Incidents of the era of steam and electricity: extreme shipbuilding. The first turret battleships. Monitors go to sea Investigation and conclusions
(7767 t full actual)
(7.57…7.77 m actual)
towers - 229 ... 254,
conning tower - 178,
deck - 25.4 mm
2 × 1 - 6.5-ton (178 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns
Serious theoretical errors and design miscalculations made in the project led to a very significant overload of the ship and, as a result, poor stability. Due to overload, the battleship, having been in service for a little more than 4 months, capsized and sank in the Bay of Biscay on the night of September 6-7, 1870 with almost the entire crew, which became one of the largest disasters in the Royal Navy in peacetime. The death of the Captain had an important impact on the further British and, in general, world military shipbuilding.
Project history
As a result of this dispute, Childers gave the go-ahead for the construction of a new turret battleship (the future Captain) according to the Kolz project and under his personal supervision. Doubts in this new project among the designers and officers were significant - for example, the chief designer of the Royal Navy, Edward Reed (the author of the Monarch project), expressed categorical disagreement with the project, indicating that the stability of the ship would be worsened by too much weight located unacceptably high. Reed considered the turret spar ship to be an anachronism and even refused to approve the drawings, confining himself to imposing a “I don’t mind” resolution on them (eng. not objected to).
The ship was named after the ship that participated in the Battle of St. Vincent (1797) under the command of Admiral Nelson. She became the sixth and last British ship of that name.
building
From the list of possible construction firms that the Admiralty presented to Kolz, the designer chose the Lairds firm in Birkenhead. The contract for the construction of the battleship was signed with the company in February 1867.
The general appearance of the battleship was very peculiar. Downgrading overall height sides, Kolz decided to give the battleship the maximum possible sailing armament, which had to be combined with the presence of two gun turrets. However, for artillery in the towers, large firing angles were required, which could be interfered with by the masts (there were three tripod masts on the Captain) and rigging, so the designers got out of the situation by putting a narrow one, only 26 feet (7.9 m) wide, on top of the towers, a hinged deck in the form of a bridge that went from bow to stern. Thus, the upper deck, on which the towers were located, remained minimally cluttered, and all rigging work was carried out on a hinged deck, which was sometimes called "hurricane" (eng. hurricane deck) . This ingenious decision, however, led to an even greater increase in the center of gravity of the ship. The ship had both a forecastle and a poop, which, however, contradicted the concept of Kolz, who certainly sought to provide the towers with the greatest possible angle of fire.
Almost from the very beginning of construction, it became clear that the ship was turning out to be much heavier than according to the project (which was a frequent occurrence in those years). As soon as the battleship was launched on March 27, 1869, it turned out that its draft exceeded the design one by 13 inches(33 cm) . This showed that the skeptics, led by Reid, were right. Moreover, Reid already then predicted that the ship would need a crew of not 400, but about 500 people, and in this case, its draft would increase even more. After the Captain was launched into the water, Reed called the battleship "extremely unsafe" ( "utterly unsafe"). To a large extent, problems with the ship were caused by insufficient control on the part of Kolz himself, who, in addition, for a long time could not follow the work due to illness, since he did not attend any of the design meetings. Therefore, the battleship, which was already overloaded according to the project, turned out to be even more heavily loaded.
According to Kolz's design, the freeboard height should have been a little more 8 feet 6 inches (2.6), but this height was reduced to 6 feet 8 inches (2 m) - probably by mistake of the draftsman. The total overload was 731 tons(and Lairds specialists even pointed to 830-860 tons), but the most dangerous thing was that the bulk of this extra load fell on high-lying parts (spar and hinged deck). Specialists from the Lairds company calculated that the battleship could withstand a roll of only 21 degrees, after which it would definitely roll over. But already a roll of 14 degrees was enough for the cut of the deck to be flush with the surface of the water.
The displacement of the Captain according to the project was approaching 7000 tons - it was, by the standards of those years, a very large tonnage for a warship, but nevertheless, in terms of displacement, the new battleship was far inferior to some huge British battleships, such as the 11,000-ton Northumberland » (English) Russian or "Minotaur" (English) Russian. The new battleship cost the treasury 335.5 thousand pounds sterling.
Armament
Weapons that were considered the most powerful in British navy, were rifled, but - like all British heavy naval guns of those years - were loaded from the muzzle, for which the towers rotated along the axis of the ship each time after the shot and the projectile was sent from the muzzle using a hydraulic piercer. The main type of projectile was armor-piercing, weighing 600 and 608 pounds (272.2 and 276 kg). The rate of fire of these guns was low, although for that time it was normal - 1 shot in 2.6 minutes maximum, muzzle velocity - 396.2 m / s with a charge of 70 pounds of black powder (31.8 kg). It was believed that the battleship received the most powerful artillery armament ever installed on a ship until 1870 (the Russian turret battleship Peter the Great, laid down in 1869, was also armed with four 12-inch guns, but entered service a few years later " Captain").
The accuracy of the 12-inch guns mounted on the Captain, as well as other heavy guns of the time, left much to be desired. During her last trip to the sea, the Captain conducted practice shooting at Vigo and, together with two other battleships, fired 12 shots at a rock that roughly resembled a ship in size and shape. From a distance of 1000 meters, the ships achieved only 1 direct hit.
The armament of the ship was supplemented by two 178-mm guns (then called 6.5-ton guns), mounted openly in the bow and stern, so as to be able to fire along the longitudinal axis of the ship. These guns fired 112 kg shells with an initial speed of 403.7 m / s.
The Captain, like all battleships of that time, was equipped with a ram, which, according to the views on naval tactics that existed in those years, was considered almost a more significant weapon than the main caliber guns.
Cars
The battleship was equipped with two Lairds steam engines with two cylinders each. The total power reached 5772 indicator liters. With. The coal reserve was 500 tons, although Kolz initially insisted on 1000 tons.
The designers settled on a scheme with two propellers, in contrast to the single-rotor scheme more common in the 1860s. This was primarily due to the desire to provide the ship with mobility in case one of the propellers or propeller shafts was damaged, moreover, with two propellers, the ship could be controlled by machines when the steering failed. The two-bladed propellers were 17 feet (5.18 m) in diameter.
The ship carried no less sails than a wooden ship of the line of the first rank - 4645 m² (33000 sq. ft.). Three heavy masts with so many sails had a negative effect on the already unsatisfactory stability, as pointed out by Edward Reed.
Hull and armor
The ship was divided into 7 watertight compartments. Each of the towers, together with the turret compartment (with a rotation mechanism) and ammunition magazines, was a separate compartment.
