in bulkheads.
The article was reviewed by the shipbuilding department of the MTK, which, under the leadership of N.E. Kuteynikova very thoroughly substantiated the impossibility of its publication. In a review signed by I.M. Dikov, the prevailing idea was to protect the "honor of the uniform" of the committee itself and the maritime department as a whole. Calling "Apraksin" "a type, structurally obsolete to a certain extent," the MTC shipbuilders considered that V.V. Lindeström outlined its shortcomings in a generalized way, and this could create "false ideas about modern shipbuilding" in society. It was alleged that almost all the shortcomings over the past two years had been eliminated by the committee's resolutions, and the specific issue of Apraksin would be discussed in the MTC on the basis of the corresponding official report by S.O. Makarov, who attached a duplicate of the article to it.
On the basis of the opinion of the MTK, P.P. Tyrtov banned the publication: the official press organ of the ministry could not give rise to attacks "on the orders existing in the fleet." Unfortunately, these orders became the object of press attacks very late, when the fleet had already paid off for them in the Tsushima Strait.
Campaigns of 1902-1904 "General-Admiral Apraksin" held in the Training Artillery Detachment. During this period, its crew consisted of up to 185 people of the personnel team and up to 200 students of gunners, that is, a variable composition of trainees. In 1902, the battleship participated in the well-known demonstration maneuvers of the detachment in the presence of two emperors on the Reval roadstead, and at the beginning of the winter of the same year, unsuccessfully tried to force the ice of the Gulf of Finland and received damage to the hull. In general, according to the last commander of the battleship, Captain 1st Rank N.G. Lishin. appointed on April 6, 1903, the Apraksin hull, due to the accident in 1899 and ice navigation in 1902, was severely “shaken” and even leaky in the bow and throughout the upper deck.
In November 1904, "General-Admiral Apraksin", together with "Admiral Ushakov" and "Admiral Senyavin", was appointed to the Separate detachment of ships of the future 3rd Pacific squadron for immediate passage to Far East- to strengthen the 2nd squadron.
The battleship began the campaign on December 22, 1904. During preparations for the voyage, a wireless telegraphy station of the Slyabi-Arko system, two Barra and Strouda rangefinders (on the fore-mars and on the aft bridge), Perepelkin optical sights for 254-mm and 120-mm guns, two of the latter were replaced by new ones due to the large "execution". For 254-mm guns, 60 armor-piercing, 149 high-explosive and 22 segmental shells were released on the ship, but only 200 of them could be placed in the cellars, and the rest had to be loaded onto transports. The latter also carried an additional 100 high-explosive 254-mm shells for all three battleships of the same type. Ammunition for 120-mm guns amounted to 840 rounds (200 with armor-piercing, 480 with high-explosive and 160 with segmental shells), 47-mm guns - 8180 rounds, 37-mm guns - 1620 rounds, and for 64-mm landing guns they took 720 shrapnel and 720 grenades. The transports were loaded with additional cartridges with 180 armor-piercing and 564 high-explosive shells of 120 mm caliber and 8830 cartridges for 47-mm guns. At the request of the commander N.G. Lishin about replacing the upper deck, the commander of the Libau port of Emperor Alexander III, Rear Admiral A.I. Iretskoy responded with the phrase “You should defend everything,” followed by obscene expressions.
On February 2, 1905, "General-Admiral Apraksin" as part of a separate detachment of Rear Admiral N.I. Nebogatov left Libau for the Far East. In the daytime battle on May 14, 1905 - the first phase of the Tsushima battle - "General-Admiral Apraksin" valiantly fought the Japanese. Its crew consisted of 16 officers and mechanical engineers, 1 doctor, 1 priest, 8 conductors and 378 lower ranks(1 sailor died at the crossing in the Red Sea). In the combat formation of the 3rd armored detachment "Apraksin" was the second matelot - in the wake of the flagship battleship of Rear Admiral N.I. Nebogatov "Emperor Nikolai I".
At the beginning of the battle, the senior artillery officer of the battleship, Lieutenant Baron G.N. Taube concentrated fire on the Japanese flagship battleship Mikasa, but after 30 minutes transferred it to a closer armored cruiser"Nissin". The Apraksin bow turret was commanded by Lieutenant P.O. Shishko, stern - Lieutenant S.L. Trukhachev.
40 minutes after the start of the battle, General-Admiral Apraksin, which had so far remained unharmed, passed four cables from the dying battleship Oslyabya. The death of "Oslyabi" and the failure of the flagship of the squadron "Prince Suvorov", on which fires raged, made a heavy impression on the Apraksin team, which entered the battle in a "cheerful mood". Shortly after the Oslyabi was sunk by the Japanese, the senior ship mechanic, staff captain P.N.Mileshkin, could not stand it and "took alcohol", for which he was removed by the commander N.G. Lishin. Until midnight from May 14 to 15, when the commander reinstated the senior ship engineer in his rights, his duties were performed by Lieutenant N.N. Rozanov.
However, the Apraksin crew bravely fought the Japanese until the evening. The battleship fired up to 132 254-mm shells (together with those fired on the night of May 14-15 on destroyers - up to 153 shells) and up to 460 120-mm shells. The role of Apraksin and other battleships of the 3rd detachment was clearly manifested around 17:00, when they damaged the Japanese armored cruisers and forced the latter to retreat, stopping the shelling of the crowded transports, cruisers and destroyers of the Russian squadron. At the same time, Apraksin itself was damaged. A 203-mm projectile from the cruisers of the squadron of Vice Admiral H. Kamimura hit the aft turret at the embrasure of the 254-mm gun, the rupture of the projectile raised the roof and made it difficult to rotate the turret, although it did not penetrate the armor. The fragments of the projectile knocked out gunner Sonsky, wounded several gunners, and the tower commander, Lieutenant S.L. Trukhachev was shell-shocked, but remained at his post. A 120-mm shell hit the wardroom and mortally wounded the miner Zhuk, who died soon after. Another projectile of unknown caliber demolished the gaff, fragments of others disabled the network (antenna) of the wireless telegraph.
