The Ship Model Forum

Is it available in non-Russian?

There is an excellent book "Last giants of Russian empire". It describes a course of designing and all variants of projects of Russian ships with 16 inch artillery of the main calibre

Yes, according to official Soviet figures, even with very large degree of agricutural mechanization and infrastructural expansion that occurred during Soviet times, Ukraine did not manage to reach its 1913 grain production level again until 1967.

I meant decade on decade.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holodomor

The power plant was designed and built by Brown Boveri in Switzerland.

I don't find it hard to believe argricuture output of Ukraine rose thought the 1930s since it sure as hell can't fall any lower than those seen during the heydays of the first collectivization in the early 1930s.

If the quoted horsepower was not the fabrication of an apparatchik protecting his position, or maybe a plant to be seen by the checkists.

I see the agricultural output of Ukraine SSR rose thoughout the 1930s as well.

Hmmm. The later Sovietskii Soyuz class battleships, started by Stalin in 1939 and aborted by German invasion in 1941, apparently had even greater total weight of armor than the slightly larger Yamato. Its Swiss made turbine and boiler plants are, on a horse-power per ton basis, the most efficient of any projected for any WWII battleship, even though its steam condition was not particularly extreme.

I do not agree with the position that the later date of the G-3 explains its greater efficiency in accommodating thicker armor and high speed. Except for general reduction in the weight and size of power plants too gradual to have too much effect in the 4 years separating these two designs, dreadnought battleship development had not been characterized by any notable increase in efficiency as represented by ability to accommodate more armor, more engine power and more gun power on a given displacement. As a general trend, improvements in fire power and armor thickness have consistently been purchased at the expense of increased overall size at least commensurate with the increase in armor and fire power. What is more, since battleships gradually acquired ever more weight in the form of ancillary equipment, such as power generation, high perched directors, and configuration such as internal bulkhead, unit machineries etc over the development trajectory, later battleships actually do rather more poorly than earlier ones when measured purely on the basis of speed, armor thickness and firepower achieved on a given displacement. A WWII era battleship of nominally the same speed, armor thickness and firepower would be substantially larger than a WWI era ship.

Thus the poor relative specification of the Russian ship when compared to the G-3 is both significant and indicative of a lower quality design work.

Well, gven that the design was only a fairly rough design, I wouldn't put too much store in the displacement figure being precise. Also, we don't know what the figure quoted refers to anyway - light, full-load, what?

I do agree that the deck armout is rather thin, but again, any comparisons with G3 are entirely specious.

I take that back. I just noticed it had an usual double belt totalling close to 15", not a single 11" belt. But it's deck armor is still thin, only 3".

But I still want to build the 1917 version in 1/350 scale. Interesting design and not too difficult.

Speaking of high bridge, its absence on the Russian ship implies a significant handicap in long range fire control. This is not just in relation to G-3, but also to contemporary ships like the Hood.

- Chuck

The Russian design appears to be less heavily armored than Nagato, and much less heavily armored than Colorado, despite being substantially larger.

They would have compared poorly against Amagi, a closer equivalent in tonnage and other bulk characteristics than Nagato.

The displacement of the Russian ship does not have to support a high bridge, and therefore ought to be able to support somewhat more hull armor.

I think it was concluded that the crush tubes did more harm than good. The original idea of the tubes was they would absorbe some explosion force, but also keep air and exclude water from the outboard spaces if the bulge was opened by an explosion. In reality they impeded the free expansion of the explosion gas, resulting in the tubes being physically used to push in the next bulkhead. They also disintegrated to generate splinters which penetrated the next bulkhead.

WWII systems (Pugliese excepted) uses an outboard empty air space into which the torpedo explosion gas can freely expand to take the peak pressure off the rest of the system. Most systems (Yamato system excepted) then use an inboard liquid filled space to distribute what remains of the explosion pressure evenly onto the torpedo bulkhead to allow the bulkhead to deform elastically to absorb the explosion force.

Of course it was a 'less efficient' design than the G3, given that the Kostenko design dates from 1916 and the G3 from 1920/21. They are virtually two different generations of ships. Far fairer to compare them with their true peers, the Japanese Nagato and American Colorado classes. Do that and I suspect you'll find the Russian design rather efficient.

And I'm not sure what your point is when you say 'Despite not having a heavy tower bridge, the Russian design was still slower and less heavily armored' when you then immediately go on to say '...despite having [a] similar displacement'. It doesn't matter how heavy the bridge structure is if the overall displacement is the same.

Incidentally, the extension of the belt to the bottom of the ship is needed on more counts than just diving shells with underwater trajectory. In ships with sloping internal belts and no lower belt, it is possible for the shell to strike the side plating just above the water line, and then penetrate all the way through the TDS into the ship's vitals without ever encountering armor other than the torpedo bulkhead itself, which can be easily penetrated. The British was extremely weary of this possibility, and consequently abandoned the benefits of a sloping belt to adapt a fairly deep vertical external belt precisely to prevent shells hitting above water from having a clear unarmored internal path into the ship below the bottom of the armor belt.

BTW, the Japanese had been concerned about shells diving below the belt since long before Tosa. They insisted on a lower belt in the Kongo battle cruiser. Apparently Japanese warships rolling in heavy seas suffered below-belt penetrations during the Russo-Japanese war.

Both Bismark and Prince of Wales were struck by underwater shell hits that went below the belt armor. The hit on Bismark did substantial damage and shut down a boiler room if I recall correctly.

Also, the Tosa experiment shows that the trajectory of shells entering water at steep angle rapidly flattens out. Consequently a shell entering water at 45 degrees can strike at a substantially greater distance from the ship than than the ship's beam, and yet still strike the ship's side under water. Statistically, in a long range engagement using shells with long fuses, there is substantially higher probability for shells to strike ship via underwater trajectory than there is via direct impact against deck.

It was comparatively lightly armored and quite fast, so it was more like the G-3 battlecruiser. However, if one were to compare the armor, displacement and speed, then one gets the impression that the Russian design was substantially less efficient than the G-3 battlecruiser. Despite not having a heavy tower bridge, the Russian design was still slower and less heavily armored despite having the similar armament and displacement.

Looks a little like the design for the N3 battleships, without the large tower superstructure.