HDIMS Admiral Rzhanevsky
 HDIMS Admiral Rzhanevsky in Kamianets in 1910
| |
| History | |
|---|---|
 Dulebian Empire
| |
| Name: | Admiral Rzhanevsky |
| Namesake: | Pavel Rzhanevsky |
| Ordered: | 1906 |
| Builder: | Royal Arsenal, Kamianets |
| Laid down: | 31 January 1908 |
| Launched: | 5 March 1909 |
| Commissioned: | 10 August 1909 |
| In service: | 1909-1914 |
| Homeport: |
|
| Fate: | Scuttled in the port of Dongdao in 1916 and recommissioned in the Mascyllary Navy |
 Mascylla
| |
| Name: | Kaiser Melasiens |
| Namesake: | Lukas II |
| Acquired: | 31 August 1916 |
| Fate: | Handed over to Melasia home service in 1920 |
.png){kind=small} Melasia
| |
| Name: | Jurgenshafen |
| Namesake: | Jurgenshafen |
| Acquired: | 11 January 1920 |
| Decommissioned: | 25 May 1946 |
| Struck: | 17 June 1951 |
| Homeport: | Jurgenshafen |
| Motto: | Der Schild der Freiheit (Hesurian: The shield of freedom) |
| Nickname(s): | Die Alte Zuverlässige (Hesurian: The Old Reliable) |
| Fate: | Museum ship |
| Status: | On display in the Museum of the Melasian Navy, Jurgenshafen |
| General characteristics | |
| Class and type: | Admiral-class battleship |
| Displacement: | 20,000 t (19,684 long tons) standard |
| Length: | 158 m (518 ft 4 in) |
| Beam: | 27.9 m (91 ft 6 in) |
| Draught: | 8.7 m (28 ft 7 in) |
| Installed power: |
|
| Propulsion: | 3 shafts; 3 Parsons steam turbines |
| Speed: | 20.4 knots (37.8 km/h; 23.5 mph) |
| Range: | 4,200 nmi (7,800 km; 4,800 mi) at 10 knots (19 km/h; 12 mph) |
| Complement: | 32 officers, 16 petty-officers, 993 men (1,087 max) |
| Armament: |
|
| Armour: |
|
HDIMS Admiral Rzhanevsky was the lead ship of the four Admiral-class battleships of the Dulebian Imperial Navy constructed prior to the Great War, and the second of the class to enter service, in August 1909. The ship was constructed in the Imperial Arsenal shipyard in Kamianets, the biggest shipyard of Dulebia at the time, and was stationed in the same port in the year prior to the Great War. She was named after Pavel Rzhanevsky, a renowned admiral who fought in the Karsk Sea War of 1860-1863. The ship was of a revolutionary design, featuring 12 30.5 cm (12 in) guns in four triple turrets, two superfiring forward and two superfiring aft: the Dulebian naval engineers were the first to implement the superfiring positioning of ship gun turrets, which allowed for an equal or superior broadside firepower to earlier dreadnought battleship designs, while allowing all the guns to remain stationed at the ship's centerline; in the same time, the ship was also the first to feature a layout of three guns per turret. Admiral Rzhanevsky was launched in early 1909 and commissioned later the same year.
The ship took part in early patrol duties in the White sea alongside the Cuthish Navy ships, and in the Endotheric Sea in 1910. The outbreak of the Great War saw her undergoing refits in the port of Kamianets, and she was assigned to the Dulebian High Seas fleet as flagship, taking part in the early bombardments of the Lavarian coastal cities in the first months of the war. She took part in the Battle of the Karsk Sea Gate, where she took only minor damage and played a vital role in the sinking of the Fallish battleship HMS Stephen the Great. She was later assigned to the Melasian Squadron as leadship, and set sail to Dulebian Melasia and later Dongdao, raiding commercial shipping and allied colonies and participating in the Battles of Caroline Sea, Tarokan Strait, the Battle of Cape Pavlovo and during the Siege of Dongdao, only to be scuttled in 1916 after the arrival of the united coalition of Mascylla, Lavaria and Falland.