Having relatively little damage and losses in people (two dead, ten wounded), "General-Admiral Apraksin", not including combat lighting, on the night of May 15 energetically repelled mine attacks and did not lag behind the "Emperor Nicholas I", the flagship of the detachment , en route to Vladivostok with a course of at least 12-13 knots.
However, on the morning of May 15, the detachment of N.I. Nebogatov was surrounded by superior enemy forces. "Well. We broke in ... we will die, ”N.G. Lishin said on the Apraksin bridge. The officers and crew of the battleship, indeed, were ready to fight to the last and die. Commander Petelkin, "tempted by a successful tip", even fired a sighting shot from a 120-mm cannon, but there was no new battle - Admiral Nebogatoye, as you know, surrendered to the enemy. His example (on a signal) was followed by the commander of the "Apraksin" N.G. Lishin (it is known that, on the orders of Lieutenant Taube, gunners threw locks of small guns and sights overboard).
So the ship, bearing the name of an associate of Peter the Great and the first admiral general of the Russian fleet, fell into the hands of the enemy. The Japanese called it "Okinoshima" and even used it in the operation to capture the island of Sakhalin. In 1906-1915, Okinoshima was a training ship, in 1915-1926 - a blockship, and in 1926 she was sent for scrapping.
For the surrender of the battleship to the enemy N.G. Lishin, even before returning from captivity, was deprived of the rank of captain of the 1st rank, and then convicted. Court sentence - the death penalty- was changed by Nicholas II to 10 years in a fortress. The court also sentenced senior officer Lieutenant N.M. to two months in the fortress. Fridovsky, who could not prevent the "criminal intentions" of his commander.
Sources and literature
1.B. L. The device of the ice dock according to the project of Major General Zharshov for sealing holes // Marine collection. 1905. No. 3. Neof. otd. pp.67-77.
2. Gribovsky V.Yu., Chernikov I.I. Battleship "Admiral Ushakov", St. Petersburg: Shipbuilding, 1996.
3. Molodtsov S.V. Coastal defense battleships of the Admiral Senyavin type // Shipbuilding. 1985. No. 12. S.36-39.
4. Report on the occupations of the MTK for 1893 in artillery. SPb., 1900.
5. Russian-Japanese war 1904-1905 Fleet actions. Documentation. Dep. IV. Book. 3. Issue. 1. St. Petersburg, 1912.
6. Tokarevsky A. Crippled battleships according to official estimates // Russian Shipping. 1898. March-April (No. 192-183). pp.63-97.
7.RGAVMF.F.417, 421.921.
"General-Admiral Apraksin" ("Okinoshima" [沖ノ島]) - coastal defense battleship of the Russian Imperial and Japanese imperial fleets. In the Russian fleet it was named after F. M. Apraksin.
AT Japanese Navy was named after the city of Okinoshima. It was laid down at the New Admiralty in St. Petersburg on May 20, 1895 as part of the reinforced shipbuilding program adopted in 1890. It was built according to the design of the battleship "Admiral Ushakov", becoming the third ship of this type.
In February 1895, it became clear that the "General-Admiral Apraksin" has a strong overload: the draft exceeded the design by 0.3 meters. As a measure to reduce the overload, the shipbuilder D.V. Svortsov proposed to abandon the tower installation and reduce the thickness of the entire side armor. His proposal was rejected and the Naval Technical Committee decided to reduce the number of main battery guns to three.
By the beginning of 1896, the readiness of the Apraksin for the hull was brought to 54.5%. The launch of the ship took place on April 30, 1896, and the first exit to the trial of machines took place in the fall of 1897. During the tests of the new battleship, the poor quality of the hull work was noted.
Pre-war service
August 14, 1899 "General-Admiral Apraksin" went to sea to go to Copenhagen. At this time, Nicholas II visited the capital of Denmark. On September 14, the battleship left foreign waters and two days later arrived in Kronstadt. On September 21, he ended the campaign without disarming, so that after completion of the outfitting work he would go to Libau.
On November 12, 1899, "General-Admiral Apraksin" left Kronstadt for the winter in Libau and at 3 o'clock in the morning, during a strong snowstorm, jumped out onto the stones at the southern tip of Gogland Island. An attempt to get off the shallows on their own failed, and an hour later water appeared in the bow stoker, which quickly arrived. In December, the wrecked ship was trapped in ice, and only the Yermak icebreaker supported communication with it.
At the end of January 1900, Rear Admiral Z. P. Rozhestvensky was appointed head of the rescue operations on Gogland, who attracted mining specialists to participate in the rescue of the ship. Only after the successful completion of the demolition work on April 11, 1900, Yermak managed to remove the battleship from the stones.
Repair of damage to the battleship by means of the Kronstadt port, completed in 1901, cost the treasury more than 175 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of rescue work.
Campaigns of 1902-1904 "General-Admiral Apraksin" held in the Training Artillery Detachment, taking part in exercises and maneuvers. In November 1904, "General-Admiral Apraksin", together with "Admiral Ushakov" and "Admiral Senyavin", was appointed to the Separate detachment of ships of the future Third Pacific Squadron for immediate passage to the Far East - to reinforce the Second Pacific Squadron.
Campaign of 1904 and transition to the Far East
The battleship began a new campaign on December 22, 1904. During preparations for the march on the battleship, a wireless telegraphy station of the Slyabi-Arko system, two Barra and Strouda rangefinders (on the fore-mars and on the aft bridge), Perepelkin optical sights for 254-mm and 120-mm guns, two of the latter were replaced by new ones due to the large "execution". The officers of the ship were partially updated, but the commander of the ship, N. G. Lishin, remained at his post.
On February 2, 1905, General-Admiral Apraksin, as part of the Separate Detachment of Rear Admiral N. I. Nebogatov, left Libau for the Far East. Together with the detachment, the battleship made a long transition to the Tsushima Strait, where, as part of the Second Pacific Squadron, he took part in the Battle of Tsushima.