The battleship had a full armor belt (i.e., running the entire length of the hull along the waterline, which, in turn, was 320 feet or 97.5 m long) 7 inches (178 mm) thick with a wooden lining of a 12-inch layer of teak, behind which was located a layer of iron in 1.5 inches (38 mm). Opposite the towers, the belt thickened to 8 inches (203 mm) for 80 feet (24.4 m). The upper deck, on which the turrets were located, was protected by 1.5-inch armor with 1-inch iron lining, and topped with 6-inch (152 mm) oak decking. The towers were protected by armor plates with a thickness of 10 inches on the front and 9 inches on the rest (254 and 229 mm, respectively).
Tests and acceptance
On the very first tests in February 1870, it was found that the ship was overloaded even more than expected and had a draft already 22 inches (57 cm) more than the design one. The freeboard height was only 6 feet 7 inches (about 2 m), which gave rise to the most serious doubts about the suitability of the battleship for navigation. The assistant chief designer even raised the question of whether the ship could even be accepted by the commission in the presence of such conspicuous design flaws. Nevertheless, on April 30, 1870, the battleship officially entered service as part of the English Channel Squadron. The command of her, as the best ship in the fleet, was entrusted to one of the most capable and promising officers, the holder of the Victoria Cross, Captain First Rank Hugh Burgoyne (English) Russian .
During the launch, an incident occurred that was perceived by many as an extremely bad omen - when the naval flag was raised on the battleship, for some reason the flag turned upside down.
In May, during the second exit to the sea (in the Bay of Biscay), the Captain fired from turret guns, which, despite heavy seas, passed without difficulty. The battleship under sail maneuvered perfectly, easily overtaking the Monarch and even withstood a strong storm without any problems. This campaign forced even skeptics, who were prejudiced against the seaworthiness of the Captain, to change their point of view, especially since the Captain reached a speed of almost 14.2 knots during trials and became one of the fastest battleships of its time.
Overall evaluation of the project
In general, despite all the shortcomings, the Captain was considered a very powerful ship, far superior to any of the English battleships of the late 1860s and early 1870s. According to many British officers, the Captain was not equal not only in the English fleet, but in general throughout the world. Perhaps this was an exaggeration, since the British naval artillery of the 1860-80s was seriously inferior to the artillery of other naval powers (in other countries, the guns were breech-loading) - firstly, the British muzzle-loading guns did not differ in accuracy, and secondly, they had a weak barrel survivability and often failed or even ruptured under heavy fire.
Be that as it may, with the construction of the Captain Royal Navy received an extremely powerful and modern combat unit, possessing, in addition to exceptional firepower, excellent speed and good armor protection. It was considered such a successful ship that, according to many experts, it should have served as a prototype for future battleships. However, "Kapten", due to the clearly insufficient stability, was more suitable for use in the coastal zone, and not in the open ocean. Perhaps, in this case, the catastrophe could have been avoided, but this would require rethinking the entire concept of a spar battleship. The stability of the ship, indeed, turned out to be extremely low and was much inferior to that of other modern battleships. With a 14-degree roll, the ship's hull had a straightening moment 16.6 times weaker than that of the Monarch with the same roll.
"Kapten", according to historians, fully consistent with the concept of Kolz and was the embodiment of all his ideas, with the exception of the presence of a forecastle and poop.
Doom
The third exit of the "Kapten" to the sea was appointed specifically for a comprehensive test of the ship. Colz decided to personally participate in the campaign aboard the Captain in order to check all aspects of the ship of his own design. The squadron included, in addition to the "Captain", another 7 battleships ("Lord Warden" (English) Russian, "Minotaur", "Egincourt" (English) Russian, "Northumberland", "Monarch", "Hercules" (English) Russian, "Bellerophon") and 2 other ships (screw frigates "Inconstant" (English) Russian and Bristol). Squadron Commander Rear Admiral Alexander Miln (English) Russian held the flag on the Lord Warden. The squadron crossed the Bay of Biscay, on August 4 the ships entered Gibraltar, and on August 31 Vigo. On September 6, 1870, the ships, returning to England, were 20 miles from Cape Finisterre.
On August 23, after lengthy calculations, the results of the first tests of the Captain became known, which, according to some senior officers, testified to the dangerously low stability of the battleship and could help avoid disaster if they were brought to those who went to sea on " Captain". But by that time the squadron had already left England.
Events during the day and evening of September 6
Admiral Milne spent the entire day of September 6 aboard the Captain, inspecting the ship and talking with Kolz. There was a rather strong excitement, and the battleship heeled to the lee (left) side so much that the upper deck was flooded with waves, and the towers sank more than half a meter. The pitching range reached 12.5, and sometimes even 14 degrees. The admiral paid special attention to this fact, even saying that he considered it dangerous to leave full windage with such pitching. Colz objected, arguing that this should not be given importance, since such cases were provided for by the project. Colz and the commander of the battleship Burgoyne invited the admiral to stay overnight on the Captain, but he, fortunately for himself, refused. When the admiral left the battleship at 17:30, he sailed, but with divorced pairs.
Night squall and the disappearance of the Captain
By midnight the weather began to deteriorate rapidly, and soon a violent storm blew out from the southwest; sails were removed from the squadron. The height of the waves, according to reports from the ships of the squadron, reached 8 meters. The most dangerous was that the direction of the wind was opposite to the direction of the sea current, which could be regarded as an exceptionally unfavorable condition for navigation.
Around midnight, Admiral Milne from the Lord Worden saw the Captain. He subsequently recounted:
| “At this moment the Captain under steam was behind the flagship and seemed to be approaching it ... at 01:15 the ship was on the leeward shell of the Lord Worden about 6 R behind her beam; topsails were partly tightly reefed, partly removed; the foresail was reefed, the mainsail was removed already at 17:30, I did not see slanting sails. The ship lists heavily to starboard, with the wind on the left. Its red distinctive fire was clearly visible at that time. A few minutes later I looked in his direction again, but it was raining heavily and the fire was no longer visible. The squall with rain was very strong... At 02:15 (the 7th) the wind subsided somewhat, changed its direction to NW and blew without squalls; a heavy ridge of clouds went towards the east, and clear and brilliant stars became visible; the moon, which gave quite a lot of light, was setting, but not a single large ship was visible where the Captain was last seen ... |
It is known that after midnight the captain's commander Burgoyne went up to the bridge. The armadillo rocked strongly. The night watch was called up and the commander ordered to remove the sails. The well-known British naval historian H. Wilson (a contemporary of the death of the battleship) described in detail the minutes when the Captain capsized, based on the testimonies of the surviving sailors:
| During the roll call, the ship listed heavily, but straightened up again. When people went upstairs, they heard how Captain Burgoyne ordered "to give up the top-halyards" and then "to poison the fore- and main-tops of the sheets." Before the men got to the sheets, the ship lurched again, even more. Bank angles were called out quickly one after another in response to Captain Burgoyne's question: “18°! 23°! 28°!" The list to starboard was so great that several people on the sheets were washed away. The ship at that time lay completely on its side, slowly turning over and shuddering from every blow inflicted on it by the oncoming short waves with white combs. |
The battleship capsized on an even keel, but so quickly that only one person got out of the interior of the ship, and sank at a depth of a mile at a point with coordinates 42 ° 36.9 "N, 09 ° 23.4" W. It is noteworthy that none of the other ships of the squadron received any damage from the storm.