The ship was refloated and repaired by Mascyllary specialists, and joined the Mascyllary Melasian colonial squadron, being stationed in Jurgenshafen. In 1920, the ship was handed over to Melasia, then a Mascyllary colony. She experienced a mutiny in 1921, on par with other ships of the colony, and later participated in the Melasian Revolution, on the side of the rebels. Admiral Rzhanevsky saw a major refit between 1925 and 1929, and became the flagship of the Melasian Navy. She participated in the Melasian Crisis, where she performed coastal bombardment duties and was later present during the Siege of Stoschmund. Despite being outdated and outclassed, she took part in the naval engagements in 1944, when the air superiority was overtaken by the Melasian Air Force. After the war, she was decomissioned, struck in 1951, and became a floating museum in Jurgenshafen in the following year, where she remains up to this day.
Background
The Cuthish Revolution of the late 18th century saw Dulebia gaining sea acces for the first time in its history. In the early and mid-19th century, Dulebia gained control over the Kingdom of Aldena, and established itself as a new dominant power in the Karsk sea. With rising colonial ambitions, and the will to take place among other Berean major powers, Dulebian officials found it necessary to increase their naval strength. The wars against Cuthland and Lavaria clearly showed the importance of the strong navy during conflicts between great powers. A good demonstration of that fact for the Dulebian officials was presented during the Cutho-Dulebian war of 1830, when Dulebian forces were swiftly defeated at land and almost lost control of all Erjarvian possessions acquired during the Cuthish Revolution, but the decisive defeat of the Cuthish fleet at the Battle of Cape Harkulinn improved the position of Dulebia on the negotiation table during the Ulich Peace Treaty.
During the rule of Emperor Nikolai I, the Dulebian navy was rapidly modernised: it received its first ironclad warships in the mid-to-late 1850s, just in time to take part in the Karsk sea war, where, while outmatched by its opponents in sheer numbers, the Dulebian fleet proved to be more technologically advanced. The 1870s and 1880s saw the deterioration of the navy under Empress Maria, as the financing of the navy was limited, leading to Dulebian ships becoming heavily outclassed by their Lavarian counterparts, which experienced rapid technological advance in the period, with each new ship class leaving the previous practically obsolete. Dulebia rejoined the arms race against Lavaria only with the coronation of Aleksandr III in 1886. The new emperor appointed Admiral Pavel Rzhanevsky, one of the heroes of the Karsk Sea War and one of the greatest admirals of his time, as Chief of the Naval Branch of the Dulebian Military, giving him vast resources and the task to catch up with Lavaria as soon as possible. Dulebia experimented with several pre-dreadnought battleship designs with varying success in the course of the next decade, making it clear for their opponents that the Dulebian industry was able to match the Lavarian output in the late 19th century, with the perspective of it outrunning in the future seeming more and more likely as the Dulebian industrialization progressed.
The threat posed by the growing Dulebian navy was recognised by neighbouring Lavaria already after the defeat of the country in the Karsk Sea War of the 1860s, where the Dulebian navy, albeit being smaller in size, showed its superior descipline and managed to defeat the more numerous Lavarian forces in several battles. The result of the war was a prolongued naval race between the countries. The growing Dulebian industrial output made it harder for the Lavarian shipyards to outperform their rivals, and so a decision was made to try and construct new types of military ships, and thus the so-called all-big-gun ship of the line, also known as dreadnought, appeared in 1905. A ship of completely revolutionary design, the LN Impávido (Lavarian: fearless) rendered all previous ship designs obsolete. The Dulebian military managed to respond only in 1906 with the launch of HDIMS Imperator Aleksandr. The ship was crippled by numerous design flaws due to her rushed construction: her layout proved to be inefficient, the armament scheme was outmatched by the earlier Lavarian ship despite requiring bigger displacement due to the larger number of turrets. The first attempt of Dulebian universal battery design was very unsuccessful, leading to the Imperator Aleksandr being considered outdated already at the time of her launch. The time needed to switch the industry towards the construction of the new ship type, as well as the early failures of the Dulebian ship designs, left Dulebia in desperate need for a radical improvement in order to catch up its Lavarian rival.