Tsushima battle
By 6 o'clock in the morning on May 14, the Russian squadron, while maintaining the night march formation, increased its speed from 6 to 9 knots. The left column of ships was led by "Emperor Nicholas I" under the flag of Admiral N. I. Nebogatov, followed by "General-Admiral Apraksin", "Admiral Senyavin" and "Admiral Ushakov" in the wake. The Apraksin bow turret was commanded by Lieutenant P. O. Shishko, and the stern turret was commanded by Lieutenant S. L. Trukhachev.
In the first phase of the battle, General-Admiral Apraksin tried to shoot at Mikas from a distance of 56 cables, but soon his senior artilleryman, Lieutenant G. N. Taube, with the permission of the commander, transferred fire to Nissin.
At 16 o'clock, the battleship began to receive hits: a 203-mm projectile from the cruisers of the squadron of Vice Admiral H. Kamimura hit the aft turret at the embrasure of the 254-mm gun, the rupture of the projectile raised the roof and made it difficult to rotate the turret, although it did not penetrate the armor. Shell fragments killed one and wounded several gunners, and the tower commander, Lieutenant S. L. Trukhachev, was shell-shocked, but remained at his post. A 120-mm shell hit the wardroom.
Another projectile of unknown caliber demolished the gaff, fragments of others disabled the wireless telegraph antenna network. In total, 2 people were killed and 10 wounded on the Apraksin.
During the night, the battleship repelled the attacks of Japanese destroyers and managed to keep up with the main forces of the detachment of N. I. Nebogatov. In just 14 and on the night of May 15, the battleship fired up to 153 254-mm shells and up to 460 120-mm shells.
The officers and crew of the battleship, according to historians and eyewitnesses, were ready to fight to the last and die. One of the gunners of the battleship, without waiting for the order, fired a sighting shot from the gun, but the fire was stopped due to the fact that the surrender signal was raised on the "Emperor Nicholas I".
All the ships of the detachment followed the admiral's signal (except for the cruiser Emerald, which managed to get away from the enemy) and soon Japanese prize teams landed on them. Shortly before this, on the orders of Lieutenant Taube, the gunners threw overboard the locks of small guns and sights. "Apraksin" with the prize crew was sent to a Japanese port.
As part of the Japanese fleet
Quickly put into operation and renamed "Okinoshima", the ship participated in the capture of Sakhalin by Japanese troops. After the war, the battleship was assigned to Sasebo as a training ship.
At the beginning of the First World War, it was used to take part in the capture of Qingdao (as part of the second division of coastal defense battleships of the second squadron), and then until 1915 it performed sentinel functions, and later was partially disarmed and used as a floating barracks for cadets. From the lists of "Okinoshima" was deleted in 1926 (according to other sources, in 1922). Then he was a block and in 1939 was dismantled for metal.
Upon returning to Kronstadt, Zinovy Petrovich managed to stay with his family for a few days: on May 14, 1896, he was appointed commander of the 16th naval crew, the coastal defense battleship Pervenets and head of the Training Artillery Team, and four days later he had already begun a campaign in new position. By itself, "Pervenets", our first iron battleship (of English construction), at one time served as a prototype for the creation of the "Kremlin" and was yesterday's state of the art even in comparison with the "Vladimir Monomakh".
Another thing is the 16th naval crew and the Artillery Training Team, which constituted important links in the coastal (administrative) organization of the fleet. The instruction to lead them meant a serious promotion for Z.P. Rozhdestvensky: the 16th crew united the teams of several ships on the shore (including the Firstborn), and the Artillery Training Team, which received 320 recruits annually, since 1884 was the only training a division for the training of gunners, galvanizers and artillery quartermasters, and partly (together with the Artillery officer class) and artillery officers for the entire fleet.
Every summer, students of the team and students of the class for four months went to sea on the ships of the Training Artillery Detachment (formed annually starting from 1869), which was under the command of one of the junior flagships (rear admirals) of the Baltic Fleet. In three campaigns - 1896, 1897 and 1898. Zinoviy Petrovich invariably commanded his veteran "Firstborn" as part of the Training Artillery Detachment and supervised the training of gunners of the entire Training Artillery Team. The nature of the detachment's activity was well known to Rozhdestvensky from the "Kremlin" and has hardly changed since then: a camp in Revel, various teachings at anchor and almost daily outings for firing.
The composition of the Artillery Training Detachment was quite impressive. For example, in the 1897 campaign, it included the battleships Pervenets, Kremlin, Admiral Lazarev, the cruiser of the 1st rank General-Admiral, the gunboat Groza and the mine cruiser Voevoda with a permanent staff of 65 officers and 730 lower ranks with 17 officers and 934 lower ranks - listeners and students. The ships carried out 456 firings, having used up 15,813 shells with a caliber of up to 280 mm, 23,524 37 mm. cartridge and 1350 shells for 64 mm. landing guns Baranovsky. For each senior student of the commander's school, an average of 36 3/4 shots from a 47-mm gun were fired. caliber and above.
I must say that Rozhdestvensky was rooting for the assigned work and considered it necessary to eliminate the shortcomings he saw in the training of officers and commanders. In a report dated September 25, 1897, addressed to the commander of the detachment, Zinovy Petrovich rightly pointed out the "antique" of the artillery of the ships, which had only five (!) Quick-firing guns of the new systems that fired smokeless powder: one 152 mm. and two 120 mm. and 75 mm. tools of Kane. The low elevation angle of the obsolete guns made it possible to train firing at distances from 7.5 to 12 kbt.
The regulation on the Training Artillery Detachment of the 1883 edition, according to Rozhestvensky, did not take into account the elements of its ships and the type of guns, made low demands on commanders and battery officers, and did not say anything about the artillery fire manager. Zinovy Petrovich saw a way out of the situation in the inclusion in the detachment of "ships of modern types" with the exclusion of all "this junk."