Surviving crew members
Only 18 people escaped from the battleship, of which the most senior in rank was the artillery conductor James May, who left valuable memories of the disaster. He managed to escape only by a miracle, getting out through the gun port of the tower, when the battleship had already rolled over. May was thus the only one who was lucky enough to get out of the ship's quarters - all the other survivors were from the night watch called up shortly before midnight, and they all belonged to those who were supposed to take posts on the upper deck and spars.
After the capsizing of the ship, several people managed to get into the floating boat and, despite the strong excitement, rescued several more. Burgoyne was among those who ended up in the water, but he did not survive. Burgoyne did not know how to swim, but, together with two sailors, he held on to an overturned longboat until a boat approached. According to the testimonies of the survivors, the commander had the opportunity to get into the boat, but he did not use it despite numerous appeals; only guesses remained about the reasons for this behavior - in any case, after both sailors left the commander, no one saw him again.
Among the dead were several relatives of major political and military figures of the British Empire, including the son of the First Lord of the Admiralty.
The search for the Captain on the morning of September 7
When it dawned, 10 ships of the squadron were in sight of each other, although they were scattered over a long distance by the storm. But there was no Captain, and Milne sent ships in different directions to search. They walked 10-14 miles, but the Captain was not found.
Milne realized that a catastrophe had occurred, and ordered the squadron to turn around in a front formation with an interval between ships of 3 cables heading southeast for searches. The Monarch and Lord Warden ran into the wreckage that belonged to the Captain. Soon a report about the wreckage found (including two overturned boats) and the found body of a sailor came from a messenger ship that joined the squadron in Portsmouth harbor. Both the sailors who had escaped from the battleship, and the officers from the squadron, specialists from the construction company, and Edward Reed, who had already retired from the post of chief designer of the fleet, were interviewed in detail.
The court ruling read:
| ... The Captain capsized ... under the pressure of the sails, supplemented by the pressure of the sea, and the number of sails set on it at the time of sinking ... was not enough to threaten the ship, provided with an adequate margin of stability. The Court ... ruled that the Captain was built in concession to public opinion expressed in Parliament and in other ways, and contrary to the opinion and opinion of the Comptroller of the Navy and his department, and that all evidence shows that they were generally against his buildings. It then turned out that the Captain was accepted from the builders with a significant deviation from the original design, with a draft exceeded by 2 feet ... and with a dangerously reduced stability ... |
However, there was no one to blame - Kolz died along with the ship. Some experts after the death of the battleship argued that the fault was not the too low side of the ship, and not even so much its congestion, but the unsuccessful shape of the hull, and, in particular, the irrational length-to-width ratio - the ship was too narrow, which ensured higher speed, but resulted in capsizing under wind pressure on the sails. So, one of the British officers wrote that "not a single normal person would even think of calling such a hull shape suitable for a sailing ship." Others point primarily to building overload.
The First Lord of the Admiralty tried, according to historians, to blame everyone but himself. In his report, he laid the blame on Colz and the Lairds, and to some extent on the Comptroller of the Fleet, who gave the go-ahead for the acceptance of the ship. As a result of the proceedings, no one was punished, but the Comptroller of the Fleet, and then Childers, resigned.
Historians have argued that the catastrophe was “almost predicted by the Admiralty itself, and the British public and the press were to blame for it, constantly insisting on building a ship of a deliberately unsuccessful type.” After the incident with the Captain, the British, and after them all the other shipbuilders, completely abandoned the construction of low-sided heavy ships with full sailing weapons, and stopped relying on public opinion in such matters.
In 1870, the English Admiralty launched a new battleship Captain. The ship went to sea and capsized. The ship was lost. 523 people died. It was completely unexpected for everyone. For all but one person. It was the English shipbuilder W. Reid, who had previously conducted research on a model of an armadillo and found that the ship would capsize even with a slight wave. But the lords from the Admiralty did not believe the scientist, who was doing some frivolous experiments with a toy. And something bad happened...
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- Stepan Osipovich, watch from "Motherland" semaphore: smoke on the starboard side. "Asama", "Yakumo" and they are followed by more cruisers on a collision course. We are getting closer.
-Togo granted us to conduct to Vladivostok! With God, Nikolai Matveevich!
On May 21, 1904, at one o'clock in the afternoon, the Russian 1st Pacific squadron under the command of Vice Admiral S.O. Sevastopol", "Poltava", "Peresvet", "Retvizan", "Tsesarevich", "Pobeda") followed the course south-east at a speed of 12 knots. The meeting with the Japanese squadron was inevitable: excellent weather, excellent visibility.
And Togo was not slow to wait: an escort group of cruisers Asama, Yakumo, Tokiwa and Kasuga, battleships Mikasa, Asahi, Fuji, Yashima, Shikishima and Hatsuse "at a speed of 15 knots they crossed paths.
Togo relied on 12-inch guns, the high speed of his ships and the training of the crews. Makarov was bound by the need to break through at any cost, the low speed of "Russia" (the ship was not able to give out more than 15 knots, which fettered the entire group of cruisers) and the ability to give a general battle on favorable terms to the enemy. However, his fears were not confirmed, the Japanese had two cruisers less than he expected and there was a chance to pile on a numerical advantage. To do this, it was impossible to get involved in a fight at close range.
The Russians began to build a single keel in order to cut off the enemy cruisers with cruisers. On the ships, a combat alarm began to play. Togo competently clamped the Russian column with two "snakes".
- Distance, Nikolai Matveyevich?
- 60 cables to Asama.
-Open fire!
At one forty minutes in the afternoon, both flagships simultaneously exchanged the first volleys.
The Japanese beat more closely, immediately shot; at the same time, several bursts of shells to the right and left of the "Russia" announced the beginning of the sighting of the Japanese cruisers.
