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I have the honor to greeting, gentlemen and ladies!
I propose to introduce the squadron battleship ‘Slava’, especially since the game already presents equipment not only from the indicated period, but also with relatively similar characteristics.
So, general information on one of the most glorious ships of the Russian Imperial Navy, whose battle path and accompanying glory were comparable to the name of the pre-dreadnought and battleship.
History
“Slava” means “Glory”
Attention, hidden content in spoilers.
Spoiler: Beginning of the way
The pre-dreadnought Slava, later reclassified as a battleship, is the last, fifth ship in the series of Borodino-class battleships, produced by Baltic shipyards. An battleship that did not make it to the Russo-Japanese War, but distinguished itself in the Baltic Sea during the Great World War 1914. The ship design itself was a reworking of the design of the battleship ‘Tsesarevich’ built for Russia in France, carried out by engineer Skvortsov.
The battleship was laid down on November 1, 1902 at the Baltic Shipyard in St. Petersburg. On August 16, 1903, in the Highest Presence, it was launched. After completion and re-armament, in October 1905, ‘Slava’ was assigned to a separate training squadron, from which she was withdrawn only in 1911, after an accident in the boiler room and repairs that lasted about a year.
During this period, the ship was mainly engaged in artillery firing and raid exercises. Also, the ship’s crew was able to take part in rescue operations in the Sicilian city of Messina, where a powerful earthquake occurred in December 1908. The wounded were taken by the battleship to Naples.
Spoiler: Great War
By the beginning of the First World War, ‘Slava’ was part of the 1st brigade of battleships, made up of pre-dreadnought battleships, while the Sevastopol-class battleships were still in the final stages of completion, and at that time the main task of the brigade of “old” ships was to guard the entrance to the Gulf of Finland.
However, as soon as the construction of the “new” battleships was completed, ‘Slava’ was able to move to the Gulf of Riga and begin direct combat operations and support, including the land front.
Thus, on August 8, 1915, ‘Slava’ and a pair of gunboats approached the site of the allied minesweeping by the German squadron; a battle took place between the minesweepers and the German battleships covering them, as a result of which the latter were forced to retreat, and two minesweepers were destroyed.
Subsequently, ‘Slava’ continued to threaten attempts to clear mines and provided fire support to troops on land, including as a flagship during the Domesnes landing operation.
An interesting case is the almost-happened duel between Slava and the German dreadnoughts SMS ‘Nassau’ and SMS ‘Posen’, when by artificially flooding part of the side compartments the battleship’s crew managed to increase the firing range of the main caliber, which even after modernization still left much to be desired.
Spoiler: End of war and Halo of Glory
By the end of 1916, the ship was undergoing repairs, which also included the long-awaited replacement and improvement of a number of mechanisms.
From November 3 to 16, the Putilov Plant’s craftsmen and the ship’s gunners replaced all twelve-inch guns on the battleship. The tier of the aft superstructure was also dismantled, the firing sectors of the six-inch medium-caliber turrets were increased. The elevation angle of the main battery gun barrels was increased from the earlier 15 to 25 degrees, which increased the firing range to ~21.3 km.
Three-inch anti-aircraft guns were installed on the roofs of the turrets.
The subsequent events affected both the duration of the repairs and the combat capability of the ‘Slava’. However, the heroic battle in the Battle of Moonsund with the German dreadnoughts SMS ‘Kronprinz’ and SMS ‘König’ did not allow the battleship’s aura of glory to fade, although it did lead to fatal damage, which no longer allowed retreat through the shallow strait.
Having received multiple holes, with a failing engine room and half of the artillery already rendered unusable, the ‘Slava’ lay on the bottom of the Moonsund Canal on October 17, 1917, so that until the mid-1930s it would rise above the waves.
‘Slava’ after upgrade late 1916
Rationale and vision of the ship in the game
At the moment, the War Thunder project already has a ship with similar game characteristics, represented in the Japanese branch by the battlecruiser IJN ‘Ikoma’.
Main characteristics
Classification:
- Sub Category: Battleship / Pre-dreadnought
- Class: Borodino-class
Technical component:
- Full load displacement: 15,520 t
- Complement: 867
- Boiler & engine:
2 shafts, 2 vertical triple expansion steam engines, manufactured by the Baltic Shipyard,
20 Belleville water tube boilers - Power: 16 378
- Speed: 18 knots
Protection:
- Waterline belt — 145-194 mm (5.7–7.6 in)
- Deck — 25-51 mm (1–2 in)
- Main turret — 254 mm (10.0 in)
- Secondary turret — 203 mm (8.0 in)
- Barbettes — 178–229 mm (7–9 in)
- Conning tower — 203 mm (8.0 in)
Weapon:
- Main battery artillery
2 × twin 12-inch naval guns from the Obukhov plant; - Secondary battery artillery
6 × twin 6-inch Canet guns
20 × single 3.0-inch Canet guns (removed by ~1914) - Anti-aircraft artillery
4 × single 1.9-inch Hotchkiss guns
4 x single 3.0-inch Tarnovsky-Lender guns (installed late 1916) - Torpedo armament
4 × 15-inch torpedo tubes
Thank you for attention!
All resources:
Budzbon, Przemysław (1985). “Russia”. In Gray, Randal (ed.). Conway’s All the World’s Fighting Ships 1906–1921. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. pp. 291–325. ISBN 0-85177-245-5.
McLaughlin, Stephen (2003). Russian & Soviet Battleships. Annapolis, Maryland: Naval Institute Press. ISBN 1-55750-481-4.
А.Д.Малинин. Линейный корабль «Слава» в составе Морских сил Рижского залива в 1915–1917 гг. Морской Сборник, № 5, 7, 1923.
M.B.Barrett. Operation Albion. The German Conquest of the Baltic Islands. — Bloomington: Indiana University press, 2008. p. 298
Всеподданнейший доклад Морского Генерального штаба о состоянии, воссоздании и реорганизации флота. — СПб: 1906. с. 51.
Чаплыгин, Андрей (2017). Броненосец “Слава”. Герой Моонзунда. Издание: Москва: Эксмо: Яуза 64 с. ISBN 978-5-04-089956-2
Виноградов, Сергей (2011). Броненосец “Слава”. Непобежденный герой Моонзунда Москва: Эксмо: Яуза 176 с. ISBN 978-5-699-49080-6