But the Naval Ministry of the Emperor's august uncle could not just donate "junk". Therefore, the only result of Rozhdestvensky's report in the 1898 campaign was the temporary inclusion in the detachment of relatively new coastal defense battleships of the Admiral Senyavin type, and a little later, the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin. As for Z. P. Rozhestvensky himself, he firmly grasped the need for every possible increase in the ship composition of the detachment with an increase in the number of firings of each gunner from all (!) Types of guns available on the detachment. It was right or wrong, time has shown, and we will touch on this important issue.
The merits of Z. P. Rozhdestvensky during this period of time were awarded three medals - in memory of the reign of Emperor Alexander III, for work on the first general population census (1897) and in memory of the "Holy Coronation of Emperor Nicholas II", and, most importantly, the highest award for staff officers - the Order of St. Vladimir, 3rd degree (1896). Starting from October 21, 1897, they began to pay him an annual monetary reward (540 rubles a year) for long-term command of ships of the 1st rank, and, finally, on December 6, 1898, at the age of 49, he was promoted to rear admiral.
In the campaign of 1899, Rear Admiral Z. P. Rozhestvensky himself commanded the Training Artillery Detachment, taking Lieutenant N. P. Kurosh as the flagship artillery officer. His flagship- "First-born" - commanded by Captain 1st Rank Nikolai Ivanovich Nebogatoye, the same officer who in 1891 took over from him the clipper "Cruiser" and who was destined on May 14, 1905 to take command of the remnants of the 2nd squadron of the fleet from Rozhdestvensky Pacific Ocean.
In the summer of 1899, the cousin of Nicholas II, Lieutenant Grand Duke Kirill Vladimirovich, underwent practical training on the General Admiral, who, like his other relatives, alternated maritime service with secular entertainment and trips abroad.
Here is what he later recalled about the Training Artillery Detachment: “I contemplated this quixotic flotilla with a mixed feeling of pity, reverence and horror. These were the remains of our fleet, real museum exhibits, which were of only archaeological interest .. Despite the fact that I had to deal with a collection of obsolete and heterogeneous vessels, I managed to learn a lot of useful things in the field of practical artillery and get to know the admiral, a stern man and straightforward, passionately devoted to his duty and obsessed with an adamant desire to overcome any obstacles ... "
Despite the subsequent events known to him - the Tsushima disaster, Kirill Vladimirovich retained the best opinion about Z. P. Rozhestvensky and called him "a brilliant military man", "the disgraced hero of one of greatest battles in the history of the fleet ", called up in 1904-1905. command a "floating pile of scrap metal".
In the same campaign, Z.P. Rozhdestvensky again temporarily received two relatively new ships in the detachment - the coastal defense battleships Admiral Senyavin and Admiral Ushakov (with hydraulic towers) and, finally, their brother, the battleship General-Admiral Apraksin", which had just passed the tests and had 254 mm. towers with electric drive. Since this latter occupies a special place in the biography of our hero, it is necessary to say more about him. "General-Admiral Apraksin" was built in 1894-1899. at the shipyard New Admiralty with the main mechanisms of the Franco-Russian plant, which manufactured them according to the drawings of the Models known to us, who built the mechanisms for the Admiral Ushakov.
"General-Admiral Apraksin" with a small displacement (4438 tons normal) was a relatively strong ship with 178 mm. side armor and three 254 mm. guns (two - in the bow tower and one - in the stern). The cost of the ship with weapons and supplies amounted to about 4.5 million rubles.
In the summer of 1899, the battleship was finishing its trials. On August 4, having on board about 320 tons of coal and supplies for the summer campaign, General-Admiral Apraksin left Kronstadt. At noon the next day, the commander of the battleship, Captain 1st Rank V.V. Lindestrem, successfully brought him into the Artillery Training Detachment. During his service in the Apraksin detachment, he went out to shoot five times with officers of the officer class and student gunmen, having used up 628 cartridges for training 37-mm. trunks, as well as 9 - 254 mm. and 40 -120 mm. shells. The shooting turned out to be quite troublesome for the senior artillery officer, Lieutenant F.V. Rimsky-Korsakov: on the fifth day, a cartridge case and a device for installing a training barrel were torn in the aft turret, and on the sixth, the horizontal guidance of the bow turret failed. This malfunction was managed to be frightened within a day at the Wiegandt private plant, which restored the broken teeth of the coupling for transferring from manual to electric control.
August 14, 1899 "General-Admiral Apraksin" went to sea to go to Copenhagen. A fresh wind foreshadowed a stormy voyage. The new ship, according to the recall of B. V. Lindeström, showed “excellent seaworthiness” - with oncoming waves, only spray flew onto the tank, and with a passing one, the pitching range did not exceed 10 ° on board. The machine worked properly, providing environments! I sing speed 11.12 knots. when two boilers are put into operation. On the morning of May 16, the low-lying green shores of Denmark appeared on the horizon, and at 14 o’clock the Apraksin had already stood on a barrel in the harbor of Copenhagen, finding the Tsarevna yacht, the Grozychy boat and the host ships Syland and Dannebrog there.
On August 22, Nicholas II and his family arrived in the Danish capital on a high-speed Shtandart. Parking "Apraksin" in the capital of a friendly power was marked by numerous receptions and visits, non-commissioned officers and sailors were regularly fired ashore. According to tradition, the King of Denmark granted the Apraksin officers the holders of the Order of the Dannebrog.
On September 14, leaving the imperial yachts to cruise through European ports, the battleship left the hospitable kingdom and arrived in Kronstadt two days later. On September 21, he ended the campaign without disarming, so that after completion of the outfitting work he would go to Libau. “Poltava” and “Sevastopol” were also going there, completing tests in a separate detachment of Rear Admiral F. I. Amosov.