- Yes, why are ours so smeared! Not a single hit!
- Our deck was pierced on the forecastle - the Japs shot. The distance to 20 cables has been reduced, now they will hit point-blank.
- Turn. All hope is that the reinforced armor of Prince Ukhtomsky will survive.
Now, when the formation of Russian battleships turned aside, the closest battleship turned out to be the "Victory" of Vice-Admiral Prince Ukhtomsky. Togo ordered to concentrate the fire of his four leading ships on the Russian trailing one.
At a distance of less than 12 cables, it is unrealistic to avoid hits from concentrated fire, but all 8 shells fell into the sea, some a meter from the sides. "Victory" splashed, everything worked out.
Makarov had no choice but to turn on the enemy, while the faster Japanese again "cut" the end of the Russian line. And again a volley at the "Victory", this time hit almost everyone. The art cellars detonated and the Russian battleship disappeared in a huge cloud of steam and fire:
The Russian squadron made a complete turn and now the stem of the Petropavlovsk was looking back at Port Arthur. He was catching up with Togo, his cruisers were shooting at "Russia" in volleys, but so far there were few holes. At the turn, all the fire was transferred to the "Bayan" - and the fate of the "Victory" was waiting for him!
"Bayan" began to sink. "Russia" slowed down a lot, the Japanese cruisers were catching up.
- We are approaching up to 8 cables, fire separately!
- Stepan Osipovich, "Fuji" is now closest to us, it's a sin to miss such an opportunity!
- Accepted! Fire on the third in line!
The gunners of "Petropavlovsk" and "Sevastopol" transferred fire from the lead "Mikasa" to "Fuji". A successful hit by a twelve-inch from the Petropavlovsk put an end to the career of the captain of the Fuji and the entire crew: the Japanese battleship sank immediately after the explosion.
- The Tsesarevich and Retvizan did their best: a fire started on Yashima, on their closing holes.
- We transfer the fire to Mikasa, Nikolai Matveevich, there is a chance to put an end to them completely.
- At Peresvet, the steering wheel is out of order, it cannot change course! There are fires on Tsesarevich, a tower near Sevastopol is disabled!
It's bad business, but we'll keep our course until Peresvet fixes the steering wheel.
- From "Russia" semaphore: "I'm losing speed, I'm leaving the line."
- Very bad. But Yashimo is on fire.
"Yashima" slowly fell out of the line, with four battleships against six, Togo did not dare to continue the battle (he was misled that three of the six Russian battleships were badly damaged).
The Japanese squadron turned away "all of a sudden."
The Japanese cruisers tried to cut off Thunderbolt and Rurik from Yashima, who was losing buoyancy. Only now it became clear that Peresvet fell out of order, and a fire started in Sevastopol.
-Victory, Stepan Osipovich! Togo is running!
“We lost both Pobeda and Ukhtomsky,” Vice-Admiral Makarov cast a heavy glance over the horizon.
The loss of the battleship and cruiser overshadowed the victory and the opened way to Vladivostok.
Afterword.
Battleship Captain from Minden Games - excellent and "smart" simple rules for fighting steel monsters, designed for three eras (armored, dreadnought and WWII), pleasant and intuitive mechanics, accounting for all kinds of damage and realism. The game took us about three hours in total. Miniature scale 1:6000
played in ProWargames, in the role of Admiral Togo - Kirill Oreshkin, in the role of Makarov I. The honor of the Russian fleet did not shame.
Starting from about the middle of the 19th century, shipbuilding engineering thought was in the same quest and throwing as tank building in the period between the two world wars. It would seem that half a century has not passed since the day when Napoleon Bonaparte categorically declared to the creator of the paddle steamer Robert Fulton - “Ships without sails are nonsense!”, And the era of linear sailing ships as the main combat force of the fleet began to rapidly fade into the past.
The steam engine is making a radical revolution in shipbuilding. Steam frigates first appeared in the military fleets (the first, Medea, built in Britain in 1832), combining sailing weapons with a steam engine and wheel propulsion, and the invention by the French general Henri-Joseph Peksan of bombing guns that fired large-caliber explosive shells along a flat trajectory , drew a line under the history of the wooden sailing fleet. If in the old days an artillery duel between ships firing conventional cannonballs (which hit the spars and crew members) could last for hours, then explosive bombs filled with black powder caused catastrophic damage to wooden ships in a matter of minutes.
An example of the location of muzzle-loading bombing guns on the decks of an armadillo. Reminds me of Jules Verne novels
The very first combat use of bombing guns during the war between Denmark and Prussia in 1849 proved that the two-thousand-year era of sailing was over: Prussian coastal batteries, equipped with Peksan guns, successfully fired, set fire to and forced to throw ashore two large Danish ships - an 84-gun battleship "Christian VIII" and the 48-gun frigate "Gefion", and the losses of the Danes amounted to 106 killed, 60 wounded and another 948 people were captured. The Sinop battle between the Black Sea Fleet of the Russian Empire and the squadron of the Ottoman Empire only proved again that new times are coming - the bombing artillery of Admiral Nakhimov utterly defeated the Turks, who suffered absolutely unacceptable losses: nine ships and about three thousand killed, with thirty-seven dead at Nakhimov.
When the news of the Sinop defeat reached Europe and the North American States, the admirals of all the fleets of the world finally understood that it was impossible to live like this any longer. Ships protected by armor are categorically needed. This fact was most quickly realized by the French, who first used armored floating batteries during the Crimean War. The United States took another step forward - during civil war monitors began to be used, albeit with very dubious armor and terrifying seaworthiness.
HMS Warrior under sail
Finally, in 1860, the Lady of the Seas builds the first ever steam battleship with an all-metal hull, the Warrior, at London shipyards, and a year later, his sistership Black Prince. In fairness, it must be pointed out that they retained the sailing armament, but nevertheless it was an unconditional technical breakthrough. For several years, both ships were considered the strongest on the planet and virtually invulnerable, but the "epoch of steam and electricity" with lightning-fast technologies soon sent both firstborns into retirement: they became obsolete in just one decade.
As mentioned above, the designers of warships have since been in constant creative search. What type of artillery placement is more advantageous - a battery battleship with one gun deck or with a central battery covered by armored beams? Two gun decks, or just one? And here are some more gentlemen engineers, take a look at the Americans with their "Monitor" - why not try to create a tower ocean battleship ?!
"Captain": a floating disaster
The presence of guns in the towers almost until the last quarter of the 19th century was a specific sign of coastal defense ships that operated in their base areas, without departing far from their home port - the main problem was the imperfection of steam engines, in the event of a breakdown of which an battleship in the open ocean would be doomed: namely therefore, ocean-going ships also carried sailing weapons. In turn, the sails and masts did not allow the installation of towers.