Design
The lessons learned following the first months of explotation of the Imperator Aleksandr forced the Dulebian Naval Bureau to order a new, improved class of dreadnought battleships while also cancelling the three planned sister ships of Imperator Aleksandr. As the earlier dreadnought was still being actively tested, with new flaws coming out basically during every test run, the Dulebian military was submiting design changes to the shipbuilders weekly, resulting in a grand total of 12,800 edits made to the design of the new Admiral-class only during the first year of their construction, with the design being finalized only in early 1907, when the Admiral Rzhanevsky herself was already prepared to be laid down.
Initially, the ship emerged as a 20,000 t (19,684 long tons) vessel at standard load, with a length of 158 m (518 ft 4 in), draught of 8.7 m (28 ft 7 in) and a beam of 27.9 m (91 ft 6 in). She was longer, heavier and better armoured than her predecessor, while also being faster by almost 2 knots. The ship was the first Dulebian dreadnought design to feature a double bottom. The complement of the ship consisted of slightly over 1,000 sailors, officers and petty officers. A notable difference compared to foreign and older Dulebian ship designs was the crew rest area location: the housing of the officers and some of the crew was moved from the ship hull to the main superstructure. This design feature would later evolve into a fully-developed "housing block" superstructure on the post-war Dulebian warships, and would remain as a trend in Dulebian military shipbuilding up until the early 1950s.
Armour and protection systems
The battleship used Geiß cemented armour for most of its protected surfaces. The steel was supplied by Dulebian factories after acquiring license for the Mascyllary steelwork technology in 1899. Admiral Rzhanevsky, as well as the other three ships of her class, were the first Dulebian warships to use this type of steel in their armour plating, as previous designs used standard Geiß steel.
The main armour belt of the ship was 12 inches (300 mm) thick at the waterline, and extended from the A turret to Z turret in the rear of the ship. The belt thinned to 5.9 inches (150 mm) towards the bow and stern of the ship, but did not reach either. Above the main belt, the secondary armour belt had a thickness of 8.1 inches (210 mm) reached 3 inches (76 mm) near the bow and stern. The casemate mountings had additional armoured shields with a thickness of 6 inches (150 mm) to protect their crews. Amajor flaw of the design was that the main belt was situated very close to the waterline, reducing the protection against torpedoes and later diving shells, a drawback that would prove fatal for one of Admiral Rzhanevsky's sister ships. Additionally to the belts, the ship was equipped with torpedo bulkheads consisting of two 25 millimetres (0.98 in) armour plates, as well as an armoured deck with a varying thickness, ranging from 29 to 19mm. In addition to the armoured deck, the ship featured a second armoured B deck within the hull that dublicated the thickness of the main deck, as well as "turtleback" third armoured middle deck 44 millimetres (1.7 in) with sloped edges of 33 millimetres (1.3 in) thickness. The main magazines were additionally protected with blast doors and flooding mechanisms to prevent cook-out. The barbettes of the ship were armoured with the same 12 inches (300 mm) armour as used in the main belt at their front and sides, with the frontal plate being sloped at 50°, while the roofs were protected by 55 millimetres (2.2 in) of armour. 12 inches (300 mm) were also used in the conning tower, while lighter 8 inches (200 mm) shields were used on the sides of the communication tower, the optical rangefinding equipment on the ship's masts, and the fire-control computer. Guns placed on the deck had light armoured shilds to protect their crew from shrapnel and firearms in case of close combat, with a thickness of 1.5–3 inches (38–76 mm) depending on the caliber of the gun.
In addition, the ship was equipped with anti-torpedo nets, in a manner similar to all other warships of the era. As the war progressed, these nets proved to be ineffective against the net-cutters installed on most mid-to-late war torpedoes, but the net was preserved on the ship up until her refit during her service in the Melasian Navy.