Tuesday, November 12, 1899, appointed for the Apraksin to go to sea, began with fog and a gradual increase in the northeast wind. Dispersed around 15:00. the fog allowed the navigator of the Apraksin, Lieutenant P.P. Durnovo, to determine the deviation along the alignment of the Kronstadt fires, and the commander V.V. Lindestrem to decide to follow the plan. Watching the fall of the barometer, Vladimir Vladimirovich hoped to take refuge in Revel, but he still had to get there.
By 20:00, the wind increased to 6 points, and soon reached the strength of a storm, aggravated by negative air temperature and a snowstorm. The battleship, covered with a layer of ice, walked blindly - out of sight of the islands and lighthouses. Mechanical and manual logs were not used due to the freezing of water and the danger of sending people to the yut, the speed was determined by the speed of the cars. At 20 o'clock. 45 min. the commander reduced the course from 9 to 5.5 knots, intending to clarify the place by measuring the depth of the sea. Having not received certain results in this way, V.V. Lindestrem and P.P. Durnovo considered themselves demolished to the south and decided to decide on the lighthouse on about. Gogland is the largest island in the center of the Gulf of Finland. In fact, "Apraksin" turned out to be much to the north and at 3 o'clock. 30 min. November 13 at a speed of about 3 knots. jumped out onto the shallows near the high snow-covered southeastern coast of Gotland.
The blow seemed soft to the commander, and the position of the ship at first was not hopeless. However, an attempt to refloat in full astern failed, and an hour later water appeared in the bow stoker, which quickly arrived. The ship listed 10 ° to the port side and, in the excitement, hit the bottom against the ground heavily. B. V. Lindeström, thinking about saving people, decided to take the team ashore. Communication with the island, where the locals gathered, was established with the help of two lifelines, filed from the formars. By 15 o'clock the crossing of people was successfully completed, having stopped before that the steam raised after the accident in two feed and auxiliary boilers.
The accident of the new coastal defense battleship in St. Petersburg was learned from a telegram from the commander of the cruiser Admiral Nakhimov, who, on the way from Kronstadt to Revel, noticed the distress signals given by the Apraksin. Vice-Admiral P.P. Tyrtov, head of the Naval Ministry, immediately ordered the battleship Poltava to be sent to Gogland from Kronstadt, and the Admiral Ushakov from Libava, providing them with plasters and materials for rescue work. Rear Admiral F. I. Amosov, who kept the flag on the Poltava, was appointed to lead the latter. In addition to warships, the Ermak icebreaker, the Moguchiy steamer, 2 rescue steamships of the private Revel Rescue Society and divers of the Kronstadt School of the Maritime Department Admiral Ushakov were involved in the rescue of the Apraksin and did not reach Gogland - returned to Libava due to a breakdown of the steering gear .
On the morning of November 15, F. I. Amosov arrived at Apraksin, who, not sharing the initial optimism of V. V. Lindestrem (“with immediate help, the battleship will be removed”), found the situation extremely “dangerous” and dependent on the weather. Fortunately, the Yermak could provide the fight against ice, but the telegraph to maintain communication with St. Petersburg was available only in Kotka, which made it difficult to manage the work.
The problem of organization of communication was solved with the help of an outstanding invention of the late 19th century. - radio. By the report of the ITC of December 10, 1899, Vice Admiral I. M. Dikov and I. about. Rear Admiral K.S. Gogland with the mainland using the "telegraph without wires" invented by A. S. Popov. In experiments in the campaign of 1899 on the Black Sea, by extending the antenna with the help of a kite, it was possible to achieve a 16-mile communication range. On the same day, the head of the ministry imposed a resolution: “You can try, I agree ..” A. S. Popov himself, his assistant P. N. Rybkin, captain of the 2nd rank G. I. Zalevsky and Lieutenant A. A. Remmert. On Gogland and on about. Kutsalo to Kotka began the construction of masts for the installation of antennas.
By that time, it turned out that "Apraksin", in the apt expression of F.I. Amosov, literally "climbed into a pile of stones." The top of a huge stone and an 8-ton granite boulder got stuck in the armadillo's hull, forming a hole with an area of about 27 m2 to the left of the vertical keel in the area of the 12-23rd frames. Through it, the bow cartridge cellar of the Baranovsky guns, the mine cellar, the turret compartment, the hook chamber and the 254 mm bomb cellar were filled with water. towers, the entire bow compartment to the armored deck. Three other stones produced smaller damage to the bottom. In total, the ship received more than 700 tons of water, which could not be pumped out without sealing the holes. Stones stuck in the bottom prevented the Apraksin from moving. The accident received a wide public outcry and caused a flood of proposals to save the battleship, pouring into the Naval Ministry.
All rescue work was carried out under the general guidance and control of the ministry's chief admiral P.P. Tyrtov, who involved famous admirals I.M. Dikov, V.P. Verkhovsky and S.O. Makarov, chief inspectors from the MTK N E. Kuteynikova, A. S. Krotkova, N. G. Nozikova. The commander of the battleship V.V. Lindestrem, the junior assistants of the shipbuilder P.P. Belyankin and E.S. Politovsky, the representative of the Revel Rescue Society von Franken and the index of the New Admiralty Olympiev, who knew well ship. The divers working in the icy water were led by Lieutenants M.F. Schultz and A.K. Nebolsin. It was decided to remove the upper part of a large stone with the help of explosions, unload the battleship, which had a displacement of 4515 tons at the time of the accident, if possible, close the hole, pump out water and, using pontoons, pull the battleship aground.
Attempts to pull the Apraksin afloat on the orders of Rear Admiral Amosov were made twice: on November 26 (the Ermak icebreaker plus the Apraksin in full reverse gear) and on December 9 (the same plus the Meteor and Helios steamships). After a thorough examination of the hull and a large stone, it became clear to the divers that these attempts were doomed to failure in advance.