The British nevertheless tried to cross a horse and a quivering doe, building an unprecedented hybrid of a tower and a sail - this miracle of technology was called HMS Captain, launched on March 27, 1869, commissioned a year later, and six months later it was withdrawn from the fleet for a sad reason : Capsized and sank within seconds.
Projections of HMS Captain
The author of the Captain's project was an engineer and at the same time Navy captain Cooper Phipps Kolz - he is considered the inventor of a rotating armored gun turret. At that time, this was a downright unheard of trend of progress, the tower significantly increased the firepower of the ship and made it possible to quickly retarget the gun, however, as mentioned above, the battleship had to remain spars, without sails you would not go on a long voyage. Captain Kolz proposed to the Admiralty a project for a seaworthy spar turret ship with a low freeboard (about 3.4-3.5 meters according to the original design), the installation of two twin-gun turrets with powerful 305-mm guns and all-round fire, as well as tripod masts with full sail snap. Separately, it should be noted that each gun weighed 25 tons, a total of 100 tons in total.
Loading the twenty-five-ton cannon "Captain"
Cooper Colz was a designer with solid authority, therefore, the First Lord of the Admiralty and members of the Admiralty Council supported the project, although there were objections - the Director of Naval Construction, that is, in fact, the general designer of the fleet, Edward Reid smashed Kolz's proposal to smithereens, stating that spars armadillos are a long time ago, antiquity and archaic, the stability of the Captain due to the colossal weight of masts, gear and sails will be terrifying, and the center of gravity of the ship will be significantly higher than common sense requires. Reed was absolutely right, but they did not listen to him.
The new battleship looked extremely strange. Above the upper deck, where the towers with four 305-millimeter guns were actually located, a hinged false deck was installed from bow to stern, leaning respectively on the forecastle and poop (which, of course, reduced the firing sector). All work with rigging was carried out on a false deck, so that there would be no interference with the gunners. It is not worth talking about the fact that the appearance of this canopy further increased the center of gravity - and so it is clear. In addition, the ship turned out to be excessively overweight - when launched, it turned out that the draft exceeded the design by 33 centimeters, the crew instead of the estimated 400 people grew to 500 (another plus six to seven tons of load), the total overload was, according to various sources, from 730 to 830 tons , and a roll of only 14 degrees was enough to cut the deck at water level.
And this is how it looked under sail
And, finally, spars - three masts with sails of 33 thousand square feet (4650 square meters) fully corresponded to the armament of the "old" wooden battleship, which further worsened the already disgusting stability. Plus, a prohibitively low freeboard - only two meters, as it turned out when launching. And at the first raising of the flag on the Captain, an extremely bad omen happened, for some reason the flag turned upside down, which in maritime traditions is a distress signal.
Nevertheless, the Captain was accepted into service, showing excellent speed and maneuverability, along with exceptional firepower and good armor. If the ship had remained in the coastal defense forces operating in calm waters near the coast (and not the ocean squadron), the subsequent catastrophe could have been avoided.
On September 6, 1870, the Captain was part of an English squadron returning from a campaign in the Mediterranean, about 20 miles from Cape Finnisterre, the westernmost point of Spain. All day there was strong excitement, the Captain was under full sail, while the roll on board from the leeward side was such that the waves swept over the deck and flooded the main caliber towers almost by half. By evening, a severe storm began, around midnight the captain ordered to remove the sails. Further events are reconstructed by the historian H. Wilson according to the stories of the few survivors:
…During the roll call, the ship tilted heavily, but straightened up again. When people went upstairs, they heard Captain Burgoyne order “to give up the top-halyards” and then “to poison the fore- and main-tops of the sheets.” Before the sailors got to the sheets, the ship heeled again, even more. Bank angles were called out quickly one after another in response to Captain Burgoyne's question: "18°! 23°! 28°!" The list to starboard was so great that several people on the sheets were washed away. The ship at that time lay completely on its side, slowly turning over and shuddering from every blow inflicted on it by the oncoming short waves with white crests.
The Captain capsized and sank instantly within thirty to forty seconds. Of the eighteen surviving crew members, only one sailor was able to get out of the interior of the ship - through the gun port of the tower. The rest of the survivors were part of the night watch and were on deck or working with spars. Together with the Captain, about five hundred sailors went to the bottom and its creator, Captain Cooper Phipps Colz, who participated in the voyage to control his creation. It is noteworthy that during the storm on the night of September 6-7, no other ship of the squadron was damaged.
Outcome. Litigation followed, as the death of so many sailors in peacetime caused a shock to the British public: in the epochal Battle of Trafalgar, there were fifty fewer people who died! The monstrous design flaws were admitted, but no one was punished - Cooper Coles, who was very conveniently put in charge of everything, died with the ship. But the refusal of all the fleets of the world from the construction of heavy low-sided battleships with indispensable sails followed - the death of the Captain put an end to the history of the use of "classic" sailing weapons in the navy. And the appearance of tower battleships was delayed for several more years.
Only big guns!
Now we will move away from the topic of armadillos and return to the actual difficult paths along which the design thought of the 19th century walked.
The gunboat as a class of light warships appeared long before the steam era, even under Cardinal Richelieu - then they were forty-oared boats with two or three heavy guns. Then the gunboats performed the functions of coastal defense - it is clear that it is risky to launch such small ships on the high seas, and therefore their functions were limited to actions on rivers, in fjords, supporting ground forces from the water or fighting landing forces.
In 1887, the British shipyard Armstrong Mitchell & Company in Elswick receives an order from the Italian military department to build two seemingly most banal gunboats - 35 meters long and 11 wide, displacement 687 tons, one steam engine with a capacity of 261 kilowatts. By the way, the future designer of the famous Dreadnought, Philip Watts, who then worked at the Armstrong shipyards, participated in the creation of the gunboats, called the Castor and Pollux. The disassembled boats were sent to Italy, reassembled in the harbor of Pozzuoli and ...
... And something unprecedented in the history of the navy happened. The gunboats themselves were absolutely nothing outstanding or exceptional, if it were not for the weapons installed by the Italians - 400-mm guns manufactured by Krupp.
No mistakes or typos - the Italian sailors decided not to waste time on trifles and stuck a four-hundred-millimeter gun on the Castor and Pollux, and not some miserable mortar, but a full-fledged cannon with a barrel length of 32 calibers and a mass of approximately 120 tons (with a displacement , recall, 687 tons). Of course, there was no talk of any tower or guidance mechanisms, and the vertical elevation angle was only 13 degrees. Ammunition of the Very Large Gun - 900-kilogram shells. Few will seem to anyone.