Armament
The main armament of the ship consisted of twelve 30.5 cm (12 in) guns, distributed in four gun turrets, with three guns per turret. The turrets were placed in superfiring pairs in front of and behind the ship's superstructure, being designated as turrets A, B, Y and Z. This design allowed the ship to deliver a broadside firepower of 12 guns in total, unmatched by contemporary battleships in service in other navies. The design was also chosen by Dulebian specialists in order to allow the ship a more compact size and displacement in order to reduce its price and allow it to work with the current Dulebian infrastructure, which at the time was still undeveloped in most of the major ports, especially in the Endotheric sea. The 30.5 cm (12 in) guns became standard already on the later Dulebian pre-dreadnought designs, and while the guns of Admiral Rzhanevsky were an improved design, they still shared a lot in common with previous Dulebian naval artillery pieces, thus making their design and cosntruction easier and faster for the ordnance factories of the country. Their mountings allowed for depression level of -3° and an elevation level of +13.5°, with the latter greatly reducing the combat range of the ship to roughly 13,800 m (45,276 ft), while most of their opponents at the time were already able to open fire at 14,000–16,300 m (45,932–53,478 ft), a fact that greatly reduced the performance of the ship in the early engagements of the Great War. The guns could fire Armour-piercing (AP), semi armour-piercing (SAP) and high-explosive (HE) ammunition with a muzzle velocity ranging between 789 and 874 m/s. In their early modification, the guns allowed for one shot every 90 seconds, with the reloading time being reduced to 60 seconds and later further down to 35 seconds in the course of their service in the Great war, mostly via automatization of the loading process. The maximum amount of shells carried were 82 per gun.
The secondary battery of the ship was formed by a total of 16 12 cm (4.7 in) guns, all in single mounts. Four of these guns were placed on the main deck, protected by armoured shields, two facing forward and two facing aft, with a limited ammunition supply. The other 12 guns were positioned below the main deck in casemate mountings, with six guns per side. The casemate mounting allowed for a gun depression value of -10° and elevation of +18°, while the deck mountings had more limited depression value of -4°, but improved elevation of +25° due to their gun shields. The casemate mountings allowed for a range of up to 7,900 m (25,919 ft), and each gun had 280 shells stocked in the ship's secondary battery magazines. During her service, it would quickly be discovered that the casemate mountings, especially in the front part of the hull, were vulnerable to flooding during pretty much anything other than flat calm, with various attempts to improve their isolation being undertaken during the war. A proper solution to the problem was never found, with the installation of rubber isolation improving the conditions in the casemates only slightly but not getting rid of the salt water. Eventually, this let to the removal of four of the guns from their casemate mountings. The experience gained forced the Dulebian designers to abandon the casemate mounting design of battleship secondary batteries below the main deck on future ships.
The battery of the ship was completed by six 47 mm (2 in) guns for use against smaller surface vessels like torpedo boats and for illumination during night combat, mounted on the main deck without any crew protection. These guns would later be replaced by six 7.6 cm (3.0 in) guns during the Great war in order to protect the ship from aircraft, being installed on mountings allowing for higher elevation. The ship also had 6 533 mm (21 in) torpedo tubes installed, three on the starboard and three on the port side, each equipped with one torpedo directly in the tube and one more in the main magazine. The secondary and tertiary batteries saw numerous upgrades during the service of the ship in various navies, heavily varying in the different periods of its existence. In her final version in which Admiral Rzhanevsky saw the end of the Melasian Crisis, the secondary armament consisted of 8 12 cm (4.7 in) casemate-mounted guns, 6 88 mm (3.5 in) guns mounted on the deck, and not fewer than 56 40 mm (1.6 in) and 20 mm (0.8 in) in various mountings: single and twin mounts of the heavier gun and twin, quadruple and octuple mounts of the autocannon. There were also a dozen of 12.7 mm (0.5 in) machine guns installed in single mounts scattered across the deck and main superstructure platforms.