The struggle with stones, which dragged on until freezing, with the failure of attempts to move the Apraksin from its place by tugboats, led P.P. Tyrtov to the decision to postpone its removal from the shallows until the spring of next year. F. I. Amosov with the Poltava and most of the crew of the emergency ship was recalled to Kronstadt. 36 sailors with the boatswain Ivan Safonov were left to ensure the work. On January 25, 1900, Vice-Admiral I. M. Dikov, chairman of the ITC, read an urgent telegram from Kotka: “Gotland received a telegram without wires by telephone, the front stone was removed.” Having reported it to P.P. Tyrtov, Ivan Mikhailovich was instructed to report the content to the editors of Novoye Vremya and the Government Bulletin: it was the first radiogram in history transmitted over a distance of more than 40 miles.
By this time, under the spire of the Admiralty, the idea had matured to instruct further work to rescue the battleship to a specially designated energetic flagship. The choice fell on Z. P. Rozhdestvensky. On January 22, 1900, the head of the Main Staff F.K. Lwelan addressed the latter with a letter:
“Dear sir, Zinovy Petrovich.
As a result of the order of His Imperial Highness, the Admiral General, the Head of the Naval Ministry instructs Your Excellency to monitor and direct the progress of work on removing the battleship General Admiral Apraksin from the stones, why should you go to Gogland Island on the Yermak, departing in a few days from Reval…”
Recall that in the winter months, the officers and admirals of the Baltic Fleet, bound (except for Libava) by ice, felt relatively free: the greatest "troubles" were brought by the combatant training of naval crews, but at the same time there was enough time to visit the Naval Officers' Assembly in Kronstadt and balls in Petersburg And suddenly Z. P. Rozhdestvensky fell upon an emergency order ...
And Zinovy Petrovich did not blunder. In his usual manner, on January 31, 1900, without even having visited the emergency Apraksin, he reported to the head of the Main Staff (from Revel) about the "complete disorder" in all, without exception, measures to save the battleship. In his opinion, the explosions of stones created a threat to the strength of bulkheads, drainage facilities could not cope with pumping water, the bow was not lightened, and supplies were supplied to the place of work without due consideration. “The team on Gogland is demoralized, and I (appointed by the manager of the Naval Ministry to correct the matter) are sitting idle in Reval,” he concluded his report.
Obviously, this style of work allowed Z. P. Rozhesgvensky to create a reputation as a principled boss and brightly highlight his merits in achieving the ultimate success of any enterprise. But, we must give him his due, Zinovy Petrovich himself developed a stormy activity in advance. After reviewing the documents, he demanded that steel cables, diving shirts, air hoses and other materials be sent to Gogland as soon as possible, began searching for high-performance sump pumps, consulted with leading experts on the best way to save the battleship.
The opinion of the latter was far from unambiguous. Many of them considered the position of the ship hopeless. It was assumed that with the onset of spring, the Apraksin hull would be broken by the movement of ice thawed from the coast, and then completely destroyed by stormy weather.
Rozhdestvensky himself, apparently, did not share such views, “... the only means of pontoons,” he wrote a few days after his appointment to the head of the Main Staff, “because the calculations of the committee (MTK. - V. G.) cannot determine which bulkheads will be squeezed out, when, when pulled, the nose comes into the water.
It was not easy with the pontoons: at first, one Swedish company was ready to supply them, but the Kronstadt port was also ready, from where S.O. Makarov reported on the need for preliminary drawing up drawings using the Apraksin model, which had previously been manufactured (on the instructions of Makarov) in the Experimental Basin of the Maritime Department. Makarov, being the senior chief for Rozhdestvensky, directly pointed to the transportation of the model to about. Gogland for a detailed development of a method for removing an armadillo.
Zinovy Petrovich did not neglect the advice of his boss and "rival" and implemented all of them (or almost all) with the great help of the "Ermak", on which he arrived at the beginning of February 1900 on about. Gotland. Here he found an armadillo stuck in the ice, abandoned, as already mentioned above, by most of the crew.
“The ship was in unimaginable disorder in all parts without exception,” Zinovy Petrovich later recalled. - One ship's boiler worked to power the mechanisms of the rescue society, pumping water from the sea overboard. All other boilers, all mechanisms, all small motors were abandoned, covered with rust and ... debris, and in some places flooded. Clinkets, doors, necks with skewed flares were overgrown with dirt, did not fulfill their purpose. Every day brought new destruction and new losses for the treasury: those who wanted to cut down the shields, tore off the lining without any need and without any results. Various small things were filmed, boiler fittings, pressure gauges, machine rubricators, small motors ... all this fell into heaps on the shore, covered with snow and gradually plundered. Apart from divers and a few stokers, none of the lower ranks was assigned to useful work. The mass of port workers languished in idleness .. "
Naturally, the admiral who arrived in Gotland had to start with the most important thing - with the organization of the service. Already on the first day of his stay at Apraksin, he demanded that “a statement of all things and materials, as well as those seconded, indicating the work assigned to each of them,” appointed those responsible for maintaining working documentation. At the same time, he established control over the strength and direction of the wind, the height of the water and the draft of the battleship. He demanded to submit to him daily for approval the schedule of work for which it was supposed to breed the team.
At the same time, people remained his main concern. So, in an order dated February 10, Zinovy Petrovich wrote; “In view of the exceptionally difficult living and working conditions on the island of Gogland, and due to the extreme inadequacy of the prescribed portion of greens, to preserve the strength and health of people, I propose henceforth to add to the daily portion of one pound of potatoes per day per person. I ask the commander to order stricter supervision of food preparation ...
Failure to observe these rules until now has been the reason for the very poor quality of the food that fell into the tanks of people.
It should be noted here that Z. P. Rozhdestvensky proved himself in Gogland as a resolute supporter and a model of the command style of leadership. Despite the relatively small number of participants in the rescue of Apraksin, he, like many admirals of that time, considered it necessary to issue orders on every occasion with appropriate conclusions and instructions. Neither the radio station on Gogland, nor the smallest issues of organizing service on the emergency battleship escaped his attention.