Only one photo of the Pollux has survived, usually accompanied by the caption “On gun testing” - that is, THIS also fired. It is clearly seen that the gun occupies half the ship, if not more, all the superstructures are crowded in the bow. The magnificent building was served by a crew of 49 people. One can imagine the recoil force when fired - having calculated very approximately, we get that if almost a ton of iron flies in one direction at a speed of several hundred meters per second, then about 700 tons of the ship get a kick in reverse side about half a meter per second. The impressions of the crew during the shooting, apparently, remained unforgettable.
For some time, the Italian naval officials honestly tried to come up with at least some reasonable application scheme for the Castor and Pollux, but it ended up that the 400-mm barrels were soon replaced with more sane 120 mm plus several machine guns, and it was in this type of gunboat ended its life in the first quarter of the twentieth century. To the question "why?" the answer never appeared - these two boats forever remained in history as a funny incident.
He didn't drown, he just looks like that!
Continuing the Mediterranean theme, it is worth mentioning another very colorful character in naval history. Here it is, our invisible hero: the Italian Faa di Bruno monitor in the port of Venice. No need to worry, it is not sunk at all - this is its regular state. This monitor was designed in 1915 by the famous shipbuilder Giuseppe Rota.
The natural state of "Faa di Bruno"
This amazing exhibit was the crowning achievement of Italian floating batteries at the beginning of the First World War. The Faa di Bruno was created to support the ground forces in the Trieste region - the military needed a ship capable of operating without difficulty in an area dangerous for navigation. In addition, the most powerful 15-inch guns made for the new battleships of the Francesco Caracciolo type should have been usefully used - these battleships were not expected to enter service in the near future (all four ships were never built), and their guns lay idle - an unaffordable luxury in a global conflict. On Faa di Bruno, they decided to install two guns intended for the battleship Cristoforo Colombo.
Installation of the 381-mm / 40 Ansaldo gun of the 1914 model of the year on the Faa di Bruno, 1917
For the installation of weapons, a rectangular pontoon with a sloping "gable" deck was built. The guns were mounted in a limitedly mobile turret, which allowed firing in a narrow sector along the course. The hull was incredibly cramped, and therefore, in addition to the turret itself and the ammunition load, only steam boilers and vehicles from a decommissioned destroyer were squeezed into it. In combination with extremely bad hydrodynamics (we agree that pontoons are not suitable for active navigation!) This limited the speed to three frivolous knots - but, in general, Faa di Bruno didn’t need more: stay at a safe distance near the shore, yes shoot at the enemy on land. But there was a considerable advantage: an amazingly small draft (no more than 2.2 meters) made it possible to practically not be afraid of mines and shallows.
The monitor was under construction for almost two years, there were significant problems with the installation of heavy-duty guns on a fairly small (only 2800 tons) ship. He entered service only in the middle of the summer of 1917 - but already in November, the career of Faa di Bruno was interrupted. An absolutely unseaworthy ship got into a storm and was forced to throw ashore near the port of Ancona. This was the end of his participation in the war.
Monitor and his team
From the side of the Faa di Bruno it certainly looked extreme - from a distance it seemed that a lone tower with two hefty fifteen inches and a three-legged mast was floating on the sea; only then could one make out the hull, almost completely hidden in the water. By the way, the monitor was restored after the accident and survived safely until the Second World War, in which it served as an artillery cover near Genoa under the tactical designation "floating battery GM 194".
Now we have listed only three types of ships of the "epoch of steam and electricity" - a spar battleship, gunboats and a monitor, but do not forget that the variety of warships in those days was colossal, the designers boldly experimented, bypassed dead ends and tried to achieve perfection. As we have seen, not everyone succeeded.
towers - 229 ... 254,
conning tower - 178,
deck - 25.4 mm
2 × 1 - 6.5-ton (178 mm) rifled muzzle-loading guns
HMS Captain (1869)(in Russian Captain, Kepten listen)) is a battleship of the British Navy. At the time of commissioning in 1870, she was one of the most powerful ships of this class in the world (and possibly the most powerful). The ship was designed and built under the direction of the famous shipbuilder Cooper Phips Coles, largely influenced by the views of the English public on the development of the naval forces.
Serious theoretical errors and design miscalculations made in the project led to a very significant overload of the ship and, as a result, poor stability. Due to overload, the battleship, having been in service for a little more than 4 months, capsized and sank in the Bay of Biscay on the night of September 6-7, 1870 with almost the entire crew, which became one of the largest disasters in the Royal Navy in peacetime. The death of the Captain had an important impact on the further British and, in general, world military shipbuilding.
Project history
"Prince Albert" - the first specially built turret ship in the British Navy, with turrets designed by Cooper F. Kolz
As a result of this dispute, Childers gave the go-ahead for the construction of a new turret battleship (the future Captain) according to the Kolz project and under his personal supervision. Doubts in this new project among the designers and officers were significant - for example, the chief designer of the Royal Navy, Edward Reed (the author of the Monarch project), expressed categorical disagreement with the project, indicating that the stability of the ship would be worsened by too much weight located unacceptably high. Reed considered the turret spar ship to be an anachronism and even refused to approve the drawings, confining himself to imposing a “I don’t mind” resolution on them (eng. not objected to).
The ship was named after the ship that participated in the Battle of St. Vincent (1797) under the command of Admiral Nelson. She became the sixth and last British ship of that name.
building
From the list of possible construction firms that the Admiralty presented to Kolz, the designer chose the Lairds firm in Birkenhead. The contract for the construction of the battleship was signed with the company in February 1867.
The general appearance of the battleship was very peculiar. By lowering the overall height of the side, Kolz decided to give the battleship the maximum possible sailing armament, which had to be combined with the presence of two gun turrets. However, for artillery in the towers, large firing angles were required, which could be interfered with by the masts (there were three tripod masts on the Captain) and rigging, so the designers got out of the situation by putting a narrow one, only 26 feet (7.9 m) wide, on top of the towers, a hinged deck in the form of a bridge that went from bow to stern. Thus, the upper deck, on which the towers were located, remained minimally cluttered, and all rigging work was carried out on a hinged deck, which was sometimes called "hurricane" (eng. hurricane deck) . This ingenious decision, however, led to an even greater increase in the center of gravity of the ship. The ship had both a forecastle and a poop, which, however, contradicted the concept of Kolz, who certainly sought to provide the towers with the greatest possible angle of fire.