The fire-control systems consisted of one main optical rangefinder placed above the bridge, two back-up rangefinders, one on the bow mast and one on the aft superstructure, as well as four rangefinders, one placed in each main battery turret. In 1912 the ship would additionally receive a director fire control system. There were two high-frequency radio antennas placed on each mast, as well as several radio stations. The ship was also equipped with up to 20 searchlights placed on various platforms across the main deck and superstructure.
Propulsion
As built, the ship was equipped with propulsion machinery constructed by Dulebian companies, with the only foreign equipment installed being the Parsons turbines made in Falland, due to the limited experience of Dulebian companies in the construction of turbines of the required size. The ship used steam turbine engines, effectively becoming the first Dulebian battleship that was not powered by triple expansion propulsion. The engines rotated three Parsons turbines, with a power output of 27,000 shp (20,000 kW). The engines were supplied by 12 Yarrow boilers, located in three boiler rooms in the central section of the hull. The working pressure of the boilers was 250 psi (1,724 kPa; 18 kgf/cm2). The output of the ship's propulsion would allow her to reach a speed of 20.5 knots (38.0 km/h; 23.6 mph) at trial, with a theoretical maximum speed of 21 knots (39 km/h; 24 mph), that was, however, never achieved in practice.
The ship was the first in Dulebian service to use a mix of oil and coal for its propulsion. It carried 3,258 tons of coal in several compartments, a figure that was later increased to 4,118 after the installment of anti-torpedo bulges, as well as 1,180 tons of oil. The oil was used to spray the coal in order to increase its burn rate. However, due to oil deficit during the Great War, the ship would rarely use oil and thus proved to be slightly slower than originally intended. At full capacity, the operational range of the ship was 4,350 nmi (8,056 km) with a cruising speed of 10.5 knots (19.4 km/h; 12.1 mph).
Construction and trials
The construction of the ship was authorised in the first month of 1906, with the works beginning in May the same year. The site chosen for the construction was the Imperial Arsenal Docks in Kamianets, for a specific reason. The shipyard of Kamianets was the most experienced one the empire possessed, and the only one in the country with the capability to construct more than one capital ship at the time - one of Admiral Rzhanevsky's sister ships, HDIMS Admiral Gorchakov, was begun simultaniously with her, and would be completed only two weeks after her commission. During the construction of the ship, the original design would see numerous edits and reworks, often significant ones, resulting in the delay of the launch of the ship. Despite that, and due to the fact that, according to Dulebian politicians, the gap between Dulebia and Lavaria in terms of modern capital ships was rising, the ship was built at maximum speed, with workers taking shifts up to twelve-sixteen hours, often taking short breaks only for sleep directly at the dockyard, while the dockyard itself used equipment preserved for other ships currently under construction, like naval guns, armour plating and even screws to cut the construction time, often causing disprupt among other construction works.
The ship was launched after only 190 days of construction, and was christened by Emperor Aleksandr III on the 31st January, 1908. Her construction would continue into the year, with the most of the superstructure being completed by December 1908 and the finishing works ending in March 1909, when she was officially launched and started her trials. At the time of her completion, the amount of workers appointed to her construction had reached 6,500.
She would rise steam for the first time in mid-February 1909, sailing to Chervontsy and later to the North Okhotsk Island for her first trials at sea. Following a week of early trials, she then set course to Erjarvia for her first full-speed trial, at which she would reach her designed 20.5 knots, even if for a short duration of time, far shorter than originally designed, due to lack of high-quality oil for the boilers. Arriving in Harkullin, she would be fitted with ammunition for the first time in the last day of February, later rising steam for the Telmeric sea, where she would conduct her first gunnery practice and gun trials, later returning to Harkullin. She would spend the rest of the spring and summer of 1908 at speed and gunnery trials and experienced some refits to her optical range-finding equipment, finally being commissioned in August 1908, immediately being assigned as the flagship of the Dulebian Karsk sea fleet. She would conduct her first major journey only after that, in early 1909, when she was reassigned to patrol duties in the Endotheric sea, making a trip around the Western coast of Berea and passing the Erytheric straits.