“The Gogland wireless telegraph station serves purposes, the seriousness of which requires an appropriate attitude of all those involved in the case,” Z. P. Rozhdestvensky wrote in one of his orders. - It came to my attention that the telegraph operators leave the station before a certain time ... I strictly forbid the negotiations of telegraph operators that are not related to the service ... Lieutenant Yakovlev should have relentless monitoring of the fulfillment of these requirements, but at the same time take care in every possible way that the telegraph operators, if possible, do not suffer hardships . Report their needs to me directly.
Leaving at the end of February for two weeks in Kronstadt, Zinovy Petrovich drew up the most detailed order for the Apraksin commander, which can be called an order for all occasions. It determined the amount of coal in each pit, and the order of its consumption, and even the minimum distance from the side of the battleship at which it was allowed to dump garbage.
Drawing attention to the fact that divers overwork themselves excessively during daily work, Rozhdestvensky, regardless of the lack of time, ordered diving descents to be carried out every other day. Instructing his subordinates before setting a dead anchor, he wrote: “... we must hurry up with the execution of the work, so long as haste is not at the expense of accuracy: if time does not allow all the work to be done before the first movement of ice, then we can only be reproached for indiscipline.
If the chain is broken, because its immersion was not sufficiently controlled, then we will rightly be accused of dishonesty.
The daily orders of Rozhdestvensky attract attention with their biting and expressiveness. They clearly show Zinovy Petrovich's intolerance for the slightest manifestations of indiscipline and unfulfillment. “March 17, 1900. Today, from 5 3/4 in the morning, I did not find an officer with the party working at the rope on the ice ... The same ... the officer was supposed to be present at 4 1/4 in the morning at the breakfast of the lower ranks ... but was not present. I limit myself this time to a reminder of the non-fulfillment of my orders, I suggest that the commander of the battleship take measures to ensure that this does not happen again in the future.
“March 17, 1900. Today at night the ice broke near the place where work is being done ... At 6 o’clock in the morning, the officer on duty, called by me to the place of work, told me that someone had already reported to him about the ice drift, and nothing more. I ask the commander of the armadillo ... to strictly establish that the movement of ice was observed not by a random “someone”, but by an indispensable watchman ... By my order, an ice boat was to be sent to the people working at the ropes. It took half an hour to dig it out from under the snow and ... select the snow and ice that filled the boat itself. Someone must see to it that the boat is kept at least keel up."
“March 29, 1900. Today the team's lunch consisted of stinking greasy slops. This means that the officer on duty did not see to it that the boiler was properly cleaned and that the provisions themselves were thoroughly washed from the products of decomposition and the dirt that covered it. I ask the commander of the battleship to establish supervision over the performance of this officer's official duties.
I must say that initially Rozhdestvensky doubted the independence of his closest technical assistants - the engineers Belyankin, Goladmiev and Politovsky. However, he soon changed his mind, and in 1904 he even elected Politovsky the flagship naval engineer of his headquarters. The undoubted merit of Zinovy Petrovich was also the fact that he involved in the rescue of the battleship the Bureau for Soil Research, which belonged to the mining engineer Vojislav. The bureau sent technicians to Apraksin with two machines equipped with diamond drills for drilling holes in granite stones. The explosion of dynamite in the pits turned out to be harmless to the ship. At the end of the work, Vojislav even refused the reward. The Naval Ministry, expressing its gratitude to him for his disinterestedness, paid 1,197 rubles. in the form of compensation for equipment breakdowns and the maintenance of technicians.
To save Apraksin, in the end, the only thing that was done was Possible Solution: after removing the stones on which the ship was sitting, close up the holes and, with the help of the Yermak, pull the battleship into clean water. This work required both a stable connection with Kronstadt and St. Petersburg, as well as regular delivery of food and supplies to the island. The Ermak icebreaker provided invaluable assistance to Apraksin. Repeatedly breaking through solid hummocky ice, he delivered to the island everything necessary to continue work and maintain the life of the battleship crew. In the workshop of the icebreaker, drills and drills were made, intended for the destruction of stone.
The icebreaker was subordinate to the Ministry of Finance, and each of its exits to Gotland went to Rozhdestvensky with considerable difficulty.
In addition, almost every day I had to deal with various misunderstandings with the rescue society, with the GUKiS and other authorities, not to mention the commander of the ship, V.V. the oppression of Z. P. Rozhdestvensky with his energy and numerous orders.
By the beginning of April 1900, in a relatively harsh winter, it was possible to deal with stones, temporarily close up some of the holes and unload the battleship by about 500 tons. On April 8, Yermak made an unsuccessful attempt to drag the ship 2 fathoms - the length of the lane created in solid ice. Three days later, the attempt was repeated, flooding the aft compartments of the Apraksin and helping the Yermak with steam and coastal manual capstans. The battleship finally set off and by evening, with its own machines put into operation, moved 12 meters back from the stone ridge.
On April 13, along the channel laid by the Yermak, he moved to the harbor near Gogland, and on April 22 he safely moored in Aspe near Kotka. Up to 300 tons of water remained in the armadillo's hull, which was continuously pumped out by turbines. In the presence of only 120 tons of coal and the absence of artillery (except for tower guns), ammunition, provisions and most of the supplies, the draft fore and aft was 5.9 m each.
On May 6, General-Admiral Apraksin, accompanied by the cruiser Asia and two rescue ships of the Revel Society, arrived in Kronstadt, where it was soon put in for repairs at the Konstantinovsky Dock, and on May 15 ended the protracted campaign. P. P. Tyrtov congratulated V. V. Lindestrem on the end of the laborious epic and thanked all the participants in the work, especially Z. P. Rozhestvensky.
Repair of damage to the battleship by means of the Kronstadt port, completed in 1901, cost the treasury more than 175 thousand rubles, not counting the cost of rescue work.
The Apraksin accident showed the weakness of the rescue equipment of the Maritime Department, which was forced to resort to improvisation and the involvement of other public and private organizations. Assessing their contribution to the salvation of the ship, Z. P. Rozhestvensky pointed out that without the Yermak, the battleship would have been in distress, and without the help of the Revel Rescue Society, it would have sunk back in November 1899. In difficult winter conditions, as always, many things were decided selflessness in work and entrepreneurial spirit, characteristic of Russians in extreme situations.