Almost from the very beginning of construction, it became clear that the ship was turning out to be much heavier than according to the project (which was a frequent occurrence in those years). As soon as the battleship was launched on March 27, 1869, it turned out that its draft exceeded the design one by 13 inches(33 cm) . This showed that the skeptics, led by Reid, were right. Moreover, Reid already then predicted that the ship would need a crew of not 400, but about 500 people, and in this case, its draft would increase even more. After the Captain was launched into the water, Reed called the battleship "extremely unsafe" ( "utterly unsafe"). To a large extent, problems with the ship were caused by insufficient control on the part of Kolz himself, who, in addition, for a long time could not follow the work due to illness, since he did not attend any of the design meetings. Therefore, the battleship, which was already overloaded according to the project, turned out to be even more heavily loaded.
According to Kolz's design, the freeboard height should have been a little more 8 feet 6 inches (2.6), but this height was reduced to 6 feet 8 inches (2 m) - probably by mistake of the draftsman. The total overload was 731 tons(and Lairds specialists even pointed to 830-860 tons), but the most dangerous thing was that the bulk of this extra load fell on high-lying parts (spar and hinged deck). Specialists from the Lairds company calculated that the battleship could withstand a roll of only 21 degrees, after which it would definitely roll over. But already a roll of 14 degrees was enough for the cut of the deck to be flush with the surface of the water.
The displacement of the Captain according to the project was approaching 7000 tons - it was, by the standards of those years, a very large tonnage for a warship, but nevertheless, in terms of displacement, the new battleship was far inferior to some huge British battleships, such as the 11,000-ton Northumberland » (English)Russian or "Minotaur" (English)Russian. The new battleship cost the treasury 335.5 thousand pounds sterling.
Armament
The guns, which were considered the most powerful in the British fleet, were rifled, but - like all British heavy naval guns of those years - were loaded from the muzzle, for which the towers rotated along the axis of the ship each time after the shot and the projectile was sent from the muzzle using a hydraulic piercer. The main type of projectile was armor-piercing, weighing 600 and 608 pounds (272.2 and 276 kg). The rate of fire of these guns was low, although for that time it was normal - 1 shot in 2.6 minutes maximum, muzzle velocity - 396.2 m / s with a charge of 70 pounds of black powder (31.8 kg). It was believed that the battleship received the most powerful artillery armament ever installed on a ship until 1870 (the Russian turret battleship Peter the Great, laid down in 1869, was also armed with four 12-inch guns, but entered service a few years later " Captain").
The accuracy of the 12-inch guns mounted on the Captain, as well as other heavy guns of the time, left much to be desired. During her last trip to the sea, the Captain conducted practice shooting at Vigo and, together with two other battleships, fired 12 shots at a rock that roughly resembled a ship in size and shape. From a distance of 1000 meters, the ships achieved only 1 direct hit.
The armament of the ship was supplemented by two 178-mm guns (then called 6.5-ton guns), mounted openly in the bow and stern, so as to be able to fire along the longitudinal axis of the ship. These guns fired 112 kg shells with an initial speed of 403.7 m / s.
The Captain, like all battleships of that time, was equipped with a ram, which, according to the views on naval tactics that existed in those years, was considered almost a more significant weapon than the main caliber guns.
Cars
The battleship was equipped with two Lairds steam engines with two cylinders each. The total power reached 5772 indicator liters. With. The coal reserve was 500 tons, although Kolz initially insisted on 1000 tons.
The designers settled on a scheme with two propellers, in contrast to the single-rotor scheme more common in the 1860s. This was primarily due to the desire to provide the ship with mobility in case one of the propellers or propeller shafts was damaged, moreover, with two propellers, the ship could be controlled by machines when the steering failed. The two-bladed propellers were 17 feet (5.18 m) in diameter.
The ship carried no less sails than a wooden ship of the line of the first rank - 4645 m² (33000 sq. ft.). Three heavy masts with so many sails had a negative effect on the already unsatisfactory stability, as pointed out by Edward Reed.
Hull and armor
The ship was divided into 7 watertight compartments. Each of the towers, together with the turret compartment (with a rotation mechanism) and ammunition magazines, was a separate compartment.
The battleship had a full armor belt (i.e., running the entire length of the hull along the waterline, which, in turn, was 320 feet or 97.5 m long) 7 inches (178 mm) thick with a wooden lining of a 12-inch layer of teak, behind which was located a layer of iron in 1.5 inches (38 mm). Opposite the towers, the belt thickened to 8 inches (203 mm) for 80 feet (24.4 m). The upper deck, on which the turrets were located, was protected by 1.5-inch armor with 1-inch iron lining, and topped with 6-inch (152 mm) oak decking. The towers were protected by armor plates with a thickness of 10 inches on the front and 9 inches on the rest (254 and 229 mm, respectively).
Tests and acceptance
On the very first tests in February 1870, it was found that the ship was overloaded even more than expected and had a draft already 22 inches (57 cm) more than the design one. The freeboard height was only 6 feet 7 inches (about 2 m), which gave rise to the most serious doubts about the suitability of the battleship for navigation. The assistant chief designer even raised the question of whether the ship could even be accepted by the commission in the presence of such conspicuous design flaws. Nevertheless, on April 30, 1870, the battleship officially entered service as part of the English Channel Squadron. The command of her, as the best ship in the fleet, was entrusted to one of the most capable and promising officers, the holder of the Victoria Cross, Captain First Rank Hugh Burgoyne (English)Russian .
During the launch, an incident occurred that was perceived by many as an extremely bad omen - when the naval flag was raised on the battleship, for some reason the flag turned upside down.
In May, during the second exit to the sea (in the Bay of Biscay), the Captain fired from turret guns, which, despite heavy seas, passed without difficulty. The battleship under sail maneuvered perfectly, easily overtaking the Monarch and even withstood a strong storm without any problems. This campaign forced even skeptics, who were prejudiced against the seaworthiness of the Captain, to change their point of view, especially since the Captain reached a speed of almost 14.2 knots during trials and became one of the fastest battleships of its time.
Overall evaluation of the project
Image of the Captain from the series "Our Armored Fleet" of the Illustrated London News, August 1869.
In general, despite all the shortcomings, the Captain was considered a very powerful ship, far superior to any of the English battleships of the late 1860s and early 1870s. According to many British officers, the Captain was not equal not only in the English fleet, but in general throughout the world. Perhaps this was an exaggeration, since the British naval artillery of the 1860-80s was seriously inferior to the artillery of other naval powers (in other countries, the guns were breech-loading) - firstly, the British muzzle-loading guns did not differ in accuracy, and secondly, they had a weak barrel survivability and often failed or even ruptured under heavy fire.