The commission to investigate the circumstances of the accident did not find corpus delicti in the actions of the commander and navigator of the battleship. The former navigator of the Apraksin, P.P. Durnovo, brilliantly rehabilitated himself in the Battle of Tsushima, guiding his wrecked destroyer Bravy to Vladivostok, adhering to the coast of Japan.
There are two important things to note here. First: the rescue of the battleship caused a great public outcry and contributed to the growth of the authority and fame of Z. P. Rozhdestvensky not only in maritime circles, but also among people far from the fleet, and also, which was especially important, at court. The telegram about the refloating of the ship (April 11) was received in Kronstadt just before the theatrical performance, which was arranged by the local charitable society in the Naval Assembly. “The telegram was read aloud before the performance,” S. O. Makarov (the chief commander of the Kronstadt port) wrote about this event, “and the whole hall resounded with a friendly “Hurrah” on the occasion of receiving good news. It was, indeed, a red egg for a bright holiday.
In connection with the successful completion of the rescue work, Zinovy Petrovich received a whole heap of congratulatory telegrams. In particular, from the maritime authorities:
“Congratulations to you and all your employees… on the brilliant success that has completed five months of work. This success brought joy to the fleet and all sympathizers. I sincerely thank you, and Your Excellency in particular, for your diligence and energy. Tyrtov (manager of the ministry. - V. G.) ”.
“On behalf of the Kronstadt sailors, I congratulate you on the skillful execution of a risky business. Makarov.
From civil, military and fellow sailors:
“Today I read about the successful removal of Apraksin. I ask you to convey enthusiastic greetings and congratulations to the hero admiral. Prince Lvov "(the future head of the provisional government in 1917 - V. G.).
"Hooray! Baron Kaulbars ”(lieutenant general of the Russian army. - V. G.).
“Congratulations on your success. Birilev always believed in you” (junior flagship of the Baltic Fleet - V. G.).
“Please accept my sincere congratulations on the successful removal of Apraksin. With all my heart we wish you brilliant success in the future. Kochkin "(? - V. G.).
And finally: “We heartily congratulate you on the successfully completed assignment ... Alexander” (Grand Duke Alexander Mikhailovich, son-in-law and personal friend of Nicholas II, captain of the 2nd rank, by the way, who was in the 1899 campaign a senior officer of Apraksin until his return to Kronstadt from Denmark).
The second circumstance is connected with the Ermak icebreaker, the personal life and relationships of Z.P. Rozhestvensky and S.O. in the process of its creation was influenced by many skeptics. Among them were the envious and ill-wisher of S. O. Makarov, Rear Admiral A. A. Birilev (senior in age, but, alas, not in rank), A. E. Konkevich, known to us, a number of other persons, and ... Z P. Rozhdestvensky.
Of these, Zinovy Petrovich occupied a special position - he was closely acquainted and even friendly with the wife of S. O. Makarov, Kapitolina Nikolaevna, who, for obvious reasons, experienced some inconvenience from living together with her "restless husband." Without touching on personal relationships that require special delicacy and are not the topic of our story, it should be noted that during the rescue work on Gogland, Rozhdestvensky changed his attitude towards the icebreaker. The first evidence of this is a letter from S. O. Makarov dated February 1, 1900 to the commander of the Yermak, his special confidant, friend and, in the true sense of the word, student - captain of the 2nd rank M. P. Vasiliev: “ ... When Rozhdestvensky came to Witte to ask for "Ermak", he said with pride: "Now who would save the people who were carried away to the sea?" (rescue of 50 fishermen in January 1900 - V. G.). Avelan told me all this. Rozhdestvensky at the beginning of the construction of the icebreaker was against this. I told my wife all the time to advise me against this case. How he will relate to the icebreaker, I do not know. He is a completely unfaithful person and extremely changeable. I did not enter into any conversations about Yermak with him .. "
Upon completion of the rescue work, Z.P. Rozhestvensky did not fail to note the merits of the icebreaker in a telegram to S.O. In an impenetrable snow blizzard, the battleship, wrapped in chains stretched into a string, steel and hemp cables that attached one thousand five hundred square feet of plasters, walked for seven hours in the Yermak stream through ice fields between individual blocks of hummocky formation and a channel punched in solid ice, and not one chain, not a single cable was cut by ice ... "
Was Zinovy Petrovich aware of some ambivalence in his position regarding Yermak and its creator, S. O. Makarov? Probably, this question can be answered in the affirmative. But, as it happened and happens with many people who make a career, the consciousness of being wrong did not cause Rozhestvensky any particular remorse. To his credit, it should be noted that he turned out to be very scrupulous about the awards for saving the battleship. The fact is that the GMSH considered it possible in its own way to revise the lists of persons presented by Rozhdestvensky for promotion. Thus, two mechanical engineers of the Yermak icebreaker were denied the Orders of St. Stanislav, the amount of the monetary reward to the closest assistant of Rozhdestvensky, captain of the 2nd rank Bergshtresser, was significantly reduced, and the commander of the battleship Poltava turned out to be completely bypassed with the award.
After several unsuccessful attempts to restore justice, the indignant Zinovy Petrovich turned to S. O. Makarov: “Since I have already had the good fortune to receive the highest gratitude, declared both in the order and personally to me by the Emperor, I have the honor to most humbly ask for the petition of Your Excellency, so that out of the 1,500 rubles assigned to me as a reward ... 500 rubles were added to the remuneration of the captain of the 2nd rank Bergshtresser, and a thousand were issued as a reward to the commander of the battleship Poltava, which was omitted from the award list ... "
Justice was then restored, and Z. P. Rozhdestvensky with a calm soul returned to his direct duties in command of the Artillery Training Detachment, which in May 1900 was preparing to start its next campaign.