Be that as it may, with the construction of the Captain, the Royal Navy received an extremely powerful and modern combat unit, which, in addition to exceptional firepower, had excellent speed and good armor protection. It was considered such a successful ship that, according to many experts, it should have served as a prototype for future battleships. However, "Kapten", due to the clearly insufficient stability, was more suitable for use in the coastal zone, and not in the open ocean. Perhaps, in this case, the catastrophe could have been avoided, but this would require rethinking the entire concept of a spar battleship. The stability of the ship, indeed, turned out to be extremely low and was much inferior to that of other modern battleships. With a 14-degree roll, the ship's hull had a straightening moment 16.6 times weaker than that of the Monarch with the same roll.
"Kapten", according to historians, fully consistent with the concept of Kolz and was the embodiment of all his ideas, with the exception of the presence of a forecastle and poop.
Doom
The third exit of the "Kapten" to the sea was appointed specifically for a comprehensive test of the ship. Colz decided to personally participate in the campaign aboard the Captain in order to check all aspects of the ship of his own design. The squadron included, in addition to the "Captain", another 7 battleships ("Lord Warden" (English)Russian, "Minotaur", "Egincourt" (English)Russian, "Northumberland", "Monarch", "Hercules" (English)Russian, "Bellerophon") and 2 other ships (screw frigates "Inconstant" (English)Russian and Bristol). Squadron Commander Rear Admiral Alexander Miln (English)Russian held the flag on the Lord Warden. The squadron crossed the Bay of Biscay, on August 4 the ships entered Gibraltar, and on August 31 Vigo. On September 6, 1870, the ships, returning to England, were 20 miles from Cape Finisterre.
On August 23, after lengthy calculations, the results of the first tests of the Captain became known, which, according to some senior officers, testified to the dangerously low stability of the battleship and could help avoid disaster if they were brought to those who went to sea on " Captain". But by that time the squadron had already left England.
Events during the day and evening of September 6
Admiral Milne spent the entire day of September 6 aboard the Captain, inspecting the ship and talking with Kolz. There was a rather strong excitement, and the battleship heeled to the lee (left) side so much that the upper deck was flooded with waves, and the towers sank more than half a meter. The pitching range reached 12.5, and sometimes even 14 degrees. The admiral paid special attention to this fact, even saying that he considered it dangerous to leave full windage with such pitching. Colz objected, arguing that this should not be given importance, since such cases were provided for by the project. Colz and the commander of the battleship Burgoyne invited the admiral to stay overnight on the Captain, but he, fortunately for himself, refused. When the admiral left the battleship at 17:30, he sailed, but with divorced pairs.
Night squall and the disappearance of the Captain
Death of the Captain. Painting by William F. Mitchell
By midnight the weather began to deteriorate rapidly, and soon a violent storm blew out from the southwest; sails were removed from the squadron. The height of the waves, according to reports from the ships of the squadron, reached 8 meters. The most dangerous was that the direction of the wind was opposite to the direction of the sea current, which could be regarded as an exceptionally unfavorable condition for navigation.
Around midnight, Admiral Milne from the Lord Worden saw the Captain. He subsequently recounted:
| “At this moment the Captain under steam was behind the flagship and seemed to be approaching it ... at 01:15 the ship was on the leeward shell of the Lord Worden about 6 R behind her beam; topsails were partly tightly reefed, partly removed; the foresail was reefed, the mainsail was removed already at 17:30, I did not see slanting sails. The ship lists heavily to starboard, with the wind on the left. Its red distinctive fire was clearly visible at that time. A few minutes later I looked in his direction again, but it was raining heavily and the fire was no longer visible. The squall with rain was very strong... At 02:15 (the 7th) the wind subsided somewhat, changed its direction to NW and blew without squalls; a heavy ridge of clouds went towards the east, and clear and brilliant stars became visible; the moon, which gave quite a lot of light, was setting, but not a single large ship was visible where the Captain was last seen ... |
It is known that after midnight the captain's commander Burgoyne went up to the bridge. The armadillo rocked strongly. The night watch was called up and the commander ordered to remove the sails. The well-known British naval historian H. Wilson (a contemporary of the death of the battleship) described in detail the minutes when the Captain capsized, based on the testimonies of the surviving sailors:
| During the roll call, the ship listed heavily, but straightened up again. When people went upstairs, they heard how Captain Burgoyne ordered "to give up the top-halyards" and then "to poison the fore- and main-tops of the sheets." Before the men got to the sheets, the ship lurched again, even more. Bank angles were called out quickly one after another in response to Captain Burgoyne's question: “18°! 23°! 28°!" The list to starboard was so great that several people on the sheets were washed away. The ship at that time lay completely on its side, slowly turning over and shuddering from every blow inflicted on it by the oncoming short waves with white crests. |
| ... The Captain capsized ... under the pressure of the sails, supplemented by the pressure of the sea, and the number of sails set on it at the time of sinking ... was not enough to threaten the ship, provided with an adequate margin of stability. The Court ... ruled that the Captain was built in concession to public opinion expressed in Parliament and in other ways, and contrary to the opinion and opinion of the Comptroller of the Navy and his department, and that all evidence shows that they were generally against his buildings. It then turned out that the Captain was accepted from the builders with a significant deviation from the original design, with a draft exceeded by 2 feet ... and with a dangerously reduced stability ... |
However, there was no one to blame - Kolz died along with the ship. Some experts after the death of the battleship argued that the fault was not the too low side of the ship, and not even so much its congestion, but the unsuccessful shape of the hull, and, in particular, the irrational length-to-width ratio - the ship was too narrow, which ensured higher speed, but resulted in capsizing under wind pressure on the sails. So, one of the British officers wrote that "not a single normal person would even think of calling such a hull shape suitable for a sailing ship." Others point primarily to building overload.
The First Lord of the Admiralty tried, according to historians, to blame everyone but himself. In his report, he laid the blame on Colz and the Lairds, and to some extent on the Comptroller of the Fleet, who gave the go-ahead for the acceptance of the ship. As a result of the proceedings, no one was punished, but the Comptroller of the Fleet, and then Childers, resigned.
Historians have argued that the catastrophe was “almost predicted by the Admiralty itself, and the British public and the press were to blame for it, constantly insisting on building a ship of a deliberately unsuccessful type.” After the incident with the Captain, the British, and after them all other shipbuilders, completely abandoned the construction of low-sided heavy ships with full sailing weapons, and ceased to rely on public opinion in such matters.
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